I spoke with several members of the Puppetista Collective at a neighborhood community center in Columbus on Monday morning, just a half-night's sleep after their release on bond from Muscogee County jail. The Community Center is headquarters for the week-long planning and manufacture of puppets for the pageant that takes place at the annual gathering.
It was "a soulless conviction machine," according to puppetista Ken Srdjak describing procedures in the Muscogee County courtroom November 23. "I would say there was pre-meditated intent. They knew who they wanted to arrest," Srdjak asserted. One of the event organizers, and a former prisoner of conscience in the movement, Charity Ryerson, a law student, was among those arrested Saturday. Some witnesses reported that it appeared she was targeted for arrest by police as she walked along the sidewalk to her vehicle a half hour after the crowd was dispersed.
--it is a similar mindset of the SOA graduate," Srdjak commented, about the arrests.
Puppetistas Jake Wienstein and Lissa Mcleod of Knoxville, Tenn., are stiltwalkers who led the lively puppet pageant from the vigil stage on Saturday. I watched as they stopped at the police barricade to clarify the police orders, and then proceeded out a narrow passage in the barricade and onto the sidewalks. A large blue cardboard puppet representing the Mother Goddess followed.
Legal observer Monica Tilhou, of Asheville, N.C., standing opposite where I was, noted that the stilt walkers moved carefully through the crowd, keeping to the side walk and obeying the traffic signals as directed.
Katy Savage of Nashville Greenlands Catholic Worker Community in Nashville, Tenn., told me she had been holding the left hand of the Blue Goddess puppet "for just one minute," as she made her way along the sidewalk behind the stilt walkers. "First thing I heard from the police was "Drop the Puppet'," she said of her arrest.
In my role as a legal observer, I wore a lime green ball cap from the National Lawyers Guild, and was tasked to "observe and record." I was standing at the end of the "permitted protest area" at Fort Benning Drive and Torch Hill Road as dozens of Columbus police gathered to line the road which was blocked off with large orange traffic cones. I observed as Saturday rally participants attempted to leave the vigil area soon after 4 p.m. They were directed through a narrow opening in the blockade and ordered to "stay on the sidewalk and go directly to your cars." There was a good deal of confusion, particularly after the puppetistas arrived at the barricade, accompanied by the Kakalak Thunder drum corps from North Carolina. As the crowd pressed forward they began chanting at the barricade, "This is what Democracy looks like!" The police became more agitated. Each was armed and carried a belt full of plastic ties. There was general confusion among the crowd attempting to leave the vigil site.
A recorded message in both Spanish and English was played over a loud speaker from the nearby Masonic Lodge. Barely audible over the noise, the message warned the assembly of the laws they would violate if the parade crossed the orange barricades marking the protest area.
One participant, David Williams of Asheville, N.C., opted to remain inside the permitted protest zone. "I was part of the puppetistas. I was holding a sunflower and a stop sign," he told me. "It got louder and louder"I could hear a tape, played in both Spanish and English, announcing three possible charges, but it was hard to hear with all the drumming."
Continuing as an observer, I caught up with the stilt walkers outside the barricades. They were face down on a grassy area in front of the Circle K gas station. I kept to the sidewalks and heeded the warnings from various individual officers to keep moving. When I reached what seemed a safe vantage point at the Circle K. station I stood observing from the concrete area around the gas pumps. SOA Watch founder Roy Bourgeois stood there with me watching the arrests.
"It's just like the good old days," he said with a smile, as people were loaded into the bus with the sign on front, "Have a nice day."
In years past, thousands of persons have crossed over the white line that marked the boundary of Fort Benning and were loaded onto buses for either arrest or release. Since 1990, there have been close to 300 convictions of human rights activists who have served nearly 100 years of collective jail and prison time. After the fall of the twin towers in 2001, fences and barbed wire and increasingly harsh enforcement for trespass have been part of the SOA experience.
I watched as Eric Johnson, an ordained Presbyterian minister from Maryville, Tenn., and a former prisoner of conscience in the movement, was arrested and handcuffed. He and his wife, Libby, had accompanied the stilt walkers out of the permitted protest zone and were preparing to help them dismount in a grassy area.
"I believe strongly in the power of nonviolent civil disobedience," Johnson, who is hearing impaired, told the judge on Sunday. "I was accompanying some stilt walkers, but I had no intention of being arrested. I intended to obey all commands."
Libby Johnson, called as a witness, told the court, "I was in the exact same place as my spouse. I was not arrested." She added, "The policeman grabbed his holster, pointed at his gun and said "back off.'
"We were not breaking any laws. There was no warning. I obey when I hear the order "move or you will be arrested.'"
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