Looks like the jackbooted thugs in Oakland are having a good old time. First they brain a Marine veteran and fracture his skull with a teargas projectile, then when a crowd gathers to help him, they chuck flash-bangs into the crowd and on top of the critically wounded man. Don’t believe me? Watch for yourself:
We’ll file this under the new Police professionalism.
arguingwithsignposts
I guess someone is going to get docked some vacation days. Sick.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Where’s the news here? This is America and this is how we do things. You actually think that cops are there to “protect and serve” the American people? If a commission is formed to look into this they will find that all officers involved acted ethically and professionally.
They have equipment that they have to use and we are the people they have to use it on.
We deserve it.
Brian S
I wish I had any confidence that these sorts of incidents would be spun as anything other than “dirty fucking hippies got what was coming to them.” Expect some concern trolling in this very thread.
singfoom
Yeah, that’s some fucked up shit right there. This should be big, bigger than the pepper spray incident, especially with the cops throwing a flashbang at the people trying to assist the wounded veteran.
Updates about Scott Olsen here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/oct/26/occupy-oakland-protests-live
Truly fucking disgusting shit happening to normal Americans peaceably assembling. Fuck the OPD and their bullshit tactics. They should be ashamed.
PurpleGirl
Brings to mind the Ludlow (CO) massacre where private guards and the Colorado National Guard was used to put down a coal mine strike. Sixty something people, including women and children, were killed.
singfoom
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Your cynicism is shared, but while this may be the way we do things, it is certainly not the way we SHOULD do things, and it is not in the best character of this nation.
We can and should do better, and we see shit like this, we call it out and demand accountability. That’s why their strongarm tactics against OWS and OO are going to backfire. All this does is get more people more riled up and committed to stopping this bullshit from happening again.
srv
With 13 agencies, a temp police chief and no mayor, anybody can do anything and get away with it.
Mary Jane
Just giving credit when due, Loneoak linked to this in DougJ’s open thread.
Jenny
Man, Ponch and Jon never used to do this on CHiPs.
Linda Featheringill
I saw pictures of Scott Olsen. Baby face. Went to Iraq twice and survived and just might not survive Oakland. I understand he’s in critical condition now.
Punchy
Yeah, but one of the protestors swore at a policeman and 2 others were threatening to sue, so those fuckers deserved the riot sticks, rubber bullets, and shit
KG
the Oakland PD has never had much of a sterling record, from what I recall.
cathyx
It’s much harder to spin things against the protesters when so many people have their own video cameras, i.e. cell phones, to record what happens and youtube to broadcast it.
arguingwithsignposts
But the OPD says no flashbangs:
Who you going to believe, some dirty fucking hippie?
General Stuck
This is only the beginning
it will end when money in politics ends, most likely from a constitutional amendment beneath a smoldering moon.
Brian S
@cathyx: Harder, but not hard, when you have most media outlets ready to repeat whatever the authorities say verbatim, and then not show anything which might contradict it. Internet junkies get it, but we’re still a minority.
kindness
Most the time Oakland cops are OK. Yea they can be dicks, but I haven’t gotten hassled by them much in my life.
But for this thing, they were all up in full SWAT gear yesterday, marching in columns and acting like Army. They had most the downtown streets blocked off when I came to work yesterday. Today it’s light. The Occupy Oakland folks are saying they want to start some shit tonight though. I hope they don’t. The Occupy movement is helping our side. Turning it into riots will only push some folk to the Fox side.
The poor ex-Marine is in critical at one of the local hospitals. Hope he gets better.
singfoom
Hilarious inside BJ note: from the guardian link above:
M_C, is that you?
Jenny
eemom
This is beyond awful. WTF is wrong with these people?
What’s next, Kent State II?
sherifffruitfly
Cop = state-sponsored domestic terrorist. Plain and simple.
BGinCHI
I foresee some serious shit between vets and the police coming up.
The cops are going to have to think this time. It ain’t the late 60s. There are too many eyes. The right is coming for their jobs now too.
