LONGVIEW, WA (January 20, 2012) — The Cowlitz County Prosecuting Attorney dismissed trespassing and train obstruction charges against Longview longshore worker Darin Norton yesterday. Norton, a member of ILWU Local 21, had been charged
with those two offenses as a result of a demonstration against the multinational corporation EGT on September 7th. After police disrupted the peaceful protest, Cowlitz County officials arrested and charged dozens of ILWU members and supporters in the ensuing weeks with various offenses stemming from that demonstration.
Leal Sundet, ILWU Coast Committeeman, said: “The ILWU welcomes the dismissal of these charges against Mr. Norton. The prosecutors now see that there was no basis to file these charges to begin with, because the protestors were on public
property, exercising their First Amendment rights. It is sad that Mr. Norton had to go through the stress and strain of a criminal prosecution.”
Norton did, however, enter a plea of guilty to the crime of resisting arrest, a charge arising when he was arrested on September 13th for the trespassing case. There are limited options for fighting this type of charge, which can be based simply on someone “tensing up” while being arrested. In this case, Norton admitted that he did not get out of his car immediately when told to by a police officer, which led to the officer pulling him out of the car and throwing him to the ground. “Nevertheless,” Sundet continued, “the prosecutor’s dismissal of the very charges that led to Mr. Norton’s arrest in the first place is a concession that there really was no crime committed on September 7th at all.”
Norton received a suspended sentence and is required to do a small amount of community service as a condition of his sentence. “Mr. Norton already is serving the community by fighting EGT’s attempt to destroy good wages for the families of Cowlitz County, so it is no burden at all for Mr. Norton to complete the community service hours,” Sundet said.
Seven other workers have pled guilty to minor charges in the past few days to put an end to months of unnecessary stress on their families caused by aggressive law enforcement. Sundet said, “The prosecuting attorney has gotten desperate because she has no real evidence for which to prosecute these demonstrators, and she resorted to threats of additional charges in order to wrestle guilty pleas from innocent workers.”
To date, the only two cases against workers who were arrested for demonstrating against EGT that have gone to trial have resulted in not-guilty verdicts from their respective juries.