Palestinians protesting Land
Week in April 2005.

Of all the No, Give Me a Break happenings of last Wednesday, I forgot to mention one that was personal. On January 23, 2014 three of us were arrested for ‘trespassing’ by protesting in the Alumni Union at Marquette University. We had understood from the Vice President and Legal Counsel of Marquette that we were all to protest against military training, ROTC, on MU campus. We had done this a few times before after we were told it was okay and were not arrested or even told to leave by MU security. Believing we had permission to protest on campus we said we would live if we did not have permission. As we were trying to confirm our permission to protest on campus and were trying to contact administration officials, we were cited for trespassing.

My two friends’ court case and mine were separated. In the meanwhile I received a letter from the legal counsel of Marquette University who, after talking with the Vice President of Marquette, wrote me saying “that you were erroneously informed by DPS (Department of Public Security) officers that you were not allowed to protest on campus” and that the University does not intend to pursue this case and does not oppose the dismissal of that charge.

At my plea hearing I tried to tell the Municipal judge about the error in our arrest for trespassing but she would not listen to me and ordered me to pre-trial hearing. At the pre-trial I tried to present the letter to the assistant city attorney but she looked over my court record and saw that I had been convicted of trespassing after going on Marquette property having been issued a banning order, order of No Trespass last year. The order had been lifted by Marquette but she saw in the 1st paragraph that I was in an area of the union that was restricted for leafleting, something we did not know, and never considered the lifting of the banning order. She refused to listen to me and Judge called me and sent a trial date. When I tried to clarify the matter and show her the letter of the error that had been made in our arrest she would not listen. So now I have a trial date for case where I was “erroneously” arrested for protesting.

Now I know how it feels when a young man, a poor person appears in court and city attorney or Judge will not listen to you plea your case and you are pushed from one court hearing to another. My friends had another judge and assistant attorney and when they presented my letter the assistant city attorney said it only applied to my case and not theirs and although they were arrested in error also they too must stand trial. I plan to ask that they drop the charges or give me a change of venue. The other judge in municipal court was the one I had last year in my trespassing for breaking the banning order case and I know he will hear us out.

Watch out what you wish for. I have often said I wanted to be in solidarity with poor and marginalized. Now that I am being treated as the poor and marginalized I cannot complain and if I have to go to jail to make my point about the lack of justice in our court system I will. If I do not get a break I will go down fighting (nonviolently).

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