Scientology pickets Clearwater Police Department.

Subject: CW picket: years of work ruined
From: dst@cs.cmu.edu (Dave Touretzky)
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/Web/People/dst/NOTs/
Date: 9 Dec 1997

A few remarks about the Scientology picket of the police and the SP Times. Here's why I think they reacted this way. They saw in March that directly confronting the ARSCC protestors didn't work. Not only did it earn them bad press, but it exposed their own people to information sources the church could not control. A few minutes with a well-informed critic can shake the confidence of any low-level clam; Henson probably got a few of them to blow over lunch. And the OTs must have been quite unnerved to see so many people publicly laughing about Xenu. No, direct confrontation was just too dangerous.

In fact, the cult leadership needed a way to keep its people from being exposed to the picketers at all. But at the same time they had to avoid appearing weak and powerless against this bunch of wogs.

Since they couldn't risk the enturbulation that would result from attacking the picketers, they had to find a target who wouldn't fight back. They found exactly that in the police and the SP Times. The formula is simple: accuse the police of "third partying" (stirring up trouble between CoS and the public), then encourage the crowd to go after them.

There was a huge turnout for this debacle (around 1500 clams), far bigger than for normal IAS events. And the Scientologists filling those two blocks were the happiest mob I'd ever seen. They got to carry candles and professional-looking signs, and it was fun to chant slogans in unison. They felt totally "at cause" over the wog world, while the poor cops had to just stand there and stoically take it. This was far safer than taking on those suppressive geeks from the Internet again, and the added safety made it all the more fun. Oh, what a good time these little clams had! What a brilliant response!

The obvious flaw in this solution, though, is that it destroyed years of PR work in a single night. The clams had been supporting downtown redevelopment projects, contributing to the Pinnellas Trail celebration, and so forth, trying to purchase a track record as respectable members of the community. Their surprise attack on the police, especially after Brian Anderson had stated that there would be no counter-picket to the Friday evening vigil, has laid all that work to ruin.

To make matters worse, the clams also said they'd be demonstrating again on Saturday morning, forcing the police to call in many officers who would otherwise have had the morning off. Rumor has it the CWPD blew its entire overtime budget for December on officers brought in to cover the Saturday morning demonstration -- and then Scientology didn't show up! Due to its tax exemption, it costs Scientology nothing to squander public money this way, but the PR cost will be severe.

A reporter who used to cover Clearwater told us that back in the late 1970s when Scientology's infiltration plan for the city was first revealed, there were public rallies against the CoS attended by several thousand people. They had to be held in a stadium. Well, things are regressing rapidly in Clearwater. We may see such rallies in another year or so. But this time Hubbard won't be around to orchestrate the CoS response, and the fools and psychos currently running things are going to flub big time.
-- Dave Touretzky, KoX (SP4.9): Occupied Clearwater may soon be free again.

Clearwater reacts to church's attacks
By THOMAS C. TOBIN and ANITA KUMAR
St. Petersburg Times
December 9, 1997

CLEARWATER -- City leaders Monday said the Church of Scientology's angry protests of the Police Department over the weekend badly damaged Scientology's image in Clearwater and set back the church's efforts to become part of the city's mainstream.

The church continued to blast police Chief Sid Klein on Monday with another in a series of public letters accusing him of "orchestrating harassment" against the church and its members.

Church representatives also passed out fliers at the city's downtown office complex and at police headquarters, asking for reports of corruption, abuses and discrimination in Klein's department.

City officials responded in strong terms to the church's allegations.

"If they can prove what they say, Sid ought to be in prison," City Commissioner Ed Hooper said. "If they can't, they need to let this go. You either go to the state attorney's office (with the evidence) or you get over it. They just can't make wild allegations that can't be substantiated."

Church spokesman Brian Anderson said, "We can back up everything in those letters and will do so. Everything we say is documentable, and that will be presented at the right place and at the right time."

Anderson cited three instances he thought were among the church's biggest complaints against Klein:

He said police failed to seriously investigate a former Scientologist who stole $4,300 from the Clearwater church in 1983. He accused the police department of helping Scientology opponents by escorting them around town in unmarked cars. And he criticized Klein for assigning intelligence officers to focus on church activities.

