US: RNC cops brutally suppress press freedom

its a truly sad thing, how many of these intances do you think go unnoticed in our country? i wish there was a camera for every single moment this happened because it's more common than people think. Shame that in the land of the free we still have to worry about the diminishing concept of freedom of speech

Your papers please!

Please state your business!

Get on the ground!

You are free. Free to what your told!

What a Fucked up reality exists here in the U.S. at the moment.

Good luck my fellow citizens.

Ride on!

It's not the country I know.

I'm pretty sure this is acted out and made for dramatization. I think I've seen it on TV, but if not there is something seriously wrong.

my GOD what is going on? when i used to watch people in germany and china beaten in the streets by police i felt so outraged at the fact that this could happen- not in any country, but just to humans living on this planet. i also felt that even though i didn't always agree with my government, it did keep me safe most of the time.

What do people around the world think of our great crumbling nation? I myself feel sick, sicker than I have for the last eight years- and thats saying something.

Who do we turn to now but ourselves? If the US is the so called "world police" then what does that mean for the world?

When has protesting ever gotten anything done? People that are beaten by the police are usually asking for it. You can't form a large group and shout things in an angry manner and not expect to get batoned.

There's no proof that was at the RNC

It is the same force that took my name and ordered us to cease and desist via handgun when I protested Regan in the 1990's. The only difference is that they have been controlling America for so long that they no longer fear the American people they steal their power from. I am sorry people had to go through this.

Amy Goodman was on PBS's "Now" with this footage as well as her own arrest outside of the RNC.
Approximately 500 protesters and the journalists covering the action were arrested and held to be prosecuted at a later date.
Many of the captured and abused journalists were quoted as saying that a Secret Service agent approached them, took their Press passes and walked away with no interferece by the police.
I have friends in Saint Paul who witnessed many of these over-the-top events.
Don't you dare tell me that it wasn't real.

Everyone in this country needs to take a chill pill. I don't see the gain of pushing someone on the ground. Are our minds so lost and distorted that we beat up someone screaming for help?
If so, do they realize that the victim could be someone just like them?
If so, I fear the future.

I want to know why exactly someone higher up in the chain of command ordered the street officers to act so aggressively. They are all acting aggressively in unison. There must be some kind of psychological reason. They know these people pose little threat.

I'm more than certain each of those officers has a conscious that they face each night before they go to sleep, just like everyone else at the convention; except for Sarah Palin, her heart was frozen and shattered in the Alaskan tundra. Making cracks about community service. She can't see further than her own family.

Though, there must be some specific reason for their aggression.

Look on the bright side(if you can)at least they aren't bringing out the fire hose.

Ummm...Civil Rights movement? Hello?

She over-dramatized that. If this was real, then it would be horrible, but cops know that people are trying to make them look bad and therefore don't do this. They don't just beat people to the ground for protesting.

Unalienable rights? This is a human being. These cops, and many others, have no respect for the constitution. We give them power, hoping they'll protect our rights, instead they take them away.

its a sad day in america when an unarmed woman gets beaten down by a man payed to serve and protect.

police are supposted to serve and protect, at least thats what i thought.

"Fuck the police" -NWA

I think the litigation that will inevitably follow these conventions will have enormous implications on the future of the 1st Amendment. Maybe more needs to be done. Maybe the faces of the officers (perfectly clear in many videos) need to be linked to names so that the media can hold them personally accountable for their actions. I don't know.

im glad that another video leaked that angers people like this one does. the revolution is nigh my brothers and sisters. nigh like apple pie on the fourth of july.

Someone cried because of a short video that no one has any proof of where it was taken...??? LOL come on people lets get real! Lets grow up and GROW SOME BALLS!!!!

You people that find this shocking should really look around the world today, these people were treated as potential suspects who were still in an area after the police asked them to disband.

For any one who researches this protest/riot at the RNC you will find videos of people right in the middle of the protest breaking innocent vendors/businesses windows and destroying public property.

It is standard procedure to ask the protestors to disband from a particular area, to clean it up and secure the businesses.

Compare Goodman's video (and others from the RNC protests) with the following article/video/propaganda:

Police Brutality at the Democratic National Convention: Two Minor Girls Arrested for Sidewalk Chalking Near Senator Obama's Hotel

DENVER, Aug. 28 -- On Wednesday, August 27, police officers brutally arrested two teenage girls, ages 15 and 17, near Senator Obama's Denver hotel. The young women, Julia Giacopuzzi and Jayne White, were writing messages in sidewalk chalk on the public sidewalk when the police officers rushed in and violently arrested the girls without warning or provocation.

The girls are members of the pro-life youth organization Survivors, and were in Denver during the Democratic National Convention to call attention to Senator Barack Obama's pro-abortion position as part of A Prayer for Change.

Throughout the DNC, the youth of Survivors were using sidewalk chalk throughout the city of Denver with the permission of City Attorney David Fine and Denver Deputy Chief of Police John Lamb. It was understood by the young women that sidewalk chalk was an accepted medium, and they were given no warning by the police before being cuffed and dragged away.

View video of the arrests:

http://www.youtube.com/v/3Ev3QO3NzbM

Ohhh, and take a look at all the damage done to these girls faces:

http://www.earnedmedia.org/Jayne_Julia.htm

I'm surprised they're still alive : - P

(The original article can be found at
http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/733757654.html

...yeah, ChristianNewsWire, quite a shock : - P )

I was just released from the Ramsey County lockup, at 5 30 am Friday morning (the prison where all of us on the Marion st bridge were taken to on the final day of the convention). I was also there on tuesday when they didnt allow Rage to play and we marched down to RNC, before being broken up on St Clair ave. On the final day we marched, around a thousand and a half strong, to university and rice. If you know anything about the Saint Paul area, that is a very big intersection. Once we arrived there, a line of bike and riot cops awaited us. I was shot in the leg by a smoke canister, in this first wave. The cops did not use tear gas, choosing to use the mace instead. We were forced to fall back quickly to the south, which consist of a Sears complex. There we were split in half. As we continued south bound without leadership we were met by more and more cops until we were surrounded , they continued to fire upon us, as many in the crowd asked where we could disperse to. They told us to go to the bridge and we would be allowed to leave the area. Around 300, including my self were herded onto the bridge, and even then they continued to throw concussion grenades at us. After about a half an hour (9pm) we were informed that we were all under arrest, no officer would tell me what crime we commited. We were told to place our hands on our heads, after an hour or so (10pm) Metro transit bus's began to arrive. There route names were replaced with the simple words "Police Bus". One by one the three hundred of us were arrested, by 1 am they brought portable bathrooms to the bridge which they allowed us to use after being searched. Those that used the bathrooms were escourted by a police officer, who watched us. Then we were loaded onto the buses (2 am). At the lock up, we were placed into large cages, according to which bus we came on. There we waited like dogs at the animal shelter for a corrections officer to call our name. From there we were booked and given a citation for unlawful assembly. I was loaded into a van at (5 30 am), with 7 of my fellow inmates and driven a block away, where we were unloaded and given back the possessions that we had in our pockets. (Any backpacks, bags, bikes, etc are being held until Monday). Thankfully, as I was dressed in a tee-shirt and a pair of shorts while it was around 40 to 50 degrees out, we were met by a group of supporters who offered us food, cigarettes, clothing and legal support.

This isn't a case of suppressing freedom, this is a case of the police in the area having to treat everybody around them as a threat.

Due to the radicalism of the protesters.

Now, the question is, did this event take place after 5:00PM? Because ALL protesters and those associated where supposed to get out.