Day 113: Arrests in the Wisconsin State Capitol
Post by Jesse Russell on 6/6/2011 5:21pm
The two videos below show multiple arrests that happened in the Capitol today. The top video was shot by "BadgerGurl" on youtube. The first woman, who is at one point dragged out of the elevator, is an independent journalist from Vermont. The second woman is Sam Mayfield, a documentary filmmaker also from Vermont who has been traveling the state and capturing footage of the Wisconsin uprising. I shot the second video apparently as BadgerGurl was filming what was happening at the elevator. You can see the bald Capitol officer walk the Vermont journalist past me. I was focused on the protest medic at the end of the hall who had been thrown to the ground by Capitol police. It gets shaky as I move in closer, but you can see the officers shove the medic against the marble wall.
All of this occurred nearly three months to the day that the Department of Administration, under court order, was supposed to return to "access policies in effect on Jan. 28, 2011."
Jesse Russell
Co-Editor
Jesse was born and raised in Connecticut, began blogging in 1997, and moved to Madison in 2003. In 2005, he co-founded dane101 along with Kristian Knutson and Shane Wealti. In addition to helping nearly a dozen contributors run this website he's helped launch various events in the city including What's Your Damage?!, the MadPubQuiz of Awesomeness, the Fire Ball Masquerade, Dane101's Freakin' Halloweekend, and more.
Rather shocking
Submitted by a_guy_named_joe on Tue, 2011-06-07 00:34.
So much for the multi-agency police force being respectful of the protesters' rights.
The police are in a tough place. They've been burning all those hours away from home for months on end and then Walker and his cronies metaphorically stab them (and the firefighters) in the back.
The bottom line is that based on the videos above, the police did not follow established escalation of force procedures, especially the bald officer. Dragging (and that's no exaggeration) the handcuffed woman out of the elevator like that wasn't necessary and subjected her to the possibility of physical and mental injury. Physical contact with the second woman was not necessary because the policeman was already in the elevator with the handcuffed woman and the second woman was not a threat. These clips should be sent to a legal advocacy group like the ACLU.
I'm not going to say that the police are becoming an instrument of the Walker agenda, but it seems that they are using their power to shut down what is most likely legal dissent.
ACLU-Madison
Submitted by Jesse Russell on Tue, 2011-06-07 07:33.
Any video I shot has been made available to Madison's ACLU.
Interview with the two women arrested
Submitted by Patrick Waring (not verified) on Tue, 2011-06-07 11:08.
http://soundcloud.com/hear_patrick_run/journalist-arrested-at-capitol
Walker no friend of the police
Submitted by Terry (not verified) on Tue, 2011-06-07 12:51.
Why are they dancing to his beat?
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