Step Away from the Poster! : Cleveland IMC (((i)))

AT 5-FOOT-4, and weighing in at 130 pounds, Carol Fisher doesn’t seem like the kind of person who assaults police officers. She has a calm and polite manner. She works as an executive assistant. She volunteers at Revolution Books.

Cleveland Heights police, however, are awaiting her grand jury indictment on two counts of felonious assault. They allege that she swung her fists at two officers who were in the process of arresting her Saturday afternoon.

Fisher had been hanging green posters urging that President George W. Bush step down from office, and promoting events associated with the State of the Union address and a rally in Washington, D.C. Saturday. She says she was using a staple gun to hang posters on wooden phone poles when a policeman shouted from across the street that she would face a $100 fine for doing that. Cleveland Heights has an ordinance prohibiting the hanging of posters and flyers on public property.

“He told me to stop, and I stopped,” Fisher says. “And I walked away. Then he told me to take the poster down or be fined.”

But when she went to take the poster down, she says, the officer threw her against a store window and proceeded to handcuff her. Four officers eventually responded.

“I was thrown down with my face to the concrete,” she says. “He was on top with his knee in my back. They shackled my legs. He specifically said to me, ‘I’m sick and tired of this anti-Bush shit.’ They were threatening ‘Shut up or I’ll kill you. You’re definitely going to the psych ward.’”

Fisher says she was not permitted to make a phone call, but while she was being taken to University Hospital, a paramedic made a call on her behalf. Word of her arrest spread and about a dozen supporters of World Can’t Wait and Revolution books assembled in the waiting room. Cheryl Lessin — to whom Fisher gave medical power of attorney during a bout with cancer a few years ago — was among those who answered the call, but the hospital did not have any documents on file regarding the legal relationship, and so neither Lessin nor other supporters were allowed to see Fisher. Fisher says she was held in police custody at the hospital and not allowed to make a phone call until she was released, after about six hours.

Fisher has obvious bruises on her wrists and a scabbed wound on her chin. The injury to her jaw is made potentially more complicated by osteoradionecrosis, a condition she says resulted from her radiation treatments.

Cleveland Heights Police Captain Michael Cannon wouldn’t comment on the record before the grand jury indictment was issued, but the police narration of the events includes the allegation that the 53-year-old woman took a swing at the officers.

Cannon read statements from four witnesses who say that as Fisher turned to walk away from the officers — apparently to comply with the order to take down the poster she’d just hung — an officer attempted to restrain her. She swung her arm to get loose, then began throwing fists, kicking and biting as the officer and backups wrestled her to the ground.

“I’m sure they’re getting their story together,” Fisher says, who’s also gathering witnesses.

Because the grand jury won’t handle the misdemeanor poster-hanging, the police allegations don’t have anything to do with Fisher’s original crime.

As word of her story spread, Fisher began to get calls from lawyers. She says she’s considering a police brutality suit, and also plans to bring her complaint to the Cleveland Heights City Council meeting Monday.

The posters Fisher was hanging include information about World Can’t Wait trip to Washington for a march at the White House this weekend, calling for the president to step down. World Can’t Wait calls the Bush regime “immoral, dangerous, and criminally indictable.” The Cleveland chapter of World Can’t Wait has organized buses to leave Cleveland State University Friday night, returning early Sunday. Bus tickets cost $45. For information, call 216.633.6200.

— Michael Gill

Cleveland Indy Media Center