[misc.handicap] disabled protesters arrested

tzippy@dasys1.uucp (Tzipporah BenAvraham) (03/16/90)

Index Number: 7196

03/13 2024  MORE THAN 100 DISABLED DEMONSTRATORS ARRESTED ...
 
WASHINGTON (MARCH 13) UPI -  More than 100 demonstrators, most in  
wheelchairs, were arrested Tuesday for staging a demonstration 
inside the Capitol to demand speedy passage of legislation to 
expand civil rights for the disabled. 
   Their chants of "access is a civil right" and other slogans 
echoed from the soaring dome of the Capitol Rotunda where some of the
demonstrators chained their wheelchairs together or crawled onto the
stone floor to thwart the efforts of police to carry them away. 
   Wearing gloves and using hydraulic snippers to cut the chains, 
dozens of Capitol police worked nearly two hours to clear the area
of the protesters.
   Officer J.T. Nevitt, spokesman for the Capitol Police, said 104 
people were arrested. Nevitt said they would be charged with 
demonstrating within a Capitol building, which carries a maximum 
penalty of six months in jail and a $500 fine, and unlawful entry, 
punishable by up to six months in jail and a $100 fine. 
   The demonstration was organized by the activist group American 
Disabled for Accessible Public Transit to push for passage of the 
Americans with Disabilities Act, which has become bogged down in 
the House. Approved last year by the Senate, the legislation would 
provide protections against discrimination in the workplace, access 
to public places and transportation for the disabled. 
   House Speaker Thomas Foley, D-Wash., Minority Leader Robert
Michel, R-Ill.  and Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., a key sponsor of the 
bill, appeared briefly before the demonstrators to promise the measure
would be passed by the House. 
   But angry protesters said the bill has been delayed for too 
long by committee studies and is threatened by amendments that could 
weaken the protections it offers. 
   "I'd like to see the speaker of the House live one day the way we 
have to "said Walter Hart of Fort Worth, Texas, as he sat in his
motorized scooter outside the Capitol while police loaded the 
demonstrators into vans. 
   Hart, 47, said he joined the 1,000 demonstrators who wheeled or
walked from the White House to the Capitol Monday to show support 
for the legislation. He also was among about 100 people who 
abandoned their  wheelchairs and crawled up 81 steps to the Capitol 
at the conclusion of  the march. 
   "This is our Civil Rights Act of 1964," Hart said of the pending 
legislation. "We're just 20 years behind." 
   "It's been delayed long enough," said Jim Parrish of Miami as he 
sat in his wheelchair under an unseasonably hot sun. "With 43 
million Americans disabled it's really obscene that this is taking
so long."