The editor of The Progressive magazine is speaking out about his arrest by Capitol police Thursday during the daily protests against Governor Scott Walker.
Matt Rothschild says he was reporting on the Solidarity Singers in the rotunda. He says while he was taking pictures of officers arresting a group of elderly women known as the Raging Grannies, he, too, was arrested.
“As I started to walk closer toward the elevator, the police said, ‘You can’t come here.’ And I said, ‘I’m a reporter, I’m the editor of the Progressive magazine.’ ‘No, you can’t come here.’
“And I said, ‘I have a right to be here, I’m with the press.’
“No sooner than I said that, the lead officer said, ‘Obstruction,’ grabbed my arms, put them behind my back, handcuffed me and took me down to the basement of the Capitol.”
Rothschild says he was then taken to the Dane County jail and kept in a holding cell for nearly 90 minutes before being released on $300 bail.
Rothschild is charged with misdemeanor resisting or obstructing an arrest and says he will plead not guilty on the basis of the First Amendment. His court date is scheduled for September 23.
This is the second time Rothschild was arrested at the Capitol. The first incident was in November 2011 for taking photos of people getting arrested for taking photos of proceedings on the Assembly floor.
Rothschild appeared on the Week in Review Friday morning with conservative writer and blogger Kevin Binversie.
