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."