‘Drop all charges’
Activists rally to support Stamford protesters
STAMFORD — A group of about 30 individuals gathered outside Government Center to protest the ongoing prosecution of five individuals who were charged for their roles in a march held last summer to protest the death of Stamford resident Steven Barrier.
Protesters bearing picket signs with slogans like “Hands off protesters!” and “Drop all charges on protesters NOW!” were greeted by a cacophony of beeps and the occasional shout as they rallied on the corner of Washington and Tresser boulevards Saturday afternoon.
David Rothstein, a member of the Stamford Mass Defense Coalition and organizer of Saturday’s rally, said the goal of the protest was not only to see the charges dropped against the five facing charges for participating in an Aug. 8 protest that ended in a clash between protesters and police, but also to shine a light on the “growing threat” to residents’ constitutional rights of speech and assembly.
“If these charges stand, it’s a threat to the right to protest basically anywhere in the state. If we allow this to happen, it tells the government that they can do what they want,” Rothstein said.
On Aug. 8, tensions between police and protesters boiled over during
a clash on Broad Street following a march and demonstration at police headquarters.
The clash ended with six people arrested, and officers and demonstrators alike claiming to have suffered injuries. Five individuals were charged with interfering with police and breach of peace, while one woman faced an additional charge of inciting a riot.
In the aftermath of the incident, police claimed the marchers had acted in a provocative manner and disobeyed police instruction to disperse and re-open streets to vehicular traffic.
The demonstrators, however, say police officers were aggressive and used excessive force on non-violent protesters as they were dispersing.
While one of the six cases — for interfering and breach of peace — has already been dropped by the state, the other five are still pending.
In March, the Stamford Mass Defense Coalition started a petition, which had about 2,000 signatures online and 150 on a physical copy as of Saturday afternoon, seeking to overturn the arrests made by police on activists marching for police reform and accountability in Stamford on Aug. 8.
Rothstein said Saturday’s rally was simply a continuation of the coalition’s efforts to ensure that justice was done by not only those five individuals still facing charges from last summer’s “peaceful protest,” but those like them around the state and the country whose freedoms are being infringed upon.
Martha Klein, a member of the Connecticut Climate Crisis Coalition and the Sierra Club, drove over 90 miles in traffic from her home in Norfolk on her birthday to attend Saturday’s protest.
She said she was driven to do so by the “malign neglect” police showed in the lead-up to Steven Barrier’s death on Oct. 23, 2019, as well as how they dealt with protesters in the wake of the tragedy.
“It’s very meaningful to combine environmental issues with social justice issues — they do not live in a vacuum. The same power structure that harms the environment, degrades people,” Klein said.
In a speech to rallygoers, Peter Goselin, a member of the National Lawyers Guild, said police, politicians and the court systems can’t be relied upon to dispense justice as was evident in Minneapolis and Ferguson.
“(T)hese are not the excesses of the system — this is the system at work,” he said.
Justice, Goselin said, can only truly be achieved by the will of the people themselves.
But what effect these protests and petitions have had on the remaining five cases remains to be seen.
Attorney Phillip Russell, who represents the five individuals still facing charges in connection to the Aug. 8 protest, said the State’s Attorney Office has been “unwilling to dismiss the charges outright, to resolve the matters in a way that would permit these young people to pursue claims vindicating their civil rights.”
“Our understanding of what occurred is very different from what the police have curated, formatted and put forward, exonerating their officers entirely of any excessive behavior,” Russell said. “I expect there will be a trial and no one should rush to judgment in advance.”
All five defendants are next scheduled to appear at Stamford Superior Court on Aug. 9 — nearly a year to the day they were all arrested.