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Published Tuesday, August 25, 1998, in the San Jose Mercury News Pepper spray case mulled Deliberations go on in trial of officers SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- After a two-week trial featuring tearful activists in long hair and sandals, a federal jury began deciding Monday whether it's unreasonable for police to douse pepper spray in the eyes of demonstrators. "Strike a blow for liberty that will ring across this nation," their lawyer, Macon Cowles, urged jurors in closing arguments on Friday. Jurors adjourned Monday after meeting about five hours. Deliberations were expected to resume at 8:30 a.m. today. Cowles accused Humboldt County officers of imposing "punishment for thought" and subjecting protesters to "the sense that your humanity is being ripped from you" by swabbing pepper spray directly onto their eyes to break up their logging protests. But county attorney Nancy Delaney reminded jurors that despite the screams heard on police videotapes that were broadcast nationally, none of the protesters required medical attention. The nine environmentalists sipped water out of recycled drinking glasses between turns on the witness stand. The defense, wearing the usual suits and ties, opted for styrofoam cups. The plaintiffs described the fear and pain suffered last year when police officers and sheriff's deputies held their hair and heads, forced open their eyes and swiped them with cotton swabs. "I felt like it wasn't going to stop, that they were going to keep hurting us," testified Maya Portugal, who was 15 when she and her comrades locked themselves around a tree stump in the office of Rep. Frank Riggs. But law enforcement officers, increasingly frustrated by the environmentalists' tactics, said pepper spray is safer than cutting them out of the thick, metal sleeves they lock themselves into to delay logging operations. The protesters have asked for unspecified damages. U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker told the jury of six women and two men that in deciding whether the force was excessive they should measure it against "the force that a reasonable and prudent law enforcement officer would use under the circumstances." The case drew attention after video footage of protests in Riggs' office and at two Pacific Lumber Co. sites was shown on national television. Police in the area routinely record their confrontations with environmentalists. In each incident, protesters used "black bears," two elbow-length, quarter-inch-thick pieces of pipe welded together at a 90-degree angle, to lock themselves to each other and equipment. They insert their arms into the pipes and lock their hands to a pin inside. "Lock-down devices are used to delay and frustrate the efforts of law enforcement officers to remove and take into custody activists who are intentionally violating the law," the county's lawyers said. But the plaintiffs' attorneys said protesters simply tried "to harmlessly delay logging operations." "It's not trying to make anyone's day harder," said Portugal, one of four protesters who took over the Eureka office of Riggs, a Republican and an outspoken logging advocate whose district includes the Headwaters Forest in Northern California. Police officers and deputies testified that they have been forced to spend an enormous amount of time and energy removing demonstrators from "black bears" and other increasingly sophisticated devices. Sheriff Dennis Lewis, who said he approved the direct applications of pepper spray to protect both police and protesters, painted a picture of a 78-member force overwhelmed by the demonstrations. Several deputies, who have had to use heavy-duty electric grinders to cut through the "black bears" in the past, testified that a major mishap was inevitable unless they use more benign methods.
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