December 2, 2011

I was arrested while reporting on Occupy Boston

This is where I was arrested on October 11.

Last night’s clash over a kitchen sink between Occupy Boston and local law enforcement was pretty volatile – there were several skirmishes between police and protesters, including three initial arrests and one in which a man is said to have punched an officer. But it still ranks far below the night of October 11 when 142 people were arrested as the activists tried to expand the encampment to another nearby section of the Greenway.

I know because I was there that night, as well, covering the event for a Rhode Island radio station. In fact, I was one of the people arrested. (At my court appearance the next day, when a judge and the prosecutor learned I was a journalist there to bare witness to the event, they quickly dropped the charges without prejudice.)

I wish I could say the police simply mistook me for a protester engaged in an act of civil disobedience. However, the video I have of my arrest clearly tells a different story.

In the video (see below), I clearly identify myself as a member of the media – four times, no less – and was also credentialed in that my professional audio recorder had a very visible mic flag of a well-known news radio station – but, for whatever reason, that didn’t stop police from not only incarcerating me, but also roughing me up in the process.

An officer can clearly be heard on the video saying, “Four guys, pin him.” Which is nothing short of excessive, since a half of a Boston police officer could pin me quicker than it takes to say it.

One can also here another officer say, “He just hit me.” A charge a deny while I was being thrown to the ground. Proof enough that I didn’t hit a police officer is that I had a radio microphone in one hand and the iPhone I captured the video with in the other. I’ve been told that police officers will often say such things when they are arresting people who are capturing footage as a way to insulate them from civil actions or internal affairs investigations.

You’ll then hear me wince in pain a few times as a result of being roughed up by the officers, then you’ll see me, and my iPhone, hit the ground and an officer tell me to get my hands behind my back – despite the fact that when I was thrown to the ground I landed with my arm underneath me and at least one officer on my back with no way of moving my hands anywhere.

In any case, without further delay, here’s the video:

Evidently, my experience is not a unique one. To date, 30 journalists have been arrested while reporting on the Occupy movement, according to Josh Stearns, the associate program director with FreePress.net, who has been documenting the arrests of reporters.

“It’s a troubling marker at the beginning of an election year,” he said. “We can’t all be there with our ears to the ground. We need journalists to help us understand what is happening. Police shouldn’t be making it this hard for journalists to tell their stories.”

By and large, Stearns said police have been “not bad” in their treatment of journalists. But, he added, “in the places where it has been bad, it’s been very bad.”

About half of the arrests have happened in New York City, and a full third of them in one day.

But FreePress.net is doing something about it. Yesterday, they delivered a petition with some 40,000 signatures to mayors Michael Bloomberg and Antonio R. Villaraigosa of Los Angeles, who is the president of the United States Conference of Mayors, imploring them to respect journalists covering the Occupy movement.

“A chorus of leading news organizations, press associations and civil liberties groups have spoken out against the press suppression and journalist arrests that have plagued Occupy protests around the country,” he said in an email to me. “It’s time for mayors to rein in these attacks and publicly commit to defending the First Amendment in their cities. Now more than ever, we need a robust public square for debate and discussion and freedom of press can’t be practiced from a jail cell.”

— Bob Plain