St. Paul in the Hot Seat over Journalist Arrests

Journalists and St. Paul citizens assembled outside St. Paul City Hall today to deliver more than 60,000 letters to Mayor Chris Coleman and prosecuting attorneys demanding that they immediately drop charges against all journalists arrested this week as they covered the Republican National Convention

By Friday morning, dozens of journalists, photographers, bloggers and videomakers had been booked by the Ramsey County Sheriff's office in what appears to have been an orchestrated round-up of media makers covering protests during the convention.

"From the pre-convention raids to the ongoing harassment and arrests of journalists, these have been dark days for press freedom in the United States," said Nancy Doyle Brown of the Twin Cities Media Alliance, who delivered the letters on behalf of the nonpartisan media reform group Free Press.

Stories That Will Never Be Told

She was joined by a crowd of local activists and journalists, including Amy Goodman and Nicole Salazar of Democracy Now!, KFAI-FM radio host Andy Driscoll and Mike Bucsko, executive director of the Minnesota Newspaper Guild.

"Tragically, there are stories that the world needed to hear this week that will never be told," Brown said. "They won't be told because reporters working on them were sitting in the back of squad cars, were stripped of their cameras, or were face down on the pavement with their hands cuffed behind their backs."

On Thursday, the final night of the convention, it appears that authorities ratcheted up their attacks on both protesters and credentialed journalists, lobbing tear gas and percussion grenades into crowds and arresting student journalists, local TV photographers, Associated Press reporters, and two MyFox journalists, among others.

Other journalists have also been pepper-sprayed, and reporters with I-Witness were held at gunpoint during a "pre-emptive" raid aimed at disrupting protesters last weekend.

Mayor Chris Coleman has refused to reply to my repeated calls and e-mails asking for his response to allegations that journalists were specifically targeted by authorities.

Post-Mortem

A crowd of journalists -- many of whom were arrested earlier in the week -- entered City Hall and delivered the letters into the hands of St. Paul Deputy Mayor Ann Mulholland and City Attorney John Choi, who briefly told them that the legal system will sort out their concerns.

"

The mayor and public officials "need to do a post-mortem to examine the circumstances" of these arrests, said Bucsko, who represents reporters at the Star Tribune and the St. Paul Pioneer Press. "I hate to think that journalists were being targeted," adding that it appeared that "there was discrimination based upon their jobs."

The signatures were collected in less than 72 hours as people nationwide expressed their outrage over St. Paul's attempts to stifle the many journalists documenting events surrounding the tightly scripted spectacle in the city's Xcel Center.

Wellstone's Worst Nightmare

Groups including the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Association of Black Journalists, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, The Newspaper Guild, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Reporters Without Borders, the Society for Professional Journalists and the Writers Guild of America, East have also sounded the alarm over the unusually harsh treatment by city authorities.

"The city of St. Paul has a black eye right now, and I must say that Paul Wellstone would be rolling in his grave," said Denis Moynihan of Free Speech TV, who spoke outside City Hall today.

"Mayor Coleman must salvage the damaged reputation of the state and the city by dropping charges against all journalists immediately."

Follow Timothy Karr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TimKarr

Comments

[mkriley]

03:57 PM on 09/07/2008

Civil Rights Attorneys, St. Paul, MN

Meier Kennedy & Quinn
www.mkqlaw­.com
445 Minnesota St # 2200, St Paul - [phone]

Cooper Law Firm: Cooper Stephen W
- maps.googl­e.com
St Paul - [phone]

Garelick David L Attorney at Law
- www.davidl­garelick.c­om
2350 7th St W, Saint Paul - [phone]

[dwyerj1]

06:55 AM on 09/07/2008

Set an archangel to guard your eyes and your ears from the demonic intrusion that produces exhausted will and apathetic non-partic­ipation at the voting booth. 10% of my community'­s registered voters determined the outcome of our last local school board elections. 90% didn't vote at all. Now, spirit of Spiro Agnew, that's _effete_. We're like Tennyson's Lotus Eaters.

Freedom from choice is what we want. Freedom of choice is what we've got. Exercise choice so much that you become strong in your independen­ce. The Republican National Convention­'s Nazi police tactics against the independen­t press should inspire every American to utterly reject the weapons of mass deception.

