THREAD w/ VIDEO: Louisville Police along with the Kentucky National Guard kettle protesters and media, then decide to let corporate media leave while deeming freelance and independent journalists “fake” and arresting them. This is illegal and blatantly unconstitutional.

Ian of @ConcreteReports was livestreaming for hours and caught everything on video. Here the kettling process begins. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, it’s when law enforcement issue orders of dispersal but block all exits and “kettle” people in. Here it begins:

Unarmed protesters with no chemical resistance gear are forced down this street where they meet another wall of cops. They’re told to turn around and go the other way. They follow instructions but know what’s being done to them.

They get back to the intersection and are completely surrounded. They have been kettled. This tactic has been ruled unconstitutional in many jurisdictions across the country. A federal judge in Denver recently ruled it infringed on the ability of protesters to safety comply.

Protesters and media are left encircled. More video here as the police move in and tell everybody there to sit.

The visuals of this video are something we usually see in authoritarian countries with little personal freedoms. Cops, many with live rounds, stand over dozens of protesters and angrily order them to sit and comply. After they sit, pepper balls and chemicals are released.

As the crowd is being arrested, a trooper talks to two photographers reportedly working for corporate media outlets. They are allowed to leave. Many other members of the press are then arbitrarily deemed “not real” and arrested. This is blatantly unconstitutional.

After Ian is arrested his livestream remains on. It catches police searching through his belongings & finding press credentials they arbitrarily declare “fake.” They aren’t fake. @ConcreteReports is incredibly legitimate. Police don’t get to decide who is press. That is fascism.

I am told by multiple sources who all believe 40-60 people were arrested just in this one roundup. That doesn’t include the countless others arrested throughout the night and currently sitting in jail in Louisville right now. The arrest numbers are likely to be staggering.

The @ACLU and other freedom protecting orgs must not let this stand. In free and vibrant democracies people aren’t kettled en masse and arrested at Belarusian levels. Nor are police allowed to decide who is press and who isn’t. America is in full collapse.