WHAT THE NEW POLICE STATE LOOKS LIKE

Tuesday evening something important happened in Redding. Maybe the
largest crowd ever gathered at our Redding City Council Chambers for
an exercise in democracy. The issue: medical marijuana and the
collectives that provide it to local patients. There had been a large
rally in front of the building in support of the collectives hoping
to persuade council members to keep them open to serve their members.
When the doors were opened, the enthusiastic crowd filled the room
and overflowed into the Community Room. Many filled out speaker cards
to comment.

As I sat waiting to speak, listening to the city attorney, Rick
Duvernay, give his version of medical marijuana law, I noticed an
unusual number of police officers in the room, maybe 10 or 12
officers, including a pair parked on the stairs to the podium. I had
never seen that sort of police presence in the chambers before. When
my turn to speak came, I presented some thoughts on the legal
situation and asked the council to exercise prudence and wait for the
law to settle in the Pack case before taking any action. I returned
to my seat to listen to the rest of the comments, and in a few
minutes, a woman sat in the vacant chair next to me.

She seemed a little nervous when she asked if she could read the
paper I had my notes on. She asked how she could be allowed to speak,
and I gave her one of the speaker cards I had in my pocket and lent
her my pen. She filled it out with a little help and took it to the
clerk. Now she was in the queue to speak, ready to participate in
local government, probably for the first time in her life.

As others spoke, she used the back of my notes to write her own notes
on what she wanted to say. She was nervous about speaking, as I think
all of us are our first time. Her hands were shaking as she wrote,
yet she managed a whole page of thoughts on the issue.

Eventually a tall man in his late 50s came to the podium to talk
about how medical marijuana had helped him overcome his addiction to
prescribed opiates. He seemed a man who had a lot of passion about
the benefits of marijuana and was naturally very animated. As he
talked, I noticed he had something in his hands; I thought they might
be his car keys. Also the two police officers behind him became more
agitated, moving closer and to either side of him.

As the man's time ran out, he kept talking, as many people do. Maybe
he didn't understand the system of lights and sounds used as timers,
who knows? About 20 seconds into his overtime period, the two
officers grabbed the man by his arms and took him into a small exit
corridor adjacent to the council chambers. He had made no threats. He
had exhibited no aggressive behavior toward anyone, and didn't resist
the officers. The police then blocked off the exit and all doors into
the corridor, so no one could witness what they were doing.

Needless to say, many people were shocked by this, and there was a
cry from the audience of "What happened to Free Speech?" I was upset
by all of this, and when the last speaker was done, I asked the
council for a chance to address the situation. I am not sure exactly
what I said, because I so outraged by what I had just witnessed. The
crux of it was that the police presence and use of force was
unprecedented and unnecessary. I think I included a rebuke directed
at the new police chief.

What I do know is that police presence should not affect the First
Amendment rights of citizens, and the Redding police did not do
themselves or us a service by their actions. More importantly, the
woman who had so many concerns and thoughts to share never spoke.

Creating a police state is not the answer to our problems. And
"preventive" law enforcement, as Roger Moore, police spokesman,
called it, is not the American way.