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| AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer
Richard Trumka Testifies in (Free Trade Area of the Americas) "The Miami Police Departments performance before this panel was a farce. They used this panel as a public platform to whitewash the record and twist the truth." Thats how Richard Trumka, Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO, described the Miami Civilian Investigative Panel Hearing (March 2). The Panel was convened to investigate police conduct during FTAA protests in Miami last November. President Edwin D. Hill, Secretary-Treasurer Jerry OConnor and IBEW members from Florida participated in the Miami protests to add our Unions voice to the movement for fairness in global trade. Trumka presented panel members with a 15-minute video presentation that showed police shooting rubber bullets at peaceful demonstrators. The Miami Herald reported: "A woman in a red blazer and black high heels hunkers behind a posterboard while a line of police officers in riot gear fire non-lethal weapons in her direction. She pleads for help and says she is shot in the head. Another man staggers across the jam-packed Miami street while blood drips down his face." Miami police presented their own 40-minute video to the Panel. Civil liberties groups in Miami describe the video as a professional public relations job. They contend that it was produced to justify the huge $8 million budget that was created to transport and pay thirty-eight different police agencies during the FTAA protests. The March 2 hearing provided the final opportunity for public testimony. The Panel will now investigate individual complaints and whether police regulations were violated. In separate proceedings, the Miami Board of Commissioners is expected to repeal an ordinance that was passed one week prior to the FTAA protests last November. The ordinance, widely criticized by civil liberties advocates, made it a crime to carry glass bottles, water balloons or signs held up by sticks during the FTAA protests. Commissioners, who were pressured to approve the ordinance in November, now say that it is unconstitutional-they say that citizens could be arrested simply for drinking an iced tea. March 3, 2004
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Taking It To The Streets... Jan-Feb 2004 Journal Labor
Protests Set for Miami Trade Talks...
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