Gazette Telegraph

PHOTO (by Bob Jackson/Gazette Telegraph): A plainclothes officer (a radio in his pocket) and beefy uniformed officer tip Frank McComb back in his manual wheelchair as they load him into a van. The plain clothes guy puts his hand on Frank's head (to prevent bumping it). In the shadows inside you can see another officer crouching next to another wheelchair at the back of the van. The wheelchairs in all these pictures are very old style; the would even look outdated in an airport or hospital now.
Caption reads: Frank McColom [sic] of Denver is arrested outside the Wahsatch Avenue McDonald's and placed In an Amblicab by Colorado Springs police. McColom was protesting what he sold was McDonald's lack of access for the handicapped.

[Headline] Handicapped arrested at McDonald’s

By Chris Cobler, GT Staff Writer
Colorado Springs police arrested 11 people protesting what they called a lack of accessibility for the handicapped at McDonald's restaurants Friday.

The protest, at McDonald’s downtown restaurant, 207 N. Wahsatch Ave., was part of a nationwide action involving the fast food chain.

[The page is torn here. Missing words are filled in in brackets, where possible.]
The protest was the second in two days by about two dozen wheelchair-bound members of the Access Institute, a Denver based national organization for the [handicapped.] Denver police arrested [several people] Thursday in a similar protest [at another] McDonald’s restaurant there.

[The demonstrators] wheeled their chairs [...] entrances to the parking lot at [the Wahsatch] Avenue McDonald's about [....] Police arrested the 11 an hour later on suspicion of obstruction of traffic when they refused to move from a city alley behind McDonald's.

“The plan today is to make people aware that McDonald's doesn't have a national policy of accessibility,” said Bob Conrad, a community organizer QC the Atlantis Community in Denver, which is affiliated with the Access Institute.

Conrad said the the protesters are seeking three changes at McDonald's: remodeling of existing restaurants for access for the disabled, such access to be constructed at all new restaurants and for the company to include disabled people in 10 percent of all its advertisements.

Robert Keyser, director of media relations for McDonald‘s Corp., Oak Brook, Ill., said in Colorado Springs Friday that his company has talked with Access Institute for the past six months and planned to meet with the group Tuesday in Denver. The protests of the past two days are not a show of good faith by the group, Keyser said.

McDonald’s is eager to learn from the group about ways to improve its restaurants, but is not prepared to immediately satisfy all requests, Keyser said.

“I think it's irresponsible to make demonstrations without being as completely educated as possible about the way a major company like ours does business," said Keyser, who flew to Colorado Springs Friday from the McDonald's corporate headquarters near Chicago. “It’s going to be a two-way dialogue."

Representatives of the McDonald's franchises in the Springs area declined to answer questions about the dispute and

See 11 ARRESTED Page A2

Created on

Thursday 11 July 2013

Posted on

Monday 23 November 2015

Tags

Access Institute, accessible, arrested, Colorado Springs, Denver, Frank McColm, McDonalds, protest

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