Thursday, November 3, 2011
Law and Order Reporter Arrested While Covering Occupy Nashville Tells Story in This Week's Scene
Posted by Jim Ridley on Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 9:51 AM
- PHOTO: MARTIN B. CHERRY
I rushed up the steps to witness the gathering force of 72 state troopers. I activated my Flip video camera and began to film them. As they readied to march, some two dozen protesters locked arms in a daisy chain of civil disobedience, singing “We Shall Overcome.”Within minutes, the troopers advanced in a phalanx. I backed away, filming. While I was trying to back off the plaza, Flip cam in hand and rolling, I heard a voice say, “You’re under arrest.”
They must be talking to someone else, I thought — maybe to one of the protesters to my right, but surely not me. But in my hasty backwards exit I bumped into even more troopers who had snuck up behind me.
“I’m getting off,” I told them. I was grabbed from behind.
“Whoa!” I said. “I’m a member of the media.”
“Your time is up,” a trooper said.
“Hey!” This time I shouted. “I’m a member of the media!”
None of the officers seemed to listen to me. No one offered to look at my credentials, no one gave me an opportunity to put them in contact with my editor. Nor did they listen to a colleague, who kept shouting I was a member of the press. He later said a trooper told him, “You want to be next?”
The combined weight of heavily equipped Tennessee Highway Patrol troopers was too much. My knees buckled, and I was slowly, firmly introduced face-first to the freezing marble of the plaza. They dug their knees into my back and tightly affixed a pair of zip-tie handcuffs, the plastic gouging my wrists. From all directions, I could hear screaming.
Comments (10)
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What does it say about us as a people to actually tolerate this type of behavior from our government? Regardless of what any of us think about the Occupy Movement they still have the right to assemble and protest in a public space. We cannot allow for the government to change curfew laws to suit them at any given time. This is clearly a violation of the Constitution. This is what we have become as a nation, a nation that wants to silence anyone that will not comply with the norm of society. Again, regardless of our feelings about protesters that have no clear message, talking points, or demands. These people still have the right to assemble and that is what strikes me as an assault on my own rights!
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What does it say about us that our so called free press has turned into a mouth piece for a bunch of radical progressives that get their money form a megalomaniac billionaire?
When you don't tell the whole truth, and you are a journalist, you are in effect a liar.
If you want to do a real story, why don't you follow the money trail left by these so called "concerned ciotizens?" Why don't you report the CRIMINAL HISTORIES of those people who were arrested. The people who live downtown need to know who is camping out on the back door.
You'll never do that because
a) the NAshville Scene isn't a real newspaper, it's a joke.
b)you'd have to get off your lazy asses and actually do research
c)the TRUTH doesn't fit the fiction you're spinning. and
d)this pseudo-movement is the sole property of the democrat party, and you therefore don't want to rock Karl Deans boat.
Never ever bitch about Fox News again. You make them look fair and balanced.
where were the state troopers when a woman spray painted and defaced the state capitol?
What lie do you think this reporter has told? Specifically. What "lie" has he told?
You seem to be angry that he won't find some way to spin the story in a way that the Steve Gill Show, for instance, might spin it.
Facts you don't like are not lies. Except, I suppose, in the bizarre parallel universe of the teabagger ditto-head morons.
Are we to assume the Koch brothers don't fit the category of "megalomaniac billionaires"? Or is their money somehow "better" because of the causes they fund?
It is kind of sad when you are the anonymous(e) type that barks orders under the name WowJustWow using
a)b)c)s to make your points.
Reading your comment, wowzer-pants, made me cringe. Its obvious you dont have much power in this issue. Thank god. And I dont mean the Fox news kinda god
What does it say about us that our so called right wing press has turned into a mouth piece for a bunch of radical right wingers that get their money from several megalomaniac billionaires?
show me a billionaire who isn't a megalomaniac and Ill show you a debt-ridden 30something who isn't mega low.
"The people who live downtown need to know who is camping out on the back door."
So that they can what? Send jack-booted thugs in to drag those deemed "undesireable" off to the gulag? Is the protesters are citizens, they have a right to assemble and a right to speak in public spaces, regardless of their criminal records or some mythical money trail.
And I just have to say, whatever magic money trail you're alluding to must be pretty damn pathetic, or those kids would already have had a porta-potty.