Solidarity or else, motherfuckers.
soonergrunt
@arguingwithsignposts: I’m going with the video. Those were concussion grenades, or flash-bangs if you must. They fucking well were NOT M-80s thrown by civilians.
singfoom
@General Stuck: I pine for that day when money is removed from our politics. You’re right, constitutional amendment is the only way to protect it from SCOTUS.
I’d be behind an amendment stating that only citizens (actual human beings) can donate money to political campaigns and no third party ads are allowed. I won’t hold my breath waiting for it though.
How can we expect the whores (excuse the offense to ladies of the night) in Congress to be the undoing of their own gravy train?
soonergrunt
@singfoom: Nope. She lives in the Denver area, supposedly.
arguingwithsignposts
@soonergrunt: I guess I should have used the snark tag there.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
It’s a good thing President Obama wasn’t anywhere near there, because he would have kicked their asses.
.
.
Cat Lady
“…then they fight you, then you win.”
I’ll pray like crazy that Mr. Olsen recovers, but there will be more of this.
Catsy
@soonergrunt: Guaran-fucking-teed. There is simply no confusing them for anyone who’s seen/heard both go off.
The person who made that statement was either lying or lied to.
arguingwithsignposts
I would note that action against the protests seems to be stepping up recently. Someone in an earlier thread mentioned coordination. I won’t put on a tin-foil hat, but someone should track these police actions on a timeline or something.
singfoom
@soonergrunt: Who are you going to believe, the official police story, or your lying DFH eyes?
When do they get to the level of the Iraqi Propaganda minister going “THERE ARE NO AMERICAN TANKS IN BAGHDAD, THEY ARE ALL DEAD.”
Same schtick, different conflict.
scav
@Catsy: Or don’t care and can’t see the bother. They’ve no doubt been practicing for this gig by saying “We don’t torture.” to themselves repeatedly into a mirror. Headed for the big times.
RareSanity
I can’t even…why did the police…
WTF is going on in this country!?
Linda Featheringill
@soonergrunt:
Very nice to have some knowledgeable people comment on the videos.
I didn’t believe OPD’s 4th of July explanation anyway.
Bubblegum Tate
@kindness:
Unfortunately, I’d bet that at least some of them will. I love Oakland, but few people are as effective at undercutting themselves as Oakland protesters.
Violet
This video makes me ill. I knew what was coming, and still watched in slack-jawed horror as it happened. I hope Mr. Olsen recovers. To get through Iraq and have this happen here… I can hardly absorb it.
There will be more clashes like this. The monied interests aren’t going to give up easily. They had hoped the protestors would just go away. They haven’t. This sort of thing is the next step.
eemom
@singfoom, soonergrunt
the concept that she would do something as constructive as attending an OWS rally is fairly hilarious.
Comrade Scrutinizer
Nonsense. Mr. Policeman is your friend. He risks his life every day to keep each one of you safe. No one has ever been hurt or killed by the police unless they threatened or harmed the police first. Just ask Otto Zehm, Joe Torres, Eleanor Bumpurs, Kelly Thomas, Kathryn Johnston, Abner Louima, Malice Green, Fred Hampton, Sam Weaver, Vicki Weaver…
soonergrunt
@Linda Featheringill: I have some stuff on this in the other thread. Long story short, local police are not trained, led, or equipped for proper riot control/crowd control. In fact, their very organization and mindset leads to rights abuses and criminal-level assault.
If there is an upside to this–and may God forgive me for thinking of this, it’s that (I believe) more people will view the protests favorably when they see this level of brutality.
Feudalism Now!
Guys, Samara Morgan is the creepy girl that crawls out of the TV in the Ring. It is another M_C pseudonym. Again I hat tip her for choice.
The Oakland Crackdown is only the beginning. Occupy folks are going to need some first responders in residence to treat the injured. You have mayors all over the nation trying clear out the Occupy protests. The Occupy Oakland response will be their justification to unleash our militarized police forces.
soonergrunt
@Feudalism Now!:
THAT’S where that name comes from?! REALLY? That’s fucking awesome in a “do you have any idea how truly fucked up that makes you look that you would choose that name?” kind of way.
arguingwithsignposts
@soonergrunt: Dude, why do you think I always call her “the little dead girl”?
cathyx
The police everywhere need to realize that they are one of us. The 99%. Our fight is for them too.
