Tapes key in protesters' fight against tactics of N.Y. police

[struggle4progress]

Posted on Thu, Jun. 23, 2005
BY MIRIAM HILL
Knight Ridder Newspapers

<snip> Charges against Curley and his son, Neal, a senior at St. Joseph's Preparatory School, and all 225 other people arrested at the Aug. 31, 2004, protest near the World Trade Center, were dismissed. The Manhattan District Attorney's Office declined to press charges after watching a video showing protesters obeying police orders to cross Fulton Street and then being arrested en masse. <snip>

Video cameras, wielded mostly by volunteers, have become a surprising weapon in the protesters' fight against police tactics they say threaten the right to free speech. Video evidence led to dismissals or acquittals in 400 of the 1,806 arrests during last summer's convention. The recordings also have fueled lawsuits against the city that question police tactics during the convention, including mass roundups using netting and fingerprinting of protesters for minor violations of the law.

Protesters and civil-rights advocates say last summer's arrests are part of a pattern. They accuse police of preventive arrests to quash dissent and keep peace. Similar accusations arose from arrests during the Republican convention in Philadelphia in 2000 and during protests against the International Monetary Fund in Washington in 2002. <snip>

He calls video "the best protector of civil liberties." <snip>

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/news/nation/11965645.htm