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You are here: Home / Organizing & Resistance / Don't Mourn, Organize / Police Arrest OccupyBoston Protestors

Police Arrest OccupyBoston Protestors

by Anne Laurie|  October 11, 20114:42 am| 47 Comments

This post is in: Don't Mourn, Organize, Security Theatre

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From the Boston Globe website, timestamp 2:53am:

Boston police moved in and began arresting scores of Occupy Boston protesters who refused to leave a large part of the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway early this morning.
__
At 1:20 a.m., the first riot police officers lined up on Atlantic Avenue. Minutes later, dozens of sheriff vans and police wagons arrived and over 200 officers in uniforms and riot gear surrounded the Greenway. Police Superintendent William Evans and Commissioner Edward F. Davis watched from across the street. Evans gave the crowd two minutes to disperse from the park, warning that they would be locked up if they did not comply.
__
The crowd of protesters, energized by the sudden appearance of the Boston and Transit police officers, chanted, ‘‘The people united will never be defeated,’’ “This is a peaceful protest,” and “the whole world is watching.’’
__
About 10 minutes later, the first officers entered the park and surrounded the group. Evans, using a loudspeaker, gave one more warning and then each protester was individually put on his or her stomach, cable-tied, and dragged off as others tore down tents and arrested and detained people on the fringe of the park.
__
About 100 people were arrested, Davis said. One police officer was hit in the face. According to police, no protesters or police were injured…
__
Police had earlier warned the about 1,000 protesters to leave the Greenway area, where they had settled hours before, and relocate to Dewey Square or a small, adjacent strip of the Greenway.
__
Officials do not want the protesters, who originally settled in Dewey Square, to occupy the space across Congress Street on the Greenway because it recently underwent a renovation project where expensive improvements were added, according to Elaine Driscoll, police spokeswoman.

More at the link, probably updated by the time you’re reading this. #OccupyBoston’s twitter feed here.

There’s been a few hundred protestors, and “around a hundred” tents, camped out in Dewey Square since September 17, with the explicit permission of city authorities. According to the local newscasts Monday evening, “thousands of students from ten Boston-area colleges” took advantage of the three-day weekend and unusually warm weather to swell the ranks over the past couple of days. Organizers said that more space was needed to accommodate the newcomers; “spokespersons for the Mayor’s office” warned that despoiling city property would be prosecuted. (Since Mayor Tommy “Mumbles” Menino hates litterers and similar vandals second only to rich Haaavahd fvcks looking down their inbred noses at him, this was extremely believable to the locals.)

I hope we’ve heard the worst of this — that nobody has been seriously hurt, and that negotiations between the organizers (who have not been removed from their original Dewey Square encampment)and the city resume later this morning…

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Reader Interactions

47Comments

  1. 1.

    John X.

    October 11, 2011 at 4:48 am

    There are unsubstantiated reports of other raids in Seattle and Atlanta.

  2. 2.

    Jenny

    October 11, 2011 at 5:03 am

    Here’s a twitter pix of the raid in Boston.

    (Warning: it’s pretty violent)

    http://tinyurl.com/43dyfyz

  3. 3.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    October 11, 2011 at 5:08 am

    Good grief you’d think being anal about “hey we just planted that grass!” would be overridden by concerns about escalating what’s becoming a nationwide protest by risking more mistakes and scenes of police violence, I mean even out of their own self-interest.

    Also, the protesters’ chants stopped as their companions were being lead off by police.

    Okay I guess literacy on the part of the Boston Globe reporters and/or copy desk is the least of the concerns here, but still.

  4. 4.

    TenguPhule

    October 11, 2011 at 5:11 am

    “The People United will never be Ignited!”

    /lets hope this ends better then that did.

  5. 5.

    TenguPhule

    October 11, 2011 at 5:13 am

    One police officer was hit in the face. According to police, no protesters or police were injured…

    Gotta love our liberal media.

  6. 6.

    Geoduck

    October 11, 2011 at 5:28 am

    @John X.: It appears that there were no other raids. Definitely none in Seattle; the Mayor told the police to back off for now.

  7. 7.

    Keith G

    October 11, 2011 at 5:39 am

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    …overridden by concerns about escalating what’s becoming a nationwide protest by risking more mistakes and scenes of police violence

    That is why the officials chose 2 AM., fewer witnesses and a lot less video.