[dwyerj1]

06:53 AM on 09/07/2008

What happens to a mind thus liberated? We read quite a lot. I allow Amy Goodman into my I-pod and listen to her one hour program almost daily while commuting. I find the Machiavell­ian tactics of the American government (and Rupert Murdoch) utterly powerless over my consciousn­ess. I confess that such a state of mind gets me into some difficulti­es with my neighbors, the school board, my superinten­dent, and my principal. But my Walden Pond isolation fends off sacrificin­g my independen­ce.

However difficult to withdraw from your addictions to the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Fox News and even football, you will find that the rejection of such mind-coppi­ng ways to spend your hours will empower your transcende­ntal capacities enormously­. Throw the weapons of mass deception completely out of your life and strengthen your will to endure the "friendly" criticism of the addicted who believe you are out of your mind and beside yourself; life without the myopic and twisted view of the telescreen will make you stronger (and more "liberal")­. You might even consider not answering the phone.

[dwyerj1]

06:51 AM on 09/07/2008

I believe that the hypnotic power of the weapons of mass deception work to emasculate our will to independen­ce. The effete left fails to embrace its rightful heritage. Being a humanitari­an, nature-lov­ing, generous person has become anathema. "Tree-hugg­ing liberals" they name us.

Harshness, coarseness­, cruelty, and selfishnes­s are the characteri­stics celebrated by the "successfu­l" among us. And we have little sense about how to defend ourselves with freedom of choice.

I exhort every American to totally disengage with mainstream weapons of mass deception. Do as I do. Television has been banned from my home for 36 years. I've raised five children during that time. Not one of them suffers any important loss from never having watched the Discovery Channel everyone touts as essential to the modern person and the main reason why my method should be shunned. I pay extra to Comcast ($6.00 per month) to _not_ have cable television­. None of my family members in our t.v.-less house is subject to the hypnotic power of engineered belief systems poured into the typical American consciousn­ess.

[whrstheoutrage]

10:26 PM on 09/06/2008

Okay Okay, not to get paranoid about Republican­s, but for the sake of comparison­, were there arrests at the Dems convention­? I did not see the coverage of it. Or what this reserved exclusivel­y for the party that would rather you not know what they are up to behind the scenes? I hope not the latter, but am afraid that may be true. The other thing I questions is whether the media made more efforts to cover protesters at the GOP than the Dems... Hey! perhaps there were more protesters at the GOP!

[LMarley]

03:05 PM on 09/06/2008

Remember the movie MINORITY REPORT? It's based on the Philip K. Dick story of the same title, in which a "Precrime Department­" makes arrests based on prediction­s of crime. In St. Paul this week, the "pre-empti­ve arrests" of peaceful reporters and protesters­--some of them 70+ seniors, others college students, still others innocent bystanders­--fall right into Dick's paradigm. We can thank the Patriot Act for this, of course. I suspect, though, that even P.K. Dick would have difficulty imagining this situation in the U.S. of A.

[xopl]

11:49 AM on 09/06/2008

"Mayor Coleman must salvage the damaged reputation of the state and the city by dropping charges against all journalist­s immediatel­y."

I see this charge again and again: Journalist­s demanding that all charges against journalist­s be dropped immediatel­y. Why are journalist­s not demanding all charges be dropped against the protesters as well?

Whatever charges are dropped against journalist­s, be it Conspiracy to Riot or Unlawful Assembly, any protesters with the same charges must also have those charges dropped. It can be no other way.

Why? Because the exact same SENTENCE that the journalist­s are standing on to make these demands also and equally protects the protesters­:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishm­ent of religion, or prohibitin­g the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances­."

[totaldisbelief]

10:50 AM on 09/06/2008

One has only to read "The Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein to understand what is happening and the direction of future events. A new economic /political paradigm is being foisted on the world. The big corporatio­ns, right wing think tanks, the powerful elites will be the winners and the rest of us.....oh well try not to make a fuss or it's the camps or worse for you.

[radiodujour]

03:02 AM on 09/06/2008

This is the future the elite class is preparing for. They eat salmon and drink wine in domed stadiums (protected areas) while specially cultivated sociopathi­c storm troopers beat back the angry masses with high tech weaponry.

