I was intensely disappointed at the treatment of protesters at the Democratic convention, cooped up in a small ghetto of first amendment exercisers.
But New York seems to be shaping up much worse. Two items:
Bikesagainstbush creator Joshua Kinberg was arrested while taping an interview with MSNBC’s Ron Reagan in Manhattan Saturday afternoon.
Kinberg was stopped by police while demonstrating the bicycle for the television interview. His bicycle is a high-tech graffiti writer, using chalk to print anti-Bush political messages sent by people via the internet. Apparently there was a question of whether or not the sprayed messages were a defacement of property.
When Kinberg showed the police sergeant how the bicycle used a non-permanent spray chalk, the sergeant seemed to agree that it wasn’t defacement, at which point Kinberg asked, “am I free to go?” After conferring about it, officers decided to call superiors, then came back moments later to place Kinberg under arrest and confiscate the bicycle.
Kinberg cooperated fully with the officers as he was being handcuffed, only asking, “can I ask what I’m being arrested for?” to which no one provided an answer. As of 11:00 PM Saturday evening, he was still in custody without being charged with anything.
And…
After taking some pictures of Critical Mass riders getting arrested, I turned to walk away and suddenly was in cuffs, one of the 264 cyclists and random passers-by arrested Friday night. Rather than writing us summonses for the offenses we were charged with, which were violations (on par with a traffic ticket or an open container), not even misdemeanors, the cops decided to teach us a lesson by hauling us over to a bus depot-turned-holding cell where we got to sleep in cages on diesel-sludge-covered concrete. (Many people reported chemical burns from contact with the floor.) I got to spend 16 hours there, then ride a corrections bus downtown to Central Booking for the full handcuff/search/mugshot/prints treatment, in shackles all the way, and spent another 14 hours there while the cops, who were either intentionally stalling on Bloomberg’s orders or staggeringly incompetent, took 14 more hours to write us all the same desk-appearance tickets they could have given out at the scene. There were still at least 50 people in there when I got out at 2:30 a.m. Monday (and spent another hour waiting on line to get my keys, phone, camera, and pen from the property clerk).
Both via kottke.org.
