To write to Mary Anne:
Mary Anne Grady Flores
Inmate #: 12001966
Jamesville Correctional Facility
PO Box 143
Jamesville, NY 13078
To donate so she can make phone calls, etc., please make
checks out to
Ithaca Catholic Workers (w/ Mary Anne Grady Flores in memo
line) and mail to:
Ithaca Catholic Workers, 514 N. Plain St., Ithaca, NY 14850
For video on her actions (in English w/Spanish subtitles): https://youtu.be/3V8ElSbrEHg
Drone
protester surrenders in DeWitt court amid cheers, applause from supporters
Mary Ann
Grady Flores Sentenced.
By Elizabeth Doran | edoran@syracuse.com on January 19, 2016 at 6:35 PM, updated January 20, 2016 at 7:26 AM
Mary Anne Grady Flores, a 59-year-old Ithaca woman,
surrendered in DeWitt Town Court court Tuesday evening as her supporters filled
the courtroom, cheering, clapping and shouting out words of encouragement.
Grady Flores is starting her six-month jail sentence today in connection with a 2013 drone protest at the Hancock Field Air National Guard Base. She will serve her sentence at the Jamesville Correctional Facility.
Grady Flores is starting her six-month jail sentence today in connection with a 2013 drone protest at the Hancock Field Air National Guard Base. She will serve her sentence at the Jamesville Correctional Facility.
Grady Flores blew kisses to her supporters
as she was handcuffed by a DeWitt court security officer, who she offered to
hug.
Wearing a down coat and hat, she appeared
in front of Judge David Gideon with her lawyer to surrender. She was not
permitted to make a statement; Gideon explained she was not being re-sentenced,
but instead surrendering to the court.
"Thank you for your sacrifice, Mary
Anne,'' one supporter shouted.
"We will hold you in our hearts,"
another yelled.
Prior to appearing in court, Grady Flores,
who runs a catering business and has three grandchildren, spoke at a news
conference at the town court, along with members of the Syracuse Peace Council
and Ithaca Drone Resistance Support Team.
Holding anti-drone signs, the speakers said
they are opposed to the use of drones, and also object to using orders of
protection as a method of dissuading drone protesters.
"If the American people look closely
at the facts, they'd do away with the drone program,'' Grady Flores said,
adding that her research shows 90 percent of people killed by drone strikes are
civilians.
Grady Flores' lawyer, Lance Salisbury, is
appealing her sentence, and also challenging the use of orders of protection.
1 / 8
Before Mary
Ann Grady Flores surrendered to the town of Dewitt court to start her six-month
jail sentence today in connection with a 2013 drone protest at the Hancock
Field Air National Guard Base. Flores was convicted second-degree criminal
contempt in connection with a violation of an order of protection issued Oct.
25, 2012.Dennis Nett | dnett@syracuse.com
Grady Flores was convicted of second-degree
criminal contempt in connection with a violation of an order of protection
issued Oct. 25, 2012.
She was charged with violating the order
during an Ash Wednesday protest at Hancock Field on Feb. 13, 2013. The order of
protection was issued to bar Grady Flores from going near Col. Earl Evans, the
mission support group commander at the 174th Attack Wing of the New York Air
National Guard, on Oct. 25, 2012. The protection order was valid for one year.
Flores has said she was taking photographs
of the protesters and was not part of the actual protest that day. She also
said she didn't think she was violating the order as she couldn't tell where
the base boundary lines were.
In May 2014, Grady Flores was sentenced to
one year in prison and fined $1,000, but she was released on bail while her
appeal was pending. All eight Catholic drone resisters arrested that Ash
Wednesday were acquitted by a judge who asserted that the protesters intended
to uphold law, not break it.
In January,Grady Flores learned Onondaga
County Court Judge Thomas Miller upheld her lower court conviction, but had
reduced her sentence to six months. Miller also upheld the Hancock 17
protesters' orders of protection and convictions of disorderly conduct.
The Hancock 17 refers to 17 people arrested who were
protesting U.S. drone warfare at the Hancock Field in 2012.
© 2015 Syracuse Media Group. All rights
reserved
Donations can be sent
to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
21218. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives."
Eugene Victor Debs
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