Rebel News reporter Anna Slatz, covering Black Lives Matter and Antifa protests in NYC, was arrested June 3rd despite her journalistic exemption, held overnight in Brooklyn’s max-security processing center. Her $5K+ crowdfunding campaign (saveannaslatz.com) needs $10K as courts struggle with pandemic backlogs and mass curfew detentions. Slatz, a low-key Atlantic Canada-based journalist, faced delays due to overwhelmed systems, leaving her isolated without case updates. The fight for her release mirrors past free speech battles like Tommy Robinson’s, exposing systemic failures in protecting press rights amid chaos. [Automatically generated summary]
Our reporter Anna Slatz was arrested last night in New York City.
She was swept off the streets for violating a curfew, even though she was specifically exempted from the curfew as a journalist.
We have been fighting to get her out of jail ever since with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five lawyers in two countries.
Alas, between the pandemic and the overwhelming number of arrests, we have not yet succeeded.
But in today's show, I'll tell you what happened and our plan to fix it.
And I'll invite you to help if you want to be part of the solution at saveanaslats.com, S-L-A-T-Z.com.
That's today's show.
Let me invite you to get a video version of this podcast by becoming a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
Just go to rebelnews.com and click the subscribe button.
It's eight bucks a month or 80 bucks a year.
That's not bad.
And you get the video version of this show plus two other shows, Sheila Gunread's weekly show and David Menzies' weekly show.
All right, here's today's podcast.
A rebel reporter is arrested in New York City, and she's still being held in jail.
I'll tell you what happened and what we're doing to get her free.
It's June 3rd and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
Why should others go to jail when you're the biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here and you won't give them an answer.
The only thing I have to say to the government of a wide publisher is because it's my bloody right to do so.
I'm doing today's show without a script.
Black Lives Matter Protest Insights00:02:57
Normally I write things out and arrange things more closely with producers.
It makes it a bit smoother that way, but today has been anything but smooth.
In fact, today started for me last night at around 11.30, 11.40 p.m. I got a phone call from Anna Slatz.
Anna is our newest reporter.
She's from Atlantic, Canada.
And on the weekend, she and I talked about her covering the Black Lives Matter protests and the Antifa riots.
Anna comes from a different political point of view than I do.
She's more left-wing, but she's very sensitive to issues in a way I very much respect.
Her particular thesis is that the legitimate voices of Black America, including peaceful expressions of Black Lives Matter, have been hijacked and drowned out by violent rioters, especially those of Antifa and others using the black block tactics.
I thought, well, that's a fascinating point of view.
And she went to Washington, D.C. on the weekend to start her coverage for us.
And it was excellent.
You might recall, I interviewed her on the show the other day.
Here's a quick clip of how that looked.
So last night, yeah, there was lots of destruction.
There was a ton of arson.
Two trees were being ripped out of the streets on the sidewalks and being thrown into a massive bonfire they had outside in the Lafayette Park outside the White House.
There was a ton of property destruction, especially of government buildings.
But a church also was lit on fire.
I found this out in a separate location.
There were stones being thrown through private businesses.
There was, I believe, a little bit of looting.
And it was a different group of people.
Absolutely.
When the Antifa Black Law showed up, they, and I caught them on film, they were the ones who were perpetrating the majority of the damage.
The Black Lives Matter protesters were actually telling them to stop, and they were not listening.
They were hurling bottles at police, you know, beating up police cars, things like this.
That's just not something that was happening when BLM was controlling the protest.
So Anna was doing a great job, very articulate, and she sort of blended in.
I guess there's two ways to cover a protest like this.
One is to stand out and maybe have some burly bodyguards around you, but then you're just drawing attention both of police and Antifa.
Anna took the other approach, low-key, blend in, film things, quiet.
I really liked it, and it really worked.
After two days of great journalism in Washington, D.C., she was right out there by the White House when the great conflagration happened.
