The City of St. Paul announced today that they will not prosecute journalists arrested in connection with the RNC protests on Thursday night of the Republican convention. Here is MPR’s story.

Good. I’m off the hook for that misdemeanor they charged me with. I can tell Ron Kuby to stand down.

But I am still curious why it was necessary to arrest credentialed (some credentialed by the RNC themselves) journalists at all? And why some were placed under arrest and taken down town to Ramsey County Jail; while some others were processed and released at the scene?

I was astounded to see the next day on the internet that KARE 11’s arrested photog had made their live shot for the 10 o’clock news still wearing his credentials and with his citation (ticket) in hand. Are some journalists more equal than others?

I, on the other hand, was taken downtown and had my RNC credentials taken from me. I got them back in a “Blues Brothers” type of inventorying. They listed them as “other paper.” Then, I got my citation and was dropped off in a paddy wagon at 3 AM in a desolate spot of St. Paul.

But seriously if you were going to look at this picture and guess which one was a protester and which one was a journalist which one would you pick?

I helped you out by highlighting the green RNC credential and the notepad in the white circle…. things the guys wearing bandannas on their faces don’t have.

It still didn’t stop the riot police from shooting flash bombs seemingly right at me and corraling me in a scrum of photographers, journalists and protesters. After that maneuver, they held me and almost 400 others on the bridge for 3 hours. Then, they took me downtown for another 3 hours. They finally released me at 7th and Layfette (I still don’t know where that is).

At the same time I was released into the wild with the protesters I had bonded with -we were in the joint together ya’ know- I suspect the photog from KARE 11 and several other journalists through some unknown selection process were cozily in bed.

Don’t get me wrong. I am happy they are dropping the charges. It was a pretty weird situation that could have been worse.

But as one of the cops at the St. Anthony Ave. mugshot center at the foot of the Marion St. Bridge told me, “We got $5.5 million worth of riot gear for [the RNC]. When is the next time we are going to use it?”

And from the looks of it they still had a lot left over. They did have a very orderly, although slow, system for handling protesters and “out-law” journalists. I was even offered a brown paper bag with two slices of bread, PB&J and fruit. I turned it down though and went on an immediate hunger strike in my own protest.

So, assuming the charges stay dropped, I got an involuntary display of St. Paul riot police readiness, a tour of the Ramsey County Jail and an official looking citation.

But, I think there is a lot more to this story and I still have questions.