City Attorney and Judge Move Against Bank of America Chalk Protester Jeff Olson
By Doug Porter, OB Rag
Things are going out of control for City Attorney Jan Goldsmith. His office’s decision to prosecute 40 year old Jeff Olson for using children’s washable chalk to scrawl protests on sidewalks adjacent to Bank of America branch offices has garnered world wide notice. And it’s not the kind of publicity the Downtown Tourism folks appreciate.
A newly organized group calling itself Liberals for Liberty has announced plans to create a chalk mural of the Constitution with focus on the First Amendment in front of the San Diego Hall of Justice. A Facebook page set up for the event calls for local artists to meet up Saturday (June 29th) at the courthouse, 330 West Broadway, San Diego.
At Change.org, a petition went up Friday morning calling upon City Attorney Jan Goldsmith to drop the prosecution of Jeff Olson for chalk graffiti, citing “an obvious abuse of power and a wasteful use of the resources of the City of San Diego.” The influential Daily Kos blog has also announced a petition, saying “prosecuting people who chalk political messages on vandalism charges is a blatant abuse of power.”
In the wake of a gag order by Judge Howard Shore prohibiting the defendant or any witnesses from speaking to any members of the media, coverage of the case has ballooned, with stories via both Reuters and Associated Press appearing in news outlets (including the New York Times) nationally and internationally. Independently written accounts also appeared in newspapers as far away as Sweden.
Battle of the Recalls
A Recall Judge Howard Shore page on Facebook has gone live, joining the Recall Jan Goldsmith page, which has already gathered six times more signatures than a Recall Filner page
San Diego’s latest shame caught the eye of Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren yesterday, who felt motivated to comment about the case on Twitter:
You’ve got to be kidding me. http://t.co/8d8AhpJBif
— Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma) June 27, 2013
Over 90% of 650 +readers in a UT-San Diego online poll indicated they thought the prosecution on Jeff Olson was wrong
Meanwhile over at the San Diego Reader, reporter Dorian Hargrove, who originally broke the story, continues to provide excellent coverage of the trial. Unfortunately much of the national coverage of this story is based on a UT-San Diego story which failed to credit Hargrove’s reporting. From yesterday’s account:
At today’s hearing, JudgeShore didn’t stop at voicing his disappointment with the media coverage. He then turned his attention to Mayor Filner for his statements in support of the defendant’s right to free speech.
Shore said the Mayor was “irresponsible” for comments he made in a June 20 memo, as was reported here on June 23.
“This young man is being persecuted for thirteen counts of vandalism stemming from an expression of political protest that involved washable children’s chalk on a City sidewalk,” read Filner’s statement. “It is alleged that he has no previous criminal record. If these assertions are correct, I believe this is a misuse and waste of taxpayer money. It could also be characterized as an abuse of power that infringes on First Amendment particularly when it is arbitrarily applied to some, but not all, similar speech.”
Shore also stated that the Mayor has no place injecting himself in court trials, regardless of his opinion on the case.
A good backgrounder on the case, now known as #ChalkGate on the internet, appeared in TruthOut/BuzzFlash:
The trial, which is now underway, resulted from the contracted head of security for Bank of America in San Diego, Darell Freeman, leaning on his apparent former colleagues in the SD police department. Paige Hazard, deputy city attorney, informed Olson of the charges, after a prosecution referral was received from — get this — the city’s gang crimes unit. Olson had moved onto more personal pursuits months ago, but Freeman and the Bank of America didn’t like his disappearing chalk protests during the Occupy movement and. as in Les Miserables, were in unrelenting hot pursuit of the sidewalk protester.
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