Photographer, TV host among arrested

MINNEAPOLIS -- An Associated Press photographer and a Democracy Now! TV and radio show host were among those arrested at an anti-war march on the first day of the Republican National Convention. Both were released hours later.

Police said Tuesday they arrested 286 people during Monday's event. Most of the estimated 10,000 people in the march were peaceful, but small groups that police said numbered about 200 broke windows, slashed tires and harassed delegates.

A different group, the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Committee, was going ahead with a planned march on Tuesday. This committee obtained a permit for its march, though spokeswoman Cheri Honkala said the group would deviate from its permitted path to go by the county jail where some of those arrested Monday were still held.

The committee is separate from the RNC Welcoming Committee, a group of self-described anarchists who vowed to keep up their street protests all week.

AP photographer Matt Rourke was covering the protest when he was swept up by police moving in on a group of protesters in downtown St. Paul. Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman was arrested as she asked police in riot gear about the status of two producers who had been arrested, one of whom she had heard was bleeding. The producers also were released later.

David Ake, an AP assistant chief of bureau in Washington, said he was concerned by the arrest of Rourke, a Philadelphia-based photographer.

"Covering news is a constitutionally protected activity, and covering a riot is part of that coverage," Ake said. "Photographers should not be detained for covering breaking news."

Phil Carruthers, director of the prosecution division of the Ramsey County Attorney's Office, said Monday night that no charges against Rourke were anticipated. Rourke, held on a gross misdemeanor riot charge, was released early Tuesday. Goodman also was released without charges being filed against her.

Democracy Now! producers Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar were arrested while they carried out their journalistic duties, Democracy Now! said in a statement. Democracy Now! said Kouddous and Salazar were arrested on a felony riot charge while Goodman was charged with misdemeanor obstruction of a legal process and interference with a peace officer.

All three appeared on Goodman's show on Tuesday and recounted their experience. A video of Goodman's arrest, aired on her program and also posted on YouTube, shows her begging police not to arrest her before being taken away in handcuffs.

Court proceedings moved slowly Tuesday morning as at least 22 people facing misdemeanor charges had refused to give their real names, said Dave Gill, a Ramsey County public defender. Only two people had gone through initial hearings by midday.

When protesters hit the streets of St. Paul on Monday to disrupt the convention, nearly every move they made was immediately relayed through webs of text messages and instantaneous Internet posts, in contrast to previous times when word more likely was spread via bullhorns and walkie-talkie two-way radios. St. Paul police kept pace with a network of 103 video cameras mounted at strategic spots near the Xcel Energy Center and throughout downtown that fed live footage into a command center.

It all added up to something like a massive game of virtual chess, as demonstrators used electronic flashes to keep their allies one step ahead of police -- who responded with countermoves aimed at quelling chaos before it had the chance to flare.