A Denver judge on Tuesday dropped all charges against five protesters who were cited for occupying U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner’s Denver office in July in protest of the Senate health care bill.
The City Attorney asked Denver County Court Judge Adam Espinosa to dismiss the case. Gardner had asked that the charges be dropped.
“This is probably the first and last time I’ll say to the judge, listen to Cory Gardner,” said Alan Kennedy-Shaffer, the pro-bono lawyer for the five defendants. “This vindicates the cause of my clients – the fight for health care for all.”
A group of protesters gathered July 6 outside Gardner’s office, urging the senator to vote no on the Senate healthcare bill. Following a sit-in in his office lobby, Gardner’s staff invited five protesters into his office for a call with the senator. Once the call had finished, the protesters, members of the Democratic Socialists of America, refused to leave. Carolee Strom, Merrill Carter, Chris Diehn, Jessica Westerbur and Jeremy Wilburn, were arrested and cited for trespassing.
At the time, Gardner’s office was in a private building that closes at 5 p.m. The demonstrators,
Carolee Strom, a retired nurse, expressed relief at the outcome but also stood by the decision to occupy Gardner’s office.
“I called, I emailed, I texted, I protested and his ears were closed. It had come to a point for me where civil disobedience was the only road I could take,” Strom said. “I had to stand up for people that have no voice in this travesty of legislation. I had to speak for their lives.”
Gardner did not appear in court, but protesters gathered outside the building held a cardboard cutout of the U.S. Senator. Some 30 people — among them Sen. Irene Aguilar, D-Denver, Sen. Andy Kerr, D-Lakewood, and Rep. Joe Salazar, D-Thornton — gathered outside the Lindsey-Flanigan Courthouse Tuesday before the hearing to demand that prosecutors drop the charges. Protesters carried signs reading “Health Care For All” and “Stop Repeal.”
“In America, meaningful change always comes from the bottom up and not top down,” Kerr said. “These folks are heroes for working class families.”
Gardner’s office has been a hot spot for protest in recent months. Ten disability-rights advocates, many disabled themselves, were arrested after they staged a 57-hour sit-in at Gardner’s Denver office in late June. The protest was part a nationwide action by ADAPT, a national group that organizes for disability rights.
“Knowing that folks from ADAPT could do it, who had so much more to lose, I (knew) I could do it,” Westerbur, a registered nurse, said. “We need more people to add their voice to this issue.”
Eight of the people arrested for the ADAPT sit-in received a fine and community service in court on July. 31, said Dawn Russell, one of the protesters. Her case and the case of her sister, Hope Moseley, were dismissed Tuesday. Both women also were cited in January for trespassing while trying to access Gardner’s office.
“We are so thrilled that we held out because we really behaved from day one that it was our right to be there,” Russell said. “So we are glad that holding out and believing we were right paid off in the end.”
This story was edited on Aug. 9, 2017, to correct the date that eight ADAPT protesters were fined and sentenced to community service.
