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Speaker 2: We're going to do this as calmly as possible. All right.
Speaker 3: Could you please let me" Can I see some paperwork?
Speaker 2: You don't have to see paperwork. It's been signed.
Speaker 4: My husband's in the house.
Speaker 2: It's been signed. We're going to put handcuffs on your wrists, take you to the car and take you to the police station.
Speaker 5: Sir, we'll try and do this cool. Okay, we'll walk over to the car and put the handcuffs [crosstalk 00:02:24].
Speaker 3: Can I hand my mom my phone real quick?
Speaker 5: Give it to her.
Taya Graham: We've learned that federal law enforcement was monitoring and making arrests based upon a single Facebook post. To get more insight on how this happened and the implications I'm joined by my reporting partner, Stephen Janis. Stephen, thanks for joining us.
Stephen Janis: Thanks for having me Taya, I appreciate it.
Taya Graham: So Stephen, up on the screen now is the arrest of a St. Louis activist, Michael Avery, which he streamed live on his Facebook page. First of all, why was he arrested and what were the charges?
Stephen Janis: Well, it took me a while to track down, but I finally tracked down the FBI agent who was in charge of this investigation and got ahold of these documents, which is the affidavit filed with the federal court justifying his arrest. And I've got to say that there's not much in it.
We'll show it on the screen right now. Basically it was based off a series of Facebook posts about protests that I think were widely misinterpreted, where Mr. Avery had posted about going down to protest the police department in Ferguson, Missouri, and that he said he wanted lots of shooters to come, which I think I believe means people with cameras and cell phones. And the FBI interpreted this as a person who is inciting a riot. So the charges are flimsy at best.
Taya Graham: Now prosecutors dropped the charges, but not before they tried to keep him locked up in prison. What did they say and what was the reality? You reached out to the FBI, what did they tell you?
Stephen Janis: Well, when I asked the FBI the question, when I got these documents I said, "why did you drop the charges?" They did not answer. One thing is interesting is that they tried to keep him incarcerated saying he was a danger to the community, even though he had no criminal history that indicated he would be violent. And they also said that they didn't think he lived in St. Louis, which he in fact did live in St. Louis. So it was a bizarre set of circumstances and they won't answer my questions as to why they thought he needed to be detained.
Taya Graham: Steven, you examined the evidence filed with court, justifying his arrest, but the agency made a glaring error. What was it?
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