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Title: Police arrest anti-war protester, 80, at mall
Source:
http://www.newsday.com/
URL Source: http://www.newsday.com/news/local/n ... 31629mar30%2C0%2C1085417.story
Published: Mar 30, 2008
Author: ANASTASIA ECONOMIDES AND MATTHEW CHAYES
Post Date: 2008-04-05 12:07:59 by robin
Keywords: None
Views: 224
Comments: 13
An 80-year-old church deacon was removed from the Smith Haven Mall yesterday in a wheelchair and arrested by police for refusing to remove a T-shirt protesting the Iraq War.
Police said that Don Zirkel, of Bethpage, was disturbing shoppers at the Lake Grove mall with his T-shirt, which had what they described as "graphic anti-war images." Zirkel, a deacon at Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal in Wyandanch, said his shirt had the death tolls of American military personnel and Iraqis - 4,000 and 1 million - and the words "Dead" and "Enough." The shirt also has three blotches resembling blood splatters.
Police said in a release last night that Zirkel was handing out anti-war pamphlets to mallgoers and that mall security told him to stop and turn his shirt inside out. Zirkel refused to turn his shirt inside out and wouldn't leave, police said. Security placed him on "civilian arrest" and called police. When police arrived, Zirkel passively resisted attempts to bring him to a police car, the release said.
But Zirkel said he was sitting in the food court drinking coffee with his wife Marie, 77, and several others when police and mall security officers approached and demanded they remove their anti-war T-shirts.
The others complied, but Zirkel said he refused, and when he wouldn't stand up to be removed and arrested, authorities brought over a wheelchair. "They forcibly picked me up and put me in the wheelchair," said Zirkel, a deacon at one of the poorest Catholic parishes on Long Island, where a devastating fire recently destroyed the rectory and storage areas.
Zirkel was charged with criminal trespassing and resisting arrest. He was released on bail. A spokeswoman for mall owner Simon Property Group did not immediately return calls seeking comment.
Generally speaking, a mall has the right to control what happens on its property, said John McEntee, a Uniondale commercial litigation lawyer.
Activists with dueling opinions had gathered to support and oppose America's five-year campaign.
As Zirkel was being wheeled to the police car, the crowd chanted "We shall not be moved!" Moments later, they moved; police and mall security had ordered them off the property. Many joined a larger anti-war crowd assembled by the mall's entrance, off mall property, on Veterans Memorial Highway.
They were complemented nearby by protesters saying the Iraq war is vital for security.
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#1. To: robin (#0)
As a hormone crazed teenager, I lived in that mall. I'd go up there to meet friends, smoke cigarettes and harass the legions nubile teenage nymphs that could be found there on any given day. It's nice to see that some LIers have some fight left in them. I thought the whole island was lost.
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I'm sure.
"Look well therefore to this Day!" ~ Kalidasa
They were complemented nearby by (two) protesters saying the Iraq war is vital for security.
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Among the many milestones in Don Zirkel's life -- serving in the Army Army, editing The Tablet, the Diocese of Brooklyn's newspaper, and working in the state Division of Human Rights under Gov. Mario Cuomo -- perhaps the most famous will now be his arrest at the food court in Smith Haven Mall. "Eighty years, and I have never been arrested before for fighting injustice," Zirkel, of Bethpage, said yesterday. On Saturday, Zirkel, 80, was at an anti-war rally outside the mall in Lake Grove, wearing a white T-shirt splotched with red and emblazoned with a simple message about the fatalities of the Iraq war: "4,000 troops, 1 million Iraqis dead. Enough." Zirkel said he was at the rally to support the anti-war protesters. "I was an encourager. I was an affirmer," he said. http://www.newsday.com/news/local/crime/ny-lizirk0331,0,2154627.story
"Eighty years, and I have never been arrested before for fighting injustice," Zirkel, of Bethpage, said yesterday. On Saturday, Zirkel, 80 Thanks for that info, we should all be so dedicated for good causes, and at his age.
'Individuals should not take responsibility for their own defense. That’s what the police are for. ... If I oppose individuals defending themselves, I have to support police defending them. I have to support a police state.”' Alan Dershowitz
Amen.
neat fella!
