A man urging Alaska lawmakers to take action against trawling was removed from the state Capitol in handcuffs and banned from the building after disrupting a committee hearing on Monday.
After his removal, former fisheries worker Eric Osuch went to the nearby State Office Building and was arrested by the Juneau Police Department after a fight was reported there. He was charged with criminal trespass, the department said.
Osuch was the first person forcibly expelled from the Capitol in three years. Though legislators frequently deal with contentious and emotional topics, protests are typically orderly and held outside the front doors during the lunch hour.
Jessica Geary, director of the nonpartisan agency that operates the Capitol, said no one has received a trespass notice barring them from the Capitol since 2020, and before that, the most recent incident was in 2016.
“The process is outlined in the Capitol Complex Security Operating Procedures Manual. Capitol Security can verbally trespass someone for 24 hours; anything over that requires a formal trespass notice, which must be written and given to the subject with a copy retained for Legislative records,” she said by email.
On Monday afternoon, security officials were still finalizing the formal incident report.
Osuch has been a regular figure outside the Capitol since last week, advocating action against deep-sea trawling in order to preserve salmon returns. That topic was addressed by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council last week, with limited immediate action taken.
Osuch said he was dissatisfied by that result and called for the abolition of the council. On Monday, he was in front of the Capitol as early as 8:45 a.m., yelling at passersby.
During a morning meeting of the Senate Finance Committee on Monday, he sought legislators’ attention from the spectator gallery during discussion of a new formula for the Permanent Fund dividend.
Members of the committee said he was waving his hands and being disruptive, asking to be recognized and for permission to speak during the meeting, which did not include public testimony.
Staff and Capitol security asked him to stop interrupting and warned him that he could be removed from the room if he continued.
He left the hearing room to speak with a reporter, and when he returned, he slammed open the door to the committee room, possibly by accident.
The committee briefly paused as security officers entered and removed Osuch, citing the slammed door. After he declined to leave willingly, they handcuffed him and escorted him to the building’s foyer, where he was presented with a trespass notice barring him from the building.
“I’m calling for fisheries and hatcheries reform,” he said before being escorted from the building.
Osuch carried a copy of “The One Straw Revolution,” an influential manifesto first published in Japan that advocates a return to traditional agriculture practices in order to solve modern industrial problems.
Osuch claimed to be a registered Libertarian, but state voting records don’t list him.
He said he was fired from DIPAC, a Juneau fish hatchery, after criticizing their management practices. He told a Beacon reporter that he was on the third day of a hunger strike and said he “donated my wallet to the Tlingit and Haida people to show them that I believe that capitalism has failed and I believe that they should go back to their roots, and I will help them if they want to.”
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