We knew that Washington was winding down as Donald Trump reasserted authority over the city, but New York was heating up, partly because of the radical politics of Bill de Blasio, the mayor.
Phone Battery Drama00:03:19
In fact, the mayor's own daughter was arrested for taking part in a riot.
Here's her mugshot.
So New York was the place, and Anna took the train from Washington to New York, and she did the same thing in New York that she did in Washington.
Walking with the crowds, close to the police, close to the protesters, really the front line where the two sides met, keeping a low profile, filming, not saying a word, not picking a fight.
And her footage was shocking.
Take a look at this, as the peaceful protests suddenly turned into smashing and looting.
That was footage filmed by Anna herself.
And then suddenly, the filming stopped.
I hadn't heard from her.
I presumed she was taking some well-deserved time off, or maybe more likely that her phone battery had just died.
Well, then at around 11.30, 11.40 p.m., I got a phone call.
It wasn't a low battery.
She had been arrested, swept off the streets as part of the curfew.
Apparently, police were just sweeping people up by the hundred.
And she told me she had been taken to Brooklyn's police processing center, where they would process all these incoming prisoners, hold them until they had an arraignment, to use a legal word.
Well, the phone call with Anna was very brief.
I should check the timer on my phone.
I would think it was even less than one minute.
All I could hear from her is that she had been arrested for breaking the curfew, despite her exemption as a journalist, which is built right into the curfew.
She told me the name of the officer who arrested her and where she was.
And that's all I had to go by.
But that was actually enough to start.
A few years ago, we hired an excellent criminal law firm that helped us when we had another pickle in that city.
So I immediately called up the top criminal lawyer I knew in New York who had worked with us before.
I left him a message and he called me back within minutes.
And he remembered the last work we did together and he went to work straight away on this project, calling the police station and having an officer go back to the holding pens, the cells, to call out for Anna, hopefully to set her free right there and then.
Alas, the officer claims, and at least said to our lawyer, that when she called for Anna, she didn't answer.
Maybe we were calling the wrong facility.
Maybe she just didn't overhear over the din, but whatever it is, that was the report I heard back from our criminal lawyer.
But nonetheless, he said, given the nature of the summons, it was a casual and minor enough offense that she ought to be spat out by the system within an hour or two anyways, and that that would likely happen.
Well, Anna was not in communication with us, but I sent her a text and an email for when she got her phone back, me presuming that she would be let go that night.
Well, I stayed up till, I don't know, three or four, and I guess I just dozed off.
I woke up with a start at 7 a.m.
I checked my watch and I realized I had not heard from Anna.
She had not, in fact, been released overnight.
So I started calling around more lawyers.
I got our Canadian lawyers involved.
Crossing Borders For Justice00:02:01
They retained additional lawyers in the States.
We got the consulate involved, and we learned that there was such an overwhelming number of people arrested, plus the snail's pace of the pandemic on the court system, that Anna would likely be held for 24 hours, which is the time by which most arrestees are brought to a judge for a hearing.
I thought I would personally go down to New York, and I consulted with lawyers who said that I can certainly go to the United States.
There's no more 14-day quarantine for people arriving in the United States.
But for me to come back, I would be subject to a 14-day quarantine upon returning to Canada.
However, my lawyer suggested there were exemptions.
Perhaps I could call myself an essential service.
Journalists are called that in Ontario, for example.
Or that my work in the States was essential too, and thus be exempted from the quarantine.
They said I had enough of a legal case that I could go down to help rescue Anna and come back without the 14-day quarantine.
So I quickly bought a ticket and raced off to the airport to catch one of, I think, only two flights a day between Toronto and New York.
How incredible it was at the airport today.
It was barren.
It was so sad.
There were so few people, so few flights.
I remember that route, Toronto to New York, between North America's fourth largest city, Toronto, North America's largest city, New York.
Two cities that are very integrated but not close enough for a train or a car ride.
There were probably 20 or 30 flights a day between those two cities before.
Now there's like two.