Gex
He fought for his freedoms? Apparently there’s more fighting to do. And Iraq is the wrong place to be fighting apparently.
punkdavid
Is attacking a medic who assisting the wounded a war crime?
Brandon
Let’s see. BART/OPD cop (can’t recall which), executes a handcuffed man on a BART platform. His defense was that he was only trying to taser the handcuffed man instead. Video is seen my millions on internets. Said cop gets a 1-yr prison sentence.
I just don’t see how this isn’t more of the same. And I’m just damn happy that I don’t live in the Bay Area anymore.
Maude
@soonergrunt:
Haven’t the police become more aggressive with stronger weapons since Homeland Security came into being?
Amir Khalid
This incident seems intentional and gratuitously violent on the part of Oakland PD, rather than merely indiscriminate like Tony Baloney’s use of his mace can. It might seem cynical to point it out; but depending on how it’s reported, an incident like this might turn out to benefit the Occupy movement, the way Inspector Bologna helped bring wider attention to Occupy Wall Street. How much mainstream media attention this gets, and what kind, might be a gauge of the Occupy movement’s success in swaying public sympathy. The MSM is beholden to its corporate paymasters, but it still needs the public to believe it’s on their side too.
ETA: I see soonergrunt has had the same thought.
Chris
@Maude:
Haven’t they been doing that since the rioting/crime wave that started in the late sixties?
Maude
@Chris:
Yes, but they have more weapons now. There’s a different attitude here by our local police. They look like wind up marching dolls when they walk down the street.
soonergrunt
@arguingwithsignposts: I never saw the movie. Just the ad for it.
Darius
Meanwhile, the top story on CNN.com right now is about… the “We are the 53%” right-wing counter-movement. Guess CNN thinks a marine getting critically wounded isn’t as important as a bunch of guys posting smug statements to the Internet.
jnfr
My friends who live in the Bay Area (which I do not, so this is second-hand) say there is a group of Communist Party members who are well-known in Oakland for showing up at any kind of protest and getting violent with both police and any protesters they feel disagree with their own ideology.
That sort of thing is a real problem for a group like OWS.
soonergrunt
@Maude: They certainly have. The most obvious and egregious examples of this are the smaller police departments that have spent federal money buying assault rifles, body armor, sub-machine guns, etc. Then they contract with companies like
BlackwaterXe to teach them how to use their new toys. This of course just leads to a deep seated desire to play with their new toys in the real world, so you end up with county sheriff’s deputies in full body armor with armored cars to execute warrant service, like that fiasco in Maricopa county a few months back where they ran over some dogs with their armored car when they went to serve a misdemeanor warrant for animal cruelty with that moron Steven Segal along for the ride.Amir Khalid
@eemom:
m_c did go to an Occupy protest, in Colorado — or so she said. In Denver, if I recall correctly. Given that she was (partly) right about Occupy before anyone else at Balloon Juice, she deserves a little bit of slack on this.
MGB
@Darius: Well, the Real Muricans® are part of the 53% of course?
/snark (just in case)
jeff
There are so many police that are hoping OWS turns into a police/demonstrator war. It only takes a few bad cops and precisely one bad demonstrator/agent provocateur to make it happen.
Dee Loralei
@Amir Khalid: There already was an OccupyMarines group, inspired from Shamar Thomas a few weeks ago telling the NYPD there was no honour in what they were doing to the OWS protestors.They also kicked off OccupyArmy, Navy and Police movements too. What happened to this unfortunate Marine will only galvanize the returning vets even moreso than what the cops are doing to civilians. (hint, you can follow these groups on twitter.)
I told my elderly parents and son about this tonight over dinner. It angered them so much that we’re all going down to the OccupyMemphis rally for a while tomorrow.
You’d think after watching the Green Revolution and the martyr Neda, and all the others this spring in the Arab world, that TPTB all over the world would realize by now that meeting peaceful protestors with violence, only makes the protestors grow larger. And it empowers the protestors.
soonergrunt
@Darius: they have to give a hand-job to their paid commentator, Erick Erickson, who started that ‘movement.’