    While this was a minor operation, the post 9/11 era has led me to feel that there is a embryonic police state developing just inches below the facade that is our civil society. I doubt “60s era” styled protests will be allowed to develop without the weight of our anti-terrorism security state (and lessons learned tactics) kicking in.

  8. 8.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    October 11, 2011 at 5:49 am

    @Keith G: Well, listen they weren’t tolerated much then either despite what everyone thinks nowadays. Police reaction in Berkeley, long before what happened in Kent State or Chicago, was brutal and a huge part of what escalated everything into such a years-long conflagration, though the protesters were pretty pissed to begin with and definitely played their part.

    I’m sort of hoping we’ve all learned since then on both sides, about wiser ways of handling things. Every time I find myself saying things like that though I then think wait, what am I saying? I also thought, like Joe Stiglitz, that we had learned lessons from the Great Depression but he and I are both shocked to discover that we never did. Apparently.

  9. 9.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    October 11, 2011 at 5:57 am

    I was going to link this above but time ran out: Stiglitz (via Krugzilla) on the current economic situation, in case anyone missed it at the time:

    When the recession began there were many wise words about having learnt the lessons of both the Great Depression and Japan’s long malaise. Now we know we didn’t learn a thing. Our stimulus was too weak, too short and not well designed. The banks weren’t forced to return to lending. Our leaders tried papering over the economy’s weaknesses – perhaps out of fear that if we were honest about them, already fragile confidence would erode. But that was a gamble we have now lost. Now the scale of the problem is apparent, a new confidence has emerged: confidence that matters will get worse, whatever action we take. A long malaise now seems like the optimistic scenario.

  10. 10.

    harlana

    October 11, 2011 at 6:00 am

    posted on previous thread, but thot it appropriate to repost here:
    Apparently, Beck is saying “listen up, rich people, these people are out to kill you, they will drag you out into the street and kill you”

  11. 11.

    harlana

    October 11, 2011 at 6:12 am

    From the we are the 53% site:

    We, the 53% of income-earners who pay taxes, hereby refuse to bitch about it.

    ORLY??? THANKS cuz I’m really sick of your whining about taxes, bitches. Good, we can put THAT ONE aside, right?

  12. 12.

    Keith G

    October 11, 2011 at 6:21 am

    @Bill E Pilgrim: I hear you. I doubt that there would be much police “brutality” due to lessons learned, but there may be more surveillance, disruption, early stage preventive actions (as in Boston) and harsher prosecutions – think the zero tolerance BS being used in some public schools.

    Again, I am not fearing this as an inevitability, but just musing about our darker undercurrents.

    ETA – We have all those Fusion Centers begging to be used.

  13. 13.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    October 11, 2011 at 6:39 am

    @Bill E Pilgrim: You forgot Madison.

  14. 14.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    October 11, 2011 at 6:44 am

    @Keith G: Good points. You actually got me thinking about the differences, similarities. In some ways the whole idea of a bunch of crazy long haired people protesting was just unheard of in those days, they didn’t know what to make of it and the first reaction was just to stomp it out as brutally as possible, and I assume they’ve learned at least something since then.

    On the other hand as you say now, we’ve developed into something even scarier than back then in many ways, in the post 9/11 “Homeland Security” era, with things done quietly out of public view.

  15. 15.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    October 11, 2011 at 6:47 am

    @Raven (formerly stuckinred): Wasn’t an encyclopedic list ;)

    Also I lived in Berkeley, or practically, so it’s a visceral memory. I was young so it amounted to going downtown to buy records and being second-hand tear gassed, but still. No one was kidding around, that was clear.

  16. 16.

    Samara Morgan

    October 11, 2011 at 6:58 am

    Do you remember, AL?

    Julian predicts that America will turn into a police state on the way to non-linear system collapse.
    the system is WAI.

    vox populi, vox anon

  17. 17.

    Samara Morgan

    October 11, 2011 at 7:01 am

    @harlana: sadly for them, the 53% dont all vote “conservative.”

  18. 18.

    debbie

    October 11, 2011 at 7:08 am

    The Boston police were just as thuggish when I lived there in the early 1970s.

  19. 19.

    vtr

    October 11, 2011 at 7:23 am

    Do not read David Brooks this morning. Do no say you weren’t warned.

