Vince Perritano

On October 16, 2011 I was arrested with about 175 other protesters from Occupy Chicago for being in Grant Park after eleven o’clock in the evening because we were protesting for our Constitutional right to peaceably assemble and continue our around-the-clock protests of corporate abuses of American democracy and corruption within our government. I wrote a blog post about that experience called “Getting Arrested at Occupy Chicago and other wonderful experiences” and on November 9 I was to appear in court for this ordinance violation. Since I am a Marine in the inactive ready reserves (after four years of active duty), I came to court looking as presentable as I could, in my Service Alpha uniform. After negotiating a plea with the judge via the four lawyers from the National Lawyers Guild of Chicago who came up to the bench with me as my counsel, (I took a plea because I am leaving to go overseas for personal reasons soon, and the judge said the twenty hours of independent community service can be completed overseas), I delivered this statement to the courtroom, full of about fifty people:

“In June 2004 I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, and over the past ten years the integrity of that document has been severely compromised, and our civil liberties have been gradually repealed. Continue reading →

Occupy Chicago protesters being held since their mass arrest last night in Grant Park have been denied basic rights in jail and have been held without bail, according to the few who have been allowed phone calls. I can’t report on this first-hand like I was able to from last week’s mass arrest, but from the reports I’m gathering, the situation this time appears very different from how protesters were treated in jail last week. I’ve heard that protesters were denied food for almost twelve hours after their arrests, have been packed thirty people into a holding cell without a working sink or toilet paper, have not been able to get legal advice, and many have been without their one phone call. People have tried to post bail for some protesters but were denied. Perhaps the most disturbing part of this is that some of the people in detention were not even protesters–they were nurses and medical workers on standby incase the situation called for their services. National Nurses United has condemned Mayor Emmanuel for the arrests of their medical staff. Continue reading →

I am very proud to say that I volunteered to get arrested early this morning, October 16 2011, when the Chicago Police Department moved in on Occupy Chicago’s camp at Grant Park. I got to spend more than a good few hours in a holding cell with about twenty other protesters, getting to know each other well, sharing knowledge and experiences, organizing further and discussing/debating several topics in a jail cell General Assembly. (Normal GAs are at about seven every night, come check it out.) It all went down very peacefully—there was no use of violence by any side, and in fact, it took so long to arrest us all (about 175 protesters were arrested) that I got to spend probably an hour talking to two former Marines, both Iraq veterans, now in the CPD. Continue reading →