Within minutes police came into the crowd of journalists,
who were still backing up in compliance with police orders, while photographing
the scene in front of them.
"Police grabbed you by both arms and used you to drive a
wedge through the crowd then slammed you into the side walk in the alcove,
three officer had their knees in your back," said Timothy Kyle, a photographer
from Philadelphia's Occupy Philly Media.
Police were screaming in my ear "this is what you wanted
wasn't it," and "stop resisting," although I was limp and compliant save that I
was screaming for all to hear me that I was a journalist.
My experience wasn't the exception, but seemed to be the
rule, not just for our arrests, but for all of the arrests during the S-17
protests.
Two of the photojournalists who were arrested with me had
their flex cuffs on so tight as to cause extreme pain and the loss of feeling
in their hands. One female photographer's handcuffs were so tight that not only
did she loose feeling but her hands began turning cold.
Police ignored the pleas of the arrestees who tried
tirelessly to get the police to re-handcuff her for over an hour, even after we
arrived at the 7 th precinct to be processed.
Arrestees continually moved her to the end of the line were
they were taking people to be processed, just to get her through the process
and out of the flex-cuffs.
After they finally cut the cuffs off of her, they told her
to take off her equipment and bags, she attempted to remove her property from
her pockets, while police screamed at her not to move toward her pockets and
went to search her themselves.
There were no female officers present at the time.
The group of arrestees demanded that a female officer be
brought in to search her. After a few
minutes of stalling the lead officer called for a female officer.
The other photographer who had his handcuffs on excessively
tight screamed for his life as police tried to cut the cuffs off with a pair of
large scissors.
After several attempts and having caused the cuffs to be
pulled tighter, the officers had to call for a special cutting tool to be used
to remove flex-cuffs.
We were kept in custody until after all of the protesters
had been released. It was some time
after midnight when I finally walked out of the 7 th precinct into
the loving familial arms of Occupiers who came to hold a vigil in support of
the arrestees, as is the common practice for the group.
The targeting of journalist didn't end that night, though, it continued through the entire event with several more yet to be unidentified journalist having been arrested and released.
Arrest of Julia Reinhardt on the morning of S-17 by Occupy Washington D.C.
Most of the journalist who were arrested were either charged
with Obstructing Pedestrian traffic or Disturbing the Peace, receiving a Desk
Appearance Ticket and scheduled to appear at 9am on October 25 th ,
2012 to answer charges.
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