Seattle WTO protesters’ rights violated, lawyer argues

SEATTLE – A lawyer for as many as 200 people arrested in an emergency “no protest zone” established during the 1999 World Trade Organization demonstrations asked a federal jury Tuesday to hold the city accountable for violating the protesters’ constitutional rights.

U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman has already ruled that police made the arrests without probable cause. The protesters are hoping to prove at trial that the police had a policy of targeting protesters for their anti-WTO opinions, or at least that the actions of officers were approved by higher-ups; if so, the city could face millions of dollars in damages in a subsequent liability phase of the trial.

“My clients were not throwing bricks. They were not interfering with police,” attorney Mike Withey said in his opening statement. “The policy was to arrest people based on their viewpoint.”

The arrests came on Dec. 1, 1999. That week, some 50,000 protesters had swarmed Seattle, overwhelming police and closing down the WTO meeting.

In response, then-Mayor Paul Schell imposed a curfew and ordered that only certain people – WTO delegates, police and emergency workers, store employees, residents, shoppers – be allowed to enter the downtown core.

The area became known as the “no-protest zone,” even though Schell’s emergency order did not bar shoppers, residents or other exempted people from protesting.

On the morning of Dec. 1, the group of demonstrators marched through Seattle streets and sidewalks to Westlake Park, within the zone. They sat down and chanted and sang, and were promptly arrested.

The judge earlier found that police made no effort to determine whether the protesters were residents of the area, shoppers, delegates or had other reasons to be in the zone; therefore, the arrests were made without probable cause, she said.

The protesters’ lawsuit argues that the behavior of officers – seizing protest signs from people entering the zone, barring area residents if they appeared as though they might protest, arresting the protesters without probable cause – was part of a department policy to suppress First Amendment rights based on the content of the protesters’ views. They also allege violations of their Fourth Amendment rights to be free of unlawful search and seizure.

Ted Buck, a lawyer for the city, told the jurors that the overwhelmed officers didn’t care what opinions the protesters held; they simply wanted to keep the downtown core clear so that police, emergency workers, WTO delegates and others would be able to do their jobs.

There was no evidence available to police that the protesters were credentialed to be in the zone, Buck said.