Progressive Magazine Editor Arrested for Taking Pictures of Singers in Wis Capitol

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Thursday August 15, 2013 · 3:34 PM PDT

2013/08/15 · 15:34

Sorry about the 2nd diary today, but I didn't see anyone else posting this.

The longtime editor of The Progressive magazine was swept up in arrests Thursday during the Capitol's daily lunch hour protests against Gov. Scott Walker.
Liberal writer and Walker critic Matt Rothschild was arrested by Capitol Police on a misdemeanor obstruction and resisting arrest charge and released on $300 bail after photographing the arrests of other demonstrators singing in the rotunda. Rothschild said he didn't comply with an officer's order to move from the area of the arrest but did identify himself as a working journalist.

They KNEW who he was because this wasn't the first time he was arrested by the Capitol Police:

Rothschild was also arrested at the Capitol in November 2011 for wearing a sign and taking pictures in the Assembly gallery, both practices which lawmakers in that body have not allowed.

22 people were arrested today in the ongoing oppression of folks who have been singing every weekday for over 2 years in the rotunda of the Wisconsin State Capitol. They have the right to be there because the Wisconsin State Constitution clearly says that the rights to assemble will NEVER be abridged.

Mark Clear, a Madison City Council Assemblyman, was also arrested. He has become the first elected official to be arrested at the Singalong.

This is just plain sick.

More as information becomes available.

Matt has now written about his "experience" here in the Progressive Magazine, of course. He relates how he was interviewing people and taking pictures he noted that a member of the Raging Grannies was being arrested and went to take photos:

I was hoping to get a picture of Block as she entered the elevator, the kind of picture that has been taken many times in the last couple of weeks.
But the police officers said to stand back. I said I was a journalist, the editor of The Progressive magazine.

“You can’t be here,” they said.

“I’m with the press,” I said. “I have a right to be here.”

Whereupon, without a warning that I’d be arrested, Officer S. B. Mael grabbed my hands and put them behind my back, cuffed them, and said, “Obstruction.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Block said, as she was put in the elevator.

“This is getting absurd, guys,” I said to the officers, who refused to engage with me.

They took me to the basement of the capitol, frisked me, and put me in a chair.

Block, who was then sitting nearby, said, “It’s pleasure to be arrested with you.”

Hey, Capitol Police! You seem to be missing your brown shirts.

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Progressive Magazine Editor Arrested for Taking Pictures of Singers in Wis Capitol

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