RALEIGH, NC - For the second time in less than two months, local death penalty opponents from the Raleigh-Durham area were arrested at Central Prison while attempting to disrupt an execution.

Thursday night, at 10:30 p.m., 15 demonstrators approached the prison driveway with the intent of reaching the prison doors to stop state witnesses and others from entering to carry out the execution of Perrie Simpson. State law requires state witnesses to be present in order for an execution to be carried out.

However, the group did not get any further than the crosswalk when police stopped and arrested the demonstrators for trespassing.

Most of the protesters were repeatedly pushed or dragged by police back to the crowd standing in vigil on the sidewalk. After approaching the prison a second or third time, each was arrested.

Police were posted standing shoulder-to-shoulder blocking the driveway to the prison and other police officers stood in bushes near the protesters gathered on the sidewalk in front of the prison.

At first one police officer was observed to grab a protester's arm and inflict extreme pain, according to one observer, and the same may have happened to the first person grabbed by police.

After some observers told police they did not need to be harsh, and made it clear that the police were being carefully watched, the police treated those being arrested less roughly, observers said.

Several people at the vigil saw tears streaming down the face of one police officer while she assisted making the arrests.

Members of the arrest group, many of whom also took part in the civil resistance action on the night of the 1,000th execution in December 2005, felt obligated to peacefully resist Simpson's execution in the spirit of Dr.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, which was celebrated this past Monday.

Beth Brockman, a Durham resident and mother of two children, was one of those arrested for trying to stop Simpson's execution.

"My daughter told me on Dr. King's birthday celebration, 'killing is never right,'" said Brockman, "She reminded me that Dr. King said something similar: 'I do not think God approves of the death penalty for any crime.'"

Dr. King, who was a firm believer in and practitioner of nonviolent civil disobedience, was also a strong opponent of the death penalty.

"Capital punishment is against the best judgment of modern criminology, and, above all, against the highest expression of love in the nature of God," said King in 1957. Many members of the group feel obligated to stop the execution in honor of Dr. King.

"I believe that we are acting in the spirit of Dr. King by opposing-nonviolently and in faith-the state's injustice," said Bill Gural, a 43 year-old teacher at NC Central University.

Several members of the group were also arrested on the night of December 1, 2005, when North Carolina executed Kenneth Lee Boyd, the 1000th U.S. inmate to be executed since 1976. All 17 were arrested and charged with second degree trespassing and "resisting, obstructing and delaying a public officer." Charges were subsequently dropped, and the group feels morally and religiously obligated to oppose further executions.

"The state of North Carolina has no moral authority to take a life, and.the system of capital punishment is extremely prejudicial towards people of color and the poor," said Gural. Other resisters felt moved to risk arrest on religious grounds.

"As a Christian I believe that the ritual execution of people we fear is human sacrifice to the idol of security. To worship Jesus, you have to stop worshiping false gods. You have to stop sacrificing to idols," said Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, 25, a Christian peacemaker and minister at St. Johns Baptist Church in Durham.

Wilson-Hartgrove expressed what the group feels is their duty to halt all state-sponsored executions: "I have to put my body on the line and say, 'No more. Not in my name.'"

All 15 arrestees were released at 2:30 am Friday morning with a written promise to appear for a March 2, 2006 arraignment and trial in Wake County District Court.

This was the third such act of civil disobedience against an execution in North Carolina since 2003 and the second in a row in which people were arrested. Police have made 32 arrests at Central Prison protests since December 1, 2005.

For photos from the protest and the arrest: http://www.langleycreations.com/scott/deathpenalty/arrests/

Those arrested were:

Jackie Alder
David Arthur
Ethan Bodnaruk
Beth Brockman
Martin Caver
Matthew Gates
Eric Getty
Bill Gural
Scott Langley
Sheila McCarthy
Dan Schwankl
Dante Strobino
Sheila Stumph
Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
Leah Wilson-Hartgrove

Source: Raleigh Catholic Worker, Jan 20, 2006