Republican National Convention coverage
Minneapolis police wasted no time in violating First Amendment rights when they confiscated equipment from three New York City videographers who were in town to document the upcoming republican convention.
The videographers were from the Glass Bead Collective, an organization that documents police misconduct, including the notorious video of NYPD making mass arrests during a Critical Mass last year. Police confiscated a video camera, a still camera and a laptop.
Police returned the equipment the following day – apparently after a call from the videographers’ lawyer – which does not make up for the fact that they confiscated the equipment in the first place.
Police claim they stopped the three videographers because they suspected they had trespassed in a “nearby railroad yard”. They also claimed that they were treating this as a “homeland security” issue, as if the videographers could commit terrorist acts with their cameras.
The Associated Press article doesn’t specify exactly how close to the railroad yard were the videgraphers when police stopped them, nor does it mention if there was any evidence that they had even stepped onto the railroad yard in the first place.
