[Updated] St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman’s office issued a statement this morning announcing that the city attorney won’t prosecute journalists who were cited by authorities at the Republican National Convention (RNC) with “presence at an unlawful assembly,” a misdemeanor charge.

That pertains specifically to the journalists who were swept up in the massive arrests during protests in St. Paul on the convention’s first and last days (including MnIndy’s Paul Demko, who was arrested on the last night of the RNC).

How many people that might include hasn’t been tallied yet, but nearly 50 of the more than 800 people arrested or detained were onsite to cover the RNC, according to a MnIndy analysis (see comments for additions to our original list). Their cases will be individually reviewed according to this policy, according to City Attorney John Choi.

In other news related to RNC journalist arrestees, it should be noted that the pending charges against “Democracy Now!” host Amy Goodman and two of her producers are being dropped. Choi explained that his office is declining prosecution in Goodman’s case, “because the facts and circumstances related to Amy Goodman fell outside of our charging policy for obstruction of legal process cases,” which is what she was cited for.

Choi explained that, “In conjunction with the police department and community activists, the City Attorney’s Office has developed a more conservative approach to handling obstruction of legal process cases. We felt that same policy should apply to this case.”

Further, after reviewing the facts, circumstances and video evidence, pending unlawful assembly charges against the show’s two producers are also being cleared.

Choi said the decision doesn’t necessarily mean the arrests were improper. “What defines probable cause for an arrest is different from what defines probable cause for a charge. … We have to look at whether we can succeed at court,” he said.

Minneapolis attorney John Lundquist, who represented Goodman on the matter, said, “Obviously we’re very happy that [the city attorney] made the right call in declining the charges. It was a little slow in coming, but I agree that it was correct to dismiss it. Clearly there was never any prosecutable case.” Further, “I strongly disagree there was ever any probable cause for the arrests in the first place.”

Mayor Coleman said in the prepared statement about the policy decision made concerning journalists at the RNC, “This decision reflects the values we have in St. Paul to protect and promote our First Amendment rights to freedom of the press. … A journalist plays a special role in our democracy and that role is just too important to ignore.” While police carried out their charge to protect public safety, “we are serving the public’s interest to maintain the integrity of our democracy, system of justice and freedom of the press.”

The statement acknowledges the “growing media profession in print, broadcast and the Internet, the city attorney’s office will use a broad definition and verification to identify journalists who were caught up in mass arrests during the convention.”

ABC News crew wears gas masks while filming the Funk the War group, in front of MPR on 7th Street. Photo: T. Roman

Of the 800-plus people who were arrested or detained in conjunction with RNC protests, a good chunk of them — 46, by our count — were members of the news media. Media representatives in town to cover the events, from both big and small presses, were slapped with citations and pending charges ranging in severity, including unlawful assembly, obstructing the legal process, misdemeanor interference with a peace officer and felony to riot plus other riot pretenses. (Notably Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman was jailed along with two of the show’s producers.) Many others who weren’t arrested or detained endured pepper-spray and other arms used for crowd-control.

MnIndy has compiled a list of journalists who were detained or arrested, including some preemptively, culled from news reports and sources, including the Ramsey County sheriff’s department’s booking roster. Let us know if anyone is unaccounted for and we’ll add them to the list.

Journalists detained/arrested:

Tom Aviles, WCCO photojournalist

Charlie B, MTV Think blogger (full last name unknown)

Anita Braithwaite, New York-based Glass Bead Collective

Wendy Binion, Portland IndyMedia

Andy Birkey, Minnesota Independent

Geraldine Cahill, The Real News

Eileen Clancy, I-Witness Video, a New York-based media collective

Paul Demko, Minnesota Independent

Amy Forliti, Associated Press reporter

Ben Garvin, Pioneer Press photographer

Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! host

Art Hughes, Public News Service

Suzanne Hughes, The Uptake, volunteer coordinator

Ted Johnson, Variety managing editor

Olivia Katz, Glass Bead Collective

Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Democracy Now! producer

Alice Kalthoff, MyFoxdfw.com editor

Jon Krawczynski, Associated Press reporter

Joseph La Sac, Pepperspray Productions journalist

Brian Madigan, Minneapolis freelancer

Ed Matthews, University of Kentucky photojournalism student

Jonathan Malat, KARE-11 photojournalist

Stephen Maturen, Minnesota Daily assistant picture editor

Britney McIntosh, University of Kentucky photojournalism student

Matt Nelson, University of Iowa student

Jason Nicholas, New York Post freelance photographer

Mark Ovaska, Rochester freelance photographer

Christopher Patton, Editorial board member of The Daily Iowan

Elizabeth Press, Democracy Now!

Matt Rourke, Associated Press photographer

Sheila Regan, TC Daily Planet

Lambert Rochfort, Pepperspray Productions journalist

Seth Rowe, Sun Newspapers, St. Louis Park community editor

Jeff Schorfheide, Madison, Wis. Badger-Herald photographer

Mark Skinner, University of Nevada Las Vegas Rebel Yell reporter

Ania Smolenskaia, The Real News

Matt Snyders, City Pages

Nicole Salazar, Democracy Now! producer

Vlad Teichberg, New York-based Glass Bead Collective

Dean Treftz, U-Wire, national college news service

Nathan Weber, photographer, Chicago-area freelancer

Tony Webster, Twin Cities independent media professional

Jim Winn, University of Kentucky journalism adviser

John P. Wise, MyFox national editor

Dawn Zuppelli, Rochester IndyMedia

Vlad Teichberg, Olivia Katz and Anita Braithwaite are from the New York-based Glass Bead Collective, a new media arts group. Among the equipment taken: video cameras, still cameras, laptops, notebooks, money and other personal belongings.

Teichberg said police officers stopped them around 2 a.m. after they got off the number 17 Metro Transit bus near NE 7th St. and 27th Ave.  According to Teichberg, police officers said there had been suspicious activity in the neighborhood, including a robbery, and officers proceeded to question them about their plans while also snapping photos and searching them, despite their objections. “We didn’t have any burglary tools,” said Teichberg. When they asked the officers if they were being arrested, “We were told we were being detained.”

According to a statement from the collective, the officers refused to file an official incident report or fill out a receipt inventorying seized property, claiming that they were allowed to conduct the search and seizure under the jurisdiction of Homeland Security due to security risks leading up to the
Republican National Convention.

Afterwards, the three journalists/artists were released without receiving any charges or tickets. (Police kept their belongings.) Teichberg said he recently learned that the Minneapolis Police Department is claiming they are being investigated for trespassing on train tracks. “We were targeted. They knew who we were. This was an attempt not to let us document what is happening at the convention… They’re taking away the media’s ability to protest,” he said.

Minneapolis Police Department spokesman Sgt. Bill Palmer said the case is under investigation and that there are some discrepancies between what the journalists are alleging and the police officers’ side of the story. “The MPD is not in the business of restricting free speech,” he said. “The actions of the officers appear reasonable.”

In this morning’s Pioneer Press story, attorney Bruce Nestor, who is the president of the Minnesota chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, describes the incident as a preemptive strike on a group that is well known to law enforcement. The collective, he said, has supplied video in court cases including that of a 2007 Critical Mass bike ride in New York City.

Update: Video by Ken Avidor from The UpTake