DENVER POLICE SQUELCH PROTEST OVER FATAL RAID

Feb. 22 - Denver police on Monday shut down a protest on the 16th
Street Mall by a committee demanding justice for a man slain in a
botched no-knock police raid.

The Justice for Mena Committee, which had gathered to pass out
leaflets to the noon-hour crowd on the mall in front of the World
Trade Center, was told to leave immediately or face arrest for
disturbing the peace, said LeRoy Lemos, a spokesman for the group.
Part of the demonstration included a huge puppet armed with a
foam-rubber baton that lampooned the police department.

"If there's a complaint," said Denver police spokeswoman Detective
Mary Thomas, "the First Amendment doesn't apply." She said officers
had received a verbal complaint from a security guard at the World
Trade Center that the protesters were using a bullhorn that disturbed
the building's inhabitants.

The police action raised concerns with First Amendment lawyers,
including Mark Silverstein of the American Civil Liberties Union.

"I hadn't been aware that the First Amendment had been suspended in
Denver," said Silverstein, ACLU legal director.

Justice for Mena, which has about 100 members, was formed to champion
the cause of Ismael Mena, a Mexican national and father of nine who
was shot to death Sept. 29 in a no-knock raid when Denver SWAT
officers targeted the wrong house.

"A uniformed officer told us if we did not disperse, he would ticket
us for disturbing the peace," said Lemos, whose group had already
spent an hour and a half on the mall and had distributed most of its
leaflets. "We did not have legal representation with us, so not
wanting to put any of our members in jeopardy of going to jail, we
decided the best thing to do was disperse."

The committee had planned about a dozen similar events on the mall and
other locations over the next several weeks to keep public attention
focused on the Mena case, Lemos said.

Steve Nash, Jim Schwartzkopff and other members of a group called End
the Politics of Cruelty participated in the protest and carried
placards reading "Stop Police Brutality." Police spokeswoman Mary
Thomas' reading on the Constitution was news to Tom Kelley, a First
Amendment attorney in Denver.

"That is new," Kelley said. "It's a sophomoric position for the police
to be making. They have the right to intervene if there's an imminent
threat of violence. ... I can't understand that anybody would be so
upset by this other than the police that there would be an imminent
threat of violence."

"The 16th Street Mall is a public forum for public expression," said
the ACLU's Silverstein. "It's possible that one could disturb the
peace with an excessive volume of noise and amplified sound. I don't
know that's the case here. An appropriate warning would be to lower
the amplification or reduce the use of amplified sound. To tell people
they have to leave is an overreaction."

Thomas said officers received a radio call to the World Trade Center
about 1:05 p.m. from a security guard "complaining they had a
bullhorn" and asking that the protesters "be removed from in front of
the premises ... because it was disturbing the work environment there."

The security guard could not be found for comment. Brookfield
Management, which manages the building, had no information on the
incident late Monday.

Lemos said security guards made it clear to members of the group that
they had to stay on one side of a crack in the sidewalk that
delineated the center's property line but said nothing about the
bullhorn, which was used sparingly.

Lemos said that Justice for Mena wants homicide charges filed against
the police officers involved in the raid. But Jefferson County
District Attorney Dave Thomas, who investigated the shooting, ruled
that SWAT officers acted properly after Mena pulled a gun and fired at
them. The only charges filed in the case so far involved allegedly
false statements made by officer Joseph Bini in obtaining the no-knock
warrant.