Title: arrested after chaining wheelchairs to hotel doors

PHOTO 1 by Allan R Leishman/Daily News: Over a half dozen policemen walk in a row, escorting and pushing Lillibeth Navarro, Jennifer Keelan and another partially obscured ADAPT protester's wheelchairs, as well as Cyndy Keelan down a low hallway. Lillibeth is chanting and Jennifer is looking at her. Caption reads: Young crusader: Even though she's only Seven, Jennifer Keelan, In wheelchair on right, didn't escape a police roundup of disabled protesters yesterday.
PHOTO 2 by Allan R Leishman/Daily News: Seven year old Jennifer Keelan and her mom Cyndy Keelan sitting in a bus holding hands and chanting. Caption reads: Cute criminal: Jennifer In paddy wagon.

Title/Sidebar: 'Brave' 7-year-old caught in police round-up
by Mike Gavin Montreal Daily News

A BIG-CITY police round-up is no place for a pretty seven-year-old girl, but then, Jennifer KeeIan is no ordinary little kid. A victim of congenital cerebral palsy, Jennifer will have to fight for everything in a society that still doesn't respect the rights of the disabled, says her mother, Cynthia.

And that will probably mean more demonstrations like the one that led to her "arrest" by police last night. "She's a very, very brave little girl and I'm proud of her," Cynthia Keelan said, as Jennifer looked up at burly policemen surrounding her small group.

There had been a lot of excitement as the beefy cops first moved in.

But the drama waned as everyone awaited special transportation to police headquarters, and Jennifer's little blonde head kept sinking to her chest.

Station 25 director Edouard Sarrazin was quick to point out that the little girl hadn't been arrested.

[Subheading] Paddy wagon ride

"It's her mother who has been arrested."

Still, Jennifer had to watch about 40 policemen surround her and her mother and other members of the group. American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit.

And it meant a ride to police head-quarters in a converted wheelchair bus being used as a paddy wagon.

The Keelans, of Scottsdale, Ariz., are in Montreal to protest with other ADAPT members at the annual meeting of the American Public Transit Association (APTA), which is meeting at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel.

Later, at police headquarters, police decided to release the mother and daughter without pressing charges, saving Jennifer and her mother the trauma of being separated overnight.

[Subheading] Make things better

"I hope they don't separate us," Cynthia Keelan had told the Daily News just a few minutes before.

"You don't think they will, do you?"

Though in perfect health herself, she decided to get involved in ADAPT "so that things will be better for the disabled when my daughter grows up than they are now."

ADAPT's specific beef with APTA concerns the 3,000-member group's refusal to endorse a policy requiring all urban transit buses to be equipped with wheelchair lifts.

Cynthia Keelan didn't miss the irony of her daughter, wheelchair-bound since infancy, being lifted aboard the police bus with the kind of lift ADAPT would like to see as standard equipment on all buses.

"Access to transportation is essential if people in wheelchairs, people like Jennifer, are to have a fair chance," said the young mother.

"It's too bad the authorities don't always make these kinds of buses available."

Author

Montreal Daily News/Mike Gavin

Created on

Thursday 11 July 2013

Posted on

Thursday 18 January 2018

Tags

accessible paddy wagon, ADAPT - American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit, APTA - American Public Transit Association, arrested, Cyndy Keelan, Jennifer Keelan, Lillibeth Navarro, police, released from jail, school bus access

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