Rybak might piss himself: NYPD reprimands perjuring cop just in time for RNC

Christopher Long was riding in a monthly bike protest in NYC called Critical Mass when he rode directly into Officer Patrick Pogan. Anyway, that's what Pogan claimed when he filed charges against Long for attempted assault, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest. Just for spice, Pogan added that Long was “forcing multiple vehicles to stop abruptly or change their direction” and that Pogan himself scraped his arms as he was knocked down by the bicyclist. Problem is, a tourist took a video that showed what really happened. Watch it. [Cont. after video]



The New York Times reported Tuesday that Pogan was being stripped of his gun and badge in connection with the incident. The guy abused his authority, knocking the shit out of this kid (bystanders said he and another NYPD cop repeatedly rammed him into a phone booth after the video), and then charged Long with assault. But Pogan never would have been held accountable if the video didn't surface on the interweb. And no, it was not, sadly enough, the New York Times. It was a blog called gothamist.com. (Take that, old media!).

Essentially, Pogan lied and it was so common a lie that he thought he'd get away with it. But technology interfered, you know, by showing what really happened. Now the NYPD is likely facing a civil suit, something they also faced after the last Republican Convention was held there. If you cared to know, NYC lost.

The very-short RNC angle: the brave new world

The whole situation above is obviously relevant to the upcoming RNC protests. Because of the shift in technology in recent years, citizens have evidence-gathering cameras in their pockets, and are able to effectively counter police testimonies that might not be, well, accurate. Everything at the RNC will be filmed. Everything. Unless the Twin Cities police take this into account, they'll end up in a similar situation, and in this YouTube-obsessed world, shamed across the globe. (Take that Rybak). Not only that, but police might actually be held responsible for abusive actions. As that internet cat says, "Oh, my dog." [Cont. after video].



Local connection: the Ganley trial

This fucked up-ed-ness also reminds me of the situation of Gus Ganley, which I covered in a three-part series for the Minnesota Daily. He went to trial on charges of assaulting a police officer after police broke up a Critical Mass protest in Minneapolis in August 2007. MPD Officer Craig Williams testified that Ganley punched him. MPD Officer Richard Lillard testified that he ordered Ganley's arrest after Ganley threatened him. Problem is, like with the NYPD, people had the whole confrontation on tape. They had Lillard running around like a maniac spraying people with pepper spray and knocking them down (although Lillard testified he didn't use any spray or touch anyone) and showed the sum of Williams interaction with Ganley to be kneeling on him after other cops take him down. Here's a couple videos, there's more if you want: 1 2.

Both of these officers sat in the courtroom and said one thing, while the videos and sworn testimony by nine witnesses said another. Did they perjure themselves?

Code of silence.

The god-damned Star and Tribune.

The police code of silence isn't, funny enough, a secret. But newspapers don't especially want to piss off these great sources for many of their stories. (Williams and the MPD froze out the Daily after our first story, when we tried to get his quotes at home. So, he's trying to send this Ganley to jail for years but can't have a message left for him at home?) Therefore, we rarely hear about police perjury, and anyway, from what people in the legal profession have told me, police are rarely prosecuted for perjure, even when it's obvious.

I haven't heard shit from the Star and Tribune regarding possible police perjury in Ganley's case. Why? Because they weren't there (even though Ganley's dad has worked at the non-newsroom Trib for years). (They also weren't there when cops finally admitted to forming a task force for the Pre-RNC, a conference for protesters preparing for the RNC, something they'd officially denied, which only the Daily and TC Daily Planet covered at the time. The City Pages' Matt Snyder also mentioned it in a May story about the RNC).

When the original incident happened, our beloved S and T covered the incident by quoting only the police, although there were obviously more than a dozen people arrested who might talk, as well as the couple hundred protesters. They used one source: police spokesperson. At the time, I sent an e-mail to both the writer, Joy Powell, as well as to the readers' rep. I pointed out the lack of sources to both, and pointed them to youtube videos countering what they had published, probably the same videos that were used in the Ganley court case. Neither responded.

Please, again, someone tell me how newspapers, the supposed fourth estate, promote democracy and accountability for local authorities.

One more reason for burying these dinosaurs.