September
5
Arrested Development
Friday morning
Updated
I had just finished a blog post on the Writers Guild of America East condemning the arrest of journalists covering protests at the Democratic and Republican conventions.
I wanted to see what it was all about. To follow up, I went to the scene of the latest anti-war protest in St. Paul, between the state Capitol and the Cathedral, and ended the evening in a paddy wagon.
I was arrested along with about a dozen or so other journalists --- including reporters from AP and Fox News' Web operations --- after the demonstrators marched along St. Anthony Street to University Avenue, blocking traffic as squad cars escorted behind them. But things got ugly when a flank of officers in riot gear blockaded University Avenue, and soon smoke bombs and other mild explosives were being hurled toward the protesters, and some officers shot rubber bullets into the crowd. One explosive, a flash grenade, landed just at my feet; a reporter for a Google news Website was drenched in a type of tear gas.
The demonstrators (along with the media) were eventually forced onto the Marion Street bridge that crosses I-94, where another flank of riot officers had them cornered. It was then that we were told that we were all being arrested. In all, there were about 200 who were detained. I was held for about 4 hours.
I'm a little embarrassed for not being able to recognize when it is time to leave, as I am sure journalists who are more experienced at these things can sense. I'm also a bit miffed, as I was covering the protest as a credentialed member of the media, and not a participant, a fact apparently lost by authorities. I still do not have my camera, which was seized at the scene.
It was chaotic, and I simply can't judge whether the police were in the right or protesters were in the wrong. As is the case in these situations, there were conflicting reports. But I do want my camera back, and I now have a misdemeanor citation of unlawful assembly.
What I can say is I never heard any kind of call to disburse or face arrest, either on any of the streets or on the Marion Street Bridge. There was just an announcement that we were all arrested.
More on the events here and here.
Earlier this week, Peter Bart wrote about convention security here.
Photo: New York Times.
Update: Since a weary and sleepless night, I've had a chance to reflect a bit on the insanity of journalists being arrested for just doing their job, which was to cover a genuine story at the Republican National Convention.
Our charge was "presence at an unlawful assembly," which is described in part by Minnesota state statute as refusal to leave the scene when ordered to do so. As I stated in my earlier post, I never heard such an order given, nor did any of the journalists I was with. We were trying to get away from the line of fire of smoke bombs and flash grenades, and eventually fled to the Marion Street bridge, which looked like the only option out. It was there that we were informed that everyone was under arrest.
There's still no answer to the question of why journalists, fully identified by their credentials, were detained, booked and processed, their means of reporting taken away. It was a story that the news media had a right to cover whether or not the protest permit ended at 5 p.m., or whether police gave an order sometime after that. We were covering the story, we were not the story. It gives me a new, hardened and more cynical perspective on the security state that we are in, and how it is being used to justify what are ultimately restrictions on press freedom.
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Reading your post this morning, I'm absolutely baffled by how politicized the idea of news media has become. I've read and heard of other media members being detained by police last night and having their cameras confiscated. It's amazing that this country talks so much about freedom of the press, and yet in spite of all it's flaws, the media continually gets manhandled by bureaucracy when simply trying to cover a story such as these protests. The Republicans and Democrats hurl mud at the "left-wing" and "right-wing" media, respectively, but it's the members of the media looking to report on events from a non-political standpoint that continually get the shaft. Your citation also highlights a major problem in the justice system. Unfortunately, it has become 'part of the job' and just 'another day's work' for reporters. What a shame.
Posted by: JZipp | September 05, 2008 at 09:06 AM
Your blog should be read by those who claim that the media is anti-cop. You talk about not "knowing when to leave," and about not hearing a "dispersal order." It shows to me your first instinct was to give the cops the benefit of the doubt that their orders were legitimate, when in fact they were the ones breaking the law.
But I'll answer your question: these cops (not all cops) were either ignorant of the law, which is a highly ironic and dangerous situation, or they believed they had the right to disregard the law.
