[www-features] Pepper Spray victory blurb suggestion

[Steve C]

Hi good peoples doing features for global imc(indymedia.org), a huge 
victory happened today in San Francisco, CA, USA relating to forest 
protesters cotton swabbed with pepper spray that was declared by a jury 
to be excessive force by the Humboldt County Sherriff's and Eureka 
Police Department from incidents in 1997 during the battle to save the 
headwaters redwood forest. There are feature on sf bay main and enviro 
pages, but this should have ramnifications for any policing agency 
wanting to use it on non violent protesters in the US. Please consider 
the following text and grab an image for a blurb. There's a press 
conference tommorrow in SF regarding the lawsuit victory.

Steve

PSS....an image can be obtained from sf-bay of the plaintiff's and 
attorneys following the second trial. this win is from the third trial 
that concluded today.
--------------------------------------

<p>San Francisco, CA. - The jury has just returned a unanimous verdict 
for the activists/plaintiffs, finding the County of Humboldt and City of 
Eureka liable for excessive force used by Humboldt County Sheriff's 
Deputies and Eureka Police Officers when they applied pepper spray 
directly to the eyes of the eight nonviolent forest defense protesters 
in three incidents in 1997. Former sheriff Dennis Lewis and present 
sheriff Gary Philp also were found liable for causing the use of 
excessive force by ordering the unprecedented use of pepper spray on the 
passive, locked together sit-in demonstrators. </p>
<p>The jury awarded nominal damages of $1 to each of the plaintiffs, who 
made it clear all along that they weren't suing for the money, but to 
bring about a change of policy, to stop the use of pepper spray in 
Humboldt in the way it was used on them.  A 2003 <a 
href="http://www.nopepperspray.org/settlement_letter_030131.htm">settlement</a> 
offer by the activists, who felt vindicated after their trip to the 
Court of Appeals, contained similar terms to the outcome of this 
lawsuit; law enforcement will be deterred from applying pepper spray 
directly to the eyes of peaceful people, and Humboldt County and City of 
Eureka will owe for attorneys fees that may reach over a million dollars 
following two additional jury trials.  </p>
<p>Attorneys for the pepper spray Plaintiffs, Dennis Cunningham, J. Tony 
Serra, Bob Bloom, Ben Rosenfeld and Bill Simpich, made up part of the <a 
href="http://www.judibari.org/default.html#TLPJ">award winning legal 
team</a> that beat the FBI in 2002 on behalf of Earth First! Organizer 
Judi Bari, who was the victim of a car bomb assassination attempt in 
1990, which was covered up by the FBI and Oakland Police. </p> 


<a href="http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/04/1735270.php">1</a> | <a 
href="http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/04/1735272.php">2</a> | <a 
href="http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/04/1734976.php">3</a> | <a 
href="http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/04/1734749.php">4</a>  <a 
href="http://www.nopepperspray.org">No Pepper Spray Website</a>