KKK protesters crash city council meeting to denounce rally arrests

BOHDAN DAMIAN CAP/Daily
At the city council meeting Monday NWROC members (left to right) Carly Cummings, Jessica Curtin and Renee Brunk stood up in protest of the arrest of eight people at the June 22 anti-KKK rally.

In the aftermath of the Ku Klux Klan rally, anti-Klan protesters disrupted a city council meeting Monday, denouncing what they said was police misconduct at last week's rally, and demanding the charges against the eight people arrested be dropped.

Besides dropping the charges, members of Ann Arbor Organizing Against the Klan and the National Women's Rights Organizing Coalition, also demanded the officers involved be suspended without pay and an independent investigation into the police's conduct at the rally be organized. They said they do not want the Klan or Nazis protected by the police in any future incidents.

The protesters first presented their demands at a press conference held on June 28, where they also presented a letter containing a death threat that was allegedly sent to them from one of the members of Aryan Nation, a white-supremecist group. The letter included threats such as, "I am coming for you," and "I'm going to blow your ass away."

"This letter indicates the danger and violence pretty clearly," said Barbara Pliskow, an Ann Arbor resident. "The only people that committed violence on that day were the police."

Pliskow said the police were on a mad chase to arrest everyone and anyone. "One police person put a mock gun on the defendent and pretended to shoot," Pliskow said.

Before the disruptions at Monday's city council meeting, several speakers stood up to speak about police actions at the rally.

"I really like living in Ann Arbor, I even like the police department. But I saw the police in what looked like full combat gear and for me it was absolutely clear that if you're here to cause trouble, we're gonna kick your ass," said John Hurley, one of the speakers who appeared before the board.

Audrey Jackson was not scheduled to speak to the board but she did so anyway, telling them that they had no business sitting behind closed doors and making decisions that stab people in the back.

"City Hall needs to get their act cleaned up right now," Jackson said, after insulting Mayor Ingrid Sheldon by calling her a "white Republican bitch."

After Jackson's speech, the protesters began chanting "drop the charges," and the council members retreated to a secluded conference room for what would be the first of several recesses before the meeting was finally canceled due to the loud chanting.

It has been rescheduled for 7:30 p.m. tonight.

City attorney Abigail Elias, who was scheduled to speak to the protestors and address some of their concerns later in the meeting, said that there is not a single thing the city council can do even if they wanted to.

"We don't have the authority to drop the charges - it has to go through the courts," Sheldon said. "I'm disappointed that this group of citizens can not respect other citizens who are addressing the council today."

Sheldon said that honest concerns will be addressed in an honest way and that are trying to answer questions as best they can.

Council members Tobi Hanna-Davies and Pat Vereen Dixon had proposed a resolution that would involve an investigation into the police actions at the rally, but Davies decided to have it dropped.

"I wanted us to look at concerns of the citizens - police were in a really hard position," Davies said. "It was extremely distastful for them to do the job they had to do."

Davies intended her proposed resolution to look at what happened and make sure that it doesn't happen again.

"I'm willing to bring it back in some form in the next meeting or maybe the one after that," Davies said.

In the meantime, the protesters continued their demonstration outside the city hall building.

"If the city council makes a statement saying they have no power to get charges dropped, then city council is effectively declaring itself impotent and powerless," said Jodi Masley, an NWROC member and RC junior. "If they took a stand against them (the police) there would be no way the prosecutor could pursue charges."

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