Journalist Assulted By County Officials at News Conference

San Diego slid ever further into a police state last Thursday, as independent journalist and blogger, Pat Flannery, was assulted and thrown out of a press conference at the Westgate Hotel.
Under the eye of San Diego Sheriff William Kolender and apparently directed by the District Attorney herself, a county official grabbed Flannery, without warning and shoved him out of the room.
While the corporate media stood by, Flannery was ejected from the public invited, open, press conference as he filmed DA Bonnie Dumanis endorse fellow San Diego Oligarch, Judge Jan Goldsmith, for City Attorney.
Flannery, who has been critical of the DA's heavy-handedness and unethical dealings with a Chula Vista businessman, also runs a blog where he exposes the good ol' boy network downtown which depends on wealthy CEO's and developers for slush funds.
Judge Goldsmith hopes to become the newest member of the San Diego oligarchs who run the city and county; which, in addition to tainted politicians like Dumanis and Mayor Sanders, include the Sheriff and Police Chief William Lansdowne (who refused to enforce a court order to protect a former insider, Tom Story, of Sunroad fame.)
It is also obvious this pack of goons will do anything, and everything, to get rid of City Attorney Michael Aguirre. From the get-go, Aguirre has not be afraid to investigate or question the corporate ownership of public officials. When the City Attorney wanted to investigate illegal activities and actions by Sunroad officials and the Mayor's office; this gang of "enforcers" joined ranks, leaned on judges and subverted justice. Criminal activities at city hall were protected, covered-up and allowed to continue.
The San Diego Renters Union will be asking the City Attorney to investigate how any person, much less a journalist, can be assulted in public? Who was the attacker? And, on whose orders the attacker attacked? Also, why wasn't there a simple request to leave? Or was this a warning move against all independent, free thinking, free lance journalists to "stay away from the big guys (and one DA gal).?
The violence against a fine, muck-racking, investigative journalist is, indeed, an attack on the freedom of the press and open government.
It also shows that local law enforcement has become a protections racket for wealthy developers and CEO's.
The power and arrogance of those who run our city and county depend of your individual sense of hopelessness and apathy. If taxpayer paid goons can attack a journalist, doing his job, in full daylight and without censure or investigation; then, truely, we now live in a third world country. And it's all downhill from here on......