The St. Paul City Attorney’s Office announced yesterday that it will drop misdemeanor charges against journalists arrested during the Republican National Convention earlier this month.
Democracy Now! reports that the authorities have declined to prosecute host Amy Goodman and her two producers, who were arrested while covering a demonstration. When Goodman objected that she was a credentialed journalist, a Secret Service agent ripped off her credential.
The group Free Press gathered 60,000 signatures protesting the arrest and detention of nearly two dozen working press during the convention.
It’s predictable that the charges are being dropped. It’s unlikely the authorities ever expected to proceed to trial with such frivolous allegations. The purpose of the arrests was simply to harass and intimidate journalists and prevent them from doing their jobs.
There must be a full investigation of police tactics during the RNC.
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Thanks for this, Lindsay.
Ding.
how about the rnc welcoming committee folks and others – some who were charge with felonies? any idea what is being planned?
There was never any chance that these cases were going to trial. It was a replay of the rnc convention in NYC in 2004 and the DNC convention in Denver last month. It was not anything except, as Lindsay says, intimidation against the journalists, but I would include any protestors.
Most of these people don’t have access to high priced lawyers, if any at all
I’m sure they will be charged fined ,etc.
As Amy noted in her interview on PBS, it has the chilling effect–the journalists who stayed *inside the building* were safe.
As long as they didn’t go beyond the building’s walls and do their jobs, they wouldn’t be arrested…
I am glad to hear the charges were dropped, though.
What about the 200 or so people who were arrested for sitting on the grass listening to a concert? They weren’t even protestors?
lots of people did go to trial after the rnc in 2004. and it was revealed that the police frequently made up events out of nothing. video is our friend.
that’s what the NLG exists for. time for a donation. just wish it could be a big one.
intimidation planned in advance,don’t forget about that ten million dollar insurance policy
they knew things would get ugly
Also – was it this bad in Denver? I know there was an equally huge police presence and the ubiquitous “free speech cages”. Did they arrest journalists there? How about the number of protestors?
I hope that insurance policy is just a drop in the bucket when everyone sues for false arrest, and for refusing to give medical attention to people who were bleeding, and that one guy they tasered 7 times, and that lady they fire-hosed with the pepper spray and then wouldn’t let her shower…
The video will do them in!
$10 million ain’t gonna be enough!
They should all sue for harassment and intimidation.
New ew post
Now that the Repug plague has mostly departed my fair city (St. Paul or Pig’s Eye, whichever you prefer), of course our illustrious Mayor (a Democrat no less) would now drop the charges against journalists.
No sense imprisoning the MSM on faux charges since they are needed to advance his political career. And of course, given the MSM’s Alzhiemers-like memory, all will be forgiven and forgotten. Right? Natch!
MSM in jail, what jail? Have another Pig’s Eye brewski on me!
As to all the ordinary Twin Citizens swept up by the Federally-led stormtroopers, if they smell alright, kneel before local judicial poohbahs, and promise to sin no more, they too are likely to see the faux charges dismissed.
As for the DFHs, spend a bundle on legal fees, kiss the local power structure’s Pig’s Eye ass, and maybe, just maybe, you too can walk.
And we claim to be “civilized” here on the tundra. Hah! In a Pig’s Eye!
I hope that insurance policy is just a drop in the bucket when everyone sues for false arrest, and for refusing to give medical attention to people who were bleeding, and that one guy they tasered 7 times, and that lady they fire-hosed with the pepper spray and then wouldn’t let her shower…
It *will* be a drop in the bucket.
Dropping the criminal charges is something of a mixed bag. The civil case of a (formerly criminal defendant) is much stronger when that person has actually been tried and acquitted in a criminal court. Certainly nothing fatal to the civil case, obviously – just an inherently stronger case when backed with a prior acquittal.
I should also probably note a trick that gets played around here. As soon as a civil case is filed, the criminal case is immediately re-filed.
I don’t really anticipate that attorney’s fees should prove to be too big an obstacle. *Lots* of lawyers out there who would take such a case on a contingency basis, I would think.
Any lawyer worth his
ambulance-chasing-sneakerssalt would *love* taking one of these to trial…Well if a jury could give $12 million to some idiot who spilled coffee in her lap, how about a police brutality suit for the pepper spray (there is precedent – the Redwood Summer protesters in Humboldt County California who had pepper spray dabbed on their eyelids)?
How about that guy that was tasered 7 times, once in the buttocks and was bleeding from where they pulled the darts out. No medical attention.
Or that guy who was coughing up blood after a couple of cops jumped on his chest?
I hope the City of St. Paul, the Sheriff’s Department and all the rest of the so-called ‘law enforcement’ pay a huge price for participating in this.
New post — Is Palin a Bircher?
real story of the much-maligned McDonald’s coffee case:
http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm