A freelance photographer and regular contributor to RVA Magazine says he was swept up in the police raid on the Occupy Richmond encampment last night and arrested while trying to take pictures from a public area.
“My wrists are swollen and bruised by the cuffs,” Ian Graham says Monday, out of jail released on a summons and working on another assignment.
State and city police ended a 15-day encampment at Kanawha Plaza around 1 a.m., say protestors, who were given an hour to leave. Those who chose to stay were arrested — at least 9, as confirmed earlier today by Style.
Through his Twitter feed at @IanGraham, he wrote around 4 a.m.: “Arrested for ‘trespassing’ tonight in a crosswalk between 9th and 10th streets, while documenting @RichmondPolice breaking up #rva #ows.” The hashtags stand for Richmond and Occupy Wall Street.
Graham says he had no political agenda, doesn’t speak for the Occupy Richmond protest and went to Kanawha around 1:30 a.m. after photographing a party.
“There were people on both sides of the crosswalk where I was arrested, and none of them were arrested,” Graham writes on RVA Magazine’s website. “But none of them had cameras, either.”