Randi Weingarten Reportedly Arrested For Protesting Philadelphia School Closure Hearing
Last edited Thu Mar 7, 2013, 10:23 PM - Edit history (1)
Source: Huffington Post
"NEW YORK -- Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, was arrested Thursday afternoon for blocking a school reform hearing in Philadelphia, an AFT spokesperson told The Huffington Post.
Weingarten reportedly stood outside the meeting of the Philadelphia School Reform Commission, in which the group was supposed to decide which Philadelphia Public Schools would close. Weingarten, whose AFT is the second-largest teachers' union in the country, made a surprise visit to fight school closures.
AFT spokesperson Marcus Mrowka told The Huffington Post that Weingarten was arrested with 18 other community activists for blocking the entrance to the meeting. He added that Weingarten was in handcuffs.
The Philadelphia police department would not confirm the arrest, because the protest was ongoing. "I don't have any information at this point and probably won't until it's all dispersed," Lieutenant John Stanford said when reached by phone."
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/07/randi-weingarten-arrested_n_2832306.html
AFT's FB page is confirming that Randi has been arrested. Here is a photo of Randi Weingarten being led away by police posted on the page.
BREAKING: 18 people including AFT president, Randi Weingarten have been arrested in Philadelphia for fighting school closures. Like this to show your support for Philadelphia public schools and to #FreeRandi
https://www.facebook.com/AFTunion
edit to update: She and the others arrested have been released. (The news isn't so much just that she was arrested, but that this action protesting with rank and file could be a development with potential. I can't think of a national head of a major union that has done something like this in probably decades.)
https://twitter.com/rweingarten/status/309834455944671234
Randi Weingarten
@rweingarten
Fresh out of custody- we must continue the fight for fixing&ensuring great public schools for all kids-in Philly &US.#SRC19
= new reply since forum marked as read
I knew someone would get why this is pretty groundbreaking. 
One of the posts under the story at the AFT facebook site was (may not be exact quote) about time she did something 
She's not exactly your flaming red revolutionary.
I caught this first on FB and reread it several times to make sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing, lol.
(AFT is my union. )
