At the time of this writing, Antonio French’s last tweet was three hours ago.
Anyone who is closely following the situation in Ferguson, Mo., knows Antonio French, the Alderman of the 21st Ward in St. Louis who has been documenting the chaos following the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown over the weekend, after he allegedly attacked a police officer.
As reported at Liberty Unyielding, bad behavior from politicians, incitement from outside groups, local media blackouts and no-fly-zones have all but trounced the coverage of the truly heinous riots on Sunday night that spawned from a vigil for Michael Brown, who died at the hand of a still-unnamed police officer.
One of French’s tweets highlighted a flyer that was given to people during a protest and was cited here and elsewhere:
Flier being distributed at the protest in #Ferguson pic.twitter.com/4i1Ssod2fq
— Antonio French (@AntonioFrench) August 11, 2014
CNN’s senior media correspondent Brian Steltzer confirmed that French was in police custody on Twitter, which is possibly one of the boldest moves yet by the police, whose questionable behavior has included confinement of journalists Wesley Lowery and Ryan J. Reilly, as reported at the LA Times.
Follow up to my earlier tweets: jail officer confirms to me that @AntonioFrench, alderman/social media super-user, is in custody. #Ferguson — Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) August 14, 2014
However, MSNBC contributor Goldie Taylor, another pundit many have been depending on for news on the situation, confirmed that he has been released.
Getting word that @AntonioFrench has been released. #Ferguson — Goldie Taylor (@goldietaylor) August 14, 2014
So the question, of course, is why? Here was Antonio French’s last tweet (at the time of this writing):
Happening now in #Ferguson https://t.co/64RGlmDXBc — Antonio French (@AntonioFrench) August 14, 2014
*UPDATE: A tweet from a local news outlet KSDK confirms that French was arrested and charged with “unlawful assembly.”
#BREAKING @AntonioFrench has been arrested. Charged with unlawful assembly. He maybe held for 24 hours. per French employee. #ferguson
— KSDK NewsChannel 5 (@ksdknews) August 14, 2014
