[Mb-civic] Billboard Goes Up After Stenographer Clubbed By Policeman

[Jef Bek]

THE LONE STAR ICONOCLAST - TEXAS

Billboard Goes Up After Stenographer Clubbed By Policeman

SAN FRANCISCO ‹ A billboard funded by a stenographer who was clubbed by a
policeman is the first leg of a nationwide campaign to ³Support Our Troops.
Bring Them Home Now.²


Working with PeaceRoots Alliance and Media Tools for Change, the national
campaign has also been launched online at <www.askwhy.org>.


Linda Vaccarezza, a federal court stenographer whose arm was badly broken by
a San Francisco police officer aggressively swinging his riot club at
peaceful antiwar protestors on the first full day of the war, paid for the
billboard campaign from settlement money she received from the City of San
Francisco as a result of the incident.


Ironically, the billboard went up the same day that the Police Commission
voted not to censure the office for excessive force. The incident had been
caught on videotape.


Mike Smith, a member of the antiwar team, visited Crawford last week,
delivering bumper stickers and banners of support to inhabitants of Camp
Casey, where Cindy Sheehan held her 26-day vigil seeking to speak with
President Bush.


Smith is a labor activist and a former emergency room nurse.


An article in the Sonoma Valley Sun, written by Tim Omarzu, notes that the
policeman ³smashed her forearm with a nightstick, breaking it so badly that
doctors had to use a metal plate and seven screws to fix it.²