Protest arrests disturbingly disparate
By L.A. Chung
Mercury News
It's nights like the one at De Anza College last month when Brian Helmle concludes he benefits from ``white privilege.''

That's the kind of statement that gets dismissed as liberal guilt or accepted as the way of the world -- depending on your experiences.

Helmle was one of several people arrested or detained during protests at former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's appearance at the Flint Center Nov. 11. The difference, Helmle said this week before a county Human Rights Commission panel looking into the matter, is that he and another man arrested inside the Flint Center that night are white.

The others, arrested on the outside, were Arab or black. The difference in their treatment, he said, was as stark as night and day -- or as wearing a keffiyeh or a suit.

Helmle, a customer support agent for an electronics company, had gotten a ticket to Powell's event specifically to be arrested, to be provocative, to . . . well, blow a whistle from the audience, shout ``liar, murderer!'' to disrupt Powell's remarks. So it was no surprise he was hustled out of the hall and arrested.

Identifiable by dress

But outside, in the mixed crowd of protesters, some saw something surprising. After the theatrical skirmishes had ended, Santa Clara County Sheriff's deputies, moving in formation, pushed people off campus, pursued them into a shopping center and later arrested six people. It is unclear whether those six were all involved in the protest, or simply were caught up in the arrests by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Among those arrested or detained were a 17-year-old minor and a 19-year-old De Anza student who were leaving a class with books under their arms. They were wearing thoubs, or robes, or keffiyehs, the red-and-white head scarves of Palestine. It's not an uncommon sight at De Anza.

Helmle said De Anza police meticulously called him ``Sir'' as they asked for permission to extract his wallet to confirm his identity. The young men being brought in from outside, he said, were roughed up, bleeding, upset and scared, and sheriff's deputies called them rock-throwers and used a racial epithet, he said.

Sheriff's deputy Serg Palanov said those arrested on the outside had been identified from the crowd earlier in the evening as instigators who were passing rocks to others. The district attorney's office has not decided whether to prosecute the charges, which range from resisting arrest to felony assault.

`Why so obvious?'

What bothered De Anza sociology instructor Richard Wood was the apparent targeting and roughness.

``If the black kids or the Arab kids were the only ones who had been in their face or only ones who cursed them, you could understand how they would target them as particularly provocative, as having crossed the line,'' he said. ``But the white kids were the only ones who engaged in any kind of property destruction.'' They were the most vocal and the most confrontational, he said.

Hanny Zaki, a 22-year-old Arab-American who was one of those arrested, said he was vocally protesting but being slammed to the ground and kicked was wrong.

``They broke my glasses, stepped on them to make sure I didn't go anywhere,'' Zaki said. Dr. Ali Zaki said he was shocked when he awoke the next morning to find his son's ``face swollen and glasses missing.''

The Human Rights Commission will address the issue at a Jan. 24 meeting. Lawyer Dan Mayfield, who is representing all of those arrested, is hopeful for a dialogue that results in better understanding between the police, sheriff's office and the community, rather than in charges filed by the district attorney's office.

``Maybe it's Pollyanna-ish,'' he said. ``But why not make something positive out of it?''

Now that would be a privilege.

Contact L.A. Chung at lchung@mercurynews.com