DENVER -- An ABC News producer was arrested outside a downtown hotel here Wednesday while he and a camera crew tried to shoot footage of corporate donors leaving a meeting with a group of Democratic senators.
Asa Eslocker, who works with the network's investigative unit, was charged with trespass, interference and failure to follow a lawful order. He was released four hours later on a $500 bond.
"We expect to see this kind of behavior in Myanmar, not in Denver, Colorado, at a national political convention where a reporter is trying to videotape big-money donors trying to meet with elected officials," said ABC spokesman Jeffrey Schneider.
Naw, in Myanmar, the journalist leaves the police station feet first, or at least without his toenails and several teeth. Some sense of proportion is useful. Still, point taken -- corporate goons employ rented thugs to protect themselves from the prying eyes of the peons whose votes they wish to entice. Anything wrong with that picture?
The footage was shown on ABC's "World News" tonight. Eslocker was working with chief investigative reporter Brian Ross, who does stories on conventions and donors every four years. Schneider said the arrest was initiated by an off-duty sheriff's officer working as a security guard for the Brown Palace.
[emphasis mine]
Of course it was. The corporate paramilitary of privatized security. Here they can't get away with shooting up an intersection or openly truncheoning unfortunate passersby, or disappearing snooping journamalists. Yet.
It should be unacceptable to all people, regardless of political persuasion, that people can be pushed around and arrested in public areas, just for wanting to know. Fuck you, moonlighting hotel cop, I have a right to know who's renting my political representatives. If we don't even have that fundamental right, we got nothing.
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