Six troopers reported injured after Monday's clashes were were back on the job, State Patrol Lt. Mark Arras said.
In April, Gov. Chris Gregoire, her staff and the state agency that manages the Legislative Building let protesters camp overnight for four evenings in the Rotunda during protests against budget cuts. But that is not allowed this time.
Gregoire is sticking by a decision to lock up the Capitol each night at the usual closing time – 5:30 p.m. – when lawmakers are not in floor sessions. An exception will be made Friday evening for the yearly holiday tree-lighting ceremony sponsored by the Association of Washington Business in the Rotunda.
“I think the governor respects their First Amendment rights. She’s let the Occupy Olympia protest go on at the (Heritage) Park. … I think there are concerns, though, about costs,” Gregoire spokeswoman Karina Shagren said Tuesday. “That’s the reason she and the State Patrol (and DES) decided to close the building at night. It’s costing a lot of money.”
The State Patrol said that security for Monday’s protests alone had cost taxpayers $12,000 in overtime and another $8,200 in travel costs. That was on top of $76,000 in ordinary costs, according to the Patrol.
Patrol Sgt. J.J. Gundermann declined to say how many troopers were guarding the Capitol during the peaceful emptying of the building Tuesday. But the patrol appeared to have boosted the size of its security force to perhaps four dozen officers, and the 50 protesters in the building at 5:30 vacated it without incident a short while later.
Shagren also said Gregoire “obviously ... didn’t like" that six troopers and one Department of Enterprise Services worker were injured in scuffles with protesters on Monday as troopers tried to clear the building the first evening.
Tuesday's arrests brought the total for the first two days of session to 15 – with five of the arrests based on trespassing by activists who had been given no-trespassing orders during the eviction of about 30 protesters Monday evening. Troopers had to carry those protesters out by hand Monday and were reported to be using photos of the evicted people to see who was trespassing Tuesday.
Joyce Turner, director of DES, said cost and lessons drawn from April were both factors in deciding to close the building at 5:30 and not allow protests to continue beyond that hour inside the Rotunda. The April protests began peacefully but Turner said they eventually changed tenor.
In fact, one Service Employees International Union Healthcare 775 NW officer was charged with felony assault on a state trooper, while charges were never filed for 16 others arrested at that time.
Some protesters questioned the State Patrol’s use of force including tasers or stun guns on about a half-dozen protesters Monday evening. But Republican Sen. Don Benton of Vancouver said he witnessed the confrontations and praised trooper’s actions in a news release that said:
I talked to Steve Hoffman, a protester who remained civil inside the Ways and Means hearing as it was being disrupted by younger activists. He told me Tuesday that he wants lawmakers to raise taxes on “corporations ad fund services that people desperately need.”
Although Steve Hoffman didn’t endorse actions by those who interrupted the hearing, the North Seattle Community College employee said he understood their frustration. “When people get pushed to a state of desperation they are going to get disruptive,” Hoffman said.
