wfn.org | UCC/Dismissal sought in anti-'Wahoo' case

["Barb Powell"<powellb@ucc.org>]

UCC/Dismissal sought in anti-'Wahoo' trial
Office of Communication
United Church of Christ
April 6, 1998
In Cleveland, contact:
Hans Holznagel
(216) 736-2214
E-mail: holznagh@ucc.org
Laurie Bartels
(216) 736-2213
E-mail: bartelsl@ucc.org
On the World Wide Web:  http://www.ucc.org

Defense to seek dismissal Tuesday in anti-'Wahoo'
activists' case

CLEVELAND--The defense will ask a Municipal Court Judge
at 9 a.m. Tuesday to dismiss charges against three
activists arrested outside a World Series game last
fall. Attorney Terry Gilbert will ask Judge Kathleen
Keough to rule that the City of Cleveland failed to
present sufficient evidence Friday and Monday to warrant
having a jury deliberate on the case against Vernon
Bellecourt of Minneapolis and Clevelanders Juanita
Helphrey and Juan Reyna.
     The defendants were arrested during protests
outside Jacobs Field before a World Series game in
October.  They are American Indians who consider the
bright-red, feather-capped logo of Cleveland's Major
League Baseball team, together with the name
"Indians," to be racist, demeaning and disrespectful of
their cultural and spiritual heritage.
     Bellecourt was charged with criminal endangering
and resisting arrest in connection with the burning of
an effigy of the "Chief Wahoo" mascot near East 9th St.
between Eagle and Bolivar avenues.  Helphrey and Reyna
were charged with aggravated disorderly conduct and
criminal trespass on allegations that they refused to
leave a separate -- and peaceful -- demonstration site
near Ontario Street when policed ordered them to
leave. Assistant City Prosecutor Reuben Shepard called
as witnesses police officers who were working as
security guards when they arrested the defendants on
Oct. 23, 1997.  He  also called managers of security
operations involved in the arrests.  Ballpark
Management Co., owned by team owner Richard Jacobs,
handles security inside the park; Gateway Economic
Development Corp. owns the complex and hires Tenable
Security to handle open areas around the park.  Both use
off-duty Cleveland police officers, who work in uniform.
     Sgt. Sharon MacKay testified that she ordered
Bellecourt arrested when the "Chief Wahoo" effigy was
burned.  She said the burning persuaded her, Sgt. Andre
Gonzalez and Todd Greathouse, the Gateway security
director, to give orders to disperse demonstrators on
the other side of the complex at the Ontario Street
site.
     The prosecution also showed about 20 minutes of
amateur videotape shot by an employee of Ballpark
Management Company, Jacobs' security company.  It shows
several minutes of relatively uneventful protests near
East 9th Street, involving banners and a portable sound
system; then the effigy in flames, Bellecourt's arrest,
the fire extinguished, and, a few minutes later, the
arrests near Ontario, where Helphrey and Reyna sat
down, refused to move, and were lifted to their feet and
taken away by arresting officers.
     In all three arrests, the defendants were taken
from outdoor areas surrounding the stadium to holding
cells in the basement of the Gateway complex.  On cross
examination, one officer agreed to Gilbert's description
of this as a "private jail."
     The defense has attempted to portray the two Oct.
23 protests as lawful exercises of free speech in places
where such protests are allowed by order of a federal
court. Gilbert challenged MacKay's testimony that the
decision to disperse protestors was partly based on that
court order, which she thought required demonstrators to
"peaceably assemble."  Gilbert showed her a copy of the
order, which only states where and how often protests
are allowed.  Even so, MacKay said she still felt that
the demonstrators' "yelling at the crowd" and then
setting an effigy afire at one site amounted to a
protest that was "gaining momentum" and had to be
stopped everywhere on the complex for safety reasons.
     Officers and security officials also said they were
worried that helium tanks at a commercial display near
the effigy might explode. Gilbert noted that helium
doesn't burn. 
     If Tuesday morning's motion is denied, the defense
will begin its presentation, which Gilbert says will
involve four or five witnesses.  Judge Keough said
Tuesday's session will end no later than 3 p.m.
     The United Church Board for Homeland Ministries, a
mission agency of the United Church of Christ -- where
Helphrey works as a racial-justice advocate -- is
helping with the protestors' defense costs and has
started a Legal Defense Fund for Indigenous
People Resisting Racism for that purpose (call
216-736-3260 for details or to contribute).
     The United Church of Christ, with national offices
in Cleveland, has some 1.5 million members and 6,100
local churches in the United States and Puerto Rico. 
Its General Synod, a national body of delegates that
meets every two years, went on record in 1991 as
opposing the "negative stereotyping" of American Indians
in sports and commerce.  In the UCC's decentralized form
of governance, members and local congregations are free
to hold opinions that differ from those of the General
Synod.
# # #