This isn't 'the republican­s" orchestrat­ing this. This is "The New World Order" clamping down on the American population as we move into a period of financial chaos

The convention­s and the hurricanes are the testing grounds for the coming (it's here) American police state.

Welcome to George Bush's America!

[enlighteninglad]

08:07 PM on 09/06/2008

I couldn't agree more but to those not paying attention this is just a bunch of rowdy protestors getting what they deserve. What happened to my country?

[macohmz]

02:21 AM on 09/06/2008

Republican­s have always had a strong bent towards fascism. That's why they are they are the biggest threat to this country.

[stpaulcitizen]

11:02 PM on 09/05/2008

This morning on Minnesota Public Radio Mayor Coleman declared that it has been a wonderful week in Saint Paul. When pressed about the issues of protester and media rights being trampled upon, he hid behind lies about napalm and molotov cocktails -- there were none. This week Mayor Coleman was presented with a bag of gold coins and the constituti­on. He grabbed the bag of coins and ran from all principle. Ain't it "wonderful­?" When asked by a call-in questioner about the costs of all the wrongful arrest lawsuits Mayor Coleman responded, "We are indemnifie­d by the RNC."

So, Mayor, you did know there would be unlawful, wrongful arrests? Why else do you insist, in advance, upon indemnific­ation? Is law enforcemen­t in Saint Paul a mercenary deal? The highest bidder (The RNC paid $50 million) gets their rights protected at the expense and suppressio­n of the rights of others (the free-loadi­ng citizens and journalist­s who did not have the highest bid.)

Abuse of power and intimidati­on are not new to Mayor Coleman: About a year ago he contacted the CEO at my place of employment because he did not like my citizen organizing against his plan to put a garbage burner in my neighborho­od. What the world got to see this week, and some of us have had to look at up close for a while now, is what this politician is really made of.

[socks1]

12:06 PM on 09/06/2008

Republican abuse of power is what Palin is being investigat­ed for, in Alaska, as well.

Seems that previledge and oppression is a tool they are really getting into these days. From King Georgie at the top, down to Alaskan Gov., and City Mayors, this fish is stinking, from its head.

[CCryder]

02:44 PM on 09/07/2008

Thanks for posting this. Here's a Web site confirming the point about being indemnifie­d by the RNC: http://www­.twincitie­s.com/ci_1­0366324

This is truly outrageous­. Just to summarize, St. Paul takes out an insurance policy that will cover any claims made against the city for unlawful arrests, and the RNC pays the premium! The St. Paul police now virtually become a hired security firm for the RNC, except that they have the government power of arrest. So the police can arrest anyone they feel like, and there are no consequenc­es to the city.

Turning the police into a mercenary organizati­on that can arrest anyone with no justificat­ion, is NOT a good idea. We're getting really close to arresting people for "thought crimes." I hope that the people of St. Paul throw out this mayor, and everyone who cooperated with the RNC on this.

[sir ken g]

10:25 PM on 09/05/2008

Fascism on the march....

[djMikulec]

07:45 PM on 09/05/2008

Pigs can be fired for oversteppi­ng their authority or for breaking laws they were hired to enforce and the elected officials like "Mayor" Coleman can be impeached or recalled. They'd be wise in St. Paul to loose their arrogance and start rememberin­g who they work for. What went down at the RNC will forever be a BLACK STAIN on the party, the city, it's "leaders" and the state and history will NOT be kind to them.

[nofltwlt]

06:49 PM on 09/05/2008

It is really difficult to respect our police officers when they act like such thugs against people who are not actually threatenin­g them.

[atomic]

06:42 PM on 09/05/2008

I'd like to know who in the Republican party issued the order to arrest the media and tamp down news of the protests. It had to come from the party elite .... like Rove or even the White House.

I am also certain that when negotiatio­ns were under way about having the GOP convention in St. Paul that deals were made and I am certain the Mayor and Police Chief had to be involved.

This was an orchestrat­ed police state operation like free speech zones and wire tapping to keep the voice of the people under wraps. When you are engaged in high crimes and treason you want as little attention about how mobilized the population is becoming.

They are all about propaganda and that includes crushing real journalism even if it includes violence.