City releases protest videos, pictures
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Video shot by Spokane police of the July 4 protests and arrests in Riverfront Park was released Tuesday afternoon by the city.
The video was studied by City Attorney Jim Craven for his report on the incident requested by Mayor Dennis Hession. In the report released Monday, Craven said the video shows no "obviously criminal behavior" before the arrests, at which time there was some resisting of arrest.
The city released the video in response to requests by The Spokesman-Review and other news media in Spokane. It consists of six clips totaling about seven minutes showing scenes before, during and after the arrests. But as Craven noted in his report, the event that precipitated the first arrest of Zach St. John is not visible.
Officer Jay Kernkamp and St. John gave very different accounts. Kernkamp said he was approached aggressively, had profanities yelled at him and was choked twice, the second time until "I feared I would lose consciousness." St. John said he was knocked from his seat, got up and asked the officer why he did that and "bam, I was on the ground."
At that point in the video, the officer holding the camera is being blocked by protesters holding signs, and the interaction between St. John and Kernkamp occurs behind the signs.
St. John's arrest can be seen about 45 seconds into video clip 2.
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