Correction appended
Tasered, arrested and found guilty of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, former University student Ian Van Ornum faces court fees of about $700 nearly a year after his arrest.
On Sunday, Van Ornum held a benefit concert in his honor at Cozmic Pizza, where about 35 supporters turned out to listen to music and donate to assist with his fines. He was scheduled to perform with his own band, The Mossy Top String Band, but did not play at the event because his bandmates were unable to make the engagement, he said.
Before the public and select media for the first time since his arrest at a rally he organized in May 2008, Van Ornum spoke of his experience during the past year.
“I’m going to take this opportunity to say some things that I’ve wanted to say for a long time, but haven’t been able to because I’ve been summoned not to by various attorneys,” he told his audience of supporters Sunday evening. “The reason I live in this town is the number of wonderful people that live in this town. No matter how much police beat up 18-year-old hippie kids, when need be, people make things work because they can. This town has shown me we can do it together.”
Originally from Minnesota, Van Ornum has been in Eugene for only 18 months, but said he had heard of long-standing tension between police and protesters. He said tension came to a peak when Eugene police stunned him twice last year during his arrest.
“This was a kind of breaking point for folks, it seems,” he said.
An internal affairs investigation into police conduct during the arrests of Van Ornum and two others at the rally is underway. Van Ornum has appealed his conviction and is moving forward with a civil suit against the police, he said.
Contrary to what his defense attorney, Laura Fine, told the judge in sentencing, Van Ornum told the Emerald he’s not working at the local grocery store Sundance. Although he knows a manager there and may work in the future, he’s currently not employed.
Van Ornum said for the time being he’s trying to grow all his own vegetables, play music and work on his own form of activism by “being able to do it all myself.”
Once co-director of the UO Survival Center, co-founder of the student group Crazy People for Wild Places and an avid activist, Van Ornum said he has ceased his outright activist work since the May 30, 2008 rally.
“I’ve pretty much stopped,” he said. “It’s kind of sad.”
A freshman when he was tasered last year, Van Ornum had already made an impression on the campus community because of his extracurricular involvement. The impression left after his arrest, however, may be the one that lasts.
Day Owen, the self-proclaimed forest-dweller and founder of the Pitchfork Rebellion – a label bestowed by the Eugene Weekly on the anti-pesticide movement that began in the woods surrounding the city – spoke about the rally last year where he rushed to Van Ornum’s aid during the arrest.
“Before he was famous as the kid who got tasered, I knew him as the kid who borrowed my Beatles CDs,” Owen said.
Van Ornum became interested in and supportive of Owen’s cause and invited Owen to speak at the anti-pesticide rally. Department of Homeland Security agent Tom Keedy monitored the rally because of Owen’s participation, Owen said, and placed the call to Eugene police that led to Van Ornum’s arrest.
Owen was also arrested at the rally, but the charges brought against him were dropped.
“This is a positive example in that if Ian didn’t get arrested and tasered, the community wouldn’t know that Homeland Security is spying on them,” he said. “We call it Operation Flame of Truth.”
Van Ornum said positive results have come from his ordeal. Chief among them, he said, is finding himself in a city where residents carefully weigh his testimony against that of the police.
“I’m very grateful for the community I live in,” he said. “I’m so grateful to be in a community where community members are behind me and not trusting of everything the police say.”
Van Ornum said that while he has received an outpouring of support, he has also heard some criticism. He’s never been met with criticism personally, but he said he sometimes reads harsh comments about himself online.
Van Ornum said he hasn’t let the critical opinions get to him.
“It’s going to happen,” he said. “That’s their reality. It’s not something I can take personally. Those aren’t my issues – that’s their issues.”
While he’s living in Eugene, Van Ornum said he feels he “should get a degree.” He plans to return to the University in the fall and major in environmental studies.
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Because of a reporter’s error, this article misstated whom Laura A. Fine was addressing in court. During Ian Van Ornum’s sentencing, Fine told Judge Jack Billings, not jurors, that her client was employed at Sundance Natural Foods. The Emerald regrets the error.
Settling down after the shock
Daily Emerald
May 27, 2009
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