Bellvue and Thorazine to Free You from Your First Amendment Addiction

BLACK SHEEP AWARD

Veteran libertarian civil rights activist Julian Heicklen calls it “an out-and-out kidnapping” when Homeland Security Police forcibly transported him to a hospital where he was injected with Thorazine against his will.

It began shortly after Heicklen arrived at the US District Courthouse in New York City for the third Monday in a row to pass out pamphlets to prospective jurors.

The pamphlet, produced by the Fully Informed Jury Association (FIJA) entitled “A Primer for Prospective Jurors” informs jurors of their right to judge the law and its application as well as the facts in a case, regardless of the judge’s instructions to the contrary.

As in the past, (Jury activist arrested for exercising First Amendment rights) Homeland Security police told him he couldn’t do that on federal property and ordered him to leave. As in the past, Heicklen explained that the First Amendment recognized his right to do what he was doing.

Then, as Heicklen tells it in his email report to supporters, “One of them said that I was under arrest, get his hands behind his back and handcuff him.”

As Heicklen always does when faced with arrest, he dropped to the ground and went limp and silent.

In the past, he was arrested, handcuffed, placed on a gurney and transported to a hospital where he was examined and eventually released in time to be home later the same day.

(Full accounts of this and his first two trips to Manhattan can be read on the New Jersey Libertarian Party website.)

But this time something different happened. “I remained in that position for over an hour,” Heicklen says, “before I was lifted onto a gurney and strapped securely. I was never handcuffed nor received a citation or summons. It was an out-and-out kidnapping.”

At Bellevue Psychiaytric Hospital he remained nonresponsive to questions.

Around 3:00 PM, radio reporter Chris Goldstein called to say that he would start the publicity rolling.

After 4:00 PM or so, Heicklen continues, “I made a fuss to see someone in charge, so that I could either be released or brought in front of a magistrate. My requests were ignored, and became more persistent. Against my wishes four attendants grabbed me and gave me a shot of Thorazine to calm me down. It worked, I got an excellent night’s sleep.”

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http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-26370-Libertarian-News-Examiner~y2009m11d4-Libertarian-freedom-activist-forcibly-hospitalized-and-drugged