Submitted by Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Richmond, Va photographer, Ian Graham, must be wondering where he was this past Monday as he was arrested by local police for trespassing on a city street. Graham, who was photographing police arresting demonstrators in the Occupy Richmond protest, was told by police he was trespassing as he politely stood near a public crosswalk recording the goings on with his camera. Police claim they told Graham he could take photos but only in the designated “media area,” which was, of course, far from the scene of the arrests.
Graham was detained for the apparent “crime” of walking and photographing police from a public street. It’s more likely he was arrested in retaliation for questioning police about why he was unable to traverse the street and perform an obviously legal action. He was held at the Public Safety Building for about thirty minutes and then released on a summons.
Eight other people were arrested during the 1:00 a.m raid of the Occupy Richmond encampment. Camping out in solidary with the Occupy Wall Street movement since October 15th, the demonstrators were told they were now trespassing in violation of a city ordinance prohibiting them from being present in the public park after dark. Boy, that took almost three weeks for police to figure out.
The Virginia ACLU is defending Graham who is part owner of RVA Magazine which publishes weekly and is distributed free of charge — or at least at no cost. For his part Graham is nonplussed by the misdemeanor charges. “The freedom of the press is not constrained to a box or some zone that the police inhabit,” he said. He added, “We as the press have the right and responsibility to cover the police during whatever they are doing on public property.”
The arrest occurred at Kanawha Plaza in the heart of Richmond’s financial district. That’s not particularly important until you remember that just a few blocks away down Broad Street is venerable St. John’s Church. There in March of 1775, another Virginian expressed much the same sentiment as Graham’s. I ‘m a little fuzzy on the name — Henry sounds right for the last name — but I’m in good company with the guardians of the peace here in Richmond. They don’t remember him at all.
Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch
~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Well Gene, I hope we’re laughing about the same thing. I was AY, making an oblique comment on the state of pre-revolution France, courts nor government (nor the economy) worked for the citizens.
I was thinking later that Versailles was built and the King moved the Royals and the entire court including nobles of some minimum rank to it. He didn’t have to be bothered with the people of Paris and he could keep his court and nobles under his watchful eye. Being away from their home provenances for at least part of the year helped keep his nobles weak and by keeping everyone with any power literally in his own house, the King robbed them of the privacy needed to become treacherous. His son and grandson and great-grandson maintained the habit. The damn fools should have looked out the window every now and then ‘specially the last one, Louis XVI, the threat was outside, in the streets as it were.
LK,
“It seems to be gett’n all French up in here.”
I actually laughed out loud. Thanks!
OS and Lotta,
Well said. The voting restrictions the Right is putting up in many states is a blatant attack on our Democracy.
We’re talking about the former capital of the Confederate States of America aka the Feudal States of America. I’m surprised it wasn’t worse.
Say what?
Otteray Scribe: “The sad thing is that we can no longer trust the courts because all too many benches are occupied by right wing reactionaries.”
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Agreed, and to expand on that, you can’t trust the ballot box either. The needs and desires of he citizenry are completely ignored by the elected. These are amazing times. It seems to be gett’n all French up in here.
i’m guessing that the charges will be dropped before it gets to court. they’ve made their point and deleted the pictures.
The police are out of control everywhere. I just did a trade show, with high security in place, as always. I happened to go in a wrong door- and even though I had my security badge and photo ID in my hand, I was detained by the Miami police. Show management had to come down and sort them out. The whole thing was ridiculous. When did the police lose their common sense?
Maybe it is the influx of money since 9/11. Maybe it is this hero worship of the military and the police. Maybe it is a culture of violence, but the police think they can detain or arrest anyone at will these days.
This attitude is going to cost taxpayers a lot of money. Every police department needs to have a re-education on the American Constitution.
If this continues, it is only a matter of time before the swampfoxes star pickin’ off the red coats,…….
History has taught us that people can only be pushed so far,……
Stephan Gregory Patterson Palmer, Alaska,……..
Stephen,
The problem is in understanding just who are the Redcoats. All of us in the 99% are hurting. Some of those in pain blame the wrong people and others are fooled by religious hypocrites who claim to talk for God. I believe that the enemy is those who approve of the return of feudalism, leading to the triumph of force over freedom. Opposing them must not lead to copying their methods, because that would mean that even if we won we would fail.
Mike,
I missed your earlier post, but I must concur with Dredd. Well said indeed. Concise and to the point both in analysis of the problem and the proposed solution.
Mike Spindell 1, November 5, 2011 at 11:55 am
We are on the cusp of the tipping point. Freedom or Fascist Feudalism are the stakes. Dissemination of truth is our biggest weapon. Arms and media propaganda are theirs. We have the strength of numbers as long as we don’t allow ego and petty political differences divide us. Our canon encompassing ideological diversity should be the Constitution as perceived prior to the Reagan coup and it’s injection of right wing propanda polluting our political discourse, overwhelming our institutions with the evil of selfish wealth.
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Well said.
Let’s not buy into the chaos theory product they are trying to sell us.
Dredd,
Your linked article was a “tour de force” and captures thoughts I’ve long held as to the science in the social sciences. While many individuals have provided insight and useful experimentation, too often the “results” are dominated by who is paying the freight Comfortable academics too often rely on the status quo to maintain their lifestyles. Self interest then influences theory.
More than any time in history mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly. – Woody Allen
Wife’s brother was over the other day – he whined about needing surgery but would lose his job if he took time off. Then he whined about his company hiring cheap, no benefit, temps to cover the increased work load they have. Then he claimed that UNIONS were destroying America!
Morons like that will vote for politicians that will gut them financially & crush us physically and all the while following the Judas goat that is Rush and FAUX NEWS.
We are on the cusp of the tipping point. Freedom or Fascist Feudalism are the stakes. Dissemination of truth is our biggest weapon. Arms and media propaganda are theirs. We have the strength of numbers as long as we don’t allow ego and petty political differences divide us. Our canon encompassing ideological diversity should be the Constitution as perceived prior to the Reagan coup and it’s injection of right wing propanda polluting our political discourse, overwhelming our institutions with the evil of selfish wealth.
Clearly a first amendment violation. Also bad karma for the police. 😉
Sue the bastids I tells ya …
This is why OWS is really important. It’s also why the involvement of veterans in OWS is helpful. The police have backed off somewhat when veterans march.
It appears to me that a group of citizens banding together to help each other is the only hope we have of stopping the police state. When they marched in Oakland for the general strike and someone was being attacked, people converged to help that person. The sheer numbers of people made a difference in how the police reacted.
OS,
I imagine a lot of Germans felt the same way in about the German government during the period from 1930 to 1932, after the financial crisis and shortly before Hitler was made Chancellor in 1933.
The sad thing is that we can no longer trust the courts because all too many benches are occupied by right wing reactionaries. When a citizen is arrested on a bogus charge like this, who can trust the court system to provide justice and rule against the police, even when they are obviously violating Constitutional guarantees?
Time to occupy a taser factory. Serusly, the way to stop this is to sue these knuckleheads out of existence.
When is this court hearing on the photographer’s summons? Who’s managing the OCCUPY THE COURT demonstration for that event? Shouldn’t all photographers be there? People with cell phone cameras?
What’s happening here is both obvious and old-fashioned. I remember activists making tourist trips to the Soviet Union in the 70s to meet with refuseniks who could give them messages from their imprisoned members — no cameras, no flashbulbs, lots of surveillance to make sure nobody could record anything, that’s where we’re headed now.
How long must we endure this?