SHUT THEM DOWN Tour Reportback for New York

June 6th 2007

On June 6th, the SHUT THEM DOWN tour came to New York. Over 30 activists stood outside the NYSE Stock Exchange letting employees and passersby's know exactly what kind of cruelty NYSE ARCA is responsible for by listing HLS on the stock market. Activists chanted slogans for over an hour, with 3 bullhorns and a banner demanding they drop LSRI. The narrow, car-free streets of Wall Street made the voices sound even louder. Activists passed out literature about HLS to let passersby's know what was going on. The demo ended by letting ARCA know that we will keep coming back to their safe little white washed Wall Street to expose the blood on their hands until they drop HLS.

Activists then proceeded to Long Island for another loud and well attended demo outside of the Overton Freight Office, a company which ships beagles and other animals for HLS to torture and kill for nothing but profit. After about a half-hour of loud chanting, the cops showed up to say that Overton had moved. Activists were allowed inside to see for themselves and indeed there was no sign of the company being in the multi-storied building. The demo continued for a bit afterwards, as many activists had doubts that the cops were telling the truth or that Overton was simply on another floor, unmarked. It was especially sketchy considering several cops converged on Overton over 6 hours prior to the demo, what were they up to? Internet sources later revealed that they are indeed still at that location. Score one for the activists!

En route to the next demo one car of activists was pulled over for a minor traffic infraction. Their car was searched without consent and two passengers were forced to give ID and had their bags searched. The driver was arrested allegedly carrying something that was construed as a weapon, while the other two were able to get away. The activists were told that the car was searched because they exercised their right to remain silent and refused to answer personal questions, an obvious infraction of their rights and a major violation by the police. To add insult to injury, the car was impounded.

The rest of the activists went on to demo Howard Woltmann's house, the President of Overton Freight who has had the pleasure of many visits from activists. Dozens of activists chanted with signs and banners in this suburban neighborhood. The cops showed up after about 10-15 minutes, but the activists continued chanting. No officer ever told them to quiet down or stop. The cops started physically pulling people out of the line formed on the sidewalk and asked for ID. When some refused they proceeded to arrest them, others were simply arrested for demonstrating at all. 7 out of state activists who had come to show their anger at HLS were arrested. One officer had a shirt on with a confederate flag which read, "Suck, Bang and Blow," which simply confirms our belief that the cops are violent, racist, sexist thugs. The rest of the activists received summonses for the same charge: Unreasonable noise. One activist, who was merely videotaping the demonstration, received a summons for excessive noise. One of the passengers from the car that was pulled over had arrived at the end of the demo and an activist who was at the demo but had completely lost his voice received summonses, nonetheless. All of this was on videotape. Throughout the arrests and writing of summons the cops continued to ask personal questions, such as where people went to school, phone numbers, their social security numbers, etc. Overall, a gross violation by the police of nearly every right supposedly granted in this country to its citizens. There were 10-15 cops and private investigators (PI), including a fed who once posed as an ADL member and attended several demos in past years. He previously came out as a fed, which activists were fairly certain of previously, at a deer hunt demo. This fed, who went by the fake name of 'Scott Winters', spewed off a bunch of information about an activist who never met him before. He then tried to insult another long-time ADL volunteer by telling him that he's nearly 27 years old and needs to get a life. As if "Scott" should speak. He certainly needs to be on the defensive because it must be pretty hard for him to sleep at night, living a life of lies. Howard Woltmann himself was present and in cohorts with the police and PIs. Howard must be pretty scared to have had all this law enforcement to 'protect' him from the activist's voices and rage. If he thinks this will stop him from getting 'visits', he's dead wrong. Several neighbors across the street looked on in horror at the police abusing the rights of activists. They commented that the police actions were absurd, we had the right to protest and to make noise and were further horrified to hear about the torture at HLS and their neighbor's involvement in it. One of them said in a worried tone of voice that she didn't want her dog getting anywhere near Howard's house, for fear he might ship it off to HLS. We left with their encouragement despite police repression: "See, you try and do a good thing and look how you get treated!"

Bulletins went out over the internet and activists locally and from hundreds of miles away called into the police station where the activists were being held, demanding their release and an explanation for their arrest. This certainly seemed to get to the officers we corresponded with at the police station, who claimed they had been transferred to an undisclosed location in Mineola (Despite being arrested in Hempstead). We found out later that while speaking to these officers, our fellow activists were being held upstairs. This ended up being an overnight affair as about ten supporters showed up in court the next morning to see them face the judge. During the proceedings, the biases, racism, classism, and sexism of the judge became evident. One black woman who had been arrested shoplifting $12 worth of food for her children had her bail set at around $700,000 and an overweight white man accused of beating his wife was released without bail. Each activist was given a $250 bail with the exception of the driver whose car was impounded, whose bail was set at $750. Three were able to be released right away, while delays with paperwork processing resulted in several more hours being wasted as the remaining activists were sent to the main prison in Nassau county. At the end of the day, all were released and the SHUT THEM DOWN tour continued on to New Jersey!