A 70-year-old retired doctor from the North Side says he was subjected to a “totally unjustified, ridiculous arrest” while on a bike ride among protesters marching near the Democratic National Convention on Monday.
Hours after spending a rough night at a Chicago police station, Dr. Charles Steinbruegge told WBEZ on Tuesday he was not a protester himself and had merely taken his bicycle out to see what was happening near the DNC when a federal agent detained him and Chicago officers arrested him a few blocks from the United Center.
Authorities said Steinbruegge was among 13 people they listed as having been arrested at the march, where protesters briefly breached a security fence set up north of the arena. The doctor now faces a misdemeanor criminal charge of trespass to state land and was issued a citation for trespassing also, according to police.
But Steinbruegge said he has no criminal record and was looking for a lawyer to fight the case after police kept him locked up for 12 hours together with a few of the protesters who were arrested and charged also.
Steinbruegge — a U.S. Army veteran who described himself as “completely apolitical” — said he rode past the pro-Palestinian marchers and went down a street on his bike until a U.S. Department of Homeland Security agent stopped him and placed him in handcuffs.
“I told him, ‘I'm just riding her my bike around, just looking around, checking stuff out, not protesting. I have no agenda, nothing,’” Steinbrugge said. “And he just wouldn't buy it. He was being really hardcore, trying to be a tough guy. Chicago cops didn’t care.”
Steinbruegge said he did not witness the protesters who broke down a fence at one point.
“There was an opening in the fence, and to me it looked like it was designed that way,” he said. “It looked like a perfectly ordinary opening. There was no sign of any destruction.
“People were freely going through — pedestrians, cyclists, photographers. They were just walking back and forth.”
Chicago Police and Homeland Security officials did not return messages Tuesday asking for them to respond to Steinbruegge’s account or provide further details of his arrest.
Steinbruegge said his time in the police lock-up included a visit from two U.S. Secret Service agents and ranks among the worst nights of his life.
“Twelve hours from the time I was arrested until the time I got out, and most of the time in a very cold, dingy, dirty jail cell,” he said. “I tell you, I'm in pretty good shape, but you know, it was a horrible night. I've never been arrested, and I was in jail. It was cold, man, it was freezing. I had on my skimpy little lycra bike shorts and a T-shirt.”
Steinbruegge said he shared a cell with an actual protester — a “nice guy” who had been “roughed up” — and they could hear another arrested demonstrator who swore and apparently was taken at one point to a hospital before returning to the station.
“It was like a Kafka episode,” Steinbruegge said. “I couldn't believe it was happening. First of all, I couldn't believe they arrested me. Secondly, it just went on and on and on. It just lasted all night, and you never knew what was going on.”
Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling said earlier Tuesday he believed all officers responding to the march had “responded perfectly” and he denied accusations that the CPD assaulted any demonstrators, asserting that not-yet-released video from body cameras and other footage would prove their version of events.
Additional arrests were made Tuesday evening during an unpermitted protest organized by the Behind Enemy Lines group at the Israeli consulate in downtown Chicago. A spokesperson for the National Lawyers' Guild Chicago chapter told WBEZ the group tallied 67 arrests of Behind Enemy Lines demonstrators by 10 p.m. and expected the total to rise because, he said, "I don’t think the CPD is finished."
Almost all of the protesters who were arrested Monday at the march near the United Center were handed misdemeanor charges and citations. The only felony charge, police said, was filed against 31-year-old Tanner Masseth of Chicago’s West Side.
He has been accused of aggravated battery of a peace officer. Authorities said an undercover cop saw Masseth throw a water bottle at an officer fixing a fence, according to an arrest report. The bottle missed the officer but the cop allegedly was hit with an “unknown liquid.” Officers followed Masseth and arrested him.
Masseth could not be reached for comment. His social-media posts show he has attended a number of protests in and near Chicago in recent years, including a demonstration against stationing police officers in public schools and an event to decry “voter suppression” in front of the Trump Tower Chicago.
Dan Mihalopoulos is an investigative reporter on WBEZ’s Government & Politics Team. Tom Schuba is a criminal justice editor for the Sun-Times.