So I bought a cheap ticket and I listened to the whole explanation at the gate.
I was going to fly Delta, but then I started getting phone calls from people saying, look, even if you technically can evade the quarantine upon return, as a fact, is it the right thing to do?
Will other people, if you go back to work, want to quarantine themselves from you?
Toronto to New York00:15:19
And then there's family and friends and friends and friends of family.
And do you really want to be someone who's saying, no, I can find a loophole through the quarantine?
And I thought about it and I thought, I'm not really adding any legal firepower by going down there.
I'm not a lawyer in New York.
We already have the embassy and five lawyers on the case.
Other than showing my moral support for Anna, was it worth going down there to either violate the spirit of the quarantine law upon my return or literally to be out of action for two weeks?
And I decided it was not.
It was not.
And I could show my moral support for Anna in other ways.
Yankee Pollock, one of our employees, decided to drive down there and take the 14-day quarantine on return so he could at least meet Anna when she got out of jail.
And we also retained a lawyer to station himself outside the jail so if Anna is released, she'll have a friendly, if not a familiar face.
So we're pulling out all the stops and we've set up a crowdfunding site, saveanaslats.com, S-L-A-T-Z.com.
Last I checked, I think it had $5,000 or $6,000.
Given how many lawyers are on the file and that three of them are American billing in real American bucks and we're raising the money in mini bucks, we'll probably need $10,000 to cover the bills.
But I think it's important we do that.
Number one, we fight for free speech.
We fight for our rights, our rights as the press.
And we have to show that support for all of our staff, including, and especially new staff.
Second of all, for goodness sakes, if I would schlep all the way to the United Kingdom and back to cover Tommy Robinson's trials, the least I can do, the least we can do as a company is support Anna when she is wrongfully arrested.
And I'm not particularly blaming the NYPD, a police force that I deeply respect.
I think she was swept up and they just weren't being very careful because it was such a crisis in New York.
I'm just frustrated that she's still in the system.
So we decided to make this our stand.
Five lawyers and the consulate fighting to get Anna out.
Yankee going down to show moral support.
I don't know when Anna will get out.
I hope it's tonight.
I hope she doesn't have to serve another night in jail because even if she's safe, it would surely be uncomfortable and stressful and a terrible experience.
Oh, I haven't spoken to her since that one-minute phone call just before midnight last night.
So for the duration of the show, I'd like to talk to three people who are involved in the campaign, the project to get Anna free, to save Anna Slatz.
First is a lawyer who is on the scene right now at the criminal courts in New York.
His name is Michael Weinstock.
I had talked to him briefly on the phone and by electronic messages.
Here's my first TV conversation with them about an hour ago.
Well, we have marshaled all of our resources in Canada, as well as signing up a dream team in the United States to free Anna Slats, who was arrested last night.
And joining me now live from, well, I'll get him to explain exactly where he is, is one of our legal eagles, Michael Weinstock, a lawyer and a former prosecutor, joins us via Skype from his phone.
Pleasure to meet you, Michael Weinstock.
We've only talked briefly by phone and email.
Why don't you introduce yourself a little bit to our viewers?
Tell us who you are in your legal career.
And I understand you also are interested in public policy and public affairs.
Yes, my name is Michael Weinstock.
I'm an attorney here in New York.
For many years, I was an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn, and I spent a long time, many years, actually in Arraemans.
I haven't been working as a lawyer the past year.
I've actually been a full-time candidate for Congress.
Oh, that's a exception today.
Well, thank you very much for dropping your other matters to come.
And on the phone, you told me that the free speech angle of this is what motivated you.
Just before we move on from the politics, what district are you running in?
And that's, of course, for the United States Congress, right?
Yes, U.S. Congress, the third district of New York.
It begins in Queens and it goes through Nassau and Suffolk County.
Well, go ahead, please.
You were saying?
I was going to say, I was a firefighter before I went to law school and became a prosecutor.
