Wednesday, October 5, 1994
Las Vegas Review-Journal

[Image] A group of about 10 police officers, wearing medical exam gloves and one with a video camera, fill an open glass double doorway. Facing them are two ADAPT protesters in wheelchairs (probably Buddy Homiller and Karen Greebon) with others visable only at the edges of the photo. People are holding the doors open and one of the officers is trying to pull a door shut.
Caption reads: Metropolitan Police Department officers try Tuesday to hold back disabled protesters at an entrance to the Las Vegas Convention Center. Seventy six protesters were arrested. No one was injured.

Headline: Disabled protesters arrested

[Headline] Disabled protesters arrested
By Jan Greene
Review-Journal

[Image] Smaller photo down below headline by Jim Laurie/Review Journal: Woman (Sharon Atkinson) in a motorized wheelchair has a large poster that reads "Nursing Homes = Jails." On either side of her police officers are holding onto her chair.
[Image caption] Sharon Atkinson of Denver was one of 76 disabled protesters arrested at the Las Vegas Convention Center for trespassing at the American Health Care Association convention.

Demonstrators tried to force their way into the yearly convention of a health trade group.

A raucous group of about 250 disabled protesters, many in wheelchairs, marched Tuesday on the Las Vegas Convention Center, where 76 of them were arrested after a contingent tried to force its way into the building.

No one was hurt in the confrontation, although one man's wheelchair was broken when he was wedged between protesters, convention center security guards and police, each side pushing and pulling on the building's glass doors.

That struggle proved to be the most dramatic point in a day of noisy dissent by a group called ADAPT, or Americans Disabled for Attendant Programs Today. Members travel each year to the site of the annual convention of the American Health Care Association, a nursing home trade group.

Protesters chanted "Free our people," and argued that a chunk of the federal Medicaid and Medicare funds that go to nursing homes be shifted to allow people to live on their own.

The industry group said it agrees that more money should be spent on independent living for the disabled, but that the funds shouldn't come from what's now spent in nursing homes.

Around noon, northbound traffic on Paradise Road was backed up for blocks as one lane was closed to accommodate the protesters, who slowly made their way from the Sahara Hotel parking lot to the convention center.

Slowing their progress and forcing them into the street was a curb that had not been cut to accommodate wheelchairs.

"This is so irrational," complained protester Marta Russell of Los Angeles. "This is what we face every day."

Around 1 p.m., the group gathered in an arranged "First Amendment trespass area" at the convention center, where they yelled, chanted, honked horns and hung a wheelchair on a wooden cross as curious conventioneers looked on.

[Image]
[Image caption] A demonstrator is hauled away Tuesday during a Vegas Convention Center. No one was reported to have been hurt during the confrontation. Jim Laurie Review-Journal

[Headline] Protest
Meanwhile, part of the group moved toward an entrance to the convention center, where security guards met them and warned they would be arrested if they continued. They moved forward, with some darting into a door and the rest blockading the entrance.

The protesters who went inside were arrested, and the rest were slowly taken into custody by Las Vegas police officers. Protesters in wheelchairs were escorted into special buses, although a few went limp and had to be carried away.

The 76 people cited were charged with misdemeanor trespass, with 32 of them agreeing to leave once cited and the rest being taken to a temporary detention center before their release. They face a maximum penalty of $1,000 and six months in jail.

Police Lt. Carl Fruge said the arrests were requested by healthcare association officials. The group's lease of the convention center meant it temporarily became their private property, according to convention center officials.

Fruge and Don Ahl, security chief for the convention center, said protesters were stopped at the doors to prevent them from entering the building and threatening the safety of those inside.

"That's where we drew the line," Fruge said. "The idea was to contain this for public safety."

Mike Auherger, a national organizer for ADAPT, called the day a success because it drew heavy media coverage for his cause and nobody got hurt.

[Pulled quote] "That's where we drew the line. The idea was to contain this for public safety."
-Carl Fruge
Las Vegas police

He said further protests could occur today or Thursday, depending on whether health care association officials continue to seek a temporary restraining order to stop the protests.

Meanwhile, protesters and convention attendees offered starkly different views about the nursing home issue.

John Gladstone, 52, lived in a Philadelphia nursing home for 14 years and will never go back.

"I know people who have committed suicide because they were confined in a nursing home," he said. "There are deplorable conditions, and no independence. You have to sign in and sign out."

Gladstone now lives independently and has an attendant who helps him with household and personal chores he can't do himself When he needs medical care, he goes to the hospital and sees his doctor.

But Ted Dehass, the owner of nursing homes in central Ohio, said most people in his homes are elderly or disabled enough to need constant medical care.

"I remember seeing people like this in homes years ago, but not anymore," he said.

Dehass also argued that if ADAPT wants more money for home care, it should be making its case to state legislators, not nursing home owners.

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