Thursday, July 06, 2000
Suspect subpoenaes council
Disorderly conduct case a major production
By Robert Anglen
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Witness Terry Seery refers to a TV monitor showing a tape of the council session that was allegedly disrupted.
(Michael E. Keating photo)
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James Hardy is getting his day in court — and today he's making sure Cincinnati City Council will share it with him.
After being arrested for disorderly conduct at a council meeting last month, Mr. Hardy has subpoenaed every member of council, the mayor and several other city officials to testify at his trial.
“The bottom line is that this is a move to silence me, to keep me out of City Council,” Mr. Hardy said Wednesday, the first day of testimony in Hamilton County Municipal Court.
While he faces 30 days in jail and a fine, Mr. Hardy — also known as Minister Abdul Muhammad Ali — says the issue isn't about his alleged crime.
“What we hope to accomplish is to establish that I have the right — and so does everybody else — to speak to the City Council,” he said.
City officials don't dispute that. But they say he has no right to disrupt council meetings with angry shouts, grunts or outbursts.
Assistant Prosecutor Frances Sheard said Mr. Hardy was arrested June 1 after police repeatedly asked him to stop interrupting other speakers.
With his signature black hat bearing the word “Unity” and signs picturing slain civil rights leaders, Mr. Hardy regularly makes speeches before the council.
The difference this time, he said, is that officials did not want him to speak out about the city's response to
the police chief for referring to a black officer with a racial slur.
In court, Mr. Hardy's lawyer, Ken Lawson, played a videotape of the council session. Rather than showing Mr. Hardy as disruptive, he said, it showed the defendant trying to calm down another speaker who was disruptive.
He claimed Mr. Hardy was arrested because of his dispute with the police officer assigned to provide security for the council ses sions.
Sgt. Emmett Gladden denied there was a dispute and testified that most of the disruption occurred out of the view of the cameras and out of the range of microphones.
He acknowledged that Mr. Hardy is the only person he has ever arrested for disrupting a public meeting and that this was the second incident.
Sgt. Gladden said he asked Mr. Hardy to leave the chambers after getting “the nod” from the city clerk.
The sergeant testified that Mr. Hardy told the officer not to touch him and called him an “Uncle Tom” and used a racial slur. Sgt. Gladden and Mr. Hardy are African-Americans.
Standing outside the courtroom, Mr. Hardy denied using the same racial slur the police chief had used.
“But if the shoe fits, so be it,” he said.
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