  20. 20.

    arguingwithsignposts

    October 11, 2011 at 7:29 am

    @vtr:

    The Occupy Wall Street movement may look radical, but its members’ ideas are less radical than those you might hear at your average Rotary Club.

    I want to know when was the last time Bobo stepped foot in a Rotary Club? Does he even know what one is? Do they have a salad bar?

  21. 21.

    gnomedad

    October 11, 2011 at 7:30 am

    1. Arrive at 1:20 am, give people 2 minutes to leave.
    2. …
    3. Profit!

  22. 22.

    Omnes Omnibus

    October 11, 2011 at 7:51 am

    @Samara Morgan: If you could demonstrate how this is different from every other time the police have barged stupidly into protests over the past 100+ years, then you might have a point. Until then, I would say this fits the historical pattern. Look up the Haymarket and Bay View Massacres from the 1880s as examples.

  23. 23.

    arguingwithsignposts

    October 11, 2011 at 7:57 am

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    ahem…

    /shrugs so. I am not a historian. Ima bringin the SCIENCE perspective, ‘sline cudlip retard. Julian predicted distributed jesusland self-organizing systems, its WAI anonops is occupywallstreet.
    __
    Do you juicetards watch the video?
    __
    vox populi vox anon

    Someone could make a ‘bot that generated tokospeak and save us all the trouble.

    Hmmmm …

  24. 24.

    Omnes Omnibus

    October 11, 2011 at 8:05 am

    @arguingwithsignposts: I know it won’t get through to her, but the stupid need to be countered. It is fantastic that people are using new technologies to coordinate and organize protests, but protesting still requires people in the streets. I am reminded of people in the late 90s who said that computers and the Web had fundamentally changed the economy and it was “DOW 36,000, Baby!” forever. We know how that turned out. The fundamentals remain the same.

  25. 25.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    October 11, 2011 at 8:11 am

    @Bill E Pilgrim: I happened to be there the day after the Chicago 7 verdict and, while they were prepared for the worst on Telegraph, not much went down. I had a buddy from the city who was a campus cop and he always talked about how badass the SF Tac Squad was.

  26. 26.

    arguingwithsignposts

    October 11, 2011 at 8:15 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: Agreed. It’s especially stupid her assertion that Anonymous = OccupyX. There are a lot of people out there who’ve likely never heard of Anonymous.

    But it’s a neat trick if you can claim credit for anything that happens.

  27. 27.

    amk

    October 11, 2011 at 8:22 am

    “Homeland” security, “Homeland” security, any one ?

    Ironically, Myanmar is releasing thousands of political prisoners.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/world-asia-pacific-15252732

  28. 28.

    Hawes

    October 11, 2011 at 8:34 am

    Back in the First Gilded Age, Jacob Coxey organized the first mobilized protest that marched on Washington. Thousands marched on DC to protest deflationary monetary policies that trapped people in debt for life.

    When they got there, they were arrested for walking on the grass.

    Crushing people’s long term economic prospects? Fine.

    Stepping on plants? You’re the next Hitler.

  29. 29.

    jron

    October 11, 2011 at 8:38 am

    Here’s a vid of the cops tearing down the flag and arresting the vets.

  30. 30.

    Chris

    October 11, 2011 at 8:38 am

    @Hawes:

    Crushing people’s long term economic prospects? Fine.
    …
    Stepping on plants? You’re the next Hitler.

    Or the first one, given the time frame.

  31. 31.

    jron

    October 11, 2011 at 8:39 am

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    Someone could make a ‘bot that generated tokospeak and save us all the trouble.

    that’s not what this is?

  32. 32.

    lacp

    October 11, 2011 at 8:43 am

    @jron: Yeah, I read over at naked capitalism that the cops targeted Veterans For Peace. That should go over well.

  33. 33.

    Cat Lady

    October 11, 2011 at 8:54 am

    The good news is that Boston has a virtually limitless supply of students to fill the ranks of the protesters. The bad news is that the city has a love/hate relationship with them. If the cops are picking on veterans, that’s just stupid, when cracking a few out of town troublemaker heads would be considered meh.

  34. 34.

    tomvox1

    October 11, 2011 at 9:07 am

    More on this police action in Boston, including desecration of the American flag by officers & video of the raid, over at Think Progress.

  35. 35.

    soonergrunt

    October 11, 2011 at 9:34 am

    @arguingwithsignposts: Somebody did, hence this bot. The code needs tightening, and the error handling system needs to be strengthened and revamped.
    This is what happens when you start with the “Hello World” program and work from there.