On another note, the local news here in OKC, channel 4, just showed some footage of Oakland PD walking in riot gear (no footage of the actual incidents), while talking about all the utensils and bottles that were thrown at the cops there and how they had to defend themselves, and the bubble-headed bleach blonde declared that “a recent poll shows a growing disconnect with Americans and the 99% movement”, with no context at all, nor a reference to who did the poll or when or anything else.
Thoughtcrime
Comment from GOS:
Residents of the East Bay know this all too well.
And the other Bay Area PD’s that were involved are also disgraced by this event.
Amir Khalid
@Dee Loralei:
Shamar Thomas’ righteous words need to be repeated every time an incident like this happens, loudly and often.
magurakurin
@jnfr: I think the incident highlights how difficult it is to protest now without this type of thing happening. Over the years, the police have become a military force, but without the strict discipline of a military force. Like someone said above, they have all this crowd control gear, but they really don’t have the needed training. Any group that protests now has to be extra vigilant to avoid any impression of violent action against the police. It may be unfair to the protesters, but it is the end result of all these years of “getting tough on crime.” It looks like the Oakland protest had some problems in this regard. Apparently there was a guy named Porch wandering around with an AK.
Porch is either a lunatic or an agent of the police sent to make the protesters look bad. Either way, a guy like that in their midst is bad news. Reports from other OWS camps indicate that some places have been very careful not to do anything to anger the cops.
But I suppose this is the end game and it always had to come to this. The game is rigged and the police, more or less, work for the House. It is encouraging, though, in the opposite sense that the police in Albany refused to arrest the protesters. There certainly are regional difference in policing and it seems like Oakland may be especially bad in the jack-booted thug department. Dicks.
Don
Most the time Oakland cops are OK. Yea they can be dicks, but I haven’t gotten hassled by them much in my life.
Fuck them.
I’m seriously over it. For a long time I’ve looked at police officers as people who are usually good folks doing a tough and dangerous job. But year after year I see that supposedly good majority look the other way and let this shit go on, enable the douchebags to hurt folks and do awful things, step on people’s civil liberties, etc.
Now we see them get caught more and more by citizen recording and time and again they get a walk. We’re smart enough to realize that the rapist who gets caught and reported probably did it other times and got away with it but apparently we can’t figure that shit out when it comes to people we hand guns and bullets and pepper spray to.
Instead how do those supposed good well-meaning people react, prominently and aggressively? By going after anyone who dares to document them doing their job. Arrests, harassment, deleted pictures, destroyed equipment, on and one. And again, the supposed good majority lets it go on.
Fuck them. I’m fucking done with it. I don’t know if I just got wise to it or there’s been a change from so many years of the drug war and the terrorism fear or if there’s a new generation of un-professionalism.
Whatever it is, they’ve tilted from my assuming they’re more likely to be well-meaning to my just assuming they’re only out for themselves and I can’t trust them. Because I’m not a cop, and those seem to be the only people the cops are really dedicated to protecting.
Feudalism Now!
The courtiers of the media will continue to be obeisant to their Lords and Ladies of the 1%. They do amuse the nobility so. Bloodsport is another past time of the ruling class. With Iraq coming to a close, why not some domestic blood to wash away the ennui of life in the lone superpower?
The battle over ballots, i.e Voter infringement, winning elections by recount shenanigans and lawsuits, redistricting to ameliorate the concentration of DFH and minorities, will now lead to ballad of the bullet. The 99% needs to learn their place and it will be under the heel of the aristocracy’s troops. Next big play will be a governor calling out the National Guard for security.
Thoughtcrime
And they’re just dying to use this weapon on US citizens exercising their right to peaceably assemble and protest:
http://govpro.com/technology/telecommunications/gov_imp_79144/
Morzer
@singfoom:
I suspect that this lady is Samsarah Morgan:
http://www.facebook.com/samsarah.morgan
Calouste
Someone here naively said that you can’t get away with shooting unarmed protesters in a democratic society. Come on what do you think the US is, Egypt or Tunisia or so?
