Eight at Occupy Raleigh arrested after standoff

RALEIGH -- A standoff between police and demonstrators with Occupy Raleigh led to the arrests of eight people, including a woman with a handicap, after they refused to leave a sidewalk Thursday in front of the Capitol.

State Capitol Police approached about three dozen or so demonstrators and gave them a 3 p.m. deadline to move all their camp chairs, tables and coolers off the sidewalk. The protesters complied.

But Margaret Schucker, 57, of Raleigh, told the police that she had back problems and needed the chair she was sitting in to participate in the Occupy Raleigh demonstration. She had a blue and white handicapped permit affixed to her chest. When police moved to arrest her, other demonstrators clustered around her and were arrested, too.

Schucker was charged with second-degree trespassing and released without posting bail about two hours after her arrest.

Five of those arrested were charged with resisting arrest and ordered not to return to the Capitol grounds.

Demonstrators in sympathy with Occupy Wall Street in New York have maintained a presence outside the Capitol since Oct. 15. They were sitting along a metal barricade, bedecked with their posters and blankets, on Morgan Street that separates the sidewalk from the Capitol grounds.

Raleigh Police Department's Selective Enforcement Unit began taking down the barricade just after 3:30 p.m., leaving the cardboard protest signs in piles along the sidewalk.

The state Department of Administration said in a statement that it asked police to have occupiers remove their property and signs but that the people were not being asked to leave. Boxes, chairs and other items made it difficult for others to use the sidewalk, the statement said.

Stacie Borrello, an Occupy Raleigh organizer, described the order as "a direct attack on our occupation demonstration."

Borrello, in an afternoon statement, said Occupy Raleigh had contacted Raleigh City Manager Russell Allen for assistance but found that Allen's hands were tied because the sidewalk falls under the jurisdiction of the State Capitol Police.

Peter Gilbert, a Chapel Hill attorney who has assisted Occupy Raleigh with legal issues, did not think it was coincidental that state authorities ordered Occupy Raleigh to clear the sidewalk of their belongings after recent occupy disturbances in Oakland, Calif., Atlanta and Nashville, Tenn.

"We have one disabled woman who needs a chair to sit. She has a right to express her concerns too," Gilbert said.

Police told Schucker that she had a right to stay but that she could not continue to sit in the chair on the sidewalk.

Several of the protesters briefly resisted arrest by locking their arms together, but Schucker thrust her wrists out to the officers waiting to handcuff her.

In addition to Schucker, Katina Norma Gad, 29, of Raleigh, and Clinton Kourbous Ebadi, 25, of Morrisville were also charged with second-degree trespassing. All were released on their own recognizance.

Those charged with resisting arrest are: Amanda Marie Rose, 19, of Raleigh; Austin Jermiah Hanna, 22, of Raleigh; Alora Samantha Baker, 21, of Raleigh; Shaun Alexandra Ridgway, 23, of Raleigh; and Vincent Joseph Agosta, 23, of Cary. All were being held at the Wake County jail, bail set for each at $500. Police decided not to also charge them with trespassing.