According to a lead story in the
New York Times today: "Dennis Kayne put 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.
"... Accused of inciting a riot and resisting arrest, Mr. Kyne was the first of 1,806 people arrested in New York last summer during the Republic National Convention to take his case to jury. But one day after Officer Wohl testified, and before the defense called a single witness, the prosecutor abruptly dropped all charges.
"During the recess, the defense had brought new information to the prosecutor. A videotape shot by a documentary filmmaker showed Mr. Kyne agitated but plainly walking under his own power down the library steps, contradicting the vivid account of Officer Wohl, who was nowhere to be seen in the pictures...
"A sprawling body of visual evidence, made possible by inexpensive lightweight cameras in the hands of private citizens... has shifted the debate over what precisely happened on the streets during the convention."
..." 'The police develop a narrative, the defendent has a different story, and the question becomes, how do you resolve it?' said Eileen Clancy, a member of
I-Witness Video, a project that assembled hundereds of videotapes shot during the convention by volunteers for use by the defense lawyers."
Clancy, who I worked with briefly at The Kitchen in the early '90s, has long been an engaged activist, advocating for the rights of people with AIDS and, famously, taking on the organizers of the St. Patrick's Day parade in NY when they refused to let Irish gays and lesbians march. Way to go Eileen!
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posted by Steve Gallagher @ 4/12/2005 10:10:00 AM
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