Trial to Begin in Logging Protesters’ Lawsuit

A damage suit by nine anti-logging protesters, whose screams as their eyes were swabbed with liquid pepper spray inflamed television viewers around the nation, goes to trial Monday in the court of a judge who has tried to keep politics out of the case.

In pretrial rulings, U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker has barred evidence of the tree-cutting proposals that brought the protesters to the offices of a congressman and a lumber company. The trial “is not a political forum on the merits of logging,” he wrote.

On the other side, Humboldt County and the city of Eureka, defendants in the case, wanted to portray the demonstrators as followers of Earth First!, a militant and sometimes violent environmental organization. But Walker prohibited defense lawyers from attacking the protesters’ “alleged affiliation” with Earth First! and excluded evidence of the organization’s political manual unless officers can show that it prompted them to use pepper spray.

The only issue before the jury, Walker said, is whether officers used unreasonable force when they applied the caustic chemical to the eyes of demonstrators who had chained themselves together. The trial is scheduled to last two to three weeks.

The suit stems from three incidents in September and October during protests of Pacific Lumber Co.’s plan to cut old-growth trees in and around the pristine Headwaters Forest.

Demonstrators went to Pacific Lumber headquarters in Scotia, a company logging site in the Headwaters Forest at Bear Creek, and the Eureka office of Rep. Frank Riggs (R-Calif.), a logging supporter.

They sat on the floor and chained themselves together inside heavy metal sleeves at the two offices. They also chained themselves to logging equipment in the forest.

After warnings, sheriff’s deputies and police brushed demonstrators’ eyes with cotton swab doused with liquid pepper spray. When a woman in Riggs’ office and the two men chained to the logging equipment refused to leave, they were sprayed at close range. The office sit-ins were videotaped by deputies and shown on national television.

In the furor that followed, the county argued that the officers were protecting themselves from potentially violent demonstrators who had terrorized Riggs’ staff--”zealous, well-organized and persistent lawlessness,” as defense lawyer Nancy Delaney described it in court papers.

Walker denied the demonstrators’ request in November for a preliminary injunction that would prohibit further use of pepper spray on nonviolent protesters in Humboldt County, saying he would not second-guess officers’ decision that it was the safest and most efficient method of arresting demonstrators who had chained themselves together. But he let the damage suit go to trial.

If the jury finds that the officers used unreasonable force, the demonstrators will again ask Walker for an injunction, said Mark Harris, one of their lawyers.

The demonstrators are seeking unspecified damages for pain and emotional distress. Punitive damages were ruled out when Walker dismissed individual officers from the case, saying that they believed they were acting properly in following superiors’ orders.

The protesters needed no medical treatment, a fact cited by the county and city in arguing that officers acted reasonably.

Compared to such options as batons and pain compliance holds, “pepper spray is a comparatively low level of force,” causing only “a temporary burning sensation and irritation,” Delaney said in court papers.

“Although it may have provided video clips to feed a media frenzy, the fact remains that the application techniques . . . minimized exposure.”

The demonstrators countered that pepper spray is a defensive weapon, used to subdue violent suspects, and not--according to the manufacturer’s instructions and standard police practice--to break up nonviolent protests by inflicting pain.

In the past, the same officers had used grinders to cut through the metal sleeves and unchain protesters. Although the deputies said they used pepper spray out of fear of causing injury with the grinders, they wound up using the grinders when the spray failed to dislodge most of the demonstrators.