The WSOP regular got caught up in the riots protesting police violence
A poker pro that got his fame due to back-to-back appearances at World Series of Poker (WSOP) "November Nine" final tables, Mark Newhouse, was arrested on Monday for participating in a protest over George Floyd's death. Newhouse described the protest as a peaceful assembly against the death of Floyd and nonstop police violence. The arrest happened during the second day of public gathering to call attention to the violent death suffered by Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers on May 25.
"I got arrested tonight for being a part of a peaceful assembly. Literally no one in the group I was near did anything remotely aggressive or violent. We were relentlessly pursued, harassed, and detained by police. Spent a couple hours zip-tied up in a bus waiting on the group ahead of us to be processed. Then got dropped off at great mall in Milpitas 10 min outside of San Jose," said Newhouse, describing his experience.
The response from the police to the thousands of protesters has been violent, as well, despite the fact that this protest, in particular, was done in the most peaceful way. During this ongoing havoc in several cities across the US, the American police has been accused of targeting journalists with rubber bullets, flash canisters and other projectiles more than 100 times. Newhouse also documented his experience on Facebook, which caught the attention of well-known gambling writer Chris Baud, who featured his story; however, the story came before the arrest happened.
Luckily, Newhouse was also in the same group of arrestees as California State Assembly candidate Alex Lee, who paid for all the group's legal fees. Newhouse was released after a few hours in custody with the promise of continuing his protests.
