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11/19/98, 10:55 pmcst
Nine arrested during disabilities
protest
By BILL SNYDER
and DAVID HEFNER
Tennessean Staff Writers
Nine people representing a Memphis disabilities group were arrested yesterday while demonstrating at the state health commissioner's office to demand a broader range of services for the elderly and disabled.
The protesters, six of them in wheelchairs, were with the Memphis chapter of the American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today, or ADAPT.
They vowed to continue protesting inside state Health Commissioner Nancy Menke's third-floor office at the downtown Cordell Hull Building until she agreed to meet their demands.
But the protesters were escorted out of the building by state troopers and Capitol police while Menke was in a meeting downstairs with the Long-Term Care Services Advisory Council.
The federal Americans with Disabilities Act is supposed to provide disabled people with choices on where their services are delivered, said Dawn Russell, organizer for ADAPT in Memphis.
"We want people to have a real choice," Russell said.
The state has a couple of pilot "waiver" projects for home- and community-based long-term care, but those are serving only "a handful" of people, she said.
Capitol police Officer Roger Huntley said his officers arrested six protesters and state troopers arrested the other three. He said the protesters were taken to Metro Jail for booking.
Alexia Levison, deputy press secretary for Gov. Don Sundquist, said police were called in partly because ADAPT damaged property during a similar protest in Memphis, when the group took over offices and spent the night inside the building.
"We've had experience with this group before," Levison said. "And that's why they were asked to leave...
Commissioner Menke said that she would be happy to meet with any group, but she was in a meeting and also usually when people meet they make appointments."
The Tennessean, Nov. 20, 1998 p. 1
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