ILWU Auxiliary #14 protesting police brutality in Longview, WA
About 50 women, most of them members of the International Warehouse and Longshore Union’s Ladies Auxiliary, staged a protest in West Kelso Saturday afternoon, alleging their members were brutalized by police during a protest at the EGT grain terminal Wednesday.
Nearly a dozen female protesters arrested as they helped block a train carrying grain to the Longview terminal complained of back injury, sprains and strains to their shoulders, said Karin Hogg of Longview, who identified herself as the Ladies Auxiliary vice president. One woman was diagnosed with a torn rotator cuff, she said.
Hogg noted that security officers employed by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad arrested the women Wednesday, but she said local law enforcement officers watched. “Many of them laughed and they were high-fiving and fist-pumping,” Hogg said of the local police.
The women asked for and received plenty of supportive honks from passing cars.