For War Protester Eve Tetaz, 78 Is Hardly The Time To Retire

For war protester Eve Tetaz, 78 is hardly the time to retire
By Keith L. Alexander, Washington Post Staff Writer | Washington Post

It's a familiar scene for Eve Tetaz. She sits in the cold, damp holding cell, crammed together with other women. Some, like her, were arrested for protesting. Others are locked up for drugs, assault or prostitution.

The other women in the D.C. jail affectionately call her grandma. Her cellmates, or as she calls them, her "sisters in chains," let her sleep on the bottom bunk so the 78-year-old doesn't have to climb to the top. Instead of letting her stand in line to get her jail-issued bologna or cheese sandwiches, many of the women bring them to her. "These are women I probably even wouldn't see passing on the street," Tetaz said. "They are very gracious to me."

With her white hair and black glasses, Tetaz is a familiar figure to the Capitol Police and at the courthouse. Since 2005, court records show, she has been arrested 20 times and convicted 14 times of various offenses, including unlawful assembly, disorderly conduct, contempt and crossing a police line. As she and other demonstrators march around various parts of the District, from the White House to the Supreme Court to the Capitol, her protests center on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Most District judges who have heard her cases have dismissed them with a citation or fine or sentenced her to time served, usually one or two days in jail, and sent her home. But her repeated arrests have left prosecutors and some D.C. Superior Court judges exasperated. On Thursday, just days before a D.C. Superior Court judge was scheduled to sentence her in another case, Tetaz picked up her 21st arrest when she and about 40 other protesters were charged in a war demonstration on the Capitol grounds. A hearing was scheduled for March. Read more.