Arizona Republic 4/17/87

Photo (whole right of the page) by Peter Schwepker/Republic:
A small woman [Mary Ann Collinsworth] braces her legs to pull another woman [Katie Hoffman] in an airport style manual wheelchair across some rough terrain. Katie is holding the arm rests of the chair.
Caption: Mary Ann Collinsworth helps Katie Hoffman maneuver across rocks as the Denver women head for a protest at the Mansion Club)

Title: 5 Protesters Arrested for Wheelchair Honking
By J.F. Torrey
The Arizona Republic
[This is an article that appears in ADAPT 326 and 325, but the entire text has been included here for easier reading.]

Excessive wheelchair horn-honking led to disorderly conduct arrests of five members of the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit on Monday afternoon in front of the downtown Phoenix Hyatt Regency.

The arrests came from a frustrating morning for members of the group, which is in the city to protest the policies of the American Public Transit Association. The association is holding its annual Western meeting at the Hyatt.

ADAPT would like to see the association, a trade group of public-transit-system officials, adopt a policy recommending that all public buses be equipped with lift systems to accommodate wheelchair-bound passengers.

The arrests began at 3:41 p.m. after ADAPT members refused to stop blowing the horns on their electric wheelchairs. Four of the five people arrested were arrested Sunday at another demonstration.

Phoenix police Lt. Ted McCreary led a half-dozen plainclothes officers over to the group of horn blowers, who were at the northern end of a line of 48 wheelchairs and a baby carriage that the protesters had assembled in front of the Hyatt.

The group had spent more than an hour chanting and singing outside the hotel when McCreary made the attempt to silence the horns, which had been blowing intermittently during the demonstration.

As police closed in, the original group stopped blowing the horns, only to be surrounded by other demonstrators in wheelchairs who began blowing theirs.

Police eventually identified a demonstrator they planned to arrest, only to be surrounded by the rest of the demonstrators in wheelchairs, an action that made it difficult for police to move the suspect to a waiting lift-equipped van.

McCreary later expressed frustration at the problems involved in policing the demonstration.

"None of this is ever good,” he said. “We’re never in a winning position.”

One of those arrested, Marilyn Golden, 33, of Oakland, California, complained that police had broken an agreement reached with ADAPT members in Monday’s arrests.

“We were told that if we were going to be arrested, we would be warned,” Golden said. “I wasn’t, and I don’t even know what they’re arresting me for.”

Sergeant Ken Johnson, a police spokesman, said he was not aware of the agreement to provide a warning.

“Certainly there is no legal requirement that we give a warning,” Johnson said. “Maybe she couldn’t hear it because of the horns.”

Earlier in the day, at a demonstration at the Mansion Club near the Arizona Biltmore Hotel, Sergeant Brad Thiss, another police spokesman, expressed similar sentiments as nearly 30 plainclothes officers approached a group of demonstrators who were attempting to block access to a luncheon of spouses of association members.

When asked why only a few officers were in uniform, Thiss replied, “We’re trying to soften our image a little bit. Of course, how can you soften your image in wheelchairs into vans and arresting them?”

The Mansion Club luncheon protest did not result in any arrests because those attending walked to the restaurant.

ADAPT organizer Mike Auberger said that the protest achieved its goal because no buses passed the group’s line.

“We want the function to go on as it would,” Auberger said. “We just want the people to experience the same convenience that handicapped individuals do.”

After a brief standoff at a bridge over a Salt River Project canal, Auberger led the group back to a parking lot at the Biltmore Hotel where they surrounded a Phoenix Transit Authority bus they believed was to take association spouses back downtown.

The bus turned out to be a decoy, and the spouses took a second bus back to the Hyatt.

Thiss said the department will not calculate the expense of policing the convention until it is over.

“For now, all I can say is the costs are enormous,” he said.

Police arrested 26 ADAPT members Sunday for trespassing at Rustler’s Rooste, a southeast Phoenix restaurant where association members were attending a banquet.

Those arrested were released later after being given a written citation.

One protester, Clarence Miller, whose age and address were unavailable, was arrested for one count of aggravated assault on a police officer, a felony, and booked into Maricopa County Jail.

ADAPT’s Auberger said Miller was required to post $1,370 in bail before being released Monday. Auberger, who said Miller is retarded, faulted the arrest.

Created on

Thursday 11 July 2013

Posted on

Thursday 3 August 2017

Tags

ADAPT, APTA spouses, arrests, blocking doors, blocking entrances, chanting, circling police, citations, Clarence Miller, cost, decoy bus, horns, Hyatt Regency Hotel, intellectual disability, Katie Hoffman, lift equipped vans, Mansion Club, Maricopa County Jail, Marilyn Golden, Maryann Collinsworth, Mike Auberger, plainclothes, plainclothes officers, police, police image, Rustler's Rooste, singing, wheelchairs

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