BREAKING - All Charges Dropped Against Amy Goodman and Democracy Now journalists!

[kpete]

BREAKING - All Charges Dropped Against Amy Goodman and Democracy Now journalists!

All Charges Dropped Against DN! Journalists Dropped - Investigation Needed

The St. Paul City Attorney’s office announced Friday it will not prosecute Democracy Now! journalists Amy Goodman, Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar. St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman also issued a statement Friday that "the city will decline to prosecute misdemeanor charges for presence at an unlawful assembly for journalists arrested during the Republican National Convention."

This is great news! Here is the link: http://www.democracynow.org/
http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2008/9/19/charges_against_dn_journalists_dropped_investigation_needed

[HEyHEY]

1. Good, cue the "False arrest" lawsuit

[eppur_se_muova]

38. Damned straight! This can't be let drop. nt

[Subdivisions]

2. So what about the bullshit they went through from being handcuffed to

being kidnapped and imprisoned?

[Disturbed]

4. I hope that she & the others sue the Police Dept.

:grr:

[slackmaster]

23. After I was falsely arrested, my attorney advised that it would be pointeless to try to sue police

He told me all they had to do was say they were "acting in good faith", and the law would shield them from any liability.

I would bet money the same thing would apply in St. Paul, or Denver.

[bananas]

3. I just saw that too!

This should also be posted in LBN.

[FiveGoodMen]

Damn good thing!

[MadrasT]

5. Woo hoo!

:bounce: :woohoo:

I hope they sue the pants of those motherf'ers.

[aikoaiko]

6. catch and release program.

Its good to see them use their discretion to not prosecute. Most likely most of them would have been acquittals anyway...

...but maybe not all.

[Fuzz]

8. Good description, catch and release

Gotta stop.

[Sal Minella]

22. Catch, intimidate, and release.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

24. exactly. Kept them from documenting the police which was their only real goal

[Lost4words]

7. It must have been my calls to the jail that did it!

Amy Goodmans Democracy Now is the only news show I watch anymore!

And I am better imformed because of it!

8643

[fasttense]

9. Unlawful assembly for journalists?????

What is an unlawful assembly of journalists? What law exactly are they quoting? Since when has this been a crime? I bet if it had been Fox news talkers, the city would have had the police throw flowers at them.

[jayfish]

10. The First Amendment:

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.

"Unlawful assembly"? WTF is that? Hey Chris Coleman! FUCK YOU!

Jay

[Winterblues]

11. WHAT!!! Why weren't they charged as Terrorists?

Anytime a journalist covers a demonstration they are terrorists.. They are likely to write a truthful article and that would terrify the thugs running things..I hope they get some restitution for their suffering..but I doubt it. It was completely an intimidation tactic.

[ProgressiveFool]

12. Good, now it's time for her to press some charges of her own, or bankrupt the fuckers /nt

[Ian David]

13. If it's any consolation, they beat the shit out of a New York Post photographer...

... while he shouted, "For Christ's sake, I'm with a REPUBLICAN newspaper!"

[GreenPartyVoter]

14. Seriesly!!11???

[Ian David]

17. Yes, seriously.

Per an interview with Amy Goodman on The Thom Hartman Show.

I know I shouldn't, but I smile a little when I think of it.

[GreenPartyVoter]

18. And people think the Fairness Doctrine is dead...

:hide:

[Ian David]

19. Maybe the cop beating the guy from The New York Post was the only Democrat on the force?

Or, more likely, he voted for Ron Paul.

[GreenPartyVoter]

20. I saw someone with a Ron Paul shirt on today. Kinda surprised me, actually..

[Ian David]

21. It's probably the only shirt he hasn't sold to buy pot. n/t

[GreenPartyVoter]

28. That was the thing, This guy looked like a conservative old grandpa. I would have

figured him for a Repub if I was gonna judge a book by its cover.

[Raksha]

30. Good! Now he knows how it feels to be a liberal. n/t

[Ian David]

32. Probably not. I doubt anyone else in his jailcell would be his friend. n/t

[malaise]

15. Great news

False arrest - sue them Amy

[no limit]

16. I guess that settles it then.

:eyes:

[tabasco]

25. Now charge the goddamn cops!

Enough of this fascist bullshit!

[Royal Oak Rog]

26. Good, now she can start her law suit

I hope she goes for billions and billions!

[Sal Minella]

27. The message is clear: If you are a journalist, you can be teargassed, thrown on your face, cuffed,

and held for an amount of time arbitrarily determined by us, after which we will announce that not one policeman behaved in an improper manner (emphasizing that the police behaved perfectly properly at all times) and then give a stirring little LECTURE on how important the press is in our society.

Made me furious. The talking head (think it was the Mayor) was LECTURING on the importance of a free press, after ARRESTING AND DETAINING people wearing PRESS credentials. The mind boggles.

[dkofos]

29. That's great news. NOW FRY THEIR ASSES!!

[backscatter712]

31. Catch-and-release. The charges served their purpose: intimidation.

The people from Democracy Now! were never intended to be prosecuted.

They were meant to be intimidated.

It's your classic fascist catch-and-release tactic - have the cops dressed up like black stormtrooper pigs, round up all the troublemakers, beat the hell out of them, throw them in jail, then have the prosecutor stack a shitload of felony charges on them, again scare the hell out of them, threaten to ruin their careers, their lives, take their entire life savings for legal defense.

Sure the charges have absolutely no legal leg to stand on, and eventually they're dropped, but the damage is done. The intimidation is done. They've taken Democracy Now's journalists, hundreds of protesters and who knows how many innocent bystanders through this wringer, solely to intimidate them, and to make them unable to make noise until long after the fact.

Mission fucking accomplished.

[crickets]

33. "the city will decline to prosecute misdemeanor charges for presence at an unlawful assembly"

The assembly was not unlawful.

Declining to press charges is no favor; it acknowledges no fault in the charges having been brought in the first place and acknowledges no wrongdoing on the part of the police.

SUE.

[happydreams]

34. This is exactly what the fascists love. ...

They are trying to destroy government. They sent their thugs out to brutalize the population with the taxpayer paying the bill

Then they incarcerate, pay the medical bills, etc. with the taxpayer paying the bills

Then they have to get their attorneys to work on the cases leading to the further costs to the taxpayer, and finally the taxpayer is strapped paying for the consequences of the cops actions--read the amount the city pays out in damages.

In NYC in 2004 Amy Goodman pointed out that about $100,000,000 was paid out to protesters. The more brutality the more the government pays out.


In addition this does not endear the taxpayer to the protesters or their message.

A perfect system to kill government and empower the thugs.

[avaistheone1]

35. Finally some good news today.

The Constitution lives.

[jimlup]

36. This is great but...

It had the desired effect. Even the false arrest lawsuit won't help. The whole idea was to shut down the protests and the media reporting of the protests. It worked.

[AtomicKitten]

37. Their arrest was simply a temporary stopgap measure to make them STFU in St. Paul.

The bully-boy police intervention done on behalf of a political party was unconstitutional and would never have held water in a court of law, particularly punctuated by video.