EG’s Bob Plain Gets Arrested With Protesters In Boston

WPRO digital reporter, former EG Patch editor and EG resident Bob Plain was arrested early Monday morning in downtown Boston, along with 140 others, after police cracked down on Occupy Boston protesters. Plain, who was there as a journalist, was charged with unlawful assembly.

“I got arrested,” Plain told WPRO news Tuesday around 8:30 a.m. He was driving back from Boston after having spent the night in jail. “I went to Boston to cover the Occupy Boston event. I got up here literally five minutes before the police started making mass arrests.”

Plain continued: “I’m trying to get video and audio of it and the next thing I know someone grabs me by the scruff of the neck and throws me to the ground and there are four cops on my back putting those plastic cuffs on my wrists - very tight, I might add. I spent the night in a Boston jail cell.”

Boston Police moved in on the protesters at about 1:20 a.m. Tuesday. Protesters have been occupying Dewey Square in downtown Boston for a couple of weeks but over the weekend they moved into the nearby Greenway, which had recently been renovated with plantings. The city did not want protesters in that area.

Word of the possible police crackdown started appearing in Twitter feeds Monday evening. Plain tweeted at around midnight that he was heading to the protest. Some pictures from his experience appeared on Twitter.

Plain told WPRO that several other members of the press were on the scene as well, although he wasn’t sure if anyone else from the media was arrested.

“No one in the press was leaving,” he said. “We were there to kind of bear witness to what was happening. … The whole time I was filming it, I was sure to let people know I was a member of the media, I’m not part of this protest. I’m here to document this.”

Plain told WPRO that while the police did warn the crowd that arrests were imminent if they did not leave the area, once the police started to move in “they were anything but calm.”

When reached Tuesday afternoon, Plain said he couldn’t comment. WPRO’s Paul Giammarco said the station had no comment about Plain’s arrest.

Late news: The charges against Plain were dismissed in Boston Wednesday morning, according to WPRO.