Amy Goodman and her colleagues reach a settlement with St. Paul, Minneapolis PD

[EFerrari]

snip

After Nicole was arrested, I approached the officers and told them repeatedly she was a fellow journalist and should be released. I was then roughly arrested myself. Some Democracy Now! staff saw what happened and called Amy Goodman, who was on the convention floor at the time. She raced to the corner of 7th and Jackson where the riot police had formed a line having fully contained the area. She asked to speak with a commanding officer to get us released but an officer ripped her through the police line and arrested her.

Amy was later brought to where I was standing, handcuffed. As we loudly demanded to be released as accredited journalists, a Secret Service agent came up and ripped our credentials from around our necks.

Three years later, we have reached a major settlement in the case that includes $100,000 in compensation paid by the St. Paul and Minneapolis police departments and the Secret Service. The settlement also includes an agreement by the St. Paul police department to implement a training program aimed at educating officers regarding the First Amendment rights of the press and public with respect to police operations, including proper procedures for dealing with the press covering demonstrations. We, along with the Center for Constitutional Rights, the ACLU and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press will have input into the training program. The St. Paul Police Department will use its best efforts to get the Minneapolis Police Department to institute a similar program, and will also make the program available to law enforcement personnel statewide.

We hope this settlement acts as a warning to police departments across the nation to stop arresting journalists and, more broadly, that it sends a strong message to police that they cannot act with impunity in their dealings with peaceful protestors and individuals exercising their First Amendment Rights to document their actions.

http://egyptreports.net/post/10979372845/final-settlement-in-our-federal-lawsuit-challenging

[Solly Mack]

1. K&R

[truebrit71]

2. That is great news!!!

...

[Ken Burch]

3. Making the city gov't cut a big check is the only thing that gets through to them

n/t.

[hfojvt]

8. the settlement is actually pretty small

$100,000 for a city of 400,000 people is not very much at all. Our water department in a city of 35,000 people just spent $200,000 to repair two streets that were damaged by water main breaks.

[geardaddy]

10. St. Paul only has about 280,000 people.

[defendandprotect]

4. Good news -- they also need to stop killing journalists around the world -- !!!

[Vincardog]

5. Bingo they also need to stop killing anyone counting the dead in Iraq. Drs. & journalists

[aikoaiko]

6. Good for Democracynow.

Overall the police mishandled them, but then and now, I don't think the police did wrong by Amy Goodman when they arrested her.

This is the description from above:

I was then roughly arrested myself. Some Democracy Now! staff saw what happened and called Amy Goodman, who was on the convention floor at the time. She raced to the corner of 7th and Jackson where the riot police had formed a line having fully contained the area. She asked to speak with a commanding officer to get us released but an officer ripped her through the police line and arrested her.

That's not what happened.

She crossed the line into the staging area and tried to get someone to release her people. The officer told her to go back twice, he then tried to push her back, and she dug her heels in and resisted going. That's when they arrested her. After the decision to arrest her was made, that's when she tried to get back out of the staging area.

See for yourself.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=48a_1220314137

[mysuzuki2]

7. there's one in every crowd.

[vanlassie]

9. Uh, all that in 5 seconds? That's what you think you see?

[EFerrari]

13. I have. She asked to speak with the officer in charge.

She wasn't interfering with anything. Journalism is not a crime.

[aikoaiko]

15. Correct journalism is not a crime.

But then again she wasn't arrested for being a journalist.

[EFerrari]

17. All three of them were, to be accurate.

[aikoaiko]

18. I doubt the police cared whether she was press or not.

[EFerrari]

22. They care now and their new training will help them remember to care. n/t

[_ed_]

20. What part of the First Amendment Freedom of the Press

is confusing to you?

So some cop "told" her to do something when she wasn't breaking a law and doing her job as a reporter, and she's supposed to obey like this is fucking North Korea or something?

[aikoaiko]

21. There are resistrictions even on the press.

From the video, the police had cordoned off an operational area where they were handling the arrested. She entered the area to get her colleagues released. The office directed her to back behind the line and she refused. The officer tried to push her out and she resisted. She was arrested.

I don't think that was unreasonable. Could the police have handled it differently? Sure. They should have brought her to the commander of the operational area and let him decide.

I'm just not sure, in that case, that there are different rules for the press. Even if she was trying to report on her arrested colleagues, I'm not she can push her way into the operational area to speak with them without consequences after the police direct her to leave.

The SS agent ripping off her credentials was complete BS and he.she should be reprimanded, at least, IMHO.

[leftstreet]

11. K&R

[qb]

12. It is stunning that First Amendment rights aren't standard in a police training program.

I hope the monetary portion was enough to cause the PD some pain.

[EFerrari]

14. On Saturday, the geniuses at NYPD arrested reporters and even

the rep from the National Lawyers Guild who was on scene to provide support for the protesters. Impunity on skates.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

16. Durn Professional Leftists makin' trouble and gettin' paid for it. K&R

[countryjake]

19. Yes! K&R!

Tho snatching up press people has been standard procedure for a long time, when protests are not the standard fluff and cops want to get away with their dirty work in order to break a few cameras or noses and prevent such bad press from getting out, I really have to smile about this decision...they knew who she was, who "her people" were (secret service was there in a second, to remove their tags)...they picked the wrong woman to mess with, this time.

Yay Amy! (I hope she gets to participate personally in that new program, like speak at a good long lesson-session to the very same cops who roughed them up, chuckle!)