And if I'm elected, I'll be the first 9-11 firefighter elected to the U.S. Congress.
Wow, you were a 9-11 firefighter.
Well, that's outstanding.
I thank you for your service.
9-11 firefighter, prosecutor, lawyer, and now a candidate for Congress.
I'm impressed with your resume, and you have presented yourself.
Tell me the building behind you.
I see the majestic pillars.
Where are you?
And is that where Anna Slatz is?
Sure.
I'm standing outside the New York City Criminal Courthouse.
Behind me, actually, is one courthouse.
Hers, if you can see me, is the courthouse behind me.
And we'll be heading in in a few minutes to conduct the arraignment.
Excellent.
Do we know if Anna is physically here?
Will she be brought here for her?
It's my understanding she's in the building.
I'll go in and I'll introduce myself and hopefully I'll have the opportunity to go down, we call it in the pens, and meet with her.
This is the first time I've done an arraignment since the pandemic went into effect.
I'm not 100% sure if they allow lawyers to go down and speak with their clients the way we normally do, but I'm hoping I could do it.
If nothing else, I wanted to talk to her.
I want her to feel a little more comfortable and understand she's in good hands.
I'm very glad, and I deeply regret that I'm unable to come down there.
I was going to try to fly down today, but the quarantine restrictions that would be placed on me when I returned were too onerous.
We have another staffer from Rebel News who is driving down from Montreal.
So hopefully he will be there when Anna is released.
But I want to tell you, it means a lot to me that you will be there to greet her, to let her know that she has friends, and to let her know that we have been going to great lengths to get her out because we have not had any communication with her since my one-minute phone call with her at almost midnight last night.
So thank you for being there in sort of a client hand-holding perspective.
I don't think Anna has been in jail before.
It must have been a shocking night for her, but hopefully she's in one piece.
Yes, I've done this many times and I've gotten a lot of very healthy, normal, well-rounded young people out.
But it must be especially anxiety producing.
Not only is there a pandemic, not only are there the troubles that have been all over the news, but she's not a New Yorker and it must be especially frightening and my heart breaks for her.
And truth be told, I'm also saddened because I love New York City so much and it saddens me that we're going through this moment and we're not putting our best foot forward.
I hope Anna will come back.
She's always welcome.
Well, that's very nice of you to say.
She's very courageous.
She's got a big heart and she's got a strong personality and she's pint-sized.
So I think you'll like her.
Right in.
Yeah, and you know, maybe she's got a little New Yorker inside of her.
So thank you for being there.
Do you have any more thoughts for us?
My understanding is that the order for the curfew specifically had an exemption for journalists.
My hunch is that the stress and chaos of the evening, that the New York Police Department just was sweeping people into the buses to take them away and they weren't being as particular and, you know, they weren't messing around.
Things were so critical.
So my guess is that it was a bit of an oversight, bit of a rush, and that she was just swept up with other people.
That's my hunch.
And I think she should get out quite quickly, given that the journalistic exemption.
Is that your view as well?
Yes, I didn't hear the first part of what you're saying because it's so loud here with the rain.
But yes, I have, in my briefcase, the statute you're referring to, that there's a journalistic exemption for the quarantine or for the current restrictions.
And I'm also hoping and praying that there's some sort of benign explanation, not only for Anna, but for the city I love and the police department that I have such an affinity for.
Yeah, I really think that this was not a malicious or willful act.
I think the police were just sweeping the streets clear because, in fact, the last video footage we saw from Anna was rioters looting stores.
So it was quite a critical moment.
Well, listen, Michael, I'm so very grateful for you to go into this part of town in the pandemic during the protests and riots.
It shows some personal courage for you to do so.
And of course, you're there to help release our journalists from jail, which is very important to us.
And I'm sure she'll be grateful to have a friendly face, even if it's a new face to her, to welcome her out.
So thank you for dropping everything and rushing to the courthouse.
The next time we'll speak, I'll have a headphone so I can hear you a little better.
