First Occupy Trial Ends in Acquittal, Thanks to Video

The Village Voice reports on a milestone of sorts for the Occupy Wall Street movement: The first of thousands of arrests on charges of disorderly conduct made it to trial, only to end in acquittal. NYPD arrested photographer Alexander Arbuckle on Jan. 1 and accused him of standing in the middle of the street and disrupting traffic. The problem is that scores of photos and video from that night show Arbuckle was on the sidewalk all along.

What's more, so were the other protesters, writes Nick Pinto. "The only thing blocking traffic on 13th Street that night was the police themselves." (His story links to video from journalist Tim Pool, with the arrests happening about the 35-minute mark.) The kicker in Arbuckle's arrest: The NYU student had gone to the Occupy protest that night as an ally of police. He felt officers were being treated unfairly in the media and wanted to document it. (More Occupy Wall Street stories.)