Saturday, September 27, 2008

Policeman grabs camera, threatens to jail blogger

I blogged about the thuggish behavior of police in Minnesota during the Republican National Convention. I blogged about the arrest of journalists, lawyers, bloggers, photographers, and non-violent demonstrators at those events. Nevertheless, until today, I did not myself realize quite how easy it is get arrested if you are in the vicinity of a protest in the United States in 2008.

I was busy photographing American citizens protesting the bail-out of greedy Wall Street firms outside the White House on Thursday. That was when a policeman marched up to me, grabbed for my camera, and threatened to throw me in jail.

A section of Pennsylvania Avenue had been blocked off to anyone without a pass. I stood near the demonstration behind a police line located about one hundred meters from the gates to the White House. As I was trying to take a picture of some Code Pink protesters, a bag I was carrying happened to touch the yellow police ribbon.

Watch what happened:

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