St. Louis to look into complaints over raids before protest

ST. LOUIS -- Police will investigate whether officers acted improperly in raiding buildings and stopping vehicles in advance of protests outside a global agricultural forum in mid-May, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported in a copyright story.

"We have an obligation to review what went on during that several-day period" leading up to the May 18-20 World Agricultural Forum, police chief Joe Mokwa told the newspaper.

Some activists alleged that police -- aiming to avert violent protests seen elsewhere in recent years -- damaged property, slashed bicycle tires and drenched clothing with urine at a building they raided, the Post-Dispatch reported in Sunday's editions.

Mokwa said any officer found by the police department's internal affairs unit to have damaged an individual's property will be disciplined. Police had worried that the activists who oppose genetically altered food might stage a large and potentially violent protest. But the protest outside the conference here May 18 drew only a few hundred demonstrators, all peaceful, and just a handful protested in the event's final two days.

Two days before the forum -- and before any protests -- police arrested 15 people on housing occupancy violations, saying they received complaints from neighbors, and those arrested had been staying in condemned or uninhabitable buildings.

Those arrested countered they'd just been spending a few days in cooperative living housing.

The Post-Dispatch said police have not replied to a written request to document the supposed complaints from neighbors and have not explained their reason for the delay, as required by the law.

Also detained by police were a dozen members of a bicycle circus who were in town to perform at Biodevastation 7, a gathering for opponents of genetic engineering. They said police initially told them they were being cited for bicycling without a license -- a law no longer on the books. They ultimately were issued summons for impeding traffic flow.

One police officer, who spoke on condition that he not be identified, told the newspaper he took part in slashing bicycle tires of suspected protesters. The officer said police supervisors had portrayed the occupants of one raided building as terrorists planning harm.

When residents were allowed to return to that building, they found it ransacked and some of their clothes drenched in urine.

A building inspector who accompanied police said the building's occupants had been storing at least two jugs of urine in the house; police noted that protesters in other cities sprayed urine at authorities.

But Dan Green, owner of the raided building, said its occupants kept "pee jars" by their beds to save trips to the bathroom. Green attributed the custom to the "hippie lifestyle" and suggested the police had poured out the jars on their clothes.

Whatever the case, police credit their preparations and actions for keeping the protests peaceful, though critics claim that law enforcers overreacted. Mokwa says some officers were "sensitized" to the prospect of violence against them.

In prepping for the expected protests, Mokwa invited Seattle and Washington, D.C., police to visit St. Louis and share their experience with riots during protests of major global conferences in their cities. St. Louis police were shown videos of the violence and warned that they could become targets themselves.

J. Justin Meehan, a St. Louis-based attorney for many of those arrested or detained here last month, said he recognized that police had been under pressure and nder and believes "there have been good-faith efforts to remedy some of this."

Meehan said his clients might sue police, but that lawsuits were unlikely if none of the 15 people detained for occupying a condemned building are charged with crimes.

"It made St. Louis look backward that they reacted so strongly," Meehan said, although he still credits with trying to take steps to work with activists now.