By JEREMY PAWLOSKI
The city of Olympia has agreed to pay a local activist
$10,000 to settle his lawsuit alleging the Olympia Police Department violated
his civil rights and falsely arrested him during an anti-police march through
downtown in April 2010.
Paul French, 29, pleaded guilty pursuant to an Alford plea
to a single count of third-degree assault of a police officer in June 2010,
after his arrest during the march. In an Alford plea, a defendant does not
admit guilt, but the plea counts as a conviction and carries the same penalties
in the eyes of the court.
French was sentenced to three months of work release at the
Thurston County Jail, according to his felony judgment and sentence.
According to French's lawsuit against OPD, Olympia Police
Officer Sean Lindros falsely claimed French struck him in the face while
attempting to arrest a woman who was part of the march on April 8, 2010.
According to court papers, Lindros was "struck on the
left side of his face just above his cheekbone," as Lindros was attempting
to make an arrest. Lindros identified a masked man, identified him as French,
and arrested him, court papers state.
French has written extensively of his experiences during,
and after his arrest in the Olympia publication Works in Progress. In a Jan. 12
Works in Progress article, French wrote that in a police report, Lindros
misidentified the color of a bandana he was wearing, and that Lindros suffered
no visible marks or bruises after the alleged assault.
"I was charged with assault, even though I was simply
engaging in my First Amendment right to protest and in spite of the fact that I
was not in a location where I could have physically struck Lindros,"
French wrote.
French also wrote that he was severely traumatized by his
jail sentence and suffered a nervous breakdown.
French's lawsuit also alleged that Thomas Rudd, Force
Protection director for Joint Base Lewis-McChord sent former Olympia Police
Cmdr. Tor Bjornstad an email tipping Olympia police off in advance about the
march.
Rudd was the boss of former JBLM civilian force protection
employee John Towery, who has been accused of infiltrating an Olympia anti-war
group under an assumed name and monitoring their activities.
Towery is a defendant in a federal civil rights lawsuit
filed by members of the Olympia anti-war group, Olympia Port Militarization
Resistance, or OlyPMR. The lawsuit involving Towery and Rudd's activities is
scheduled to go to trial in June.
In French's lawsuit that recently settled, French's attorney
Larry Hildes wrote that, judging by Rudd's email to Bjornstad, "It has now
become clear that Rudd kept right on gathering information on activists in
Olympia," even after Towery was unmasked.
French's lawsuit also stated that Rudd was giving
information about Olympia activists "to the Olympia Police Department for
the them to act on, either alone or in conjunction with the Army."
French's jury trial in his federal civil rights lawsuit was
scheduled to begin Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Tacoma.
Reached by telephone Thursday, French said he still wants to
get his conviction for assaulting the OPD officer expunged.
"I was railroaded by a reactionary judge who cut the
legs out from under my case by ruling which issues could be discussed at
trial," French said. "Justice will be served once I get this false
conviction expunged from my record, and I can pursue my journalistic career
without the stigma of being a violent felon."
