Protesters who risked life and limb Monday to unfurl
a massive “Free Tibet” banner on the Golden Gate Bridge
will be charged with misdemeanors.
Photo courtesy Jim Herd, SFCitizen.com
By Ari Burack
April 9, 2008
Prosecutors will charge three protesters arrested Monday for scaling the Golden Gate Bridge and hanging banners in protest of San Francisco’s Olympic torch relay with three misdemeanors each, a spokeswoman with the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office announced Tuesday.
Mac Sutherlin, 30, and Duane Martinez, 27, both of Sausalito, and Hannah Strange, 29, of Oakland, were arrested by California Highway Patrol officers Monday after climbing the bridge and displaying banners that read “One World, One Dream, Free Tibet 08.”
Four other protesters — Tashi Sharzur, 47, of San Mateo; Alexandra Taub, 22, of Vancouver, Canada; Thomas Parkin, 38, of San Francisco; and Leslie Kaup, 38, of St. Paul, Minn. — were arrested on the sidewalk of the bridge after assisting the climbers.
The protest was organized by Students for a Free Tibet, in protest of the Chinese government’s “brutal and violent crackdown on Tibetans” and of China’s plan to bring the torch relay to Tibet.
District attorney’s office spokeswoman Connie Chan said Sutherlin, Martinez and Strange will be charged with climbing on a bridge without authority, a violation of the street and highway code; as well as two penal code violations: being a public nuisance, and resisting arrest or interfering with a peace officer.
The charges could bring possible penalties of county jail time and/or a fine.
Prosecutors are also still considering felony charges of conspiracy for all seven protesters, pending the conclusion of a CHP investigation of the incident, Chan said.
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