Activist Cheri Honkala's strange trip through Philly's justice system

Charged with only a misdemeanor, Honkala was kept in police custody for 24 hours. She was told to report to probation, even before her court date.

Cheri Honkala (facing camera) at a sit-in at the Bellevue. Gov. Tom Corbett has an office on the 11th floor of the building.
Hillary Petrozziello

Activist Cheri Honkala says all she was hoping to do was to raise a little cash for the financially troubled Philadelphia School District. So, she and a band of about 40 teachers, students and parents from three city schools headed for Gov. Tom Corbett's Center City offices to hold a not-so-silent auction.

"We were going to hold an auction of all the items in his office. Some people hold bake sales. We wanted to hold an auction," she said in a phone interview Monday night.

The way she sees it, teachers need classroom supplies — paper, books and toner for copiers — and the governor was off somewhere talking about giving another tax break to businesses. Plus, the state-run School Reform Commission had just "cancelled" the teachers' contract, requiring them to pay part of their health-care premiums.

So, last Thursday afternoon, Honkala and fellow protesters from the school communities at Moffett, Masterman and Penn Treaty showed up at the Bellevue, at Broad and Walnut streets, where Corbett has offices on the 11th floor. They entered elevators and got as far as the ninth floor before the car came to a stop. Building officials had shut off the elevators. The group waited inside the closed car until a building official opened the door, turned a key and sent the elevator back down to the ground floor.

Then protesters turned to "Plan B," a sit-in in the lobby, where police arrested Honkala on charges of failure to disperse.

She spent the next 10 hours in a holding cell before being taken to the Roundhouse, city police headquarters. When booking her, police misspelled her first name -- Chevi -- making it difficult for those trying to track her in the system to find her. She was given "a stay-away order" and released on her own recognizance at 6 p.m. Friday — about 24 hours after her arrest on a misdemeanor.

"I saw people charged with robberies, aggravated assault and attempted murder let out," before her she says.

"Somebody with strings ordered this one," she surmised.

Honkala, a longtime activist who has been arrested "a gazillion times," says she encountered something she hadn't faced before. A municipal court judge ordered her to report for supervision by the city Probation Department this Thursday — long before her Nov. 13 court date. She plans to fight the misdemeanor charge, but says, "I totally got the message. They will send me to jail."

What's next?

She's going to attend the next SRC meeting, at the School District's headquarters this Thursday night, "right after I get 'my supervision,'" she said.