Watching Vijay Shah Sue Homeland Security
Last week, I spent half a day at the Moakley Courthouse in South Boston in support of Vijay Shah, the friend of a friend, who had pressed forward with a lawsuit against the Secret Service after he was racially profiled and illegally detained on the day prior to the start of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in 2004. Here is a link to an article which ran in the Boston Phoenix after Vijay and two other South Asian men’s illegal detainment that week: http://bit.ly/bt9zSV.
I was sorry that I was only able to attend one day of the week-long trial (Wednesday) and particularly sorry to have missed Vijay’s testimony Tuesday. No doubt it was powerful. But I’m also sorry not to have been there because the Secret Service (SS) was there in force. Wednesday, there were probably between 15-20 agents watching the trial—regulation haircuts, American flag lapel pins, uniformly blue-suited. Initially, I thought I should sit right in their midst, dead center of the room, and try to diffuse all of that bad energy they were beaming directly at Vijay, so I did. What a jolt of toxic patriarchy that was! Later, Vijay told me and a few other supporters that these agents had stared him down while he testified yesterday. As others arrived in support of Vijay, they sat together off to the side, safely removed from the SS presence. While I went over to join them, I wished that all of us had gone over there and sat ourselves down in that sea of blue suits. We might have had to go through a special detox afterwards, but it would have been totally worth it to break up that nasty little club, even briefly.
These guys clearly felt that they were above having to justify their actions in court. There was nothing “business as usual” about having 20 of them in that courtroom. In fact, the judge made a point of remarking (while the jury was out of the room) that in 24 years, he’d never seen such a showing—in his words “a phalanx”—of Secret Service agents. He called the agents on having “choreographed” this show of support and marveled that they had the crimes under their jurisdiction so well in hand that they could spare an entire morning just to sit in court and watch. He suggested that the next time the Federal government debated budget allocations for their positions, it should be brought to their attention how much free time these guys seemed to have. He even threatened to comment on this dramatic SS showing in his instructions to the jury.
Two Secret Service agents took the stand that day. Of note was the testimony of one of the two special agents who followed Vijay for the better part of an hour as Vijay took in the scene in and around the DNC and the protest. The agent detailed behaviors deemed by him to be “suspicious.” My absolute favorite “suspicious behaviors” were the fact that Vijay was not chanting as he marched, and the fact that he did not take any of the literature that was proffered to him by fellow protesters. While the dude in the buzz cut has busted up lots of protests, clearly, he knows little about protesters. I wanted to take him aside and explain how tired you get of “Ain’t no power like the power of the people…” after the 20th time, or how many activists are actually concerned about saving the Earth’s resources, like say…PAPER.
I wasn’t able to get back to court last week, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened. No one should ever be whisked down an alley like Vijay was because of his race and ethnicity, isolated, and illegally questioned. I can only imagine how scary that must have been, and how much courage and energy it has taken to advance this lawsuit which the government fought very hard to keep from ever coming to trial.
On Friday, the judge gave the case to the jury and just after 5:00PM, they returned with an amazing verdict. They had found one of the Secret Service agents liable for having violated Vijay’s Fourth Amendment right to protection against unreasonable search and seizure! Along with one man’s determination and courage which drove this lawsuit, it took a whole lot of people watching to bring about this verdict—the activists who ran after Vijay and the agents that day in 2004 taking photos and video, John Pavlos, the lawyer who took on the case that day, the folks who saw Vijay get pulled from the march and came forward. Who knows what might have happened had they not. I would like to thank Vijay and all of those who kept watch so that our brother Vijay is safe and that this lawsuit could be heard.
