Colorado Springs – Seven peace activists went on trial Thursday for allegedly intentionally blocking the St. Patrick’s Day Parade on March 17, but emotions inside the courtroom indicated more than minor charges were at stake.
“This case does involve a peace march that happened during the 2007 St. Patrick’s Day Parade,” defense attorney Greg Walta said during jury selection. “God knows we’re in a difficult time. We’re in a war, and there’s a debate about whether we should have gone there, and now there is a debate on how we should get out. There are strong feelings on both sides.”
Walta’s opening comment evoked plenty of emotion from a few prospective jurors in a city with five military bases.
“I just got back from Iraq. I could listen to the facts, but I am human,” said one prospective juror who works as an investigator at Fort Carson. He was dismissed.
Judge Robert B. Warren, a 29-year military veteran who served in Vietnam, had to set things straight.
“We are not going to discuss this war in this court. We’re discussing a municipal ordinance and whether it was violated,” Warren said.
A jury of four women and two men was eventually selected and will decide whether the seven intentionally halted the parade.
They marched under a permit received by Eric Verlo, who owns Bookman, a company that passes out books at schools, libraries and social events.
The group, which also marched in 2006 with peace- sign shirts under the Bookman permit, waited in a staging area for up to an hour before the parade started.
When it began, a parade volunteer told the parade chairman that the Pikes Peak Peace and Justice Commission, an anti-war group, was marching in the parade. Many of the “St. Paddy’s Day Seven” are associated with that group.
Since the parade rules say no groups promoting social issues can march in the parade, organizers asked police to keep them from marching.
Prosecutor Brett Johnson said “each one played a part in stopping this parade.”
“What happened was not criminal,” Walta said. “There were no criminals out in the street that day.”
Staff writer Erin Emery can be reached at 719-522-1360 or eemery@denverpost.com.
