Occupy Long Beach protesters in front of LBPD headquarters – Photos by Greggory Moore
8:36pm | As originally reported in the Press-Telegram, George Diller pled no contest to Thursday one count of obstructing or resisting a police officer stemming from his arrest Tuesday morning in Lincoln Park.
But Diller tells the Long Beach Post he is innocent of the charge and has already contacted attorneys about taking civil action against the LBPD.
According to Diller, as he was speaking with his father via telephone Tuesday, a bicycle-mounted police officer approached Diller and told him to extinguish his cigarette. Diller claims he simultaneously told both the officer and his father to “hold on a minute. […] I was trying to hang up the phone and put my cigarette out at the same time, and [the officer] said it one more time, ‘Put out that cigarette,’ and I said, ‘Okay, I am’ — and at that point they drug me up into the yard of the park and put me in a chokehold and put me to sleep. […] As they were putting me in the chokehold, I was telling them, ‘I’m not fighting you! You don’t need to…I’m not resisting arrest!’ […] The officer was completely out of control; he had no edit button.”
As quoted by the Press-Telegram, police claim Diller refused an officer’s order to get off the phone and cursed at the officer, then tried to kick the officer and “hook[ed] the officer’s elbow with his own arm, then pulled the officer on top of him,” then continued to fight, including trying to spit at the officers.
Diller’s “no contest” plea to the charge of obstructing/resisting is legally tantamount to an admission of guilt — a fact Diller says he understands.
“I understand that. But they pretty much put me up the tree and told me that if I didn’t agree with this agreement, they were going to charge me with a felony [for] assaulting a police officer,” he says. “The only reason I [pled no contest] was because I didn’t want to sit in jail over Christmas. […] I’m playing their game. They’re trying to make it look like they did me a favor by giving me a slap on the wrist. […] I don’t get into trouble with the law, so them charging me and saying I have to be on probation is fine with me, ’cause I put myself on my own probation through life. […] I’m not a thug; I don’t have a problem with authority.”
Diller claims he has already contacted attorneys to take legal action against the LBPD — however much his “no contest” plea may work against him.
“I still am going to be taking them to court — civil court — and making a case of it,” he says. “They’re the ones who initiated it, and I’m going to be the one that ends it.”
Meanwhile, on Friday evening about 60 members of Occupy Long Beach took part in a march against police brutality, winding along Ocean Boulevard to Magnolia Avenue, then stopping in front of police headquarters and chanting. From there the group marched up and down Pine Avenue, then back to Lincoln Park.
Over a dozen LBPD officers in patrol units, motorcycles, bicycles, and foot officers monitored the march, which took place without incident.
