Civil rights attorneys from the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed a multi-plaintiff federal lawsuit yesterday on behalf of protesters who were illegally arrested during an anti-war rally last April 7 in New York. The suit charges that the New York Police Department unlawfully arrested the peaceful protesters and detained them for excessively long periods of time at 1 Police Plaza. Over 70 protesters were illegally arrested outside the offices of an affiliate of the Carlyle Group, a defense-related investment firm with financial ties to the Bush and bin Laden families. Fifty-two of the arrestees have joined this lawsuit.
“The Carlyle arrests are part of a pattern of NYPD harassment in which lawful demonstrators are arrested and jailed with the short-term goal of clearing them off the streets and the long-term goal of deterring them and other New Yorkers from participating in future demonstrations,” says Nancy Chang of CCR, a nonprofit legal organization based in New York. Plaintiffs’ lawyers, CCR and the firm of Emery Cuti Brinckerhoff & Abady, PC, hope this lawsuit will help to break this pattern of intimidation as activists prepare to protest the Republican National Convention.
March 20: The World Still Says No To War
“The Carlyle arrests are part of a pattern of NYPD harassment in which lawful demonstrators are arrested and jailed with the short-term goal of clearing them off the streets and the long-term goal of deterring them and other New Yorkers from participating in future demonstrations,” says Nancy Chang of CCR, a nonprofit legal organization based in New York. Plaintiffs’ lawyers, CCR and the firm of Emery Cuti Brinckerhoff & Abady, PC, hope this lawsuit will help to break this pattern of intimidation as activists prepare to protest the Republican National Convention.
March 20: The World Still Says No To War
