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”Journalism is not a crime.”
It’s not my opinion, it’s the LAW. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/journalist-arrest-seattle-chaz-protest-police-prison-black-lives-matter-a9606846.html
It’s not my opinion, it’s the LAW. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/journalist-arrest-seattle-chaz-protest-police-prison-black-lives-matter-a9606846.html
. @Independent @AndrewBuncombe: “Were the authorities so deaf to what protesters had been saying about police overreach and use of excessive force they were prepared to shackle that reporter, charge him with ‘failure to disperse’ and then assault him?” - Apparently so...
“As police swept through Cal Anderson Park and the streets around it, officers with long sticks, backed up by armoured vehicles, were retaking the buildings of the East Precinct. They arrested dozens of people. I was among them.”
“The ‘belly chain’ had become so tight I could not fully exhale. It felt obscene and preposterous to have to inform the officers I could not properly breathe, that phrase having become weighted with such power and resonance during the Black Lives Matter movement”
“Out of nowhere, a male prison guard leapt at me from behind, yanked hard on the collar of my jacket, pulling it with sufficient force into my throat to make me gasp. He then manhandled me into the cell.”
“The only option to wash my hands during the 6-7hrs I spent in the jail was to use the drinking fountain, situated above the toilet, itself located behind a low brick wall that offered no privacy. The toilet was filthy, the room stank, one protester became ill and vomited in it.”
“The fear of being infected is not paranoia....the constant arresting and processing of people for minor charges has acted to further spread the disease. Many jails, including Rikers Island in New York, and San Quentin in San Francisco, have been hotspots” for #COVID19
“This association between jail cycling and community spread of Covid19 is particularly strong in communities of color...yet the focus on the overcrowded and unsanitary nature of prisons distracted from a broader truth about the racist underpinnings of the criminal justice system”
“There’s no other country that believes it’s necessary to arrest and incarcerate as many people as the US does. And it’s clear this does not produce more effective deterrence,” said Reinhart @Harvard
“Among those in the cell was a young African American man called Kai. He had been at the protest site for 30 days and was arrested that morning. He said #SPD officers had *kneeled on his back* as they did so.”
“Another man, Josh, 29, had not even been at the protest but was detained when he set off to get food from a local restaurant, and turned the wrong corner.”
“Among the 30-odd people discharged with me that evening was a young African American man who said he had spent *an entire year* in jail after being charged with resisting arrest. He said he had been unable to make bail. He was far from alone.”
You can’t spin your way out of this #SPD. The world is watching.
