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I STRONGLY encourage everyone here to do the unthinkable and rush over to the Breitbart site to read the Lee Stranahan article “My Weekend Incarceration in a Baton Rouge Prison”:
In a country as divided as ours is, Stranahan has just posted an article that provides me with a rare feeling of hope that there are folks on the far right side of the fence that really do desire to breach the gap. Stranahan, a BLM critic and documentary filmmaker, has posted an article that offers a profoundly human perspective on his incarceration with BLM protestors in Baton Rouge and the hope he gained when aided by the National Lawyers Guild, an organization of which he is profoundly critical.
While I don’t want to “spoil” the article, a few excerpts are worth highlighting. First, after relaying how he, BLM protestors, and other media members were unjustly arrested by the Baton Rouge police he explains:
After an hour or two in this jail facility, I was handcuffed again and transferred with 11 others to the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison. Here, we were put into a 20’x20′ cell, and gradually, the number of protesters in that cell grew to about 30. At no point had I been told that I was arrested, what I was being detained for specifically, or my rights.I was the only reporter in my group. The protesters were all black, except for one, a good-natured leftist named Sean, who had come from New Orleans for solidarity. His shirt was ripped, his knee bloodied, and his face bruised from his run-in with the police, where he said he’d been tackled in the grass. Despite this, Sean was in a relatively good mood and was the only protester in the group there who had any previous protesting experience.…After the first couple of hours, Sean, the white leftist from New Orleans, was able to get the number of the National Lawyers Guild in Baton Rouge. I have been a major critic of the NLG, the Institutional Left group that was founded by communist attorneys and that has protected people and groups that I find repugnant.That being said: in this case, thank God for the National Lawyers Guild.Sean gave me the group’s number, and I decided to call them and update them on the situation in the cell. At that time we had been given no information at all by the authorities and had no idea what was going on in the outside world.I called the NLG number, and they were all set up to take a call from jail, where you have to call collect or on a calling card. I spoke to the person who answered at 2 a.m., and I told him who I was and that I was a reporter for Breitbart News. I gave him an update on what I know.They told me that they had a team of about 20 lawyers currently working to get everyone freed and that they were planning to provide bond for everybody. They said that they had found out most people were being charged with obstructing a roadway and that the bond should be about $250.I asked the other inmates for their attention for a moment, then explained to them who the National Lawyers Guild was and what was going on. Everyone was very appreciative just to have information and to know that people were actually out there aware of what was going on and working on the case.Do I wish there was a conservative, pro-liberty legal group out there that I could’ve called? You’re darn right I do, but there was no such group involved in what was going on in Baton Rouge.I’ll also mention that when my friend and colleague Brandon Darby went to pay my $250 bond hours later, he found out that the NLG had already paid it. Had simply paid everybody’s bond. Breitbart News will be sending the National Lawyers Guild a check for $250 to reimburse them, but I appreciate the gesture and consistency, covering my bond, even though they knew I was a harsh critic of theirs.This dialogue with the Lawyers Guild continued over the next several hours, as they took the names and contact information of everyone who has been arrested and continue to update us with information.
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