Daryl Hannah Arrested in Garden Protest
Sheriff’s deputies and police evicted farmers and supporters Tuesday from a 14-acre urban community garden being reclaimed by the landowner, making arrests as actress Daryl Hannah and other protesters resisted by occupying a tree, chaining themselves to barrels of concrete and blocking traffic in nearby streets.
Hannah, the star of such films as “Splash,” “Wall Street,” and “Kill Bill,” and famous tree sitter John Quigley raised their fists as authorities using a fire truck lift brought them down from a walnut tree towering over the green swath in a gritty area southeast of downtown.
“Daryl, we’re with you!” protester Jenny Flores yelled through a megaphone from a nearby street.
“I’m very confident this is the morally right thing to do, to take a principled stand in solidarity with the farmers,” Hannah told The Associated Press in a cell phone call before officers reached her perch in the branches.
Authorities moved against the garden occupiers about 5 a.m. By late morning, 14 people had been arrested inside the community garden and another 25 at the support demonstration outside.
Dozens of protesters outside sporadically chanted, “We’re here and we’re not going to leave” in Spanish and blew whistles.
Protesters linked arms and sat on train tracks, drawing officers with helmets and batons. Officers dragged some protesters away while other officers forced supporters back.
Inside the garden, firefighters had to cut free protesters who had chained themselves to the walnut tree, barrels filled with concrete and a picnic table.
About 120 county sheriff’s deputies arrived at the site near warehouses and train tracks around daybreak to serve the eviction order that a judge signed last month.
“It’s a massive show of force,” Quigley, a veteran environmental activist and tree-sitter, said by cell phone. “Our goal is to hold as firm as we can, obviously in a nonviolent manner.”
Deputies slowly pulled people out from among the avocados, sunflowers and other produce.
“We’re taking our time so we make sure the protesters are safe,” sheriff’s spokeswoman Kerri Webb said.
For years about 350 people tended plots of produce and flowers.
Recently, landowner Ralph Horowitz began taking action on plans to replace the garden with a warehouse.
Horowitz noted that the farmers were squatting on land he owned that was zoned for warehouses and factories.
Horowitz said in a telephone interview he was paying $25,000 to $30,000 a month in mortgage and other land costs.
“We’ve made, in the last three years, enough of a donation to those farmers,” he said. “I just want my land back.
“The gardeners don’t make the rules. They don’t violate court orders at their will, promise to get off the land and not get off, demand that they be given the land for free. There’s an end to this type of thing,” he said.
Horowitz accused the farmers of ingratitude, saying they had sued him and their supporters had picketed his home and office.
“I feel that the gardeners have been on the land for 14 years, almost 15 years for free. After 15 years, you say thank you,” he said.
Horowitz also said the city had provided alternate locations for the gardeners and most had left. In a statement, City Councilwoman Jan Perry also said many gardeners had moved to new garden sites.
The campaign to save the farm attracted the support of numerous activists and celebrities, including Hannah, Quigley, country singer Willie Nelson, actor Danny Glover, folk singer Joan Baez and tree sitter Julia Butterfly Hill.
Supporters moved onto the property full-time in mid-May and occupied the walnut tree after the judge issued the eviction order.
The roots of the dispute go back to the 1980s, when the city forced Horowitz to sell the land for $4.8 million for a trash-to-energy incinerator. The project fizzled and the city turned the land over to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, which allowed people to begin gardening there in the early 1990s.
Horowitz sued to get the site back and the city settled in 2003 by selling it to him for $5 million.
Garden supporters took legal action, but ultimately the state Supreme Court decided against hearing the case.
In the meantime, Horowitz offered to sell 10 acres of the land for $16.3 million to a trust set up on behalf of the farmers. The group failed to raise the money before the purchase option expired May 22, and Horowitz got the eviction order.
Horowitz said he intends to find tenants for the land and will not sell it to any gardeners or their supporters.
“This one they’re not getting,” he said.
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