Minneapolis council candidate guilty of disorderly conduct at Pittsburgh protest

The only thing differentiating Hill from any of the hundreds of other journalists, videographers, mediamakers, etc., including many of us from Twin Cities IMC at the G20, is that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time… or is that the right place at the right time? She was documenting the conduct of the Pittsburgh police during what may very well have been an unconstitutional mass arrest, and obviously, there was something on her tape that the authorities didn’t want the world to see

The Pittsburgh DA dropped the charges against a Pittsburgh newspaper reporter arrested at the same time, but his line was that because Hill didn’t have secret service credentials, she didn’t qualify for the same standard. That’s beyond ridiculous.

But it’s also to be expected. You tell the stories of the powerful? Of course you will get protection. But if you’re an independent media maker telling the stories of the powerless, of course you won’t. To the police and the DA, telling those stories is indeed “disorderly.”

Melissa told me about her experiences in Pittsburgh. The cops broke her camera, stole the CD/DVD from it, and slashed the strap of her bag in two. Needless to say, she wasn’t being “disorderly” at all.

When she got to the jail, she observed that U.S. Army & National Guard were running the show, giving ORDERS to the civilian cops. The military were calling those collared and hauled in “detainees” instead of “arrestees,” because the military can’t legally arrest citizens.

Sounds very, very like Guantanamo, Baghram, Diego Garcia and so on, eh. Obama is “in” now, and by golly, THIS is “Change that I can Believe in!”

All Solidarity to Melissa and the other “detainees!”

I was documenting events in Pittsburgh during the G20 week as a citizen journalist. No media credentials, no press pass, just me a citizen doing citizen journalism. While I was not caught up in any sweeps, it infuriates me that somehow people who had the correct “papers” had charges dropped. This feels like arrogance on the part of government saying some of those documenting the events, because they are part of a media organization and had secret service approved documentation, they will receive special consideration that other independent media will not. How is that equal protection under the law? Why should someone who had approved papers be given any different consideration from someone who was not part of some media comglomerate, yet every bit as much documenting important activities.

If everyone had dispersed, including media persons, who would have been left to tell the story of the interactions between police and the crowd? It would have been police and those arrested. Who is the judge going to believe in those cases? It’s why those like Melissa who remained at the scene are so very important to being able to independently document the events of that evening. To provide the world with an eye on such events that would go unseen otherwise.

Perhaps this way this first round of hearings is going is standard operating procedure at this stage of things, I don’t know. I do not at all agree with it and am really bothered that to receive a dismissal you needed to have the correct (and approved) “papers”. The DA apparently referred to who had them as working and credentialed. Yet the judge tells Melissa, and independent reporter (who did not have secret service approved papers), that she should have known better.

Citizen media is not a crime!

If the woman did not plant a bomb or something like that, then let her go. No harm, no foul.