Charges dropped against protesters

Six who staged a sit-in in his Chapel Hill office were charged with trespassing

CHAPEL HILL -- When a judge dismissed trespassing charges Monday against six anti-war protesters carried out of U.S. Rep. David Price's office three months ago, the defendants didn't get to put the war in Iraq on trial as planned.

Instead, the courtroom burst into applause, and the defendants, self-dubbed "The David Price Six," hugged their two pro bono attorneys. After a short recess, court resumed with more routine misdemeanor criminal matters.

And the protesters and their supporters all moved the war trial onto the courthouse's front steps.

District Court Judge Alonzo Coleman dismissed first-degree trespassing charges against Laura Bickford, Ben Carroll, Alisan Fathalizadeh, Sara Joseph, Dante Strobino and Tamara Tal after being told that Price had asked the district attorney's office to drop the case.

"I regret the case progressed to this point," Price wrote in a statement distributed in court Monday by his Washington-based press secretary. "The individuals staged a sit-in to demonstrate their opposition to the Iraq War. It is an issue about which many Americans, myself included, feel passionately."

The five UNC-Chapel Hill students and one N.C. State University student were charged Feb. 16 after seeking a meeting with Price in his Chapel Hill office at 88 Vilcom Circle.

Price was in Washington that day, and his staff offered to set up a meeting for the next time he was in town, according to a statement from Price's office. Staff called police after the group refused the offer and wouldn't leave.

Price, a Chapel Hill Democrat, voted against the war in 2002, but since has voted in favor of four house supplemental spending bills that provided war funding, according to Voices for Creative Nonviolence, a Chicago antiwar group that tracks war-related votes.

The protesters said the congressman's votes are hypocritical and they want him to follow what they say is the will of his constituents and take a harder line.

The day of the February protest, Price voted in favor of a resolution opposing a troop surge in Iraq.

On Monday, organizers hosted a pre-court rally in front of Chapel Hill's District Courthouse. About three dozen supporters sported protest signs saying such things as "Put Bush on Trial" and "It's not a crime to protest an illegal war."

One speaker said, instead of the six protesters, Price should have been on trial.

Attorneys Al McSurely and Geeta Kapur planned a defense that included calling UNC-Chapel Hill history professor Sarah Shields to testify about the war's negative impact on Iraqi and American lives.

Price's office has hosted Iraq war protesters before. In October 2002, about a dozen spent the night in his office protesting the planned action. Most left throughout the next day, but three refused to leave the next evening. Police charged them with trespassing. Those charges also were dismissed at Price's request.