House Culture: USA Reality - RNC 2008, Jailed Protesters. Videos

Added: Nov 18, 2008

From: gfde08

Duration: 10:31

Reality, in everyday usage, means "the state of things as they actually exist".2008 Republican National ConventionSeptember 04,2008The Ramsey County Court has begun to slowly process and release some of the nearly 300 people detained over the past few days. These include medics, legal observers, journalists and anyone considered to be a protester.Protesters have been camped out on a grassy pavement outside the Ramsey County Jail since Tuesday. Many are friends with or related to those inside. Some are medics and legal observers. And others are simply here in solidarity with the detainees. Armed with food, water, blankets and medical supplies, and surrounded by heavily armed police, they're waiting for those inside to be released, cheering as each one exits the jail....I was watching them arrest somebody. And I don't exactly know what happened, but the police started coming at me on their horses. And they just grabbed me. I really had no idea at the time why they could possibly want to do that. But I was really afraid, and I just went with them.They said I was under arrest for conspiracy for intent to use a poisonous substance.Jason Johnson, had also been arrested Tuesday after being tasered by the police. He was tasered three times and then wrestled to the ground. And he asked repeatedly for medical attention and didn't get it for a really long time. His legs were paralyzed. It was really a bad scene. He needed the barbs from the tasers pulled out of his hips where he'd been hit. It was about an hour after we were first detained that that happened. And when he finally did get them removed, it wasn't like they took him to the nurse or a doctor or anything like that. They actually just pulled them out of his side.SHERIFF BOB FLETCHER: I don't think you'll get many complaints. We've worked closely with the ACLU, the National Lawyers Guild. In fact, they had National Lawyers Guild attorneys and ACLU in our facility prior to this event. We talked about food, medication, conditions. And on that front, I think we're doing very, very well. It is the largest number of people ever arrested in a twenty-four-hour period, 300 or so....We were on the sidewalk, walking down the street with a group of people. We were surrounded by cops, about twenty cops on bikes, pepper-sprayed and arrested......We did talk to a few of the inmates who had been there before, and they were like, "We never"—we got bottled water. They had never got bottled water. And we actually heard one of the guards saying, like, "Well, screw these NL—the National Lawyers Guild and ACLU people, because if they weren't here, then we could act normal," basically saying, like, we could break everyone's civil liberties if these people weren't here watching us because of these dumb protesters....And there was, you know, maybe eighty men who were six-foot-two, weighed 180 pounds, in SWAT uniform marching down Kellogg at the people, you know, whose arms were locked. And I saw them mace a girl in the park, which is a permitted area to be in... and maced me in my eye and my ear 'til I passed out."I think I hit my head, I think I need medical treatment." ...I received no medical attention whatsoever.While some of those detained over the week have been released and had their charges reduced, eight individuals affiliated with the RNC Welcoming Committee were charged Wednesday morning, under Minnesota's version of the PATRIOT Act, with conspiracy to riot in furtherance of terrorism. Jordan Kushner is a lawyer defending some of the RNC detainees at the Ramsey County Jail. We asked him about the terrorism charges as he came out of the courtroom....This is a political prosecution in its purest form, because no one is actually accused of physically doing anything that would be violent or destroying property or doing anything. They were in jail when it happened. They're accused—they're being prosecuted specifically for their political activities and what they advocated.A lot of people have been hurt here, and a lot of people are continuing to be hurt in the jails... I just—I'm outraged at the blatant continued violations of people's rights here, not that I ever thought we had tons of political rights in this country, but I'd never seen it quite as bad as I've seen it here. The St. Paul model really trumps the Miami model at many, many levels.

Channel: News

Tags: act  america  arrests  bush  cheney  chomsky  convention  county  democracy  demonstration  detainees  ethics  ignorance  jail  jesus  journalists  justice  law  lies  manipulation  mccain  media  moral  national  patriot  police  poor  press  prison  protesters  ramsey  reality  republican  rnc  state  street  tv  usa  war 

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