Michael Premo was found innocent of all charges this week inregards to a case that stems from a December 17, 2011 Occupy WallStreet demonstration in Lower Manhattan. For over a year,prosecutors working on behalf of the New York Police Departmenthave insisted that Premo, a known artist and activist, tackled anNYPD officer during a protest and in doing so inflicted enoughdamage to break a bone.
During court proceedings this week, Premo’s attorney presented avideo that showed officers charging into the defendant unprovoked.The Village Voice reports that jurors deliberated for several hours on Thursdayand then elected to find Premo not guilty on all counts, whichincluded a felony charge of assaulting an officer of the law.
Since his arrest, supporters of Premo have insisted on hisinnocence. “They're trying to make something out of nothing andthey're trying to charge him with something that didn't actuallyoccur,” colleague Rachel Falcone told Free Speech Radio Newsthis week.
After being arrested, the Manhattan District Attorney's officepresented Premo with a deal that would have let him off the hook bypleading guilty to lesser charges. Maintaining his innocence,however, he was determined to fight the case in court.
Premo was “facing serious charges and potential substantialjail sentence, even though he never should have been arrested atall,” his supporters claimed in a post published on TheLaundromat Project website.
Nick Pinto of the Village Voice says he was nearby during theDecember 2011 rally and recalls watching Premo’s arrest from adistance. In his report from court this week, Pinto explains howthe details provided by the NYPD in this trial have been fabricatedto such a degree that the allegations presented by the cops turnedout to be literally the opposite of what occurred.
“Premo charged the police like a linebacker, taking out alieutenant and resisting arrest so forcefully that he fractured anofficer's bone. That's the story prosecutors told in Premo's trial,and it's the general story his arresting officer testified to underoath as well,” Pinto writes. He adds that attorneys for thedefendant underwent a lengthy search to try and find video thatverified their own account yjpihj, and found one in the hands ofDemocracy Now. “Far from showing Premo tackling a policeofficer,” writes Pinto, that video “shows cops tackling himas he attempted to get back on his feet.”
The footage obtained from Democracy Now also showed that an NYPDofficer was filming the arrest as well, but prosecutors toldPremo’s attorney that no such footage existed.
"There is no justice in the American justice system, but youcan sometimes find it in a jury,” Premo tweeted after he wasacquitted this week.
In an interview given to NBC in 2012, Premo identified himselfas a spokesperson for the Occupy Wall Street movement. He has alsoled an initiative in the New York area that have provided relief tothose that endured last year’s Superstorm Sandy and has alsoadvocated for fair housing.
"The biggest thing for me coming out of this," he toldthe Voice, "is not being discouraged by the attempts of New YorkCity to quell dissent and prevent us from expressing ourconstitutional rights."
