“Videos Challenge Accounts of Convetion Unrest”
Republican National Convention protests last summer were pretty rowdy, by some accounts. However those accounts aren’t holding up against “a sprawling body of visual evidence, made possible by inexpensive, lightweight cameras in the hands of private citizens, volunteer observers and the police themselves,” according to the New York Times. Dennis Kyne, for example, was arrested for putting up “such a fight at a political protest last summer, the arresting officer recalled, it took four police officers to haul him down the steps of the New York Public Library and across Fifth Avenue.” He was accused of inciting a riot, the first of 1,806 people arrested during the RNC protests… but the prosecutor dropped all charges after viewing a videotape shot by a documentary filmmaker that contradicted the police report. Another arrested “protestor,” Alexander Dunlop, said he was arrested while going to pick up sushi. A police video of his arrest was cut to remove evidence that he was behaving peacefully. When an archivist came up with a more complete video, charges were dropped.
Besides offering little support or actually undercutting the prosecution of most of the people arrested, the videotapes also highlight another substantial piece of the historical record: the Police Department’s tactics in controlling the demonstrations, parades and rallies of hundreds of thousands of people were largely free of explicit violence.
Also of interest is Emmanual Goldstien of 2600 fame’s account of the experience