Off-Topic
I seldom wander onto topics that are not about living in Israel BUT I can't help myself this morning.
Anyone know just WHAT is going on in the Old Country??! This story broke:
DENVER -- Police in Denver arrested an ABC News producer today as he and a camera crew were attempting to take pictures on a public sidewalk of Democratic senators and VIP donors leaving a private meeting at the Brown Palace Hotel...Police on the scene refused to tell ABC lawyers the charges against the producer, Asa Eslocker, who works with the ABC News investigative unit....A police official later told lawyers for ABC News that Eslocker is being charged with trespass, interference, and failure to follow a lawful order...The sheriff's officer is seen telling Eslocker the sidewalk is owned by the Brown Palace Hotel, a central location for Democratic officials. Later, he is seen pushing Eslocker off the sidewalk into oncoming traffic, forcing him to the other side of the street...Eslocker and his ABC News colleagues are spending the week investigating the role of corporate lobbyists and wealthy donors at the convention for a series of Money Trail reports on ABC's "World News with Charles Gibson."
This information came from ABC News' website, albeit I rearranged one sentence for clarity. Check the site for the exact story.
I am wondering what exactly is going on here?
Since when does anyone "own" the sidewalks? The sidewalks are public. In order for the police to make an arrest, the officer needs probable cause to believe a crime has been committed. It is customary (but not legally required) to tell the arrestee what crime(s) he/she is being arrest for. The news story says the reporter was arrested for trespass, interference and refusal to follow a lawful order.
I can hardly wait to see this in court.
Trespass? Not if he was on a public sidewalk with his camera crew.
Interference? With what? Maybe with the squeaky clean poor-working-class image the DNC tries to preserve, but this recovering Democrat figured out long ago that they are ALL silver spoon babies who will say anything to get elected. Certainly not interference with anything else, unless the story omits something crucial.
Refusal to follow a lawful order? I doubt very much that telling a citizen to get off the sidewalk is a lawful order, but I don't know Denver's laws like I know California's. Maybe there is some wierd law that says sidewalks are private property and cops can lawfully shove people into traffic.
If not, I see a really big lawsuit following this bogus arrest.
Who says the Democrats are the party of the common people, opposed to corporate interests, in favor of blind justice?
Just goes to show you that any political party, Right, Left or Middle, is unscrupulous and underhanded when its own ox is being gored.
posted by aliyah06 at 7:44 AM
3 Comments:
Unfortunately photography in public has become increasingly "illegal" in the US. Boing Boing has several articles a month about it.
Here is a site with lots of info: http://www.photoattorney.com/
Safranit--that's an eye-opener, thanks. Still, following up on the stories in these links, it sounds more like intimidation than crime-stopping. Of note is that photographers in the vicinity of the upcoming RNC are getting the same lousy treatment--http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/
special/columns/convention_beat/
archive/2008/08/a_choice_of_weapons.shtml
I can understand a 'security concern' if you think the cameraman might have C4 packed in the camera a la Al Qaeda's hit on the Northern Alliance leader, BUT the cops aren't checking the cameras--they're banning the photographers.
Something about freedom of assembly and free speech comes to mind....
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