Protest This
Last summer during the GOP convention, New York City police arrested almost 2,000 demonstrators, most of whom seemed to be doing little more than walking down the street. Not all of the arrested were even demonstrating. Some of them were people who just happened to be, well, walking down the street. Mayor Bloomberg had pledged to the Republicans that the city would be orderly for their convention—this would be no Chicago, 1968—and the police made it so.
Now the
New York Times reports what seemed obvious at the time: that police were arresting people without cause—and lying about it. At one of the first trials of an arrested demonstrator, one cop testified that it took four officers to hold the guy down. But according to the Times, "A videotape shot by a documentary filmmaker showed Mr. Kyne agitated but plainly walking under his own power down the library steps, contradicting the vivid account of Officer Wohl, who was nowhere to be seen in the pictures. Nor was the officer seen taking part in the arrests of four other people at the library against whom he signed complaints."
Another man, Alexander Dunlop, claimed that he was arrested while going to pick up sushi. Police presented one piece of video at his trial; volunteer videographers showed that it had been selectively edited; prosecutors immediately dropped the charges.
What's become blindingly obvious is that the NYPD was determined to arrest people
simply for exercising their constitutional right to free speech and assembly.
I hope some of these folks file lawsuits. But the real responsibility for this lies with Mayor Michael Bloomberg. A billionaire who owns a media company, he should know better. Or maybe he's just used to controlling what gets shown in the press....
That the rebutting evidence has come from amateur videographers shows just how important the democratization of technology is for subverting authoritarian behavior. From video cameras to blogs, ordinary people have the tools to speak truth to power, and make sure that power feels the consequences. When will the Michael Bloombergs of the world realize this? Probably only around election time.
How ironic that the only videographers who didn't get this story are the TV networks "covering" the convention....
