Re: RNC ALERT:Amy Goodman Grills St. Paul Police Chief About Her Arrest and Two Democracy Now! Producers

Excerpt from Police Chief:

"[the small splinter groups]  tried very diligently to disturb the
10,000 estimated people that were there for a lawful protest at the
State Capitol, who, despite that—and I really do give them great credit
—despite the fact that the protesters were setting fires, slashing
tires, throwing rocks and feces at people during their protest, the
peaceful protesters maintained order, maintained their intent to get
down to the public viewing area to protest, had their protest and
moved on from there. And so, I give them also great credit for their
perseverance in the face of what I’m sure must have seemed as a very
scary sight as people ran in and out of their groups and tried to
disrupt their peaceful protest and their ability to exercise their
First Amendment rights [COMMENT: Unfortunately your police officers
brutalized not only those exercising sometimes violent, sometimes
nonviolent civil disobedience, your Riot Gear troopers attacked,
assaulted, and on camera brutalized those very same peaceful
protesters trying to exercise their Frist Amendment right,   which you
just praised...and even violently attacked journalists trying to cover
this peaceful event you just praised. See below and see yesterday's
posts -ED]

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Amy Goodman Grills St. Paul Police Chief About Her Arrest and Two
Democracy Now! Producers

On Tuesday morning, St. Paul Police Chief John Harrington held a news
conference where he spoke about the nearly 300 people arrested in a
police crackdown on protesters a day earlier. Among them were several
journalists covering the protests in the streets, including three of
us at Democracy Now!—Amy Goodman, Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole
Salazar. Amy Goodman questions Harrington about the arrests. [includes
rush transcript]

[The police also attacked a photographer for the New York
Post. who quite ironigcally pleaded with the police brutes and said,
“For Christ’s sake, it’s a  Republican paper!” (no joke, see
yesterday's post) But that didn’t seem to matter once the thugish
assault on a huge group of nonviolent people in the streets by police,
began. -ED]

===========

AMY GOODMAN: Outside the Xcel Center, the protests continued on the
streets of St. Paul. In the largest demonstration of the day,
thousands of people took part in an anti-poverty rally and march
organized by the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign that
ended near the Republican convention arena. Hundreds of police
officers, many in riot gear and on horseback and bicycles, were on the
streets, as well. Police fired teargas, rubber bullets and flash bombs
into the crowd. At least ten people were arrested during the day.

On Monday, the opening day of the Republican convention, nearly 300
people were arrested in a police crackdown on protesters, among them
several journalists covering the protests in the streets, including
three of us at Democracy Now! I was arrested along with Democracy Now!
producers Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar. We were all
released on Monday night.

Yesterday morning, St. Paul Police Chief John Harrington held a news
conference just blocks from the studio where we’re broadcasting from,
Saint Paul Neighborhood Network. After our morning broadcast, we
headed over to the news conference to hear what the police chief,
Police Chief Harrington, had to say.

POLICE CHIEF JOHN HARRINGTON: Yesterday, there was a group of
people, not the protesters, in my mind, not the group that was here to
have their voices heard in protest, but a group of criminals who came
here with a very expressed goal and intent. They came here to try and
stop the convention, to crash the gates, to stop the buses and the
delegates from being able to do their lawful duty [You have the right
to arrest them Mr. Police Chief, but they are engaging in civil
disobedience, making most if not all you list here, about as
"criminal" as Martin Luther King's civil disobedience actions, in case
that obvious fact escaped you.. -ED] . They failed. They made numerous
attempts to crash the gates and never really got in. They made
numerous attempts to stop the buses, and while they slowed our
transportation down a little bit, every delegate that left for the
convention got to the convention, and every delegate that left that
was heading back to their hotels at the end of the night got back to
their hotels. So, on all points of that, in my mind, that means that
the criminals who came here to damage city property, damage private
property, assault and intimidate the public were unsuccessful in
completing their mission.

They tried very diligently to disturb the 10,000 estimated
people that were there for a lawful protest at the State Capitol, who,
despite that—and I really do give them great credit—despite the fact
that the protesters were setting fires, slashing tires, throwing rocks
and feces at people during their protest, the peaceful protesters
maintained order, maintained their intent to get down to the public
viewing area to protest, had their protest and moved on from there.
And so, I give them also great credit for their perseverance in the
face of what I’m sure must have seemed as a very scary sight as people
ran in and out of their groups and tried to disrupt their peaceful
protest and their ability to exercise their First Amendment rights
[COMMENT: Unfortunately your police officers brutalized not only those
exercising sometimes violent, sometimes nonviolent civil disobedience,
your Riot Gear troopers attacked, assaulted, and on camera brutalized
those very same peaceful protesters trying to exercise their Frist
Amendment right,   which you just praised...and even violently
attacked journalists trying to cover this peaceful event you just
praised -ED]

I believe that, overall, while it was—there were moments of
chaos yesterday, what you saw yesterday was control. We expected to
have problems, we were prepared for those problems, and we responded
to those problems in, I think, a very reasonable approach and a very
reasonable manner.

Overnight, we had very few arrests; I believe nine arrests
happened overnight. The total as of right now, we believe, is 283
arrests from the incidents yesterday, of which, of that 283, 120 of
them are for felony—either felony riot, aggravated criminal damage to
property or assault. There is fifty-one gross misdemeanor arrests,
which are primarily lesser forms of aggravated criminal damage to
property, and then there were 103 misdemeanor arrests, typically for
participating in unlawful assembly or disorderly conduct.

AMY GOODMAN: I’m Amy Goodman from Democracy Now!, a daily public
radio and television program. I was arrested yesterday by the police,
along with my two producers. And I want to know what the policy is for
reporters. We are fully credentialed, all of us, both from the
convention and our own press credentials.

