Atlanta Journal 10/4/1990

Disabled protesters arrested downtown
Charged in blocking of building’s doors
By Bill Montgomery
and Ben Smith
staff writers

As supporters cheered and chanted, more than 30 activists for the handicapped in wheelchairs were arrested for sealing off the Richard B. Russell Federal Building in Atlanta Wednesday.

They were lifted by police aboard MARTA buses and taken to hastily arranged hearings in a parking lot at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

U.S. Magistrate John Strother released the activists — who are protesting U.S. government funding of nursing home care for the disabled — on personal appearance bond for arraignment in Magistrate's court on Nov. 16.

The defendants face a maximum $50 fine or 30 days in jail for a class B misdemeanor, hindering access to and from a federal building.

Wednesday's blockade at the Russell building by American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today (ADAPT), continued the strategy that the group used to seize the Morehouse College administration building and a nursing home association headquarters in Decatur on Monday and Tuesday.

About half of the 100 protestors who appeared at 11 a.m. to blockade all street level doors refused orders by Russell Building security chief Thomas W. Woodall to move away from the entrances by 2:30 p.m. or face arrest. Several chained themselves and their wheelchairs to the revolving doors.

Employees and people attempting to enter the Russell Building used a tunnel from the federal annex across the street to enter the building.

Atlanta police, federal marshals and Russell Building security officers began arrests at 2:45, less than 90 minutes before some offices in the building close for the day. Protesters who moved away from the doors chanted “Free our people now!” as their arrested comrades, some grinning and flashing raised thumbs and “victory” signals, were lifted by their wheelchairs onto four MARTA buses.

By 5 p.m., 31 men and women had been delivered to a parking lot across from the stadium for the hearings.

The protesters are demanding that the federal government redirect 25 percent of funding for the disabled from nursing homes to home care. They argue that 250,000 disabled people are being held in nursing homes against their will, and that this shift in funding is more humane and cost-efficient.

Created on

Friday 12 July 2013

Posted on

Thursday 22 October 2015

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arrested, buses, chains, court, Richard B Russell Federal Building

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