Minneapolis picket report
Well, I was waiting for Raptavio to do a report, but he seems to be
otherwise occupied at the moment. Saturday was a windy, grey and drizzly
day, but we did two and a quarter hours at the MSP org. Handed out
nearly 200 Xenu leaflets to interested passersby. This was my first CO$
picket, so I was surprised by a number of things. Most of all, it was
surprising how much support the public offered, and how many already
knew about the cult. Took us a while to figure out that many thought we
were *with* the cult and were avoiding the leaflets for that reason.
That led to a change of approach to "Hi, we're picketing Scientology,
and here's why." Got lots of interest. Led to lots of interesting
conversations, too, especially since the American Philosophical
Assocation was meeting in a hotel right down the street.
The clams seemed unprepared for a picket, but after a half hour or so
they got it together enough for "Helen" to come out and photograph us.
Another unnamed woman also came out to shoot photos later. The most
interesting interaction, though, was when one of them assaulted
Raptavio! This short dweeb left early in the picket. When he came back
he walked up within a couple feet, said "Here's something you should
read - you guys need to get jobs," and then threw a rolled-up employment
newspaper in Rap's face with a loud thwack. He then ran into the org. We
called the police after Rap was unable to do a citizen's arrest. An
officer showed up and went into the org with Rap to identify the
culprit. He IDed everyone involved and wrote up an assault report. It
will be interesting to see if the city attorney prosecutes the little
thug.
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06 May 2001
Rich Ahrens <rma@visi.com>
|Rich Ahrens | Homepage: http://www.visi.com/~rma/ |
|rma@visi.com |-----------------------------------------------|
|"In a world full of people only some want to fly - isn't that crazy?" |
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