Reporters Win Landmark Settlement Over 2008 RNC Arrests

Just over three years ago, Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now!, and two of its producers were violently arrested while covering the police crackdown on peaceful protests outside the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota. They were wearing their press credentials, which the Secret Service ripped from their necks. Last year the journalists filed a suit against the Minneapolis and St. Paul Police Departments, the Ramsey County Sheriff and Secret Service personnel. Yesterday they announced that they have won their settlement. The video above features their address yesterday to the Occupy Wall Street crowd, as well as clips recorded during the arrests.

Amy Goodman remarked,

Let this send a message to police departments around the country as we move into the next conventions in Charlotte and Tampa, that the police must not violate our freedom to cover what is happening in the streets. It is not only a violation of freedom of the press, but a violation of the public’s right to know, and we are particularly gratified to have come out of this settlement with the training agreement on the part of the St. Paul Police Department, working with the Center for Constitutional Rights and the ACLU and The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, to come up with a training manual and a training process, so that the St. Paul Police, and they will urge the Minneapolis police and the state police to do the same, will be trained in how to deal with reporters; not to engage and arrests of reporters or to engage in unlawful arrests at all.

5 thoughts on “Reporters Win Landmark Settlement Over 2008 RNC Arrests”

  1. Amy Goodman approx. birth data from Mountain Astrologer Mary Plumb:

    April 13, 1957 Washington DC. Time stated as “sunrise.” This occurred at 5:39 AM which would give Amy an Aries Sun and Aries AC and 6th house Libra Moon. Venus is exactly conjoined her Sun (and if time is correct) her AC. She has Mars Gem 2nd opposed Saturn Sag. 8th.

  2. Wiki search results for Nobel Peace Prize: Nomination forms are sent by the Nobel Committee to about 3000 individuals, usually in September the year before the prizes are awarded. These individuals are often academics working in a relevant area. For the Peace Prize, inquiries are sent to governments, members of international courts, professors and rectors, former Peace Prize laureates and current or former members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. The deadline for the return of the nomination forms is 31 January of the year of the award.[43][44] The Nobel Committee nominates about 300 potential laureates from these forms and additional names.[45] The nominees are not publicly named, nor are they told that they are being considered for the prize. All nomination records for a prize are sealed for 50 years from the awarding of the prize.[46][47]

  3. Len – Now that you mention it, it seems obvious that Amy Goodman should be nominated as a candidate for a Nobel Peace Prize. She is so brave, relentless, focused, unerring, clear. I wonder if there is a way to bring her name to their attention. I’ll do a Google search. Does anyone have her chart data? Kat

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