[CPEO-MEF] Jury finds local protester guilty of trespassing

[CPEO Moderator <cpeo@cpeo.org>]

Washington
Jury finds local protester guilty of trespassing
By Shauna Bakkensen
February 14, 2003

Friends and family started pooling money for an anti-war demonstrator
after she was found guilty of second degree trespassing and sentenced to
pay $320 in fines in Bellingham Municipal Court on Thursday.

Ellen Murphy, a retired English teacher and chemical dependency
counselor, was charged with second-degree trespassing for demonstrating
at the Bellingham U.S. Army Recruiting Station on Nov. 12.

Police issue a second-degree trespass when an individual refuses to
leave an outdoor private property, Bellingham Prosecutor Jeff Lustick
said.

After a year of retirement from her position at St. Joseph Hospital,
Murphy said she wanted to do something special for the veterans she has
treated throughout the years.

"There is something particularly impactful about a great big man falling
on your office floor sobbing," Murphy said. "My feelings have deepened
because the nature of war has changed to the extent that people are no
longer wounded in war. The battle is when they come home - (the battle
is) in their bodies."

Murphy arrived at the recruiting office the day after Veterans Day to
inform recruiters and potential recruits of the dangers of depleted
uranium, she said. The anti-war demonstrators were armed with signs and
a papier maché puppet depicting an Iraqi mother carrying a dead child,
she said.

This article can be viewed at:
http://www.westernfrontonline.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/02/14/3e4d3b62cdf2e

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