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[Headline] Protest by disabled jams L. B.

By Bob Houser and Larry Keller, Staff writers

Long Beach Press, 10/10/85, no page number

Photo at the top right of the page, by Michael Rondou/Press-Telegram: In the foreground is a bus, a GMC, number 4405, with a person inside standing next to the passenger entrance. Below him or her is a sign “CERRITOS.” In front of the bus is a single wheelchair-user (Bobby Hartwell) facing the camera. Behind and to the left of the 4405 bus is another with 3 people in wheelchairs and 3 police officers in front of it. Photo caption: Handicapped protesters block buses Wednesday along Long Beach Boulevard.

Scores of wheelchair-bound disabled persons, dramatizing their cry for nationwide accessibility to all public transit, clogged downtown Long Beach traffic for more than five hours Wednesday.

The protesters parked their wheelchairs in front of and behind buses in the downtown area, in some cases holding the buses hostage for several hours, until police removed them.

Police issued 33 misdemeanor citations for failure to disperse, made three arrests for failure to disperse and 13 arrests for trespassing and issued two traffic citations. All those arrested were later released on their own recognizance.

Of those arrested and cited, all except 12 were wheelchair-bound.

As many as six buses were out of business at one point in the episode.

Bus driver Teresa Estrada said she had been sitting in her bus for more than three hours.

Some protesters, members of ADAPT, American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit, were arrested when they blocked the entrance and some offices of Long Beach Transit at Anaheim Street and Gardenia Avenue.

The stalled hostage buses, along with police vehicles, slowed traffic to a crawl on Long Beach Boulevard and Pine Avenue, generally south of Fifth Street.

Cross traffic filled intersections in the same area, creating a gridlock that required officers to set out flares and hand-direct vehicles.

Some of the ambulatory handicapped people kept scouting new locations for intercepting buses. At a signal, several in wheelchairs would follow the point crew and stake out the new site.

The demonstrations and bus blocking started shortly after ADAPT’s first contingent arrived in Long Beach from its Los Angeles hotel headquarters at about 12:30 p.m.

Four lift-equipped vans carted many demonstrators to jail from Long Beach Boulevard sites, winding up the shuttle shortly after 5 p.m.

It was after 6 p.m. before the vans returned to make a second ... [rest of story is missing]
CONTINUED/A10, Col. 1

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