First, it was our two producers. It was over at 7th and Jackson.
One of them, Nicole Salazar, had a camera. She was videotaping. The
police moved in very quickly. She was stepping back behind the car.
She was videotaping this whole thing. The police moved in at her. We
have the videotape, played it on the show today. As she shouted
“Press! Press!,” they said put your face in the ground. They pushed
her to the ground. They put their boot in her back. Another one pulled
on her leg, and they were telling her to keep her face down to pull
along the gravel. Sharif Abdel Kouddous is our other producer. He was
there. They threw him up against the wall. They bloodied his arm. They
bloodied her face.

And I was called. I was on the convention floor interviewing the
delegation from Minnesota and Alaska. I got a call, the producers are
being arrested. I raced down here by foot. I went up to the riot
police line. I said, “I would like to talk to a commanding officer.”
This is all videotaped. And they took me, handcuffed me immediately,
said, “You’re under arrest.” They pushed me to the ground. I said,
“You can clearly see I have all the proper credentials.” I have my
security clearance for the floor, for example, of the convention. So
Secret Service came over, and they pulled it off. “Now you don’t,”
they said.

So, my question is, they have—they face PC riot, probable cause
riot. I’ve already been charged with a misdemeanor. What is your
policy with the press? How is the press to operate in this kind of
environment? And a last question is, our producers were here, but the
police only allow in two people from each press, but this is empty,
and all the police are here. They far outnumber us in the press. Why
our reporters can’t be here?

POLICE CHIEF JOHN HARRINGTON: I don’t—I can’t—the last part o
f
that, I can’t answer.

In terms of the policy, reporters have rights, and what we have
tried to do is try and create a balance of that. If we announce, if
there is an unlawful assembly or we are in the midst of a riot, we
will announce—and I believe we announced routinely and rather loudly
that we needed people to step out of the area—and that if reporters
fail to do that, if they are in the midst of the riot, we can’t
protect them, and it will be very difficult for us in a moment of that
kind of chaos to be able to make those kind of fine distinctions. [As
the cameras showed clearly, the only chaos going on was the massive
assault by riot gear gas mask wearing club wielding police "peace"
officers attacking from all directions a peaceful crowd...deliberately
ENCIRCLING the crowd while knowing that their calls to disperse were
almost impossible to follow..you can even hear them doing it to the
journalists on the video, who asked the cop where, where do I go? got
not answer, tried to leave in the tiny space (between two cars) left
for her to even try to 'exit' per "you have less than half a second to
obey" cops, and then was slammed to the ground while trying in that
second to obey the impossible demands..-ED]

What we have attempted to do is to expedite—if reporters are
taken into custody—to expedite making sure that they are taken out of
the general population, try to review their cases, and try and get
them released from custody, pending further investigations. The fact
that a person is a reporter or has a credential doesn’t give them
additional rights to commit any crimes, though. And I don’t—while I
don’t know your case—I haven’t seen your video, so I really can’t
respond to what you’re saying happened there in that particular case.

AMY GOODMAN: What is the crime that the reporters committed but
reporting on what is happening?

POLICE CHIEF JOHN HARRINGTON: And I can’t answer that question,
because I haven’t seen your video. And I can’t really address that,
because I think those cases are going to be eventually completely
investigated. They will then be moved to a court for hearing, and that
evidence would be part of that. And I really am not in a position to
be able to argue the merits of the criminal case either way. But what
I would say is that if a reporter is committing a crime while they’re
there under their credentials, I think they become regular citizens.
And I—so I cannot answer your question about that.

But, in general, what we’re trying to do is give reporters
access. We have tried to give them, in fact, I think extraordinary
access by embedding reporters in our mobile field force, as we were
trying to do everything we can to make our operation as transparent to
the news media as we possibly can. If we have reporters that are
caught up in the middle of a riotous situation, our intention is to
try and, as quickly as possible, separate them out, and given a quick
preliminary investigation, if it’s at all possible, to get them
released from custody, which I believe was done in your case.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you [inaudible] how soon will they be dropping
the charges against us?

POLICE CHIEF JOHN HARRINGTON: They’ll investigate them, and if
there is no grounds for the charges, I would expect they would, sure.

AMY GOODMAN: And the preemptive raid on I-Witness Video, the
reason for that?

POLICE CHIEF JOHN HARRINGTON: I don’t know anything about that.

AMY GOODMAN: [no audio]… against my producers, Sharif Abdel Kouddous
and Nicole Salazar, and me. You heard what he said: he’s
investigating.

And the second thing that he said, I asked him about, was whether—why
there was a preemptive raid on I-Witness Video on Saturday at their
home, the group that monitors police, where they’re staying in St.
Paul. They come from New York and from around the country. The police
moved in with a warrant that did not list their address but the house
next door. They came into the house. One of those in charge, one of
the authorities who moved in, had an AR-15 automatic weapon. When the
police came into the living room, where the group was huddled, he had
a pistol that was targeted at them.

Well, as for our case, we have been charged, Democracy Now! producers
and I, with—I have been charged with a misdemeanor, obstruction of
legal process and interference with a peace officer. Sharif Abdel
Kouddous and Nicole Salazar still face a charge of probable cause
felony riot. We have yet to hear whether those charges will be
dropped. The video of my arrest was the most viewed video on YouTube
yesterday. You can go to our website at democracynow.org, where you
can see that video, as well as Nicole Salazar videotaping her own
violent arrest. Of course, she and Sharif had not gone to the protest
to do that. They had gone to video what was taking place on the
streets of St. Paul.

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/9/3/amy_goodman_grills_st_paul_police

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STILL FEELING LIKE THE MAINSTREAM U.S. CORPORATE MEDIA
IS GIVING A FULL HONEST PICTURE OF WHAT'S GOING ON?
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