This is day 20 of my video taping the current events. The last 24 hours were clearly the craziest. Twice I was told I was risking arrest during the last two weeks, but nothing happened either time, and in the end, justice prevailed, for now . . . here’s what happened in the last few hours.
Last night I just got done taping the funeral procession up State St, with about 4 – 5,000 people marching and was trying to catch John Nichols addressing the crowd when a firefighter is standing by an open door to the capitol telling us to come in . . .
I kept video taping upstairs and eventually went downstairs to get some more video and some police officers were telling me to go where I didn’t want to go, I explained I wanted to get video and they said I had to go in a certain direction, when I got there, a very nice officer tried to escort me out of the building. I told him I had a press pass, he didn’t care. I told him I wasn’t leaving. He told me my choices were to leave or join the protesters (about 20) trapped in between the stair well. I joined the protesters. After a while, they came and got us and put us in the big group of people and I once again got to move about more freely. They were negotiating us/the protesters leaving the building and they brought out Peg Lautenschlager, who had just won the AFSCME v State of Wisconsin case declaring the police actions of the last few days unconstitutional . . . which she explained to the crowd.
After that, there were many questions, no one had the order yet in their hands and everyone wanted to see it before moving. Eventually, Sue Riseling brought out and read a copy and tried to answer questions.
Eventually, after a lot of talking, the protesters leave the building.
[VIDEO COMING AS SOON AS I CAN RUN HOME AND RE-UPLOAD]
This morning, I returned to the capitol and this is what I found. The doors were indeed open!
It’s been a crazy 20 days, and I have so much video I’m not sure what I will do with it all, but I’m honored to have been here to capture it all and I am sure, this is just the beginning of many things to come as Scott Walker continues to destroy so much that we love about Wisconsin and to put so many lives at risk . . . see you all tomorrow at 11 or noon or 1 or whenever you get to the capitol as the fight moves from the budget repair bill to the budget and so many other awful things for Wisconsin. I’m not going to make it to the capitol until this afternoon, but celebrate for me if you get there! And then let’s plan what happens next!
And don’t forget . . .