I've got a handy wipe in my pocket and a face mask.
Didn't occur to me to bring a microphone too, but I'll take care of that.
No problem.
We actually heard you quite clearly, even if you couldn't hear us.
Well, I know that it's raining there.
Well, Michael Weinstock, thank you so much.
I think you're the perfect combination of things.
A patriot, a 9-11 firefighter, a former prosecutor, so you know the law well, and you've obviously got a big heart.
I think you're the perfect lawyer to be on the scene for Anna when she comes out.
And hopefully you'll see our friend Yankee down there soon.
So thanks very much for joining us on this live location update.
Take care and good luck to you and to Anna.
Thanks so much.
All right, there you have it.
Michael Weinstock, a lawyer and a candidate for U.S. Congress, who dropped everything to go down to the courthouse to meet Anna and get her out.
Stay with us for more.
That's Michael Weinstock, very interesting man.
We're very grateful to him for being there on the spot.
Well, the next conversation was with our friend Yankee Pollock, who decided that he would take the 14-day quarantine upon return, and he would drive as fast as he could down to New York from Montreal.
It was actually quicker than if he got to the airport, got a plane, et cetera, because there's just so few flights anymore.
So Yankee drove, and about half an hour ago, he pulled over at the side of the road and he did this brief Skype interview from his car with me.
Take a look.
Well, all hands are on deck for Anna Slatz, our new reporter.
She's based in New Brunswick, but covers stories about things across Canada and around the world.
And so when we sent her down to New York, it was a great fit because one of the things she focuses on is Antifa.
Little did we know she would wind up being scooped up by police and thrown in the same jails as protesters and even rioters.
Now, I myself tried to get back down there, but in the end, I could not overcome the requirements of the quarantine for returning to Canada.
And there was just technical and practical reasons I could not do it.
But I am so grateful for someone who does some work with Rebel, based in Montreal, who is a friend of Anna, who was so concerned about Anna that he agreed to hop in his car and drive down to New York.
It was quicker than flying from Montreal.
And we've caught him right now.
He's just about an hour away from the police station.
And he's pulled over to the side of the highway.
His name is Yankee Pollock, and he joins us now, Vice Cape.
Yankee, great to see you.
Thank you very much for going down to New York to personally be there for Anna when she gets out of jail.
Yeah, hi, Ezra.
Yeah, it's been a long morning.
You called me about 8:30.
I was barely up, and you were like, would you willing to go down?
And I was like, sure, let's do it.
I just packed my bag and just ran and just started driving, basically.
I rented a car, just started driving, and the border was easy since I am a U.S. citizen.
I'm a dual citizen.
Just passed, told him going to the States to report on the protests and meet other of my other friends there.
And, you know, I've been driving since.
I've actually taken my first break now since I left Montreal 9.30.
I'll fill up with gas, eat something, and make it to I am hoping to be in Brooklyn or wherever Anna is.
I might be in Manhattan by 3.34-ish.
And hopefully, I'll meet with the lawyers and see.
Hopefully, by the time I'm there, she's out.
So I'm hoping for that.
Well, Yankee, I can't thank you enough.
And you absolutely did respond so quickly and so generously when I said, would you consider going down?
And of course, this puts the quarantine restrictions on you yourself when you return.
So it's a much greater sacrifice than just the duration of the journey itself.
So that's quite a sacrifice you're making, not only to show solidarity with Anna, but I know she's a friend of yours too.
I know she'll be touched by it.
Thank you for that.
We have lots of lawyers on the ground in New York, Yankee, but they're not her friends and they don't work for rebels.
So the fact that she'll see a familiar and friendly face down there, I think is very meaningful.
So thank you for doing that.
Yeah.
It's my pleasure.
You know, I've done this trip to New York many times, so it's not something I've never done, but I've never gone, I've never been to a jail or went to see someone in jail or anything like this.
I've never done anything like this.
So it'll be interesting.
