Hegins shoot protesters push for probe of their complaints

June 8, 1991

The Hazleton Standard-Speaker (Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania)

By Tony Greco

Pottsville – From the moment they were arrested, a group of protesters insisted they weren’t entirely to blame for the violence at last year’s Hegins pigeon shoot.

In the nine months since, they have become increasingly frustrated at what they say is the refusal by police and prosecutors to listen.

On Friday, one of the activists called a press conference to make his claims, and supporting evidence, public.

“It has become fairly obvious to us that unless we took some kind of action, nothing was going to come to light,” Stephen O. Hindi of Plano, Ill., told the gathering at the Treadway Inn here.

He showed photographs and videotapes of two incidents in which he said pro-shoot activists were responsible for violence, and a third – involving his brother, Gregory – that he called “a subtle case of police brutality.”

Hindi said the violence could have been avoided.

“Let’s remember that the protesters at the ‘Hegins Massacre’ were leaving when most of this – when all of this – trouble happened” and were “literally being stalked by pro-shooters, some of them drunk,” he said.

Joseph Taksel of Pittsburgh, a spokesman for the Coalition to Ban Live Pigeon Shoots, said Friday that police, were out in big numbers, failed to protect the protesters.

From the first thing that Labor Day morning, he said, “90 percent” of the officers on duty “wanted us to get the message: We weren’t wanted in Hegins.”

In one of the film clips, Carola Seiler of Hazleton is pushed against a car by a bystander while she was handcuffed. Four police officers were standing nearby, and Hindi said their “body language alone…shows that they saw what happened.”

But no charges were filed against the man.

Seiler, who had been arrested moments earlier for “loud and boisterous behavior at a fight,” suffered a minor bruise to her head in the incident, Hindi said.

Members of the Greater Hazleton Animal Rights Coalition joined other anti-shoot activists at Hegins on Sept. 3.

In December, Seiler filed a complaint over the assault and provided the videotape to back up her allegations. An investigation began two months ago, Hindi said, but police have said they can’t identify the alleged assailant. “I think if they want to find him, they can find him,” he said.

The other video shows a pickup truck speeding away after Hindi said it had struck a number of protesters. It then shows Hindi stepping in front of a car and the vehicle making contact with his leg; after an interruption, it shows the car in motion and Hindi on its hood.

Hindi, in explaining the gap, said the first portion was taped accidentally and that the operator, thinking she was turning the camera on, actually turned it off.

The video shows a state police trooper on horseback at the scene, and the protesters can be heard yelling at him “to do something. (He) does nothing.” Hindi said. “Why…is anyone’s guess.” The same officer, he said, ignored later shouts from protesters that a pro-shoot activist was carrying a gun.

Hindi was charged with criminal mischief and disorderly conduct – for jumping on the car’s hood and breaking its windshield with his foot, and for fighting with the driver in the incident.

He admitted to breaking the windshield, and said the car’s hood was the safest place to be at the time.

Hindi said he stood in front of the car in the first place “because the car was moving erratically. It had bumped some people …I was afraid someone was going to get killed.”

A charge of disorderly conduct against the driver, Michael A. Stewart of Annville, was dismissed when Hindi or any other witness failed to attend the hearing. Hindi said Friday that police “never asked me what I saw. They never asked about the car…Nevertheless, for some reason, they thought I was their star witness.”

Hindi said the subpoena he received on the man’s hearing was “defective,” and that his lawyer advised him not to attend.

The video involving Hindi’s brother shows the man being pushed onto the hood of a car by two police officers, while they held his arms behind his back.

Gregory was arrested for disorderly conduct for blocking the roadway. A photograph showed the man lying on the ground in front of the mounted trooper.

“He was not lying on the roadway,” Stephen Hindi said, “He was hit. The man who hit him (who he identified as Stewart) was never charged.”

The Hindis filed complaints against Stewart last November and gave investigators a list of 12 witnesses. However, Hindi said that to his knowledge, only one ever was contacted.

“To date,” he added, “we have received no word from the district attorney’s office on the supposed investigation.”

Schuylkill District Attorney Claude A. Lord Shields has said in the past that the videotapes have been reviewed. The protesters, he said last April, “Should be ashamed of themselves. I’d say they acted like animals.”

The Hindis and Seiler had planned to hold a press conference in April outside Shields’ office in the county courthouse. They backed off, though, after being assured that the investigation was being pursued, Hindi said Friday.

“It gave the authorities one more chance to play us for fools. They did that,” he said. “They’ve been stonewalling ever since…”They did not review all the evidence. Nothing close to it.”

Hindi and Bernard Unti of Philadelphia, who Hindi said was severely beaten during the Labor Day protest, have appealed their convictions by Tremont District Justice Earl Matz Jr. to the county court.

Hindi has rejected an offer of a plea bargain – a $350 fine and one year probation for his guilty plea – and said he will “scream bloody murder if they drop the charges … We are going to beat the charges, because they are bogus.”

The activists again are determined to stop even one pigeon from getting shot come Sept. 2.

Since last year they have taken a number of steps toward that goal, even offering organizers of the shoot $15,000 to cancel it.

“That was no publicity stunt,” Hindi said. “The money was there, it was real, ready to be sent at a moment’s notice.” Its refusal, he said, proves that the promoters are “hell-bent on shooting pigeons.”

On Nov. 14, the Hegins Park Association voted to continue to 56-year-old event this year. They emphasized that the shoot is a legitimate sporting event and a successful fund-raiser, and is not against the law.

Approximately 4,500 birds are killed yearly during this event. “It’s a disgusting display from beginning to end,” Taksel said.

The protesters will be located about two blocks from the park this year. Hindi said that if the police are fair to both sides – by “taking action when the process of losing control, on either side, starts” – there shouldn’t be any violence.

Shields, state Attorney General Ernie Preate and Hegins Police Chief Melvin Stutzman were invited to Friday’s press conference, but did not attend.