This story is a little too reminiscent of the moat Dick Cheney dug around his secret meetings with lobbyists and elected officials re oil legislation/favors et al when he first came into office a million years ago under George Bush. Cheney claimed he didn’t need to let any journo in, that his private meetings with influential people were not under ‘the people’s right to know.’ None of our beezwax. He stonewalled Freedom of Information Act requests repeatedly. Got away with it too. Not enough peasants, pitchforks and torches, it would seem.
At the Democratic National Convention in Denver today though, it seems like ‘the old way’ is still being promulgated. I sincerely hope not.
But you decide: Here’s the story, and below is the video.
ABC producer, Asa Eslocker is in Denver, working with Brian Ross the well known investigative reporter who covers lobbyists and looks into ‘under the table’ hand-holding where influential people seek to broker favor and deals with those in governmental power.
Mr. Eslocker was at the Brown Palace Hotel with a film crew to cover a meeting between Democratic legislative higher-ups and major-domo donors… who were meeting there in private-private.
The film below opens as an off-duty Denver police officer hired as a security officer to ‘guard’ the sequestered meeting seemingly uses excessive aggression… to what? Latest reportage is, to keep said Asa Eslocker from ‘blocking’ the sidewalk and the entrance to the Brown Palace Hotel.
Firstly, the entrance to the Brown is wide and huge, opening into a palatial many stories high lobby which is surrounded by upscale restaurants, Ellingtons, Ships Tavern, et al. Old fashioned but time honored hotel, but you’d need approximately twenty people standing side-by-side, arms locked, to block the entrance, and another 20 persons or so to block the sidewalk at the Brown.
Secondly Mr. Eslocker is thin and spindly (sorry Asa, ‘slender’ is probably a better term) and the police officer looks like he outweighs Asa by double…
Thirdly, why is grabbing a fellow by the throat suddenly Denver Police, Mayor John Hickenlooper, Governor Bill Ritter, and DNC protocol for dealing with pesky, nosy journos?
Fourthly, note officer with the cigar hanging out of mouth, joining in… Can it be that this casual Kojak approach to strong-arming and arresting a person is new protocol for Denver officers?
That can’t be. There’s a dress-and-conduct-code for DPD on or off-duty. And, most officers are lief to be violent when a person is not resisting and the ‘crime’ is non existent. Most of the officers I know, and care about, are regular people, often enough brave. They are most often family men who truly try to keep the peace. They’re interested in helping people, apprehending ‘the bad guys,’ and trying to stay alive to take their grandchildren to Boy Scouts. Few have phony-wannabe Blackwater dreams.
Fifthly, we do know that people sitting down in front of a recruiting office and blocking the entrance to anyone attempting to pass through, is against the law.
Sixthly, I’m not sure we ever knew that people talking on the telephone while covering a political story are not allowed to stand on the public sidewalk.
Seventhly…. Or… Is the real deal that the ABC journo/ producer was arrested to prevent him from covering a Democratic function… one that surely comes under the category of ‘the people’s right to know’?
But then, after eight years of “no right to know nuttin” no matter who asks, inquires, investigates… maybe quashing of free flow of information has somehow jumped like fire from one party to the other? Let it not be so. Otherwise Barack’s idea of ‘new America’ will just turn into ‘same ‘ol, same ‘ol America’, instead.
Here is the film clip for you to view:
—-the street the ABC producer is being pushed into is a one-way street which is blocked with a few cones, and is still open to buses and other ‘people transporter’ vehicles that can come barreling through at any time.