I'm a bit anxious for myself, my own safety, not safety, but the curfew starts at 8.
Will I be arrested?
I'm hoping to be off the streets by then.
I do not intend to get arrested, but I am hoping Anna's out before that.
And maybe we'll head right back or maybe we'll see.
I don't know.
We'll see what the lawyers suggest we do.
And that's what I'll do.
Well, luckily, we've got an army, a small army of lawyers on the ground, including, I just spoke with a lawyer who is physically at the courthouse, and he just sent me a picture.
He's now in the courthouse.
So you will have allies on the ground.
So my hope is that Anna is out of jail by the time you arrive.
I don't think that's going to happen.
Allies On The Ground00:14:06
But when she gets out, my goal is to have you welcome her warmly in a friendly way, take her back to her hotel.
She'll probably want to get cleaned up and maybe even have a nap.
And then take her out for a nice meal.
Send me the bill, obviously, send me the bill for your entire journey, Yankee.
And just basically be there as a friend.
If she needs anything, help her out with errands.
I don't know how she'll be feeling.
Maybe she'll feel fine and like she wants to keep doing it.
Maybe she thinks it's time to pack it up and come back to Canada.
I don't know.
Other than my one-minute conversation with her just before midnight last night, I have not been in contact with her.
So I'll be relying on your judgment to sort of read her mood and help her out.
Obviously, I'll talk with her on the phone when she's out.
So I won't keep you any longer because every minute we're talking is a minute you're not driving.
What town are you in right now?
Do you know where you're near?
Yeah, I'm in Spring Valley, New York.
I'm going to stop here for gas.
I have some family here, but I'm not going to go see them.
I just know the area.
So I know where the groceries are.
I used to live here, actually, 10 years ago.
So I know where the gas stations are in the store.
So it could be a bit faster for me to in and out.
So that's why I chose to stop here.
And I'll be on my way very shortly.
Well, thank you.
And it's a sacrifice that you're not even stopping to visit your own family.
And I think that's a touching sign of dedication to your mission.
I won't keep you one minute longer.
Yankee, it's nice to see you.
Thank you for responding so quickly and generously to my invitation to go and meet Anna.
And I'm sure she'll be happy to see a friendly face.
She'll be happy to see our little army of lawyers, but I'm sure she'll prefer to see your friendly face too.
Good luck and drive safely and we'll talk later today.
Yeah, we'll talk.
Thank you.
Have a good day.
All right.
Thanks.
We'll let you go right now.
That's Yankee Pollock, who's been helping us out.
He's based out in Montreal, a friend of Anna's.
And I myself cannot go down there, but I was very glad that Yankee could.
Stay with us for more.
That's Yankee Pollack going down to visit Anna.
I think when someone gets out of jail, they should have someone to greet them.
I don't know if you recall, but when Tommy Robinson was released from prison in the United Kingdom from solitary confinement, it was my great pleasure and honor to be there when he was finally released into the world.
I can only imagine how badly you want to see a friendly face.
So Yankee will be that friendly face for Anna.
And finally, I just spoke with Aaron Rosenberg, who is one of our lawyers who fights on the free speech battles for us.
And he has been coordinating the legal fight back and working with the consulate.
Here's my conversation with him.
We've talked to Michael Weinstock, who is a lawyer, a former 9-11 first responder, which is pretty incredible, and the political candidate.
He was there on the scene of the building where we believe Anna Slatz is being held inside.
We also talked with Yankee Pollack, a rebel helper outer in Montreal, who volunteered to go down to New York to visit and greet Anna when she comes out of jail, which I think is a nice touch.
I myself really wanted to do that, but there's just no getting around the 14-day quarantine requirement upon return, and I simply couldn't do that.
Now, I love to travel for legal matters, as you know.
I certainly went to the UK a lot for Tommy Robinson, and that was a seven-hour journey each way.
