San Diego Unlon, A-3 Tuesday, October 8

PHOTO by Associated Press: A man in wheelchair (George Roberts) leans forward slightly, his mouth open as if yelling, as two police officers and another man load him onto the wheelchair lift of a van. George is wearing an ADAPT T-shirt with the no steps logo and carries a picket sign on his back.
Caption reads: A wheelchair-bound activist is arrested outside a downtown Los Angeles hotel where police said he and seven others blocked entrances and stairways Sunday.

[Headline] Protests continue on public transport access by disabled
Associated Press

LONG BEACH — Activists yesterday staged a sit-in at the office of Rep. Glenn Anderson and held a second day of demonstrations in downtown Los Angeles protesting a lack of access to public transportation.

About a dozen protesters, many of them in wheelchairs, crowded into the suburban Long Beach office of Anderson while others remained in the hall outside, said Anderson's executive assistant, Ann Ramirez.

Anderson, a Long Beach Democrat, is chairman of the House Transportation Committee.

Ramirez said the congressman had been scheduled to be at his office and at a speaking engagement in Los Angeles yesterday but had to cancel those plans and stay in Washington because of a heavy workload.

ln Los Angeles, about 35 wheelchair-bound demonstrators protested peacefully while the American Public Transit Association held its annual conference.

On Sunday, eight persons were arrested for investigation of failure to disperse and interfering with police as about 130 activists staged a demonstration.

The arrests occurred after a procession of wheelchairs carried people with disabilities ranging from cerebral palsy to postpolio paralysis from MacArthur Park to the Bonaventure.

"This is beautiful I am proud to be a disabled person. l am tired of being closed away," said Bob Kafka, of Austin, Texas, as he wheeled along.

Kafka, a spokesman for the American Disabled tor Accessible Public Transit — and who has a broken spinal cord - was among those arrested later.

The protesters had no permit to stage the parade, but Los Angeles police refrained from arresting paraders as they said they would.

“Listen, how could we arrest all these people?" Capt. Bill Wedgeworth said.

Along the parade route, motorists slowed to watch,

The protesters targeted the convention because the transit association opposes a national policy mandating wheelchair lifts on buses, preferring to let each transit agency deal with access for the disabled locally.

The protesters shouted, "Access now! Access now!" as police blocked them near the entrance, one floor above the main reception area.

The Southern California Rapid Transit District has wheelchair lifts on 1,691 of its 2,445 buses, a spokesman said, and is retrofitting an additional 200.

The eight arrested were not all immediately identified, but police said two were Edith Harris ol Hartford, Conn, and George Florom of Colorado Springs, Colo.

Created on

Thursday 11 July 2013

Posted on

Friday 8 January 2016

Tags

ADAPT - American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit, ADAPT no steps logo, APTA - American Public Transit Association, arrests, Dem. Rep. Glenn Anderson, Edith Harris, George Florum, George Roberts, lifts on all NEW buses, lifts on NEW buses, local option, Los Angeles, national mandate, police van, Southern CA RTD, wheelchair bound

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