2008 Woodie Awards
Student arrested at RNC
Nicole Charky
Issue date: 9/10/08 Section: News
Micah Uetricht, a Loyola senior, did not intend to spend 48 hours in prison after protesting on the sidewalk surrounding the Republican National Convention. After arriving Friday in Minneapolis to meet up with Students for a Democratic Society, a student group from his hometown of Grand Rapids, Mich., he found himself handcuffed and featured on CNN.
Two hundred people, along with Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! radio show host, her producer and camerawoman and AP photographer Matt Rourke were arrested next to him, Uetricht said.
This is Uetricht's account of his arrest on Sept. 1.
Phoenix: Can you explain what happened the day you were arrested?
Uetricht: On Monday, [late] in the afternoon, we went with a group called Funk the War. All of a sudden, unprovoked, the riot police started shooting people with tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets. I was standing on the sidewalk and I was shot with, I'm not really sure what it was, but I heard all these pepper balls they were shooting at guys, and I got hit in the leg about an inch and a half to the right of my testicles which was very scary for me. It felt like that was what they were aiming for. I heard later that they were tagging people. I caught up with my girlfriend and my friend at that point. We were walking on the sidewalk with this group and riot cops started running at us and closing in on us, so we ran on the sidewalk and we asked the bike cops where to go. The bike cops said 'That way,' and that way was into the parking lot. At that point another line of riot cops came from around the corner and closed in on us.
P: What brought you to the Republican National Convention?
U:I guess there were two main reasons I wanted to go. The first was to protest the havoc of the Republican party that everyone in the Bush administration has wreaked for the last eight years in every avenue: immigration, war on terror, environment [and] war on people's civil liberties. [However], I'm not someone who thinks the Democratic Party has all the answers. The bigger reason for going there was to protest the fact that this is what we call democracy. We're told that we are participating in decisions that affect our lives, but we're really not.
Two hundred people, along with Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! radio show host, her producer and camerawoman and AP photographer Matt Rourke were arrested next to him, Uetricht said.
This is Uetricht's account of his arrest on Sept. 1.
Phoenix: Can you explain what happened the day you were arrested?
Uetricht: On Monday, [late] in the afternoon, we went with a group called Funk the War. All of a sudden, unprovoked, the riot police started shooting people with tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets. I was standing on the sidewalk and I was shot with, I'm not really sure what it was, but I heard all these pepper balls they were shooting at guys, and I got hit in the leg about an inch and a half to the right of my testicles which was very scary for me. It felt like that was what they were aiming for. I heard later that they were tagging people. I caught up with my girlfriend and my friend at that point. We were walking on the sidewalk with this group and riot cops started running at us and closing in on us, so we ran on the sidewalk and we asked the bike cops where to go. The bike cops said 'That way,' and that way was into the parking lot. At that point another line of riot cops came from around the corner and closed in on us.
P: What brought you to the Republican National Convention?
U:I guess there were two main reasons I wanted to go. The first was to protest the havoc of the Republican party that everyone in the Bush administration has wreaked for the last eight years in every avenue: immigration, war on terror, environment [and] war on people's civil liberties. [However], I'm not someone who thinks the Democratic Party has all the answers. The bigger reason for going there was to protest the fact that this is what we call democracy. We're told that we are participating in decisions that affect our lives, but we're really not.
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