Colorado Springs Sun

PHOTO (Sun / Mary Kelley): A high level quadriplegic (John Folks) in a motorized wheelchair is tipped back onto his rear wheels by two uniformed officers. His mouth control for driving his chair is in his mouth, his long black hair is held in a headband, and a suitcase-type box is strapped to his lapboard. Another uniformed officer and a plain clothes officer look on from a short distance. Behind them a group of protesters sit in a parking lot. Most are in wheelchairs but Brook Ball sits on a cement block.
Caption reads: Police arrest John Folks during a protest by a group of disabled people at the McDonald's Restaurant on North Wahsatch Avenue Friday afternoon.

[Headline] 11 Arrested in Protest
By Ken Western

Eleven protesters – 10 of them confined to wheelchairs – where arrested Friday by Colorado Springs police after they blocked the entrances to a downtown McDonald’s Restaurant.

The arrests were the second in two days for some members of the Denver-based Access Institute, which contends that McDonald’s discriminates against the disables by failing to provide complete access to all of its restaurants, tables and restrooms.

Denver police arrested seven protesters Thursday in a similar demonstration by the group outside another McDonald’s Restaurant.
A spokesman for McDonald’s defended the company’s efforts Friday to provide access to the disabled, particularly in restaurants build since the late 1906s and in the remodeling of older buildings.

The nearly two-dozen protesters, who arrived in vans from Denver, began blocking entrances to the restaurant’s parking lot, 207 N. Wahsatch Ave, at 12:15 pm.

Four entrances and the drive-through lane were closed for about an hour, with most vehicles exiting through the alley behind the restaurant and, in one instance, driving off a curb.

Each entrance was blocked by two to three wheelchair-bound protesters, some holding signs that read “Discrimination Hurts Everyone!!!” and “How Can I Enjoy An Egg McMuffin When I Can’t Get To The Tables?”

Leaflets also were passed out urging patrons to boycott the restaurant “to show that you want us to have the right to each with you.”
Police began arresting protesters after they blocked the east alley in the 200 block of North Wahsatch Avenue, charging 11 people with obstructing or interfering with traffic.

Under an agreement with the Access Institute, police arrested those protesters who wanted to be bookeds in an apparently symbolic protest.
Picture caption: Police arrest John Folks during a protest by a Restaurant on North Wahsatch Avenue Friday group of disabled people at the McDonald’s afternoon.

Created on

Thursday 11 July 2013

Posted on

Monday 23 November 2015

Tags

arrested, blocking, Brook Ball, Colorado Springs, John Folks, McDonalds, protest, wheelchair bound

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