So I suppose I make myself feel better for not going down there, knowing that we have a massive legal brigade fighting to get Anna out of jail, and it is being quarterbacked here in Canada by our old friend Aaron Rosenberg, who you'll remember from our free speech battles.
And he joins me now via Skype.
Aaron, great to see you again.
So nice to see you.
Thanks, Ezra.
Well, you have been working on this since moments after I got the phone call last night at just before midnight.
I got the one-minute call from Anna Slatz.
I immediately wrote to our first New York criminal lawyer who we had worked with before, and I copied you because you're sort of helping us get through all our legal battles.
And you have since then increased our firepower on the ground with other lawyers, lawyers who are making appearances, lawyers who are standing by.
We've got a bit of a legal dream team trying to get Anna out of jail, don't we?
That's right.
I mean, this is an unprecedented amount of firepower to be throwing at the situation.
I don't think anything more can be done that's already been done right now.
We've got amazing people on the ground, just highly credentialed.
They are fighting every step of the way, and they are doing everything in their power to get Anna out of this terrible situation.
And I'm just so proud of the people that the team that we've assembled and the amount of firepower that's going into this.
You know, I just think it's absolutely so critical that we get her out of the situation as quickly as possible.
And I am just so honored to play even a small role in this.
I jumped out of bed and I was ready to take the next flight to New York.
Of course, I had the same quarantine issues as yourself, but I'm just so thrilled with who's down there, and I'm very proud of the situation.
Well, in addition to assembling the lawyers, and I thank you for putting together, we've got three lawyers now in New York.
I had one from before, and you've added two, including Michael Weinstock, who we just interviewed outside the courthouse.
He seems like a very nice man and a great patriot, too.
You've also did something that I didn't think of doing.
You and your colleague David, who's working with us on so many free speech battles, contacted the Canadian consulate in New York City.
I just wouldn't have thought of that.
And they responded very quickly, didn't they?
That's right.
You know, they connected us to a specified agent who specializes in arrests and detention of Canadian citizens in New York City.
So it's exactly the people we want to be talking to.
And they were so helpful.
They facilitated finding out where Anna was, which was probably the most important question that was unanswered at that time.
So once we found out where she was, we could actually go to the location, send our fighting force over there, and stand out there and demand that she be released.
So that was such critical information.
We've been in contact with the consulate now since the morning.
They've been very helpful checking in, and they're very interested in this fight.
They want to keep fighting for us.
And that's just a few.
We've got the legal team down there.
We've got the Canadian embassy in New York City working on this.
And we've got we're getting many more phone calls from support people, support teams across the country and in New York itself with people just trying to figure out how can we lend a hand, how can we help?
And it's just the outpouring of support for Anna and for Rebel for this cause is so important.
You know, we cannot leave a man behind.
This is such an incredibly important free speech battle.
It's clear that there's an exemption for journalists on the ground after the curfew.
Anna was exercising in America her First Amendment right, what we would call free expression.
It's so critical.
If we're going to fight battles about free expression and freedom of the press, this is the type of battle we have to be fighting.
It's shameful that she was rounded up.
And as I said before, and I'll say again, we're not going to leave a man behind.
We're not going to leave this woman behind.
We're going to fight tooth and nail.
And we're just working our way to get her release as quickly as possible.
Yeah.
Now, in one sense, it's not actually a complicated or serious offense.
It's a summons, which I think if I'm translating that into plain language, it's really like a ticket.
And if I understand, it's not a serious matter.
We don't have to put together a lot of bail.
It's not a big hullabaloo.
Except for the fact that, number one, the New York courts were pretty much ground to a halt because of the pandemic.
And number two, then they got this massive wave of people who were arrested because of the curfews.
So you have the courts going at the speed of molasses to begin with.
Then you dump hundreds and hundreds of arrestees at once.
I think that's why she didn't get out last night, which is what I think would have normally happened.
We have so much legal firepower on this, but frankly, even if we had 50 lawyers, that's not going to speed up police entering forms and their computers, which is, I think, actually what we're waiting on right now.
