Students sit to take a stand: 4 D.M. war opponents who refuse to leave Grassley’s office are arrested
By Abby Simmons
Staff Writer
Des Moines Register
Published September 22, 2007
Keyboards clacked as staff worked in U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley’s downtown Des Moines headquarters. And, still, the kids sat in a circle on the floor of the small office, talking war and peace while passing around a copy of Thomas Merton’s “The Nonviolent Solution.”
Discount the out-of-place setting - and the eventual arrest and criminal trespass charges filed against four Des Moines high school students who refused to leave the Republican’s office in protest of the Iraq war - and it was just another peace meeting.
The small but dedicated group of a dozen teenagers - plus a couple of adults and a 10-year-old - marked a new, youthful resurgence in the city’s peace movement as the members of Students Beyond War conducted a three-hour occupation of the office during a Friday off from school, demanding that Grassley promise to not vote for more funding of the war.
Receptionists for Grassley, who was en route to Iowa from Washington, said they would take down the visitors’ information. But four protesters pledged to not leave until securing the promise or being arrested.
Des Moines police took into custody Aaron Glynn, 18, of Hoover High School; Amanda Hicks, 17, also of Hoover; Abby Olson, 17, of Dowling Catholic High School; and Reetzi Hughes, 14, of Roosevelt High School. Those four - along with Frank Cordaro, 56, and Renee Espeland, 46, who is Hughes’ mother - were then cited and released.
Federal security officers and then Des Moines police repeatedly asked the group to leave as the building closed at 6 p.m. Even then, there was little hostility.
At one point, a receptionist in the office handed Frankie Hughes, 10, a sucker as they waited for police to arrive. Frankie is Reetzi Hughes’ sister.
Grassley press secretary Beth Levine issued a statement saying Grassley “is looking for the best way possible to draw down the U.S. commitment as quickly as possible, while also looking out for U.S. interests and security in the long term.”
“It’s important for Americans to exercise their constitutional rights to express their grievances peacefully. And Senator Grassley hopes the young Iowans who visited his office today received an educational experience,” Levine said Friday.
The students said their passion for ending the war outweighed the potential effects as they apply for college.
Glynn, a senior who wants to be an engineer, has applied at Princeton and Stanford universities, among others. He said he is fully aware that his mug shot will exist for eternity in Polk County records - and that below it, the description of the charge won’t read “trespassing for a noble cause.”
“The sort of people that look at a picture like that and assume guilt and recklessness - I don’t want to be a part of that,” Glynn said.
Even when it comes to the Ivy League? “Definitely.”
Parents were more admirable of the risk than angry about the consequences.
Olson’s mother, Julie Fugenschuh, said it’s likely the only circumstance under which she would be proud her daughter was taken into police custody.
“She’s standing up for what she believes in,” Fugenschuh said. “She’s repeated over and over to family members that we need to take the steps needed to end this war.
“… You worry for your kids. You don’t want anyone in harm’s way, but she’s done the peaceful thing, and there’s lots of worse things she could be arrested for.”
Cordaro, a longtime Des Moines peace activist, is no stranger to congressional office occupations or the jail time that can come with them.
Cordaro said he wasn’t acting as a pied piper of sorts when it came to training the students in nonviolent resistance and joining them in Grassley’s office.
“The kids, by studying this issue, show a certain maturity. Even the hesitant ones,” he said. “Most Americans disagree with this war, and these kids are asking the personal question of, ‘Am I willing to take this risk?’ “
Reporter Abby Simons can be reached at (515) 284-8136 or asimons@dmreg.com
