RNC ’08 Aftermath: St. Paul Drops Charges Against Arrested Reporters

St. Paul’s mayor Chris Coleman has announced that the city will take the advice of its attorney office and drop charges against the journalists, including Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman (footage above) that were arrested for (doing their job) “unlawful assembly” during the RNC earlier this month. Per Coleman

This decision reflects the values we have in St. Paul to protect and promote our First Amendment rights to freedom of the press.

Coleman says the city will use a broad defitnion of the word journalist (don’t we all these days!), though it might take some time to do the paperwork and notify everyone who was caught up in the mass arrests. Says Dave Tomlin, associate general counsel for the AP:

It’s always good to learn that a bogus charge against you has been dropped. We’re still waiting for police to account for the unprovoked smackdowns of two of our photographers.

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