250 Arrested in Anti-Abortion ‘Siege of Atlanta’

About 250 demonstrators were arrested Tuesday as anti-abortion activists launched a new round of protests at clinics here to draw nationwide attention to their campaign against U.S. Supreme Court decisions favoring legalized abortion.

“God told me to come to Atlanta,” said Jim Pouillon of Owosso, Mich., who was among the approximately 700 to 800 demonstrators who converged on this city for what protest organizers term a four-day “siege of Atlanta.”

The protesters assembled at a motel in suburban north-side Atlanta early Tuesday morning. After a rally in the motel parking lot, they headed to mid-town Atlanta--about 12 miles away--to stage their demonstrations.

Authorities said that the protesters went to three separate abortion centers in the mid-town neighborhood, just north of downtown. Many of the demonstrators attempted to break through police barriers in efforts to blockade the facilities, while others stood and prayed or sang hymns in support.

More than 100 demonstrators arrived at one facility at about 10:35 a.m. Many of them fell to their hands and knees and crawled down the sidewalk and street as they neared the building.

Dragged to Buses

Those who managed to squeeze through the portable crowd control fences set up around the building were subdued by police officers and, if they refused to walk, were dragged or carried roughly to waiting buses and vans.

Several demonstrators who broke through the cordons cried aloud as police twisted their arms behind their backs or caught them by their necks behind their ears to force them to move.

The scene was similar at the two other facilities where demonstrations occurred.

Leaders of Operation Rescue, the Binghamton, N.Y.-based anti-abortion organization behind the protests, accused the police of using excessive force in handling the demonstrators.

But Gene Guerrero, head of the Georgia state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, who witnessed many of the arrests, said: “I’ve been to a lot of demonstrations and I’ve seen a lot of police brutality. I haven’t seen that today.”

Authorities said that the approximately 250 people who were arrested were charged with unlawful assembly and trespassing and, as of late Tuesday afternoon, were still being held in pretrial detention for processing.

This latest wave of protests follows a series of demonstrations in Atlanta that began with a one-time protest during the Democratic National Convention in July and grew into almost daily events, in which more than 700 demonstrators were jailed over a period of weeks.