By Miranda Leitsinger, msnbc.com
Seven Occupy Houston protesters were indicted on felony charges by a grand jury on Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the district attorney's office says, in connection with their demonstration at the local port as part of a national day of action by the movement.
The decision comes nearly a week after a judge initially dismissed the charges, saying the protesters could not be charged with possessing or using a "criminal instrument" ? a felony in Texas ? for their use of PVC pipe.
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The protesters had put their arms through the pipe and used latches on it to connect together, making their arrest more difficult but not preventing it, said one of their attorneys, Daphne Silverman, of the National Lawyer's Guild in Houston.? Donna Hawkins, a spokeswoman for the District Attorney's Office, confirmed the indictment.
"They are feeling, 'wow,' is the word. ... They're in a lot of shock. They were very happy with the justice's decision last week, they believed in her, they believed in the justice system," Silverman said. "These people ... are not criminals. These folks are out there attempting to make the country better for all of us."
Silverman noted that she believed the law had been wrongly applied by the prosecutor. It's likely the protesters will be back in court in January to talk about the next step, such as negotiate or go to trial. If convicted, they face up to two years in jail.
The protesters had joined with other Occupy outfits across the country that were conducting port shutdowns on Dec. 12 to economically disrupt what they called "Wall Street on the waterfront.?
Felony arrests were occurring in other cities, such as Denver and New York. Civil rights lawyers have suggested it was another form of crackdown on the movement.
"We?ve been seeing more of them (felony arrests), especially (the) beginning of November," said Gideon Oliver of the lawyers guild in New York. The police and the district attorney?s office have discretion in determining the charges, "and so there are two sort of steps in the process where ... the police or the DA, if they conducted a reasonable investigation, I think, in a lot of these cases would realize that they?re overcharging."
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