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They were making their zombielike way along Nicollet Mall around 7 p.m. when police told them to turn down their music and keep a distance from bystanders. Later, on Hennepin Avenue, a young girl with her father became frightened by the lurching zombies, according to court records.

When arrested at the intersection of Hennepin Avenue and 6th Street N., most of them had thick white powder and fake blood on their faces and dark makeup around their eyes. They were walking in a stiff, lurching fashion and carrying four bags of sound equipment to amplify music from an iPod when they were arrested by police who said they were carrying equipment that simulated "weapons of mass destruction."

Police asked for the zombies' identification, and when most said they had none on them, they were told they would be detained.

One of the zombies, Jake Sternberg, later testified that police Sgt. E.T. Nelson told the zombies at the police station that he didn't care about their constitutional rights, using two obscenities, according to court records.

Sternberg said the jail experience was "real horrible." Because he had lost his left leg below the knee in a motorcycle accident in 2001, he uses a prosthetic leg. The jailers made him give up the artificial leg, saying it could be used as a weapon, and gave him a wheelchair to use instead. The appeals court ruled that the jailers were justified in taking away the artificial leg, though Sternberg said the wheelchair's detachable leg rests were heavier and had the potential to be far more dangerous than his lightweight prosthetic leg.

Rechitsky said the jail experience was "traumatizing," especially after the seven learned that they were being held on the "crazy" charge of carrying simulated weapons of mass destruction. "We had no idea what it meant," he said.

However, they were never charged with any crime.

Although U.S. District Judge Joan Ericksen had dismissed the zombies' lawsuit, it was resurrected in February by a three-judge panel of the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which concluded that police lacked probable cause to arrest the seven, a decision setting the stage for a federal trial this fall. The settlement means there will be no trial.

http://www.startribune.com/local/101273159.html?elr=KArks:DCiUHc3E7_V_
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