Student Journalist Acquitted in OWS Arrest
The case was one of the first from Occupy Wall Street to go to trial.
| Posted Wednesday, May 16, 2012, at 12:10 PM
Photograph by Andrew Burton/Getty Images.
One of the first Occupy Wall Street arrests to go to trial ended with an acquittal Tuesday, after a Manhattan judge concluded that video and photos taken by protesters, reporters and even police didn't gel with the arresting officers version of events.
Alexander Arbuckle, a New York University student journalist, was arrested for disorderly conduct on New Year's Day while working on a story about the police officers who were assigned Occupy duty. He was charged with blocking traffic while standing in the middle of the street, accusations that his arresting officers reaffirmed under oath Monday.
The problem, however, was that video by well-known OWS live-streamer Tim Pool showed that Arbuckle and the other protesters were standing firmly on the sidewalk, something that was backed up by Arbuckle's own photographs and the NYPD's documentation of the arrest, according to the Village Voice.
"I knew I hadn't done anything wrong," Arbuckle told the Associated Press after the judge dismissed the charge. "I felt vindicated." You can read more on Arbuckle and his trial over at the Gothamist and the Village Voice.
