Police in Vermont have arrested a journalist for doing his job. More than that, he was covering the arrest of several Vermonters.
From VPR (emphasis added):
Opponents of a controversial wind project under construction on Lowell Mountain were arrested yesterday for blocking a road.
…Six of the arrested were protestors but one was a journalist, Chris Braithwaite, publisher of the Barton Chronicle, who was there covering the story.
Regardless of the merits of the issue, the arrest of a journalist covering the arrest of people engaging in civil disobedience is abhorrent, and should be anathema to everyone concerned with maintaining a free society.
Here’s what Braithwaite said during a VPR interview (link).
“I know the Chief Deputy, Phil Brooks pretty well… I told him that I would cover the protesting and cover the arrest and then go down the mountain…Phil came over and said I had to get off the property, I said again that I was really just trying to do my job and would cover the arrest and would leave. He didn’t accept that and I was arrested.
I felt that as the only reporter on the scene that if there was going to be this confrontation between protesting citizens and their government, somebody ought to be there to see ewxcatly how that took place.
and to to obey police orders and just go back down the mountain at that critical moment wouldn’t be good journalism. That’s why I stayed.”
Braithwaite says he was arrested “nicely,” but was charged with Unlawful Trespass and plans to plead Not Guilty.
Damn straight. It’s enough of a crisis that we’re seeing journalist arrests at “occupy” rallies. If the police in this instance have any sense, they’ll drop this quickly, or it’s likely to go national (we’ll be sure of that) and give them a big black eye – as it should.
(H/T to user VCE for bringing this to our attention)
this seems to be a follow up on the action taken by Burlington Police during the incident with the Burlington Free Press photographer-which no one seemed to care about at the time.
If the press doesn’t see it, it is the tree falling in the woods.
Ever since 9/11, police actions-my god they are saving us from annihilation at the hands of some deviant-are just off limits for examination for some reason. Personally I have no idea what is going on with this. Recent reports that NYC occupy cost like a zillion dollars in police overtime, when they were for the most part there for 1% intimidation rather than law enforcement, are designed to give us the idea that the jackbooted helmeted darth vader crowd can do no wrong.
Start to treat any class of people like Gods, and they will start to act like they are…
Who were those folks who liked to say: “I was only following orders.” Whose orders?
The mainstream press is going to have to wake up if they don’t want to become targets of more than just arrest. If they don’t start shining the light on police abuses – and showcasing them for the inexcusable, unacceptable, unwarranted events they are, then the press will come to learn a bit too late that they themselves are not immune.