Malls open to the public should respect free speech. People should flock to this mall in response and dare them to arrest them too. They can't get away with this if people don't act like sheep. Unfortunately the power elite have people too scared to stand up on their own two legs to be counted on many issues and it becomes a heroic act to speak your mind. I'll have to check the local mall's policies on this sort of issue. I don't know off hand because I never ever go to them. I hate malls and avoid them like the plague usually. One reason I feel this way about them is precisely because of the free speech issue. The SCOTUS once allowed petition signature gatherers to work malls but in recent years has reversed this prohibiting this free speech on bogus private property reasons. I know I would never, ever take my shirt off because it offended someone who disagreed with it. Not for any reason. I applaud this gentleman for the courage of his convictions. He knows the best way to support the troops is to bring them home. Too bad the mall owners as so scared of this truth they feel they have to bully an old man in a wheelchair who has earned the right to speak his piece, even through the message on his shirt. I hope all those there with him who took their shirts off there afraid of arrest feel properly embarrassed for their cowardliness.
BUSTED: The Citizen's Guide to Surviving Police Encounters People need to go back to fundamentals and re-learn how to handle current methodology pigs use to intimidate and control people. They study how tho handle the masses, the masses in turn should return the favor and study the best ways to use to deal with them. This video is a single example of how people can inform and educate people how to handle acts of piggishness imposed on them by the lackeys of our overseers.
We need to find out where to get our own tees like his.
Good information - thanks.
What year was this video made? While some of the advice is good, with "don't say a thing" being the best, some of it seems outdated or just plain wrong. Can't search you or your car on a hunch alone? All the cop has to say is "Sniff, I smell dope. Step out of the car." As for not arguing with them. Wrong. Argue all the way and be the biggest ass you can. Make their job as hard as you can. Let them know you have no respect for them and no fear of them. Just don't threaten them. Being a jerk is not a crime...yet. After what I've seen in the last 4 years and some of the horror stories I've heard from baby boomers, it's no wonder people were putting pipe bombs under patrol cars in the 1960s. This exchange my friend had with an officer while locked up (vagrancy charge) back in the early 1970s sums it up best. "You can only hold me for 3 days. It's day number 5, why are you keeping me here?" "Because we can."
"The more I see of life, the less I fear death." - Me. "If violence solved nothing, then weapons technology would have never advanced past crude clubs and rocks." - Me.
I agree this video is only part of an evolution of policy useful with dealing with cops. And I have been arrested many times doing no violent protest, and I too will always be a stinker to deal with. One time when I was passively refusing to walk to the police car I had the cop blow in my ear to try to get me to fight with the cuffs on to accrue another charge on me. I will refuse to sit when a cop asks me too if he is checking me out, and when they threaten to make me sit I say, "do it then, stop just talking shit to me." I get away with it in Eugene because they know who I am here, but standing up for my right to stand has been scarier elsewhere like in Portland, Oregon. One time up there, the city bus driver on the bus I was going to take wanted me to put my bicycle;e on the outside of the folding rack on the front of the bus and I refused. I refused to take the bike off or to get out of the way and kept the bus from moving. The police came and tried too to get me to comply and I refused. I wound up riding the next bus on that line with my bike where I wanted it, on the inside of the rack, and I caused a review of the policy of trying to get people to use the front of the rack first and it was changed because of me. (The police supervisor whom I insisted the line officer to call in worked things out with me.) I had the cops threaten to taser me to the ground if I didn't move from the bus' path, and of course the passengers inconvenienced by me were angry with one or two threatening to kick my ass. One thing you have to do when doing this form of dissent is to never back down because of fear, and to never let intimidation work, from anybody if you have a point to make.
#2. To: robin (#0)
They were complemented nearby by protesters saying the Iraq war is vital for security.
#3. To: angle (#2)
They were complemented nearby by protesters saying the Iraq war is vital for security.
#4. To: robin (#0)
Diplomacy is the art of saying nice doggy, till you find a large rock.
#5. To: Ferret Mike (#4)
Among the many milestones in Don Zirkel's life -- serving in the Army Army, editing The Tablet, the Diocese of Brooklyn's newspaper, and working in the state Division of Human Rights under Gov. Mario Cuomo -- perhaps the most famous will now be his arrest at the food court in Smith Haven Mall.
#6. To: Ferret Mike. all (#4)
"4,000 troops, 1 million Iraqis dead. Enough."
#7. To: Ferret Mike (#4)
#8. To: christine, lodwick (#7)
Diplomacy is the art of saying nice doggy, till you find a large rock.
#9. To: christine (#7)
--
Diplomacy is the art of saying nice doggy, till you find a large rock.
#10. To: Ferret Mike. Everyone Here (#8)
#11. To: Ferret Mike (#9)
#12. To: Ferret Mike (#9)
#13. To: Pissed Off Janitor (#12)
Diplomacy is the art of saying nice doggy, till you find a large rock.
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