Last nights massive arrest of 400 Occupy Oakland protesters included for a second time graphic journalist Susie Cagle. According to Susie’s Twitter stream she was caught in the police kettle where at one point she was thrown down by police during a charge that left her “numb for 5 minutes.” Four other credentialed journalists were arrested that night. Susies arrest appears to have been shortlived. She tweeted that at some point an officer recongized her as having been arrested back in November. She was also told her release was a “favor.”
Here is an output of some of her tweets related to her arrest. She later tweeted that she had earlier filed a lawsuit against the OPD for her arrest back in November.
OPD kettled #OO, ppl tried to escape, OPD charged and grabbed my arm, threw me so hard it was numb for 5 minutes.
20 hours ago
I was shoved several times & then arrested while wearing my OPD press pass – which expired end of 2011. #OO #j28
20 hours agoWhen I said “I’m press I’m press” my arresting officer admonished me & told me to cooperate w the arrest. #OO #j28
20 hours ago“It’s expired, so you’re not press tonight.” A sgt finally let me go “using discretion.” #OO #j28
20 hours agoMy heart is racing & my arm still hurts & I got audio of most of it. No idea how many still in the kettle — I was one of the first out. #OO
20 hours agoOPD sgt said he knows I “tweet and all that.” OPD continues to not read @AlterNet I guess. #OO #j28 #journarrest
20 hours agoYes I was officially arrested & unarrested. Another officer: “Weren’t you arrested in the last one too?” and shook his head at me. #OO #j28
20 hours agoThat tweet from OPD is terribly low key considering they told me I wasn’t press & that they were doing me a favor. #OO #j28
18 hours agoMy unarrest was a “favor,” no apology. #journarrest MT @KristinHanes: #OPD boss apologized & made sure I made it past riot police line. #oo
16 hours agoMy arrest tape: “That’s my audio recorder I use for radio production as a professional journalist.” Cop: “Well I’m gonna turn it o-” #OO
14 hours ago
What does Daryl Cagle’s daughter’s arrest have to do w/ cartooning?
@Mike – she’s a graphic journalists. Here’s past TDC stories about her work covering Oakland.
I’m not sure, but it’s a shame that limited jail space is being occupied by belligerent protesters. Very frustrating for law enforcement professionals just doing their job.
Just wondering at what point the Occupy movement stops being worthy of any press coverage at all, if it ever was after week two.
Susie Cagle a cartoonist and a journalist, and often combines both skills to report on pressing social issues. It’s the second time she has been arrested, despite being a journalist, attempting to do her job of informing the public about the movement, the protests and the authoritarian reaction to it. Judging from the comments above, more informational work is needed.
Susie is doing what good journalists do-going out and seeing for herself what happens and reporting it. I hope to hell that people being locked up, and in some cases beaten in the course of exercising their First Amendment rights is still news in this country.
You mean like Tea Partiers?
If there is evidence of mistreatment, I suggest contacting a public defender. Thank God for our criminal justice system!
Mike- Absolutely, although I don’t remember them taking any beatings or being locked up. Examples?
Here’s a Forbes (slogan: Capitalist tool) post from a guy that looked into this and found little evidence that Tea Party people had anything like what OWS protestors suffered.
Here is a copy and paste of the link
http://www.forbes.com/sites/daveserchuk/2011/10/20/the-tea-party-never-got-pepper-sprayed/
Peter
Last I checked Tea Partiers didn’t and don’t get beaten is they get permits, stage orderly events and leave. They don’t camp out illegally, block roadways or commit massive acts of vandalism. Tea Partiers don’t purposely do things to get arrested and don’t try to provoke the police into a violent reaction.
Here’s a link to a running list of “peaceful” OWS actions. They stopped keeping count somewhere in December, with links to back up each notation. They stopped counting at 417.
http://bigjournalism.com/jjmnolte/2011/10/28/occupywallstreet-the-rap-sheet-so-far/
Journalist should be free to cover events without hassle, but if you’re covering a group that is deliberately trying to provoke a bad reaction from the police you shouldn’t be surprised if it ends up happening and you get caught in the middle of it.
Maybe. But the question wasn’t why are people getting beaten but who is getting beaten. Some are born victims, others have victimhood thrust upon them.
(as for “Orderly” who can forget the decorum of the Tea Partiers mocking a man who had the poor sense to have Parkinson’s Disease?)
The premise may have been “who”, but it is the actions not the politics that caused some police to over react. So it’s a false premise.