(NAME-MCE) Article: Ohio police attack Long Walkers

[KispokoT at aol.com]

I am ashamed to say the-police harassment  of these Native people happened in 
my state. 
 
Article: Ohio police attack Long  Walkers

By Brenda Norrell
Censored  News

COLUMBUS Ohio – Unprovoked Columbus, Ohio police, attacked Long  Walkers, by 
first pointing a taser at the head of Michael Lane and then forcing  Luv the 
Mezenger to the ground and handcuffing him.
The Longest Walk Northern  Route was walking this prayer through Columbus on 
Monday, June 2, when squad  cars and arrest wagons arrived. Without discussion 
of the purpose of the prayer  walk, or even verify that the Ohio Department 
of Transportation had been  notified of the prayer walk, police attacked the 
walkers.
Michael Lane, who  arrived on the walk with his wife, Sharon Heta, Maori, and 
their children from  New Zealand, was targeted by police with a taser.
As dozens of police came at  the walkers, a police officer held a taser three 
feet away from Lane’s  head.
Luv the Mezenger from Los Angeles went to the aid of Lane. At that  point, 
police officers threw Luv on the ground and handcuffed him. Luv has been  on the 
walk since it left California in February, walking over a stretch of the  
Sierra Nevada Mountains on snowshoes.
Lane, who has a law degree from the  University of Arizona, said the worst 
part of being targeted by a police officer  with a taser was that it terrified 
his daughters who only knew that a gun was  being pointed at their father’s 
head.
Across the continent, police-induced  deaths from tasers have increased.
Luv suffered minor injuries from the  police attack. Police made no arrests.
Govinda Dalton, broadcasting on the  live Longest Walk Talk radio on 
Earthcycles web radio, said, “They came to  arrest the walkers with paddy wagons 
without even having a discussion as to what  the walk is about, or the fact that 
the Ohio Department of Transportation has  already been contacted.”
The harassment by Ohio police continued today,  Tuesday, June 3, when police 
ordered Longest Walk drummers off an area at the  Ohio State Capitol. However, 
the Long Walkers continued with their press  conference and aired statements 
on their loud speaker at the capitol.
It has  been almost four months since the prayer walk began on Alcatraz, on 
Feb. 11.  Until June 2, there were no attacks on the walkers. In fact, the 
majority of the  governors in the states that the northern route has walked 
through have issued  proclamations of support for the Longest Walk 2.
The Longest Walk 2 for  Mother Earth and protection of sacred places is being 
walked thirty years after  the original 1978 Longest Walk, a prayer walk for 
Indian rights and the  recognition of the inherent sovereignty of Indian 
people and Indian  Nations.
Listen for interviews on Earthcycles’ Longest Walk Talk Radio which  has 
archived 400 interviews with walkers and people along the route since the  walk 
left Alcatraz, on issues all across America.
The radio topics, voiced by  people across America, have included the rise of 
the police state in the United  States, the targeting of American Indians by 
city, state and federal police, the  rise of xenophobia and the 
television-fueled, fear-mongering by the Bush  administration in the violations of federal 
law and rights guaranteed by the  U.S. Constitution, including free speech.
The radio topics include global  climate change, nuclear testing and gold 
mining on Western Shoshone lands,  Paiute traditional hunting and gathering 
rights, scientists battling Paiutes for  10,000 year old Spirit Cave Man remains, 
the Kickapoo Nation without water in  Kansas, Navajo coal mining and 
relocation, Nazi-style forces at the US/Mexico  border and the destruction of Tohono O’
odham ancestor remains for the border  wall.
Those interviewed, including Mohawks at the northern border and Maori  from 
New Zealand, discussed Canada and New Zealand’s oppression Indigenous  Peoples 
and attacks on sovereign peoples. There are also interviews on America’s  
economic collapse and war profiteering, the proliferation of power plants to  
enrich Bush’s corporate donors, profiteering by private security contractors and  
private prisons for migrants and the cost of the bogus war in Iraq: American  
Indians and people of color considered expendables to die in Iraq.
Walkers on  the northern route converge with walkers on the southern route to 
march into  Washington on July 11.
Listen to the latest interviews about the prayer  walkers attacked by Ohio 
police:
http://www.earthcycles.net
Posted by  brendanorrell at gmail.com at 3:32 PM 






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