City Manager Mike Roberto said he will continue to talk to church officials and plans to include them in his proposal to redevelop downtown because he still considers the church a "player." But he added he will "revisit how we are going to address the church" in the future.

"You can't attack the chief of police without some repercussions," Roberto said.

Hooper and other commissioners said the weekend campaign was reminiscent of the strife that accompanied the church's arrival in Clearwater in 1975 with a written plan, later uncovered by the FBI, to stifle opposition by infiltrating major institutions and discrediting people it saw as enemies.

"It's definitely a regression," City Commissioner Bob Clark said. "People are just asking, "What does this mean? Are we at war again or what?' "

City Commissioner Karen Seel said, "I think they hurt themselves, very much so. It only goes back to the old days, and people's suspicions immediately arise again. They haven't changed their colors."

In response, Anderson argued that an appellate court in 1993 found the city at fault for discriminating against the church.

Hooper said he was surprised by the protest Friday because in the last two years the church had been trying to become more accepted in the city by participating in more community events, such as contributing to the Pinellas Trail grand opening celebration and helping decorate downtown for the holidays.

"I'm disappointed because I think it hurt Clearwater as a whole," Hooper said. "It's the wrong kind of exposure."

Scientology's weekend campaign, which continued Monday, is the worst attack on the city since the church moved to Clearwater, Hooper said.

"For a long time, they contended the old ways were gone," he said. "They were getting so close to being accepted, and now we're back to square one. This doesn't make you want to hold hands and sing hymns."

Hooper said it will take several years for the church to start over and try to be accepted again.

The church's anti-Klein initiative began Friday night as a group of about 30 protesters demonstrated in memory of Lisa McPherson, the Scientologist who died in 1995 while in the care of fellow church members.

That evening, an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 Scientologists demonstrated at police headquarters, and church officials wrote Klein saying he had discriminated against the church by aiding the protesters.

The effort continued Saturday with a biting, nine-page letter that accused Klein of a broader crime -- a "two-decade pattern of discrimination."

The letters were signed by church spokesman Anderson, who is comparing the church's fight against the Clearwater police to the struggles of African-Americans in the 1960s for civil rights.

Anderson also charged that Klein had trivialized the church's complaints. He wrote to Klein: "My, oh, my, how arrogant one can be."

Klein said Monday that Anderson's allegations are not true. He said he believes the church's campaign is related to the fact his department is concluding an investigation into McPherson's death and that the case is receiving wide attention.

Church officials have said their campaign is primarily against Klein and not against the officers on the street.

Anderson ended his Monday letter with a quote from L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, who died in 1986. It said: "On the day we can fully trust each other there will be peace on Earth."

SCIENTOLOGY ADHERENTS, OPPONENTS DEMONSTRATE
Sunday, December 7, 1997
The Associated Press

CLEARWATER - Church of Scientology critics and supporters staged opposing demonstrations at the same time a block apart - the critics to remember a dead church member, the supporters to criticize city police.

The activities, which began Friday and continued Saturday, included dueling candlelight vigils and dueling news conferences, with 1,400 church members on one side and a group of about 30 anti-Scientologists on the other.

The smaller group, made up of former church members who have turned against the church, came to remember Lisa McPherson who died Dec. 5, 1995, after a 17-day stay at the church's Fort Harrison Hotel. Medical examiner Joan Wood determined McPherson, a 36-year-old Scientologist, went without fluids for at least five to 10 days and possibly her entire stay at the hotel.

Church officials disputed that, saying McPherson was well cared for by church members, suddenly fell ill on Dec. 5, 1995, and died that evening.

Spokesman Brian Anderson said church members came to show their frustration with what he called a campaign of harassment by the police department. In a letter to police, he accused the department of working with protesters against the church.

The hundreds of church supporters got off buses and picked up picket signs. One declared: "Sid Klein, what is your crime?"

Some seemed unaware Klein was the Clearwater police chief.

"I'm not from here," said one man carrying a Klein sign. "Sorry."

Clearwater Picket