  36. 36.

    magurakurin

    October 11, 2011 at 9:36 am

    @Samara Morgan: cops smashing heads in Boston. Yeah. That’s a shocking new development in American History. Not.

  37. 37.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    October 11, 2011 at 9:39 am

    In contrast, things are polite in Cincinnati.

  38. 38.

    Chinn Romney

    October 11, 2011 at 9:55 am

    I’m not buying Mayor Mumbles Menino’s defense of this sweep. The demonstrators can’t “tie up the City” (they were not), but a Hollywood Film Crew can (5 mile backups on 93 yesterday for hours).

  39. 39.

    soonergrunt

    October 11, 2011 at 9:55 am

    @magurakurin: For example, the Ludlow Massacre, The Columbine Mine Massacre, and God alone knows how many others.

  40. 40.

    soonergrunt

    October 11, 2011 at 10:00 am

    See also:
    The Herrin Massacre,
    The Lattimer Massacre,
    The Bay View Massacre,
    and on and on and on.

  41. 41.

    soonergrunt

    October 11, 2011 at 10:08 am

    The Tulsa Race Riots, Kent State, The Memorial Day Massacre in 1937, The Haymarket Affair, the Thibodaux Massacre, the Homestead Strike–the list goes on and on and on.

  42. 42.

    Bruce S

    October 11, 2011 at 10:19 am

    Romney has flip-flopped a bit on the Wall Street protests.

    I don’t worry about the top one percent. I don’t stay up nights worrying about ‘gee we need to help them.’ I don’t worry about that. They’re doing just fine by themselves. I worry about the 99 percent in America. I want America, once again, to be the best place in the world to be middle-class. I want to have a strong and vibrant and prosperous middle-class. And so I look at what’s happening on Wall Street and my own view is, boy I understand how those people feel…The people in this country are upset.

    I’m wondering if there is some tipping point taking place, with the protests taking on a kind of common-sense legitimacy that’s undeniable, increasingly even by “serious people” like Bernanke, the NYTs, Prez and VP…and now…Romney? I think this indicates he’s feeling more confident that his detractors in the GOP primaries will implode. More than any other GOP candidate, Rommey is vulnerable to the “1%” critique and he’s got to start playing to the general election audience. If this “tipping point” is actually happening, the Wall Street protests are clearly going to help frame the economic debate going forward.

    We’re still watching this thing as it’s taking shape, but so far not bad for a bunch of Dirty Fucking Hippies. (That said, Romney is going to be eviscerated for this tepid shift to “empathy” by Cain, Bachmann, Perry, et. al. and that should be fun to watch.)

  43. 43.

    Judas Escargot

    October 11, 2011 at 10:26 am

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    Agreed. It’s especially stupid her assertion that Anonymous = OccupyX. There are a lot of people out there who’ve likely never heard of Anonymous.

    And, vice versa, Anonymous sprang from the “4theLulz!” culture– nihilist script-kiddies, concerned with nothing more than their own self-amusement. Less than a year ago, giving a shit about anything besides sowing a little chaos would get you pegged as a ‘moralf@g’ on their boards.

    Twitter and Facebook are useful tools, but are also parts of the ‘machine’. Either can be turned off (or censored) with the flick of a switch. Any movement based solely on those tools is doomed to fail.

  44. 44.

    Cacti

    October 11, 2011 at 10:32 am

    @Bruce S:

    And so I look at what’s happening on Wall Street and my own view is, boy I understand how those people feel…The people in this country are upset.

    I wonder how much longer his opponents will stay “hands-off” of his history as a job-destroying vulture capitalist.

    Mitt is the poster boy of the 1%.

  45. 45.

    wapsie

    October 11, 2011 at 1:41 pm

    Deadly police response to protest precedes Kent State. Don’t forget Orangeburg:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orangeburg_massacre

  46. 46.

    soonergrunt

    October 11, 2011 at 2:03 pm

    @Bruce S: Link, please and thank you!

  47. 47.

    Bruce S

    October 11, 2011 at 2:07 pm

    #46 – sorry. ThinkProgress has Mitt Romney’s latest bipolar bit, taking a firm stand against what Mitt Romney said…

    http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/10/11/340289/romney-flip-flops-wall-street-protests/

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