PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

Two Arrested at Bush Protest
by Quinten Sunday, Mar. 13, 2005 at 6:13 PM
quinten@indypgh.org (email address validated)

Two Pittsburgh residents were arrested last Monday during a protest against a visit by President George W. Bush. The president visited a local family support center and spoke briefly at the Community College of Allegheny County's North Side branch. He was in town in part to present an award for volunteerism to Jennie Roth, a junior at La Roche college.

Two Pittsburgh residents were arrested last Monday during a protest against a visit by President George W. Bush. The president visited a local family support center and spoke briefly at the Community College of Allegheny County's North Side branch. He was in town in part to present an award for volunteerism to Jennie Roth, a junior at La Roche college.

Only a select crowd was allowed in to the auditorium to listen to Bush speak, but students and community members came out in small numbers to voice their objections to Bush policies. As has become a pattern at Bush rallies and speeches, while supporters were allowed to get close to the President, protestors were kept as far away as possible in a so-called "free speech" zone.

Father Jack O'Malley of Highland Park and Molly Rush of Dormont, PA both decided that they weren't going to wait for the president in the designated protest area, which was far from the location where the President was going to speak and out of sight of his motorcade route. Instead they stood across the street from the gym where he was going to speak.

Soon after Rush and O'Malley had settled in to wait, Molly Rush told Rustbelt, several police officers asked them to move. Father O'Malley and Molly Rush posed a security threat, the officers said. Father O'Malley told the officers that neither he nor Molly was a security risk, and the officers were free to frisk them if they wanted. They didn't want to move because they wouldn't be able to see the president if they moved any further.

The officers replied that they didn't want to arrest them, but asked them to move again. Rush said "who said anything about getting arrested?" Molly Rush told Rustbelt that the officers seemed sincere in their desire not to arrest who she described as a little old lady and a Catholic priest, and were practically begging them to move. Rush and O'Malley looked at each other and agreed between the two of them, however, that they weren't going to give up their right to protest the president from a spot that he could see.

Both Father O'Malley and Rush were arrested and charged with defiant trespass. The two spent 13 hours in a holding cell before appearing before a magistrate and were released early Tuesday morning, at approximately 3:30 AM.

O'Malley and Rush are not the only Pittsburgh residents who have run afoul of exercising their free speech rights outside of a so-called free speech zone. In 2002, 65 year old Bill Neel was arrested at a Bush appearance on Labor Day at Neville Island in Pittsburgh. He was later acquitted of all charges. The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania is currently suing the Secret Service and the Federal Government for their practices at Bush rallies and speeches.

Molly told Rustbelt that she was at Neville Island when Neel was arrested, but she had stayed inside the free speech zone. She told herself that she never wanted to let herself be coralled that way again. Father O'Malley and Molly Rush will be in court again this Wednesday at 8 AM.

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