Jury Finds Occupy Wall Street Protester Innocent

[wvit1001]

Jury Finds Occupy Wall Street Protester Innocent After Video Contradicts Police Testimony [Updated: VIDEO]
 
 
In the first jury trial stemming from an Occupy Wall Street protest, Michael Premo was found innocent of all charges yesterday after his lawyers presented video evidence directly contradicting the version of events offered by police and prosecutors.
 

Premo, an activist and community organizer who has in recent months been a central figure in the efforts of Occupy Sandy, was one of many hundred people who took part in a demonstration in Lower Manhattan on December 17 of 2011, when some protesters broke into a vacant lot in Duarte Square in an attempt to start a new occupation.
 
In the police version of events, Premo charged the police like a linebacker, taking out a lieutenant and resisting arrest so forcefully that he fractured an officer's bone. That's the story prosecutors told in Premo's trial, and it's the general story his arresting officer testified to under oath as well.
 

But Premo, facing felony charges of assaulting an officer, maintained his innocence. His lawyers, Meghan Maurus and Rebecca Heinegg, set out to find video evidence to contradict it.
 
Prosecutors told them that police TARU units, who filmed virtually every moment of Occupy street protests, didn't have any footage of the entire incident. But Maurus knew from video evidence she had received while representing another defendant arrested that day that there was at least one TARU officer with relevant footage. Reviewing video shot by a citizen-journalist livestreamer during Premo's arrest, she learned that a Democracy Now cameraman was right in the middle of the fray, and when she tracked him down, he showed her a video that so perfectly suited her needs it brought a tear to her eye.
 
Even more importantly, the Democracy Now video also flipped the police version of events on its head. Far from showing Premo tackling a police officer, it shows cops tackling him as he attempted to get back on his feet.
 
After watching the video, the jury deliberated for several hours before returning a verdict of not guilty on all counts.
 
 
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2013/03/jury_finds_occu.php
 
 
 

[Dan]

A case of mistaken identity.  I wonder which OWS protester did break into that lot.

[lluke47]

So it's just a matter of finding the right ows pos..?
 
They all were pathetic and mostly filthy people

[darkflower]

Time to find the cops guilty for perjury, as well as their violence. Their violent reaction to ows exposed the police as a bunch of filthy scum who are traitors to the people, serving the evil government and the evil rich who dominate it. ows is good, the government and police are evil, they are the ones who should be on trial.

[stretch351c]

OWS is nothing more than a bunch of low grade idiots controlled by the Radical Left.

[darkflower]

Mainstream dems and reps are nothing but low grade idiots controlled by the wealthy plutocrats. ows is fighting for you even if you have no gratitude, they stand up for the working class, even while the rest of the country are busy getting down on their hands and knees to kiss wall street ass and beg to be used some more by them.

[stretch351c]

Only in your delusions dark. OWS is a wholly created astroturf group created by a bunch in Canada. Try educating yourself

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_Wall_Street

[upyrwazoo]

WHEN WILL THE COPS LEARN THAT IF THEY SHOOT THE BASTARDS THEY WILL STOP TRYING TO OCCUPY ANYTHING MORE THAN A COFFIN!

[darkflower]

Try educating yourself, the group is much more than who sparked it. And your link verifies what I said about them, it does not contradict me. It contradicts you lot.

[stretch351c]

Actually it doesn't, but I doubt you have the ability to understand it dark.