There'll be handwringing and town halls and consent decrees ... and then it'll happen in another four years in a different city.
Posted by: John Rabe | September 05, 2008 at 04:29 PM
Look, the sheriff of the county in which the GOP convention took place strongly implied that only "embedded" journalists would be spared from preventive arrests in this national security state. That left your innocent visit to the location subject to being criminalized, your person at risk, and your constitutional freedom in jeopardy. As a journalist, you are not supposed to worry that the The Man will come down on you. No. The worry should instead be from their end, the police end, of the body politic, but journalism is now so wossyfied, apologetic, and effete that the only time it's not afraid is when it reports from a window.
Thank the US Fascist Act for local dukes adapting strong arm tactics that Bush and Rightwing Democrats formerly used only overseas to catch and kill international "terrorists." Methods such as those are now trickling down to subversive sheriffs for use in local neighborhood. This is way wrong. I guess Rightwingers are OK with this. I am not.
Note that none of the people that we elected, and that have national prominence, complains about it. Shoot, they even seem to thrive in it.
I suppose that people are OK that the right to peacably assemble is nearly gone -- which forms part of what you were doing, make no mistake bout it -- because a small vestige, not the whole, still remains. A vestige is better than nothing is the wrong way to think of it. We the people want and have the right to the whole, not just a small part.
If not even discredited reporters, such as those from Murdock/Fox, are able to record and report, then not even the consumer, much less the citizen, is able to acquire unbiased news and remain informed about how the local and international world works, as well as when and when personal liberties -- you know, from the Constitution -- are abrogated such as in this case. Makes me wonder if there is substantive difference between the Soviet's Pravda and Cheney's USA Today.
No wonder that Amy Goodman's Democracy Now is becoming more and more read and listened to. Did you have a chat with Amy Goodman while in illegal detention? She and her news crew were there in plastic handcuffs, charged with felonies. Can you believe that outrage?
The frog is being cooked alive while it sits in mere bemusement.
For offering you this wisdom, I hope you can visit my videos on Youtube. Just look up "John Dingler's art." All my works begin with "John Dingler." I make no money from them.
Posted by: john dingler, Artist and Patriot | September 06, 2008 at 05:27 PM
"paddy wagon?" Are you serious?
Don't you know that is a racist term? Early in the last century, when Irish immigrants were treated with as much scorn as Latino immigrants are today (and maybe even more), the Irish were often referred to as "paddys" because so many of them were named Patrick (or Padraig in their native Irish tongue). The term "paddy wagon" refers to the loads of drunken Irish prisoners routinely rounded up and arrested - usually with far less cause than you are whining about here - by the police at the time.
Posted by: moqui | September 08, 2008 at 02:18 PM
you write: "the insanity of journalists being arrested for just doing their job, which was to cover a genuine story at the Republican National Convention."
Except that you weren't at the convention, were you? Maybe if you'd been covering the story you claimed to be covering - the one you were credentialled for - this never would have happened. The fact is you didn't want to cover the convention, you wanted to cover those who shared your sensibilities, the protesters. Lie down with dogs and you get fleas.
Quit whining, and quit lying. Its a lie to say you were arrested for covering the convention. Had you been at the Center, you wouldn't have been arrested.
To sum up, your post has been exposed as being (a) racist and (b) a self serving lie.
Well done.
Posted by: moqui | September 08, 2008 at 04:50 PM
Moqui,
Why do you bring up racism when the author did not seem to mention race in his article.
How can a person who did not state his race, but is most likely a Caucasian, using the phrase "patty wagon" when referring to people who are most likely also Caucasians be considered a racist?
You sound liquored up, but you may have also lost a measure of reading comprehension.
Posted by: john dingler, Artist and Patriot | September 08, 2008 at 05:12 PM
Moqui, this journalist, or any other for that matter, do not have to be in any particular place to cover a story. You sound fascist, dude. Get a grip or move to Iran or Mozambique.
Posted by: John Dingler, Artist and Patriot | September 11, 2008 at 06:27 AM