The chanting protesters packed the hall outside the hearing and banged on the doors but seemed peaceful — if not exactly polite in their language. But at least one, a Seattle Public Schools teacher, was arrested on a charge of disorderly conduct.
State troopers were putting Jesse D. Hagopian, 32, in a patrol car outside the Cherberg Building shortly before 2 p.m. State Patrol spokesman Dan Coon didn’t yet have details on what Hagopian is accused of doing, but said he was “disrupting legislative business” more than his fellow protesters were.
“My understanding was he was causing problems in the Legislative Building, (then) went over to Cherberg and did the same thing there,” Coon said.
In an op/ed he wrote for the Seattle Times last year, Hagopian is identified as a Garfield High School history teacher and a founding member of Social Equality Educators.
The patrol says 2,000 people are rallying around the Capitol Campus — among them teachers, social-services advocates, state employees and Occupy protesters.
Dozens of them came into the Cherberg Building, confronting the troopers guarding the door of the full hearing room. They cleared out after the hearing temporarily stopped.
