Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
And if what ABC is saying about it, this is outrageous. They were apparently on a public sidewalk filming footage when this huge police officer pushes the producer out into the street (and then tells him he's blocking traffic), then ultimately arresting him.
Police in Denver arrested an ABC News producer today as he and a camera crew were attempting to take pictures on a public sidewalk of Democratic senators and VIP donors leaving a private meeting at the Brown Palace Hotel.Police on the scene refused to tell ABC lawyers the charges against the producer, Asa Eslocker, who works with the ABC News investigative unit.
This could get ugly.
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I've been hoping for a while that someone big in the MSM would get the business end of the modern police state's baton. Maybe someday soon, we'll start seeing some serious discussion of the problem, as opposed to idiots saying the DFH's deserve what they get.
Posted by: Shygetz | August 29, 2008 10:04 AM
http://freestudents.blogspot.com/2008/08/what-does-police-state-look-like.html
Footage of the arrest
Posted by: Marc | August 29, 2008 10:06 AM
The video at the ABC site is pretty damning. Maybe there was some sort of insult that they edited out, but the producer doesn't seem like much of a hot head from what they've got up right now.
It'll be fun watching the Boulder County sheriff's officer get its pants sued off; those charges are obviously false.
Posted by: Julian | August 29, 2008 10:11 AM
I don't know if he was right or not, but the article says the officer told the Reporter that the sidewalk that he was on was actually owned by the hotel.
Posted by: Halcyon | August 29, 2008 10:12 AM
Yeah, the video looks pretty daming. Plus, the reporter looks like Dougie Houser MD and the cops look like jerks. Goodbye jobs and pensions, boys.
Posted by: Rich | August 29, 2008 10:18 AM
err.. That should be office. My self-editing has really gone downhill lately :/.
Posted by: Julian | August 29, 2008 10:19 AM
A quick google gives TMZ's take:
http://www.tmz.com/2008/08/27/denver-cops-make-abc-reporter-their-b-tch/
but they're aired on fox, so enough said. Apparently, "According to ABC News, things eventually got heated and Eslocker was arrested and charged with trespass, interference and failure to follow a lawful order."
Posted by: Rich | August 29, 2008 10:22 AM
So where are Obama and the Democratic party, while the cops outside are stomping all over citizens' rights, presumably in the name of providing security for their convention? I mean, just what the hell do the police think they're doing? Is it a clumsy implementation of a legitimate concern about nasty people trying to get Obama? Or just cops with an attitude problem?
Posted by: Eamon Knight | August 29, 2008 10:22 AM
Obama and his campaign were too busy trying to keep documents about Obama and Ayers and trying to have a radio station shut down because the station might have someone on who would say negative things about Obama.
Posted by: Mike | August 29, 2008 10:44 AM
Saw this last night, whatever started it was conveniently not on film but it was pretty stupid to push the kid into the street and then tell him he's blocking traffic. I don't know what the laws are re: sidewalks in front of hotels but I really don't think saying that it's private property will hold up too well.
And Mike, read the news a little bit - the documents were released.
Posted by: Andrea | August 29, 2008 11:37 AM
"Goodbye jobs and pensions, boys."
Don't count on it.
Posted by: Jim | August 29, 2008 12:01 PM
Re: Ownership of the sidewalk. Property regulations vary by state and by city, so unless we look at Denver's regs we can't say anything with 100% certainty.
But, by far the most common (though not without exception) rule is that the sidewalk is a public right of way.
Assuming the sidewalk in front of the hotel was in fact private, then the cop could not have legitimately removed the reporter unless the hotel management asked them to remove a trespasser. Assuming that, the cop should then have moved the reporter down the sidewalk, not into traffic. I think the chance that all the sidewalks in downtown Denver are privately-owned, so that the police can require someone to move into the street in order to reach a public right of way, is about nil.
Posted by: James Hanley | August 29, 2008 2:18 PM
There was another instance where some teenage girls were shoved to the ground and handcuffed for chalking anti-abortion statements on the sidewalk - something apparently previously authorized by the city of Denver. Why some teenage girls had to be handled so roughly is beyond me. They need to sue the crap out of the city for that because it is absolutely ridiculous.
Posted by: mroberts | August 29, 2008 2:36 PM
As a Denver resident, my understanding - from local coverage as well as from people who actually saw the incident - is that the reporter in question was continually blocking the door to try and get better shots. Several times the police asked him not to block the door, and he would then back away, only to return a few minutes later. After 2-3 hours of this, the police finally ordered him to leave, which he refused to do. Note that the video starts with the officer telling him to move and the reporter blowing him off. So they then escorted him off the premises. I believe the street was closed to traffic at that time, but I can't swear to that. The reporter then reportedly shoved the officer, at which point they arrested him. Note there's a cut in the video before the actual arrest; I look forward to an unedited version being released.
Of course, the City won't be able to comment on the sure-to-be-pending lawsuit, so it may be awhile before we get confirmation either way. My take FWIW: the reporter gets full marks for playing the innocent ("Why are you doing this?") but there were dozens of other reporters present who managed to do their jobs without getting arrested, so I find it unlikely DPD decided to single this one guy out to harass.
Posted by: WScott | August 29, 2008 3:52 PM
The other incident (covered in the link Marc posted) is more serious: a cop shoves a woman to the ground and calls her bitch. I have no doubt that officer will be disciplined for that. But remember that there were literally thousands of police-protester interactions over the last week, nearly all of them filmed by the protesters, the police, or both. If this is the worst that happened, DPD as a whole deserves to be praised to the stars. There were one or two times we could've had full-blown riots on our hands, and the police were able to diffuse it by working with the protest organizers.
Posted by: WScott | August 29, 2008 4:06 PM
Posted by: WScott | August 29, 2008 4:07 PM
Someone needs to tell these thugs that they can only do that to poor people.
Posted by: Paul Murray | August 29, 2008 9:36 PM
Posted by: Taz | August 29, 2008 9:54 PM
Wow, like a scene out of Brazil.
Posted by: Dan | August 30, 2008 9:14 AM
So damned glad I moved and no longer live there. God, they were bad when I lived there ('86 - '95) and it looks like they're getting worse and worse. And if the street were closed to traffic then how the hell is it that the cop damned near shoved him in front of a bus? Am I the only one that picked up on that? If he was blocking the door then he could have simply been arrested for trespassing when the hotel complained. If the officer told him to move and he said just a minute, the officer with a legitimate complaint it seems would/should have said move now or we arrest you for trespassing, not shoved him around let alone into the street and practically into a moving bus.
Posted by: T's Grammy | September 2, 2008 10:58 AM