[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 150 (Friday, October 31, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H9840-H9841]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  THE TRUTH ABOUT VANDALISM AND ILLEGAL PROTEST IN DISTRICT OFFICE OF 
                     HON. FRANK RIGGS OF CALIFORNIA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Riggs] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. RIGGS. Madam Speaker, it is rather unusual circumstances that 
bring me to the floor to address my colleagues during special orders, 
but I really feel compelled to make this statement because of some 
very, I think, one-sided, misleading reports that have appeared in the 
media recently regarding a protest that occurred at my district office 
in Eureka, CA, on October 16.
  On that day, over 60 protesters stormed my office. They trespassed my 
office. They threatened, they actually accosted and assaulted my two 
employees working in the office at the time, both female employees, 
wonderful, dedicated employees by the names of Julie Rogers and Ronnie 
Pelligrini, who felt genuinely threatened and frightened for their 
safety when this incident began.
  These protesters, however, four of whom were subsequently arrested, 
have now gone to the media, along with

[[Page H9841]]

their criminal defense attorneys, claiming that they were the victims 
of improper police conduct or inappropriate use of force by law 
enforcement. So I want to explain exactly what transpired in my office.
  First of all, as I mentioned, the group was led by an individual 
wearing a ski mask and carrying a walkie-talkie. So imagine for a 
moment if your workplace, your business, your office, was invaded by 
somebody wearing a ski mask, and a group of protestors.
  As they came in the office, as I mentioned, they jostled my 
employees, who obviously had no idea what was transpiring at the time, 
and who were attempting to call for help. They then trashed and 
vandalized my office, throwing bark and sawdust 6 inches deep on all of 
the equipment and throughout the office on the floor, and they unloaded 
and wheeled into my office a gigantic tree stump as part of this 
protest. When they off-loaded the tree stump in the parking lot, they 
did it with such a thud that my employees initially thought that some 
sort of a bomb had gone off outside.
  Bear in mind, this was all part of an orchestrated protest, part of a 
series or ongoing series of protests that have become, unfortunately, a 
fact of life on California's north coast, but involve the harassment of 
private law-abiding citizens, intimidation, trespassing, vandalism of 
personal and commercial property, and resisting arrest.

  After all this took place, and this was to protest my role in helping 
to secure congressional authorization and funding for the protection of 
living wage jobs in the forest product industry, and 7,500 acres of old 
growth forestland in my district, in the context of the annual spending 
bill for the Department of the Interior, they were protesting my role 
in that because they wanted to preserve, they want to preserve, 60,000 
acres of forestland, all of it privately owned in our district, and 
they would like to add that to the vast tracts of forestland that 
already is in the public domain, under public ownership.
  But as this protest continued, four individuals, one of them a minor, 
all female, chained themselves to this gigantic tree stump in my 
office. When the local law enforcement agencies arrived, they refused 
repeated commands, lawful orders from sworn peace officers, to separate 
themselves.
  It turns out they had stuck their arms in metal sleeves, chained 
themselves to this tree stump, and law enforcement officers explained 
to these four protestors that not only were they under arrest, not only 
were they resisting arrest, but that law enforcement was afraid to cut 
through these metal sleeves for fear that the sparks might set off a 
fire in the office, which, as I mentioned, had been littered at that 
point with sawdust and wood chips everywhere.
  So after they gave repeated orders to these protestors to separate, 
to unchain themselves, and to submit to the custody of law enforcement 
because they were under arrest, after they repeatedly refused these 
lawful orders, the peace officers involved, who have a very difficult, 
dangerous, and dirty job to do, then warned that they might use 
chemical agents to compel them to surrender to arrest. I am a former 
law enforcement officer myself. That is opposed to some other manner of 
peaceful restraint. They thought that was the proper arrest technique 
to use in this situation.
  Even then, after being warned repeatedly, they refused to comply with 
the orders, so the law enforcement officers at that point applied a 
little pepper spray in the face area of these protestors, who still 
refused to comply with the orders of the law enforcement officers, who 
then finally, as a last resort, used a chemical agent called pepper 
spray to force them to submit to arrest.
  Now these protesters are out there with their criminal defense 
attorneys saying, and I quote one of the attorneys, ``The abuse of this 
extremely dangerous and incredibly painful chemical weapon to force 
obedience of peaceful protesters is not related to any legitimate law 
enforcement objective.''
  I want to conclude by saying that these were not peaceful protesters, 
these were reckless, wanton lawbreakers. My message to the media is get 
it right, and tell the rest of the story.

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