From Democracy Watchdog Action Network a photo of the Boston Police Department using excessive force to intimidate non-violent protestors in last night’s raid in which 141 Occupy Boston protestors were arrested:
If the man were not a police officer this would be assault and battery. Instead the poor woman being assaulted has likely been charged with resisting arrest for getting her throat in the way of the officer’s hand. From the Boston Globe:
Police said the arrest of 141 in the early morning hours {Tuesday, October 11] was the largest mass detention in recent memory, and it heightened tensions between protesters and city officials trying to walk a narrow line. […]
Occupy Boston said in a statement that police had “brutally attacked’’ protesters.
“Today’s reprehensible attack by the Boston Police Department represents a sad and disturbing shift away from dialogue and towards violent repression,’’ the group said on its website.
Philip Anderson, a spokesman for the group, said police threw protesters to the ground and dragged them.
“It got kind of brutal,’’ he said.
Elaine Driscoll, a spokeswoman for the Boston police, said officers “have a right to protect themselves’’ and acted with restraint.
“We believe all our officers were respectful and proportional,’’ she said. The department had not received any complaints. […]
Urszula Masny-Latos, a member of a group that provides legal advice to protesters [Steve’s note: She’s the Executive Director of the National Lawyer’s Guild in Massachusetts, said she was arrested, even though she was wearing a green hat with the words, “legal observer.’’
“Four officers grabbed me and dragged me,’’ she said.
I guess the brutal actions of these “heroic” police officers, sanctioned and no doubt ordered by the Mayor, Thomas Menino, tells you and me that excessive force, brutality and “shock and awe” tactics are the order of the day. Funny how police had no issue people attending Tea Party rallies in which “protestors” spat on US Congressional members and openly carried guns at sites where Democrats spoke, including the President, in 2009 during the height of the health care reform debate.
I guess exercising your first amendment rights to free assembly and free speech (and of course, your second amendment rights) have different parameters depending on whether one is considered a “conservative Patriotic American” or a DFH (Dirty F***ing Hippy).
Imagine of the peaceful protestors in Boston had been carrying “weapons” of any kind, no matter how innocuous (toy guns, e.g.). There would have been dead bodies lying on those streets, not just arrests, in my opinion.
Hey Steven! Going by past memory, will we soon be hearing from official media about “outside agitators” and “
communistAl-Queda sympathizers”?Actually, could the conservatives be right? The “Arab Spring” protesters won only because they owned AK-47’s?
Oh, there will be a ton of lawsuits against the NYPD for sure and now Boston. And I hope the videos are rolling for them all. We’re moving toward a police state for sure. These cops are intimidated by thr sheer numbers.
Here is an interesting question for you. Why have supposedly more liberal cities been more brutal on the Occupy movement? New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Sacramento, and now Boston are the poster children for repression in the US.
In Tulsa and Oklahoma City so far, the authorities are cooperating with the Occupy Wall Street movement. (I’m wanting us to start calling this movement the September 17 or Constitution Day movement.)
I don’t have an answer except that in these cities the mayors are extremely tight with financial interests of the city. And in Boston, the mayor runs a political machine similar to the one that Rahm Emmanuel has inherited in Chicago.
From the picture above it is obvious that this person was targeted for abuse because of the bandana.
The three significant events that must be remembered in addition are (1) the brutalizing of Veterans for Peace, (2) the fact that the police did not respect the American flags that the Veterans for Peace were carrying, (3) the rough arrest at the start of the executive director of the Northeast Office of the National Lawyers Guild, who was acting as a legal observer.
And the illegal (under Massachusetts court order) police order to stop filming officers “carrying out their duties”.
There is a video circulating called “I am not moving”. It is an attack on the hypocrisy of official US statements by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama about the responsibility of the Egyptian, Syrian, and Libyan governments to protect civil liberties compared to the silence in the face of US police brutality. It is, in fact, an attack on American exceptionalism.
And it is not surprising that Russia Today (state-run) and Iranian’s PressTV (also state-run) are so willing to report these stories over and over and to interview “American dissidents”.
Meanwhile, Koch-funded media (just check out Gateway Pundit, for example) are going full-commie, full-muslim, full-terrorist, full dirty hippie, and full-Obama’s secret plan to win the election (or will there even be an election?) in it’s propaganda about the Occupy Wall Street movement. One senses panic in the mighty Wurlitzer.
The difference with the Tea Party is that even when packing heat the Tea Party folks were obeying the local law not committing civil disobedience. Those incidents were in New Hampshire and Arizona–two open carry states.
But the laws that the Occupy Wall Street movement are challenging are park hours ordinances, no-camping restrictions, jaywalking ordinances, loitering (no stopping on sidewalks) ordinances. The very laws by the way that come down on the homeless over and over–even as homeless shelters are closed for “budget reasons”. Even as commercial and office buildings stand vacant with their utilities running. Except empty buildings to be the next battleground as winter approaches. Because the Occupy Wall Street camps have attracted the homeless and a lot of middle class protesters in the camps are understanding homeless issues for the first time.
As we know from the past, it doesn’t take weapons for police to leave the bodies of left-wing demonstrators on the streets. And pepper spray can kill an ashthmatic, tasers can kill, batons can choke. Even the “non-lethal” police armaments are not so non-lethal.
The political tactic is to make the camps seem unsafe and unclean to reduce participation among mainstream people so that the movement can be quickly marginalized and its political message blunted.
The history of Democrats with respect to these movements is not good. Even FDR did not defend labor unions attacked by state home guards. And company goons were regularly treated with impunity by the federal law enforcement system. And the Vietnam era response of Democratic mayors is why Democrats have been in the political desert for 43 years.
Portland PD has been “tolerant”.
I do worry about what happens when they say, “we’re through being nice”.
All it will take is one rock thrown, one window broken and all hell could be let loose on those people who have been non-violent and peaceful.
“Extremely optimistically cautious” is the tone right now.
Why have supposedly more liberal cities been more brutal on the Occupy movement?
Perhaps because the protests have been much larger there?
You’d think the City would be happy that someone is finally doing something on the Greenway.
BTW, “If this wasn’t a police officer, it would be assault and battery,” isn’t a very good way to make your point.
The most responsible, legal, careful handcuffing ever performed by law enforcement would be assault and battery if it wasn’t performed by a police officer.
Fine, assault and battery with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.