The New York Times - Videos Challenge Accounts of Convention Unrest
Videos taken in New York City during the Republican convention show that most of the arrests of protesters -- literally 90% -- were being thrown out as bad arrests, with video and pictures taken by individuals and media playing a heavy role as "impartial witnesses". The strange and absurd arrests included lots of innocent people, which was well-known at the time; stories were being filed with news agencies and blogs alike by hundreds of people who were just standing around watching, got arrested, and then thrown in jail. For that matter, the arrests were originally set up to stop people from protesting legitimately and peacefully; so how many of the rest of the arrests charges incidental to the arrest?
We're a democracy; the constitution specifically states that people have a right to assemble and to free speech, while the Declaration of Independence says that we have an inalienable right to ask our government for redress. Mass arrests -- about which the police *lied* to the press, the courts, and the world -- don't exactly jibe with this.
Posted by Ted Stevko at April 12, 2005 10:29 AM | TrackBack