CHAPEL HILL –  Following a march from Chapel Hill Police headquarters, Town Hall overflowed with protesters Monday night. The crowd spilled into the hallway and outside onto a balcony, where members of Occupy Chapel Hill and other activist groups beat on the windows, chanted and jeered to get their message across.

Inside the crowd was quieter, but the atmosphere was tense as the council heard former Senate candidate Jim Neal’s petition calling for independent review of police action on November 13, when a Special Emergency Response Team was deployed to arrest protesters occupying the Yates Motor Building on West Franklin Street.

“I believe that the only way to bring this to resolution is to bring in independent eyes; to have third party independent eyes come in and evaluate from the beginning to the end the entire process that led up to the events at the Yates Motor building on the thirteenth,” Neal told the council.

Neal was joined by a dozen other speakers who urged the council to decry the police department’s show of force. Frank Papa, owner of Phydeaux pet supply, told the council he’d rather move his business to Durham than support such draconian measures.

Michael Conner, of Internationalist Books, identified himself as “your friendly local anarchist,” and asked the council why a group already known to the community would be targeted by police in such a hostile manner.

“Should anarchists expect guns at other events that we bottom-line? When we do movie screenings at Internationalist Books, should we be afraid that you’ll come with guns? When we have our Really Really Free Market, should we be afraid you’ll come with guns? I think the anarchists in this town have a fairly peaceful history.”

Some on the council, including Jim Ward, voiced support for a third party review. But Donna Bell, who is the council’s liaison to the newly-formed Community Policing Advisory Committee, argued that group could function independently from the police, and should be the ones to take up the review.

“I don’t know who would better be able to ask the questions that we’re asking to be asked, because they’re the committee that’s been set up to ask these questions in these specific situations,” Bell told her peers. “This committee was created out of a sense from the community that events like these happen.”

Council member Laurin Easthom introduced her own petition calling for an immediate apology to the two reporters who were detained during the raid on the Yates Building.

“[The press] are the eyes and the ears of those of us that were not there, and to prevent them from doing that job is not right,” said Easthom. Her comments met with loud applause from the audience.

Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt said while he regretted what took place on November 13, he’d rather wait for the review process to be completed before commenting on the treatment of the press at the scene.

“I’m not going to decide… or come down on one side without hearing from others on the scene, particularly our police officers who took that action,” argued Kleinschmidt.

“You’re assuming that an apology is an admission of guilt,” Sally Greene countered. “An apology does not have to be an admission of guilt; an apology can just be ‘I’m sorry this happened to you.’”

Greene, Easthom and Ed Harrison voted in favor of an immediate apology, but were overruled by the rest of the council. The vote prompted a noisy response from protesters that ground council business to a halt.

As the council moved into recess until the crowd quieted, some in the audience who had gathered for the discussion of the Northside and Pine Knolls neighborhood protection plan grew visibly and audibly distressed.

Northside resident Keith Edwards addressed the council once calm had been restored.

“I have to apologize to the town council. When you took your break, many of us were not aware that you were taking a break, that’s why I had to get up and say, ‘Wait a minute!’” Edwards then turned her attention to the protesters. “To the Occupy movement; thank you for all the hard work that you are doing. The Occupy movement put a spot light on greed in America and around the world. I ask you to branch out and assist communities who feel their very existence is threatened because of greed.”

In the end, the council referred both the Neal and Easthom petitions to town staff for further review. The crowd of protesters cleared out of council chambers to continue chanting and drumming outside.

While there’s no word on when town staff will respond to the petitions, the Community Policing Advisory Board meets at 7 pm at the Chapel Hill Police Department Headquarters on December 14.