Arrests Begin Rough Journey for Bicyclists

The phone call that woke Judy Miller in the middle of the night was every parent’s bad dream. As she fumbled for the receiver, she heard a “little metallic voice” announce that it was a collect call from a jail inmate. Then she heard the voice of her 20-year-old son Kevin, a student leader at Cal State Monterey Bay. He said his name, then the computer voice came on again, telling her to press zero to accept charges. In her haste, she hit the wrong key and cut off the call.

That was just the start of an other-worldly odyssey for Miller and her husband, Gary, both teachers from Atascadero, as they joined other relatives and friends of those detained at a bicycle ride that, oddly, turned out to be the occasion for the largest mass arrest in the protests connected with the Democratic National Convention.

Among the 71 people arrested--all charged with misdemeanors--were area college professors, a lawyer, students, a tourist from Holland, two journalists covering the event and a recent seminary graduate. Most were having their first brush with a criminal justice system that is usually geared to dealing with pimps and public drunks.

The Millers and a teenage son piled into a car and drove through the darkness to Los Angeles, arriving at the Twin Towers Jail at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday. A clerk told Gary Miller that his son was being held on $2,500 bail for reckless driving.

Miller pulled out his checkbook. But jails do not take personal checks. So he headed for a Bank of America. By the time he returned, with $2,500 in cash, he was told he was too late. Kevin was no longer in the jail. He had been transferred to a lockup at a court across the street and would have to wait to have bail set by a judge.

The judge could not act right away, though, because, in the parlance of the courts, “the bodies had arrived,” but “the paperwork” had not.

The Millers and the other parents were people accustomed to getting answers, frustrated because, in this setting, they could get none. The head clerk was pleasant enough but said she simply did not know even if the initial hearings would take place that day.

While waiting in a block-long, pale yellow, florescent-lit corridor, whose only accouterments were benches, three pay phones, two bathrooms, and a soda and candy machine, the relatives compared notes. They shared remarkably similar stories they had heard from their loved ones’ collect calls:

The bike riders--sponsored by the environmental group Critical Mass, which stages monthly bike rides at rush hour as protests against America’s dependence on automobiles--had been escorted by police who encouraged them to stay together and led them through a series of red lights. Unexpectedly, they said, the police arrested the group, accusing them of reckless driving.

Elizabeth Swanstrom said of her Web designer husband, Scott Svatos: “He was really irritated. . . . He thought they were being chaperoned.”

In late afternoon, the hallway got a new denizen when Art Goldberg showed up. A gregarious criminal defense lawyer, Golberg proudly proclaims that his own criminal record dates to the Berkeley Free Speech Movement.

Using his attorney’s privileges, Goldberg got to see many of the male cyclists and emerged with reassurance and a few phone numbers.

Goldberg borrowed a cellular phone. “I’m calling you for your son,” he said again and again. “He’s in jail for riding his bike in downtown Los Angeles. He is doing great. He feels he’s done a great job of fighting pollution. . . . He’ll probably be out tomorrow.”

As he finished, a deputy city attorney and a uniformed police officer arrived with some of the long-delayed paperwork in a cardboard carton.

Goldberg got a copy of the police report and started ridiculing the charges, which he noted had been changed from reckless driving to obstructing a public way and failing to stop at a light and stop sign.

As clerks started processing the paperwork, the court’s normal business ground on. A middle-age drunk, representing himself, agreed to plead no contest to drinking in public as long as he did not have to pay a fine. A teenager in jail for gang graffiti was placed on probation as long as he did not associate with the gang. The judge agreed to amend that condition so that he could associate with his immediate family.

The rest of the files for the bicyclists showed up at 6:30 p.m. and at 8 p.m. three judges--two imported for the occasion--got down to work.

When it was the turn of Susanne Blossom, a third-year law student at UCLA, to stand up in her jail-issue blue jumpsuit, a prosecutor argued for substantial bail.

Having heard from her public defender that Blossom had no criminal record and that her mother was in court, Judge Dale S. Fischer released her without bail, directed her to return to court next month and sternly ordered her not to ride a bicycle.

“You ride a bicycle, you’re liable to find yourself in jail. You understand me!”

Over the objections of Deputy Public Defender Sam Leonard, Fischer imposed the same condition on a number of other cyclists, including a man who makes his living as a bicycle messenger.

Down the hall in Courtroom 82, Superior Court Commissioner Martin R. Gladstein released most of the cyclists on their own recognizance, but was strict in insisting that those who were from out of town post $2,500 bail.

The Millers were in Courtroom 81, where Judge Alan E. Ellis was businesslike but more relaxed. He was letting most people from out of the area go home on $75 or $100 bail.

When Miller’s case was finally called at 9:20 p.m., prosecutor Christine O’Ghigian scanned the paperwork--the product of slick computer technology that sometimes falls short--and said it showed that Miller had failed to provide a driver’s license, was born in Montana and had a weapons charge in Texas.

His shocked, indignant and sleep-deprived father rose from the audience and declared: “He was born in Laguna Beach and he’s never been to Texas.”

A muscular bailiff started toward him, but the judge decided to hear the father out.

Gary Miller approached the railing, handing his own identification to the bailiff, who gave it to the prosecutor, as a defense lawyer asserted that the reason Kevin hadn’t given an ID was that the police had seized it.

“He’ll be released,” the judge ruled.

That took all night. At 6:24 a.m. on Thursday, 22 hours after his parents had arrived, Kevin Miller was released. He and his family spent several hours trying to bail out some of the other bikers. Then Kevin, who was dehydrated and complaining of stomach pains, was taken to a hospital, treated and released.

Twelve hours after Kevin was freed, several of his fellow bicyclists were still behind bars.