Bubblegum Tate
@jnfr:
Yeah, that sort of thing is a real problem here. Some protesters have no qualms about trying to co-opt other protests, because hey, if you’re protesting one thing, you may as well protest a bunch of other things, right? When there are as many protesters as we have, it turns clusterfuckish quickly.
swonder
Mayor Quan’s Facebook page is on fire.
http://www.facebook.com/MayorJeanQuan
somegayname
File this under ‘fuck the police’. Related news: Are you a felon who needs a gun in NYC? Just see your friendly NYPD (please wait until they are off duty). 8 NYPD arrested for gun smuggling
soonergrunt
@Feudalism Now!:
That’s a very dangerous game for a governor to play. Only the governor can call out the National Guard, and so is responsible for their actions.
To say nothing of the fact that the National Guard is (these days, after a long bloody history that changed at Kent State) a lot less likely to inflict the kinds of brutality that the OPD did. Guardsmen on the skirmish line won’t have their rifles, but only batons for example. They’ll be supervised at a ratio of 4 to 1. Only Staff Sergeants and above can deploy pyro/RCA, and only on order of a Commissioned Officer, O-3 or above. The Officer will need written authorization from the Governor, through the Field Grade Officers above him.
There’s an audit trail in other words, and there’s big Army and the National Guard Bureau looking over your shoulders, backed up by the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
None of the above is to assert that nothing bad will happen. Just to assert that the kinds of brutality we’ve seen from regular police who don’t have the training, supervision, equipment, or accountability are quite a bit less likely to happen with the National Guard.
somegayname
@sherifffruitfly:
I disagree. Terrorist want to enact some political or social change, and are usually a weaker force waging asymmetrical warfare against the a stronger force. The police are basically the largest gang in america. They are in it purely for money and power, and are the stronger force in ‘civil’ society.
andrewsomething
”Square by square, town by town, country by country, the people have risen up to demand their basic human rights.
(…)
The United States opposes the use of violence and repression against the people of the region. (Applause.)
(…)
The United States supports a set of universal rights. And these rights include free speech, the freedom of peaceful assembly…”
Remarks by the President on the Middle East and North Africa, May 11, 2011.
Wonder if this applies in Oakland?
Judas Escargot
Disgusting.
And notice, cops… for all that, the crowd still stayed peaceful. No riots.
What’s the next excuse?
fasteddie9318
All I can say is, thank the gods that Mayor Jean Quan was on a lobbying trip to Washington, and safely out of the range in which fragments of this provocateur scum’s skull might have struck her, as was no doubt his intention from the start.
Samara Morgan
Looks like Julian is going to be prescient again…he predicted America will become a police state on its way to NLS collapse. :)
did you guys see his new arabic website?
Assange Akhbar!
andrewsomething
I was at the Seattle WTO protests. Some people like to hold it up as an example of protesters turned violent. Some militants like to use it as an example of what a protest should look like. Both seem to not remember how it began.
That morning, I sat on the ground, arms linked, peacefully taking part in an act of civil disobedience. Police officers in riot gear walked up to us with a fire extinguisher sized pepper spray canister and just soaked us. It looked at bit like this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/djbones/125523970/sizes/l/in/set-72057594102343815/
Omnes Omnibus
@Samara Morgan: Read some history.
fasteddie9318
@Samara Morgan:
Assange is the news?
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Judas Escargot:
I think their (cops/TPTB) intentions are to incite the crowds into doing stupid shit so they can unleash the power of their forces on them.
Get them to react to injustice and the law will be more than happy to unleash some more “justice” on them.
Amir Khalid
@Samara Morgan:
This is Malay for “Assange is a newspaper!” Your statement is not accurate.
ETA:
@fasteddie9318:
Fie upon thee, for thou hast scooped me.
Amir Khalid
@andrewsomething:
For better and worse, Obama is a Federal official, the highest-ranking one. It would be difficult and problematic for him to stick his nose into state or local matters.
salacious crumb
hey man, 9/11 happened to us. stop condemning the anointed police, military and fire department.
