View Miller’s latest video of Rich Paul: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEAakOpWCpo.

He didn’t have time to edit, but check out the exchange between Rich and the unidentified (but obviously senior, judging by the gray hair), cop starting at 1:55. “You were here last weekend, we’re not going to say it again.”

My favorite is at 3:14 when the cop says the city jail is private property. Priceless!

And then at 5:25 the cop performs the same “simple assault” that landed Big Mike in jail a few weeks ago.

But the gauntlet was thrown down at 5:42. “If you come back next week, you will be arrested.”

Sounds like we’ve got to make a stand. I’m sure these officers feel like they are just doing their job by kicking us off the property, but they are not. They are violating the oath that they took to defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States of America.

And while that’s not my document, I’m forced to pay the salaries of these people, so I must insist that they adhere to the contract that they agreed to before they started taking my money.

I’m calling for a protest at the Valley Street Jail next Saturday, like Rich suggested. Mike has been denied access to counsel. He has been denied access to friends and family. He was arraigned in secret by people trying to play emotional games on him.

I know Mike knows that he has lots of support. I also suspect that he is being held by himself underground so he can’t see the support that he has received, and can’t talk to others who have witnessed our support of him. But now that they know his identity and still refuse his basic human rights, their motives are even more clear: Failure to obey is a crime subject to the full violence of the state.

Remember that the Manchester police has far more officers than any other city in New Hampshire. When five of us walked around the jail, they responded with ten cops and two paddy wagons. Next Saturday, they might send twice that, which would require the city to call in off-duty cops and pay them overtime.

I would suggest that we get a large contingent, and do it earlier so when the officers arrive we will still have plenty of video-friendly light to show their antics to the rest of the world.

Is anyone with me? 3:20 PM next Saturday, 2010-02-06. Signs and cameras. Lots of both. I won’t have my ID with me. I won’t be violent. Join me.

And I know that people from the Manchester Police Department read this forum. Let’s show them that we care for our friend in their custody, and that it is wrong for them to violate their oath in order to appease the politicians’ whims.