AEGiS-BAR: ACT UP/SF members remain at large

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2000. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

ACT UP/SF members remain at large

The Bay Area Reporter - June 2, 2000
Terry Beswick

When the AIDS organization Project Inform recently decided to go to the mat with ACT UP/San Francisco -- obtaining temporary restraining orders against five members of the HIV/AIDS dissident group, and then pressing criminal assault and trespassing charges against four of the same individuals -- Project Inform and its attorneys at first assumed that the wheels of justice were in motion.

However, it seems they underestimated the anarchists' willingness to evade the law, as well as the low-priority status the case would be given by San Francisco law enforcement officials.

At press time, more than two weeks after the arrest warrants were issued for ACT UP/San Francisco members David Pasquarelli, Andrea Lindsay, Jason "Todd" Swindell, and Michael Bellefountaine, the four were still at large.

Speaking to the Bay Area Reporter on May 16, Hallinan's spokesman Fred Gardner said that although arrest warrants had been issued, the D.A. and St. Pierre had agreed that the four would "turn themselves in voluntarily" to the San Francisco Police Department on the following Monday, May 22, to face the criminal charges.

But the four failed to honor the agreement.

Reached Tuesday afternoon, May 30, Gardner was not able to confirm whether the D.A.'s office had yet notified the SFPD that the ACT UP/San Francisco members had broken their agreement to surrender themselves.

SFPD Inspector Lea Militello, who had conducted the investigation of the April 17 public forum when the alleged trespassing and assaults took place, said that because the criminal charges are misdemeanors, police officers are not likely to "break down their doors."

"But if it's not done," Militello said, "then I'll take responsibility to pick them up myself."

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