Morzer
@Amir Khalid:
Akhbar (noun, plural of khabar) is originally the Arabic word for news, often confused by learners with the adjective akbar (superlative of kabiir – big/great). I suspect it came into Malay as a borrowing because most Arabic newspapers have akhbar as part of their title.
Having seen this happen often in introductory Arabic class, it’s amusing to observe the same basic blunder on teh Interwebz.
soonergrunt
@Omnes Omnibus: Um, you DO know who you’re talking to, right?
Litlebritdifrnt2
I am heart sick, the guy manages to get through two deployments to Iraq and ends up being critically injured peacefully protesting in his own land, where he is supposed to be able to peacefully protest. It is his right. He has a right to peacefully protest and some asshole cop shoots him in the fucking head with a rubber bullet and then another asshole cop shoots a flashbang into the people who are trying to help him. What. The. Fuck.
Morzer
@soonergrunt:
Apes don’t read philosophy!
Yes, they do, Otto. They just don’t understand it.
Judas Escargot
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
I agree.
And the crowd, to its credit, didn’t give them the excuse.
Omnes Omnibus
@soonergrunt: Of course. I sometimes just have the quixotic need to do things like that.
Amir Khalid
@Morzer:
Local languages all over the Muslim world have loan words from Arabic. One Malay word for news is khabar, from the same Arabic root as akhbar.
It’s amusing to see m_c, the most ostentatious user of Arabic here, make a mistake like confusing akhbar and akbar.
DFH no.6
@cathyx:
Jay Gould: “I can hire one-half of the working class to kill the other half”.
Many police (not all, of course, but I sadly believe most) are in that first half.
Are now, always have been.
Cops in America are like this everywhere.
Expecting solidarity with them is, sorry to say, a fool’s errand.
Morzer
@Amir Khalid:
Not to go out on too precarious a limb here, but I sometimes suspect m_c’s mouth might be writing checks that her intellect has no way of cashing. I even sometimes suspect she’s ignorant of everything except a couple of anime series and her own inner fantasy world.
(I kind of miss the good old days of wondering just which Arabic plural form was going to screw me over on the test.)
Roy G
This is why it is known as Oscar Grant Square now.
soonergrunt
@Omnes Omnibus:
I thought I heard the swelling of “Impossible Dream” from Man of LaMancha. I thought it was coming from under my desk.
Carry on, then.
Omnes Omnibus
@soonergrunt: Yeah, sorry about that.
soonergrunt
@Omnes Omnibus: Oh, no. Better it come from your aspirations to help the little cudlip than the alternative. My insurance only covers about six psych sessions, and I was worried about audio hallucinations.
Amir Khalid
@Feudalism Now!:
The nym m_c took from Harry Potter, Hermione Granger-Weasley, was not so clever, more an indication of her own vanity. I’d have gone with Sybil Trelawney, after the eccentric Divination teacher whose predictions are almost always wrong.
Chris
From the conservative side, PJMedia’s article covering this can be found here.
Closest thing to a justification: a video showing a bunch of protestors screaming at the cops, and another showing a few objects being thrown in their direction (with practically no reaction from them).
From the comments:
“A few scumbags killed wouldn’t be a bad thing, as long as decent people aren’t harmed. Break some heads. Break some heads.” (A person responds by deploring the fact that if that happens, “they’ll wave the dead bodies around as martyrs for the cause, just like the Muslims do.”)
“We seem to have a consensus here! UP-TWINKLES for brave law enforcement officers who waded into a dangerous mob and did what they had to do to disperse them!”
“I love the smell of tear gas in the morning. Smells like victory.”
“Buncha kids who never got spanked. Too late now.”
“I just sent an e-mail to the mayor’s office thanking them for taking out the trash!!”
“The police should fake some injuries on the line (you know like soccer players) and give them more liason to go out into the crowd and arrest these bozos. It’ll clear them up real quick when they see some repercussions.”
And possibly because I’m a foreign policy nerd, this exchange probably sickened me the most in the entire thread:
“Couldn’t we just give them SF and Oakland, Detroit and say…Martha’s Vineyard…and be done with it? They can live on hippie reservations. Have their own economy where 1% do all the work and the other 99% protest themselves for a living.”
