The best way for you to read this is straight from Whompy:

Hate to rain on the Potter parade, but I have some more horrible news to relay. Alex Svoboda, an acquaitance of mine from Providence RI, participated in a protest for worker’s rights in North Providence on Saturday 8/11. The march included 30 to 40 people, and was aimed at confronting a restaurant chain that receives goods from a supplier that is notorious for slave labor conditions and 110-hour work weeks (HWH, based in NYC). The local police quickly worked to contain the march. Initially the protesters kept marching, ignoring the cops’ insistence that they move to the sidewalks. However, they eventually started to move toward the sidewalks, just as the cops exited their cars and began to move toward the protestors on foot. The police officers resorted to violence immediately, rather than making an attempt at mediation. In the process, my friend Alex was pinned to the ground, and sustained a broken and dislocated leg and a ruptured blood vessel. She’s currently in the hospital and needs multiple surgeries. The kicker is that she has no health insurance. On top of that, the cops are CHARGING HER with THREE felony counts of assaulting a police officer, as well as two additional misdemeanors. As she will need to undergo extensive rehab before she can begin working again, she clearly needs a lot of help covering legal and medical costs (both of which will be overwhelming given all relevant factors).

Love and solidarity,
Matt

This entry was posted on Monday, August 13th, 2007 at 1:21 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.