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- AP story on NY Times web page:
- -----------------------------------------------
- March 29, 1997
-
- Protest Hosing Stirs Controversy
-
- Filed at 3:05 p.m. EST
-
- By The Associated Press
-
- BELLEVUE, Wash. (AP) -- The anti-fur demonstrators
- carried their cause right to the home of a department
- store executive. And that offended his wife, Gina
- Pickell, so much that she turned a garden hose on them
- -- even following them out to the middle of the street.
-
- ``Maybe I went too far, but everyone understands that I
- was provoked,'' she said. ``If it happened again, my
- reaction would be the same, maybe worse.''
-
- The law appeared to be on the side of the protesters,
- who pressed charges against Mrs. Pickell. Her first
- trial on two counts of simple assault ended with a hung
- jury March 20, and she faces a second trial in May. If
- convicted, she would face a maximum of a $1,000 fine
- and 90 days in jail on each count.
-
- But in the arena of public opinion, Mrs. Pickell has
- support. About 100 people rallied outside the courtroom
- carrying placards -- ``Justice Fur Gina'' -- and garden
- hoses. Many wore fur coats.
-
- ``It was just lovely,'' Mrs. Pickell said. ``It gave me
- the confidence I needed to go into that courtroom.''
-
- Even the jury forewoman, who refused to give her name,
- later expressed sympathy for the defendant: ``It makes
- me want to go out and buy a fur coat and a hose.''
-
- For her part, Mrs. Pickell says the issue is not
- ideology. In fact, she says she doesn't wear fur.
-
- ``I just disagree with their tactics. I think people
- are getting kind of sick of this kind of thing,'' she
- said. ``Harassing someone at their private home? That's
- going too far.''
-
- The demonstrators, from the group Vegan Frontline, say
- they were within their rights in staging their protest
- outside the Pickell home on Dec. 14.
-
- ``We were standing on a public sidewalk,'' said Jessica
- Peters, a 19-year-old college student and one of two
- protesters who pressed charges.
-
- ``She walked all the way to the middle of the street
- and started blasting us on the street. We were dripping
- wet in the middle of December,'' Peters said.
-
- At issue in the Pickell case was the sale of
- fur-trimmed coats at Bon Marche stores, owned by
- Cincinnati-based Federated Department Stores. Ira
- Pickell is chairman of the Seattle-based chain.
-
- ``Her husband's store was selling fur and he was
- telling people that he wasn't,'' Peters says. ``We
- wanted to make sure people knew that.''
-
- Mrs. Pickell concedes some fur-trimmed coats were
- available. But she says her husband was instrumental in
- a decision to close fur departments in the stores.
-
- Date: Sun, 30 Mar 1997 21:03:34 -0500
- >From: allen schubert <alathome@clark.net>
- To: ar-news@envirolink.org
- Subject: (MX) Greenpeace gives Pemex dose of own medicine
- Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970330210329.006b504c@clark.net>
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