Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice - Newsletter -- About the Trial …

Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice 202 Harvard SE Albuquerque, NM 87106 505-268-9557		Updated: 28 March 2010
Newsletter April 2010

April 2010
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About the Trial …
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About the Trial …

Editorial by Craig Castro, Peace Studies intern for ACP&J
In the next few weeks you will be hearing and reading a lot about the trial of the March 2003 anti-war protesters vs. the APD. This is not about the verdict of the case; who was wrong or who was right. The main focal points here will be nonviolent civil disobedience and responsibility.

There is no other way to participate in nonviolent civil disobedience than Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's Satyagraha. As I sat in the courtroom of this case, I heard testimony and watched a video of the March 2003 protest and noticed that not all were following the ways of Satyagraha. A handful of unruly protesters is all it takes to provoke the wrath of any police department. Provoking your opponents provides them with a false sense of righteousness and falsely justifies their actions. Once the police took a more aggressive stance, the focus shifted from the war to the APD. Once anger shifted from the war to the police, people should have walked away.

During my time at this trial, I heard a lot from the defense lawyers about the experience of the officers: that they know the law because they are professionals, that no one can understand the type of pressure that police officers experience, and that they should not have to apologize for doing their job. The experience of the officers should have told them that this was not an angry mob with bats, rocks, and molotov cocktails; tear gas and pepper spray might be overkill. Their job is to enforce laws that are bent or broken. But they themselves at times bend, break, and manipulate their own rules to do their job. Who checks the police? Apparently no one.

This country was spawned from civil disobedience, which plays a vital role in people's growth. I can only hope that the verdict of this trial does not deter any future protests but rather serves as a learning tool. The next time we find ourselves in a similar situation, protesters and police alike, we all need to ask one simple question: What would Gandhi do?

From a plaintiff, Camille Ch·vez
Buck v. City of Albuquerque has positively impacted civil rights law in the 10th Circuit by showing that commanding/supervising officers, in our case Captain John Gonzales, can be held liable even though they are not "directly participating" in a violation of a person's civil rights. A current case, Bird v. Regents of NM State University, references our case to support this point:

"For liability under section 1983 direct participation is not necessary. Any official who `causes' a citizen to be deprived of her constitutional rights can also be liable. The requisite causal connection is satisfied if the defendant set in motion a series of events that the defendant knew or reasonably should have Known would cause others to deprive the plaintiff of her constitutional rights."

Buck v. City of Albuquerque, 549 F.3d 1269, 1279-80 (10th Cir. 2008).

The Buck case also clarifies that individual officers can't use "qualified immunity" to exempt them from liability. A current case, Zia Trust Company v. Montoya, references our case to support this point:

"However, we review summary judgment motions raising 'qualified immunity differently because 'qualified immunity shields government officials … from liability for damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights'."

Buck v. City of Albuquerque, 549 F.3d at 1277.

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