And the response: “You’re describing Gaza. Once America stops giving free stuff to Hippianna, they’ll start screaming “occupation!!!!”.”
russell
kalifornia uber alles.
fuckers.
soonergrunt
This is interesting:
http://www.occupypolice.org/
Right up there with:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/OccupyARMY/163972943696817
and http://www.occupymarines.org
PeakVT
The OPD needs someone like Bill Bratton to come in and give it a mental makeover.
AndoChronic
Isn’t the OPD the same OPD that chased and shot some kid for not having a bus transfer? Something is wrong in their organization’s culture.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@AndoChronic: no, that was the SFPD.
bjacques
@andrewsomething:
I remember this pic very well from the Seattle WTO protest, because of its classic composition.
[ETA] Goya also, too.
colleen
http://www.benzinga.com/news/11/10/2015610/occupy-everything-congress-shall-make-no-law
Robert
You know the protesters were throwing chemicals and paint at the police officers, right? That they were warned to disperse numerous times before one canister was thrown in? That as soon as the police followed through with exactly what they warned would happen, protesters began throwing rocks, bottles, and anything they could grab at the police, right?
Context is important. It’s disgusting that someone got severely hurt at the protest, but had the crowd dispersed and not attacked the police, it wouldn’t have escalated to this point.
Dustin
@Robert:
You have proof, Robert? Or are you just pulling shit out of your ass to play the false-equivalency game to discourage anger at the fact that a two-tour marine was shot in the head and then had a flash grenade thrown on his rescuers? Well fuck that.
The kid that got hurt is from my fucking home town, I’m not gong to stand by while shitheads like you try to excuse a police state.
Chris
@Robert:
Here’s a thought: has anyone considered just letting the guys protest, instead of trying to disperse them?
I mean, there’s been an “Occupy DC” movement camped out in the square outside of my old office for weeks now, and I have yet to hear a single thing about violence or clashes going on at that place. Amazing what’ll happen if you just let people have their say instead of trying to shut them down.
Shinobi
@Robert: Why should we believe that this happened? Where is the evidence? They lied about deploying tear gas, what else did they lie about?
Chris
@Shinobi:
This, too.
Even PJM’s videos couldn’t come up with anything more drastic than “they were throwing paint.” Which, you know, fine – if you want to bill Occupy Oakland for the cost of a couple of laundry cycles, I’ll support that.
Rocks and bottles? Yeah, right.
And exactly how many cops ended up in the ER because of the absolutely brutal treatment they got from the unruly mob?
kindness
Robert is a troll late to the party looks like.
Dustin
@kindness: Most likely, but even trolls deserve to get smacked around sometimes.
Shinobi
@Dustin: I do enjoy a nice game of “Whack a Troll.”
fasteddie9318
@Robert: You’re totally right on this. Do you agree with me that it was this proletarian scum’s plan all along to have some cop shoot a grenade at his head so that he could rain potentially injurious shards of his skull down on the poor, unsuspecting police and, possibly, Mayor Quan herself? Do you think we could push to have this investigated as a possible assassination attempt against the mayor? It’s only by sheer luck that she was in DC at the time and, thus, safely out of range of this agitator’s skull shrapnel.
Herbal Infusion Bagger
When I lived in the UK, I ended up in the middle of two riots and (as an organizer of demonstations) stopped two.
The two riots I was in the middle of were triggered by the Met losing their sh*t and charging a crowd. With horses.
The two riots I stopped I was helped by the local police force (not the Met) knowing when to stay cool and let me, as the demonstration organizer, calm things the f*ck down and get the hotheads to shut up.
I’m convinced, based on that experience, that riots get caused by the police losing their sh*t.
Chris
@Herbal Infusion Bagger:
Yeah, I believe it. I’ve read somewhere that most of the urban riots of the late sixties/early seventies started with acts of police brutality. Somehow I completely believe it.
(Although between Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover, I can well imagine that a tremendous amount of ratfucking may have contributed to that shit too…)