Tacoma chief defends expense of preparing for Kaiser protests

04/05/2000
Hector Castro; Tacoma Tribune

A tip from another police department, a clandestine visit to the Seattle office of a protest group, and some odd incidents on the Tideflats led Tacoma police to plan for extensive demonstrations last month at the Kaiser Aluminum plant - though the mass arrests expected never materialized.

But Tacoma Police Chief James Hairston defended the department's detailed, large-scale and costly preparations.

"I would feel sick today if we had not prepared properly and there had been a tragedy in our city," Hairston said Tuesday. "I think that would be dereliction on my part."

There's no final price tag for the police action, but officials expect the cost to run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Members of the United Steelworkers of America had planned three days of demonstrations, rallies and protests outside the Kaiser plant in Tacoma, 3400 Taylor Way, the weekend of March 24 through 26. Several environmental groups planned to join labor groups in the protests.

What worried police were indications that some of those groups coming to Tacoma were among those that caused problems in Seattle during demonstrations against the World Trade Organization last year.

Tacoma police first became concerned about the demonstrators after getting a call from the Redmond Police Department. Police there stumbled across plans for the Kaiser demonstrations while surfing the Internet in preparation for an unrelated protest at the Microsoft campus.

After getting that information, a Tacoma officer in street clothes walked into the Seattle office of one of the protest groups, Direct Action Network, and chatted up some people there.

The officer said one man in the office commented that the rallies in Tacoma were "going to be WTO all over again," said detective Jack Skaanes, who gathered information on the planned protests.

Investigators came to believe that protesters hoped to draw as many as 5,000 people to Tacoma to take part in demonstrations that would force police to make mass arrests.

Police worried that some groups might try to get temporary employment for their members inside the Kaiser plant, string banners with slogans from the Narrows Bridge or demonstrate in front of the Wells Fargo building in downtown Tacoma.

And with WTO still fresh in their minds, officers also worried about vandalism, even acts of terrorism, against sites in Tacoma, such as power plants or the Kaiser plant itself.

Police met with members of the steelworkers union at least twice to discuss their concerns, and the union ultimately canceled its events.

Union leaders said they wanted to focus on a rally in Olympia, urging legislators to extend unemployment benefits for their members.

The steelworkers went on strike in September 1998 but then agreed to go back to work unconditionally in January 1999. The company instead opted to lock out the workers and replaced them all.

"The main issue was we couldn't have our steelworkers in two places at one time," labor leader Jon Youngdahl said.

But police kept to their original plans for mass protests, Skaanes said, because the word already had gone out on the Internet that the protests would occur.

"The threat was still there for us," Skaanes said.

Then, police in Eugene, Ore., hometown for one anarchy group involved in several disturbances during the WTO demonstrations, let Tacoma police know that some of those group members were not in Eugene. Eugene police didn't know where the members had gone.

Police said there were other signs of plans for something besides peaceful protests.

Someone cut a lock to a gate at the Kaiser plant, causing investigators to speculate someone was trying to test how quickly security officers would respond to the area.

In another instance, someone saw two people who claimed to be with the Environmental Protection Agency near a steam stack by the Louisiana Pacific Corp. on Taylor Way. When a worker asked the two for credentials, an argument erupted, and they left.

"We believe they were scouting," Tacoma assistant police chief David Brame said. "These are very bright individuals."

To police, incidents like these were more proof their concerns were valid.

"We had to deal with multiple sites," Brame said.

And some sites, Brame added, held dangerous chemicals. A well-thrown explosive, even a homemade device, could have ignited a powerful explosion at the Kaiser plant, he said.

"Then our concerns are secondary explosions that could basically, in my estimation, blow up the Port of Tacoma," Brame said.

Police had two weeks to plan for the demonstrations, with officials working 12-hour days, he said.

On March 25, a Saturday when police expected a large number of demonstrators, 200 Tacoma police officers patrolled the Tideflats. Another 150 deputies and troopers were in Tacoma assisting.