Borough official blames 'breakdown in exercise of authority' regarding Kinross truck protest

Borough Chief of Staff Jim Williams says there was a ”breakdown in the exercise of authority to request protestors to move” Saturday outside the Carlson Center.

City police officers, who said they were acting on behalf of Kinross, threatened a group of protesters with arrest if they did not leave the parking lot where the Kinross truck was parked.

After news of the protest and arrest threats, Assembly member Savannah Fletcher asked the mayor’s office for details on the handling of the protest and who called the police.

It’s still not clear exactly who made the call. There are some reports that a temporary borough worker did, while others say that Kinross started things moving.

Police said Kinross called the police and wanted the protesters moved away from the trucks and trailers. They refused to identify who at Kinross made the call.

During the encounter between the protesters and police, representatives of the trucking company working for Kinross sat nearby and watched without speaking.

Williams asserted in his response that a police “spokesperson relayed that the responding officer documented that there were protestors around the truck, under the truck and blocking the road.”

There is no evidence, on video or otherwise, that anyone blocked the road or blocked access to the truck.

The truck was in the parking lot, which remained open to traffic coming in and out. No one was blocking traffic.

There were two women who were on the ground near the tires. That could have been handled by simply asking them to move away from the truck.

The city police ordered all the protesters to leave the area and go to the sidewalk at the front of the Carlson Center. After a couple of minutes, they said that because a “lawful order” had been given, the protesters would be arrested for criminal trespass if the did not comply.

The heavy-handed response and arrest threat was not justified.

Williams said that a director or a director’s designee should have been the one to call the police if people had to be asked to move.

There is some indication that a temporary Carlson Center staff member talked to police and cited the authority of a former borough director who doesn’t live here anymore, Donnie Hayes, which is clearly no authority at all.

“The request and engagement with the protestors should have come from an FNSB official with the proper authority. This is a training issue the Administration will work on with staff. Nevertheless, it appears there was a concern raised about safety and public order by FPD, and it’s possible the end result would have been the same: the protestors would have been asked by an FNSB official to move their activity to a more safe and less disruptive place - if they did not comply, local authorities would have been summoned to handle it,” Williams said.

The “concern raised about safety and public order” has been exaggerated either by the police or the borough. There was no one blocking traffic, no one blocking access and the two women lying or sitting quietly on the parking lot gravel were no threat to “safety and public order.”

The protest was in a safe place and was orderly, not disruptive.

Williams said the Carlson Center was not rented by Kinross, contrary to the statements the police made to the protesters. Kinross was a sponsor of Youth Safety Day.

Williams said it is possible or even likely that a borough manager “would have asked the protestors to get out from under the truck, stop blocking access and stop blocking the road, and if that was not complied with, then for sure, the police would have been called to help out. I don’t recall having a rule that people cannot hold signs.”

Again, there were two people under a trailer and no one was blocking access or blocking the road. There were no grounds for calling the police or insisting that the protesters move. They did nothing wrong by showing up and holding signs expressing a point of view on public property.

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