On Saturday, when police and Occupy Oakland demonstrators squared off in clashes that resulted in the arrests of at least 400 people, a handful of journalists found themselves either detained or arrested themselves after getting caught in a police "kettle."
Here are just some of the dramatic tweets from reporters during the confrontations:
Vivian Ho, SF Chronicle
-They put me in zip-ties but after I talked to an OPD officer about it, he got his boss and they let me go.
-They had me walk the line to see if I could find @KristinHanes. Couldn't find her
Kristin Hanes, KGO Radio-Earlier today, I told a riot officer I was a reporter and could I get out. He said, "No. You shouldn't have been there.
-Arresting officer: "Do you have any knives, guns, weapons?" Me: "No, I'm a reporter." Officer: "That might be dangerous of them all.-When we walked past mobile processing center, officer said, "I've never put a reporter in there and didn't want to."
John C. Osborn, East Bay Express
-Ppl running back of ymca. Im getting arrested
Yael Chanoff, SF Bay Guardian
-No cops have badge numbers showing and they are refusing to tell protesters
-I was at YMCA, kettled for an hour before being ziptied around 7:15pm. got out 3pm from Santa Rita, among very first released
Susie Cagle, independent graphic journalist
-OPD kettled #OO, ppl tried to escape, OPD charged and grabbed my arm, threw me so hard it was numb for 5 minutes.
-When I said "I'm press I'm press" my arresting officer admonished me & told me to cooperate w the arrest.
Gavin Aronsen Mother Jones-Cops are closing in. I showed my press pass and tried to get out. Just pointed back toward the crowd. Now I'm in a corner w/2 other journos.
Gavin Aronsen of Mother Jones wrote up an account of his arrest for the magazine's web site:
As soon as it became clear that I would be kettled with the protesters, I displayed my press credentials to a line of officers and asked where to stand to avoid arrest. In past protests, the technique always proved successful. But this time, no officer said a word. One pointed back in the direction of the protesters, refusing to let me leave. Another issued a notice that everyone in the area was under arrest.
I wound up in a back corner of the space between the YMCA and a neighboring building, where I met Vivian Ho of the San Francisco Chronicle and Kristin Hanes of KGO Radio. After it became clear that we would probably have to wait for hours there as police arrested hundreds of people packed tightly in front of us, we maneuvered our way to the front of the kettle to display our press credentials once more.
When Hanes displayed hers, an officer shook his head. "That's not an Oakland pass," he told her. "You're getting arrested." (She had a press pass issued by San Francisco, but not Oakland, police.) Another officer rejected my credentials, and I began interviewing soon-to-be-arrested protesters standing nearby. About five minutes later, an officer grabbed my arm and zip-tied me. Around the same time, Ho was also apprehended.*
As I waited in line to be processed and transported to jail, Ho approached me with an officer who had released her from custody. The two explained to my arresting officer that I was with the media. "Oh, he's with the media?" the officer replied, although I had already repeatedly told him as much and my credentials had been plainly visible all night. He appeared ready to release me, until a nearby officer piped in, without explanation: "He's getting arrested."
Later, before I was loaded on a police bus with 48 protesters, another officer told a protester in front of me that he should have left after police issued dispersal orders. When I told the officer that I had attempted to do just that, he asked, "How long have you been out here today?" "Since about 1:30." Flashing a smile and telling me that he didn't care I was a reporter, he replied, "We've been issuing dispersal orders all day." Kettled protesters claimed that no orders were issued until they had no means of escape, but in either case the orders were difficult to hear over the commotion of the crowd. Read the full article here
Aronsen spent about an hour in jail before a call to police from his editor prompted his release. "You probably shouldn't have been in here to begin with," he reports an OPD sergeant telling him.