newsweek:In what may be the most documented arrests ever, at least five Wall Street protesters were detained on Tuesday to the chants of “what’s your name!,” “fucking cowards,” and the like. A spokesperson for the protesters writes via email:The first arrest was a protester who objected to the police removing a tarp that was protecting our media equipment from the rain. The police said that the tarp constituted a tent, in spite of it not being a habitat in any way. Police continued pressuring protesters with extralegal tactics, saying that a protester on a bullhorn was breaking a law. The protester refused to cease exercising his first amendment rights and was also arrested. Then the police began to indiscriminately attempt to arrest protesters, many of them unsheathed their batons, in spite of the fact that the protest remained peaceful. One of the protesters received a large gash on their leg, another lost a tooth. Multiple police tackled a protester and sat on him as he continually warned them that he was experiencing an asthma attack. One of the medics on site informed the police that they needed to call an ambulance because this was a potentially fatal circumstance. They ignored him. We have no current information on this protester, but we hope that he hasn’t been murdered by the police.One fascinating police tactic of note: the presence of officers with video cameras recording the arrests, likely to be used to defend against the inevitable accusations of brutality.More quality reporting from Newsweek!As someone who has been to his fair share of protests, I know first hand that cops have been shooting video of protests for years. This is less for “defending” against accusations of brutality (come on, is there a defense against batons vs. unarmed protesters?) and more for documenting who the protesters are. What I’ve read over the years about this tactic is that they want to be able to spot the career protesters and develop profiles on them over the span of many protests.Of course, if Newsweek would stop treating their Tumblr like it’s not a legitimate method for disseminating facts, they would have done their research and known that this isn’t about defense but instead about offense.And dig that crazy pro-government, anti-protester bias when the Newsweek Tumblrer refers to the “inevitable accusations of brutality.”The tone of this suggests that said accusations are guaranteed to be groundless. Do these guys even try to be unbiased anymore? It’s as if they’re quietly saying “Why don’t these protesters stop their whining about corporate corruption of government and just go home?!? Why, I’m a reporter paid by corporate media and I’m not corrupt! What are these people crying about?!?!”#irony