So I think we're maximum strength.
It's not even in our hands anymore.
I think it's in the hands of the police now.
Is that right?
Well, yeah.
I mean, unfortunately, we are at the mercy of this slow justice system.
I mean, we've all heard about the problems with the U.S. justice system and the delay that can be caused.
I mean, our view here at our firm is just delay is justice delayed is justice denied.
And, you know, I appreciate that this is an unprecedented situation in New York City with the curfew and the amount of people that have been rounded up that were disobeying the curfew.
And so I appreciate that it's unprecedented.
But in my view, this is a very significant amount of time for Anna to be held up and detained without knowing exactly what is going on.
And so that's why we have people on the ground that are checking things out, figuring out exactly what is happening on a moment-to-moment basis.
But I do understand that it's certainly unprecedented.
The world has been turned upside down.
And with all of that, we're trying to break her free.
We're going to continue doing it.
But no question, this presents all sorts of unique challenges that we're going to be fighting through.
Yeah.
We're recording this in the late afternoon.
There is a chance she could be released theoretically any moment.
I understand from one of our New York lawyers, typically an arrestee has to be brought before a judge within 24 hours of arrest, which I understand happened at 9 p.m. last night.
I didn't get a phone call from Anna until about 11.30 last night.
So hopefully there's just no way she'll be in for a second night.
That's what irks me the most.
I'm not worried about the legal result.
We know that she was exempt.
We know it's just a matter of time.
I'm not worried about the money that much.
I mean, we've got a lot of lawyers fighting this, but I think we'll crowdfund it at saveanna slats.com.
What I'm worried about is this young woman who spent a night in jail.
And that's not any, and not exactly a comfortable, friendly jail either, like the holding pens at a police station, which, if I'm not mistaken, are maximum security by definition.
That's not a nice night.
No, absolutely not.
And, you know, this goes back to the tradition that's been set out for hundreds of years, the idea of presenting the body, Aegis Corpus.
And it's just so fundamental to Western justice systems that people should have the right to be heard and to be presented before the court.
So the sooner this happens, the more faith I'll have in the court system down there.
I think, in my view, it's unacceptable despite the unique challenges.
But I just feel so horrible for Anna, and I can't stop thinking about the circumstances she's under.
So I'm just going to continue fighting and working with our team to ensure that we break her out as soon as we possibly can and not a moment later.
Well, I'm so grateful to you.
And the crazy thing is, Anna has no contact with the outside world.
She doesn't have her phone.
Obviously, she's not checking email or text in jail.
She doesn't even know what's going on.
When she gets out, she'll see all sorts of activity that was done on her behalf, however frustratingly slow the effect is.
I'm glad we're sending down a staffer that she knows, Yankee Pollock, to personally greet her.
And we have a lawyer on the scene too.
Erin, thanks a million for working so hard on this.
Oh, it's my pleasure.
Thanks.
Keep fighting.
All right, we sure will.
Well, that wraps up our coverage of, well, where our own reporter got sucked into the news.
She was no longer reporting the news.
She made the news.
She was improperly arrested and detained, even though there is a specific legal exemption for journalists.
We've been fighting the matter since about 11.40 p.m. last night.
We've got a lot of lawyers in two countries and the consulate you heard from Erin there.
So we'll keep at it.
Hopefully we'll have good news tonight.
If you want to help us, I know Anna's new to our team.
In fact, this was her first video assignment for us.
I think she was doing great.
If you can help us out, excuse me, please go to saveanaslats.com.
Last I checked, there's about $5,000, about $6,000 being raised there.
That's Canadian mini bucks, and three of our five lawyers are on the U.S. side, so that's not going to go very far.
If there is a surplus, we've decided to give it to Anna personally as a sort of danger pay bonus of sorts.
But I think if this matter stretches into a second day, that $5,000, $6,000 will probably be eaten up.
So if you want to help us, please do.
All right, well, that's the emergency show, which is really what it is.