Minneapolis Occupy protesters in court, defend the right to protest

http://www.fightbacknews.org/2012/7/31/minneapolis-occupy-protesters-court-defend-right-protest

By Staff | July 31, 2012

Minneapolis, MN - The Minnesota Occupy movement won a victory in their battle against the Minneapolis city attorney’s office, July 30. Four protesters got their charges reduced to only petty misdemeanors for an October 2011 civil disobedience action at U.S. Bank. This came about despite the Minneapolis city attorney office’s efforts to escalate the charges to crack down on the use of civil disobedience in the fight against home foreclosures.

On October 20, 2011, hundreds of people participated in a demonstration in front of U.S. Bank in downtown Minneapolis to draw attention to the fact that over 25,000 Minnesotans lost their homes to foreclosure in 2010 alone. Seven people were arrested in the intersection in front of the bank and charged with “interfering with pedestrian and vehicular traffic.” Four of them were scheduled to go to trial for that charge on July 30, but on July 20 the prosecutor added the charges of unlawful assembly, public nuisance and not complying with a ‘peace officer.’

In the July 30 hearing, Judge Daniel Moreno sided with the defense’s motion against adding the new charges. He encouraged the prosecution to charge the protesters with petty misdemeanors instead of misdemeanors and, when they would not, he encouraged the accused to do a straight plea to him directly so that he could give them a lesser punishment. All four protesters pled out to petty misdemeanors, despite the prosecution’s courtroom antics to prosecute them to their fullest extent in an effort to crush the local anti-foreclosure movement.