Outcry About Chicago Police Clubbings

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31770, 29 August 1968, Page 11

Outcry About Chicago Police Clubbings

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

CHICAGO, August 28.

Four aidermen joined news agencies in denouncing Chicago policemen for their “systematic” night-stick assaults on journalists, the New York Times News Service reports.

Twenty-one reporters or photographers are said to have been clubbed by the police while covering demonstrations aimed at the Democratic Party’s national convention.

Several of the victims have been taken to hospital, and filmed reports on television today and pictures in the newspapers showed some with blood streaming down their faces. In a number of instances, the victims said their uniformed attackers had removed their badges and name plates, contrary to police regulations, to prevent identification.

All the journalists concerned said they identified themselves as working members of the press, but on several occasions this proved to be unsuccessful in warding off attacks, saving film from confiscation, or preventing the police from smashing cameras.

Winston Churchill, grandson of the war-time British Prime Minister, wrote in a

| copyright article for the Lon- ; don “Evening News” today: • “-The Chicago Police Department is primitive in its actions and mulish in its mentality. “Journalistic sorties in the past have taken me to Aden, the Yemen, Angola, the Congo, Borneo, Vietnam and Israel. In none of those areas did I feel the necessity of wearing a steel helmet. I now rather regret not having brought with me one picked up in the Sinai Desert a year ago.”

Churchill described how he watched a young man being thrown to the ground by two policemen, threatened by a club-wielding senior officer, and then dragged off to the paddy waggon, terrified, and moaning: “What have I done? What have I done?” He also described how he himself was grabbed by policemen outside the entrance to his hotel. They refused to accept his convention admission card as identification and frog-marched him into the hotel for a membpr of the staff to identify him as a guest

Some of the protesters blame Chicago's Mayor (Mr Richard Daley) and the city’s police superintendent (Mr James Conlisk).

Aiderman Leon Despres drafted a resolution asking the city. council to censure both the Mayor and superintendent “for their systematic course of conduct in using Chicago police officers day after day to beat press representatives and destroy their records and equipment for the purpose of preventing and discouraging the free flow of news.” ■ Executives representing several news media met senior Police Department officials today and were assured that hereafter, policemen on duty would always wear their stars and name plates, all charges of brutality would be investigated and public reports issued, policemen would be told not to interfere with news recording or photographic equipment, and an officer with the rank of lieutenant or above would be assigned to each demonstration to guarantee the rights of journalists and bystanders.