"Their response to our press conference was to assault innocent bystanders with mounted police and SWAT units. Now we face six months in prison. When injustices like what has happened in Jena, LA are occurring, the Justice Department is wasting their time and our tax dollars to prosecute and possibly imprison three people that were acting within the law while they should be in Jena investigating the D.A. and judge down there."
Ian Thompson is an attorney and co-coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) in Los Angeles, California. Thompson has been a key organizer of numerous anti-war actions in L.A. since 2002. He served as the logistics coordinator of the "Die-In" led by Iraq war veterans at the September 15, 2007 March on Washington, D.C. Thompson is a graduate of Northwestern University and obtained his law degree from Pepperdine University School of Law. He practices union-side labor law and civil rights law.
"As an attorney and anti-war activist, I am outraged that the government arrested and charged me and my co-defendants with crimes when we were simply exercising our free speech rights under the First Amendment. I am being charged with 'assaulting a police officer' for merely picking up a bucket of wheat paste. This prosecution is not only a waste of time, but also of taxpayer dollars. It is part of the Bush administration's plan to criminalize dissent and curtail the constitutional rights of people who speak out against the illegal war on Iraq." Read Entire Article
