Marine Recruiter Assaults Demonstrators With Baseball Bat

publish.nyc.indymedia.org:

By madhatter newswire@madhattersimc.org

"A Marine recruiter assaulted two unarmed anti-war protesters with a baseball bat in New Haven at a non-violent anti-war protest at 5:40 pm. He also seized an anti-war protester's cellphone. This civil rights violation occurred on 6/28/06 in front of the Orange Street recruiting station.

About twenty anti-war protesters were holding a non-violent demonstration in front of the military recruitment center in New Haven in support of Suzanne Swift, a soldier who refused to deploy after being sexually assaulted, and First Lieutenant Ehren Watada, the first commissioned officer to publicly refuse orders to deploy to the Iraq war.

We believe that this assault violates the civil rights of the non-violent protesters, as well as their right to free speech. The protesters plan to return next week to the recruitment center on July 5 to exercise their right to free speech. We
will also hold a press conference at 5:00 pm 7/5/06.

Police Officers Ratti (Badge #463), Hartnett (#4), and Knickerbocker (#80) arrived and obtained the seized cellphone from the Marine. But he had erased a picture of the assault. We did not confront the recruiters, since we do not blame the soldiers for the war. The blame lies solely on a government whose interests are contradictory to those of the soldiers."