ABC News: ABC Reporter Arrested in Denver Taking Pictures of Senators, Big Donors ABC News has a disturbing report (complete with a video of the incident) where one of their producers, Asa Eslocker, was arrested on a public street while attempting to take pictures of Democratic Senators leaving a private meeting at the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver.
An as of yet unnamed Denver police sergeant literally pushes Eslocker into the street and then has him arrested. In the video he mentions that he’s impeding traffic, but it is clear to anyone watching that he is being forefully pushed into the street by the cop. The same cop then is heard on video telling people to shut their cameras off.
From ABC News:
“It was two hours later when Denver police arrived to place Eslocker under arrest, apparently based on a complaint from the Brown Palace Hotel, a central location for Democratic officials.
During the arrest, one of the officers can be heard saying to Eslocker, “You’re lucky I didn’t knock the f..k out of you.”
Eslocker was released late today after posting $500 bond.
Eslocker and his ABC News colleagues are spending the week investigating the role of corporate lobbyists and wealthy donors at the convention for a series of Money Trail reports on ABC’s “World News with Charles Gibson.” “
The sad thing is that this gets tons of attention of course because these idiotic cops were stupid enough to engage national media covering a politically sensitive story — at the same time this sort of police harassment, security guard harassment, etc. happens all over the place to people who can’t do anything about it every single day. Most of the time people just do what they are told by the cops and move along. But people shouldn’t have to move along. A public sidewalk is a public sidewalk and it belongs to us not to them.
I hope the cops in this case lose their jobs. I hope the department is sued and forced to pay millions of dollars that takes away from their ability to fight real crime. Because until this sort of stuff gets the visibility that is needed, abusive authority figures are going to continue overstepping their bounds again and again and again. It’s only when they really fear for their jobs, their incomes and their own personal safety that hopefully cops like this one will begin to check themselves before pushing other people around.
Seriously, take a few minutes to watch this video (it’s short) and see what we are up against.
To add to the bad cop stereotype one of the cops comes complete with a lit cigar in his mouth as he puts the handcuffs on Eslocker.
Update: I’ve been on the phone with both the Denver Police Department as well as the Denver Sheriff’s Departments this morning trying to obtain a police report on this incident. I haven’t been able to get through to anyone at the Denver Police Department yet but have left several messages. I was able to get through to Mary Dulacki, the Records Coordinator for the Sheriff’s Department who just sent me the following email regarding my request to view the Sheriff’s Department report on this incident:
“Tom-
There is no “report” per se in this incident. Asa Eslocker was charged
with interference with a police officer, trespass and failure to obey a
lawful order on a GSS&C; (General Sessions Summons and Complaint). On a
GSS&C;, the officer writes notes on the summons itself which is filed
with the Denver County Court. To get a copy of the notes, you need to
go to Denver County Court.”
Update #2: According to Winds of Change, they’ve received a response back on the incident from the Brown Palace Hotel.
“The ABC news cameras were intruding on the entrance of the hotel, creating
an unsafe entrance/exit for our guests, which are our priority at all
times. The police department asked them to move to the side several times
so that our guests could enter/exit, and ABC refused. ABC was clearly told
that they could stand on the sidewalk but it is illegal to block an
entrance to any business, which is what they were doing. After not
complying with the police requests, they were then asked to move to the
other side of the street. It is our understanding that ABC continued to
speak belligerently to the police and were arrested for not complying with
police orders. The arrest resulted from issues between the police and ABC,
not The Brown Palace Hotel.”