Who Do You Believe? NYPD? Or Video Evidence Concerning Cop Pepper Spraying Women?
from the why-videotaping-police-is-important dept
Before I get into the details of this post, I will say that I don’t quite get the purpose of the whole “Occupy Wall Street” protests. I mean, I guess that they’re supposed to be some sort of American version of the Arab Spring protests or the riots in London, but, honestly — like many of these things in the US — they strike me as people protesting for the sake of protesting. I just don’t quite see the point. The folks in the Middle East had real problems with their government. Protesting against a “financial system”? What does that do?
That said, since we’ve been writing so much about law enforcement and videotaping their actions, one story coming out of the ongoing protests is worth looking at in more detail. On Saturday, there were a bunch of arrests, but the story getting a lot of attention was the decision by one officer (according to this blog, his badge says “Bologna”) to walk up to a group of protesting women and spray their eyes, point blank, with pepper spray. You can see the slow motion video, which highlights the officer’s actions:
The Police Department?s chief spokesman, Paul J. Browne, said the police had used the pepper spray ?appropriately.?
?Pepper spray was used once,? he added, ?after individuals confronted officers and tried to prevent them from deploying a mesh barrier ? something that was edited out or otherwise not captured in the video.?
Of course, accounts in that same article from one of the women who was sprayed (who wasn’t arrested) suggests a different story. While admitting there were some “rough” people there, she says that she and the folks around her had done nothing to cause the police to single them out with pepper spray. Furthermore, the folks at USLaw.com have more information including an additional video taken by one of the pepper-sprayed women. While right as the pepper spraying happens the camera is facing away from the action, and there was a lot of screaming and activity a bit earlier, it’s hard to see how anything anyone did in that area provoked the sudden spraying:
Yes, this was a chaotic situation with lots of people yelling and lots of movement. But the evidence from the two videos (and two of the women sprayed) certainly suggests that the police spokesperson is lying in saying that the use here was “appropriate.” I find this interesting not because of anything to do with the protest itself, but because of the way the ability to record and upload videos like this is really able to impact and change the debate. In the past, it would have been the police’s word against the protesters, and lots of people would have simply believed the police. But, as chaotic as the situation may be, law enforcement around the world is going to have to learn that they can’t hide behind false claims of acting appropriately if they didn’t, in fact, act appropriately.
Filed Under: nyc, nypd, pepper spray, police, protests, video evidence
Comments on “Who Do You Believe? NYPD? Or Video Evidence Concerning Cop Pepper Spraying Women?”
The assumption that police are somehow less likely to act inappropriately (and to lie about it) than ordinary citizens needs to be closely examined.
Re: Re:
agreed
Wow
Your first paragraph made me laugh. You are one brainwashed slave.
But yeah, just more of the same out-of-control police and their unconstitutional restraints on free speech.
Re: Wow
You catch more flies with hunny than with off you know 🙂
Re: Wow
Mike is a brainwashed slave because he doesn’t it makes sense for people to gather and protest a capitalist financial system?
You’re right! Down with the capitalist pigdogs, up with the proletariat!!!
Re: Re: Wow
Pro Tip: They’re not protesting a capitalist financial system because we don’t have a capitalist financial system.
Re: Re: Re: Wow
Pro Tip: It would be better to explain what they are protesting than to say “we don’t have a capitalist financial system.” It makes you sound as foolish as these protesters.
Re: Wow
Wait… So is mike a brainwashed slave, or is he reporting on the misconduct of government representatives?
If he’s a brainwashed slave, you might want to think twice about agreeing with anything he says, since it’s probably something his controllers (masters?) want him to say.
Re: Wow
seemed pretty reasonable to me. They are protesting a financial system… but that’s about it. Down with capitalism! … … ok… maybe that’s what some of them were protesting against?
I’ll all against getting rid of capitalism and/or major financial change… but these protesters are about as dumb as the cops that go “umm yea, we had to spray them because… we always tell the truth!”
Re: Re: Wow
damn sorry, it should read “I’ll all FOR getting rid of…”
Re: Re: Wow
Pro Tip: They’re not protesting a capitalist financial system because we don’t have a capitalist financial system.
Re: Re: Re: Wow
Pro Tip: saying Pro Tip makes you sound cool even if you arnt saying anything useful
I record everything
I record everything simply because i want to supplement my memory.
People are losing their jobs and their homes every day because of the financial collapse brought on by shady Wall St. practices. Lord knows Congress isn’t going to do anything about it, so some kids decide to stand up and say something. You don’t get it? Seems like you didn’t bother to try.
Re: Re:
You let too many people tell you how to think. Do a little research for yourself.
The demonstrators at Wall Street are protesting the corruption of the political system with special interest money.
Wall Street is a convenient target because people are outraged about the bailout of the banks, and the fact that it came at the expense of ordinary citizens who are now being told that cuts to social security and medicare will be needed to pay for our country’s past spending.
They could have been more effective at messaging at the protest itself, but occupywallst.org lays it out as “One person, one vote, one dollar.”
In other words, the protesters are trying to help build political will that can overcome the concentrated power of special interests — such as those responsible for the one-sided intellectual property laws that are the constant subject of well-deserved criticism on this blog.
Re: Re:
Agreed. Mike, it seems to me that you failed to understand the reasoning behind the protests.
The world is in a deep crisis because of the abuses of the financial system. And Obama failed miserably in putting an end (via reform and legislation) to those abuses. In fact, if you look closely, he appointed the same individuals that were in Bush govt to the key positions (with some shuffling just to keep the appearances).
Regular folks like us TD readers are paying a price for something we aren’t guilty of.
Buy a toaster and get Bank of America.
Re: Re: Re:
I have to say I was surprised at how easily Mike wrote off this protest, like it was meaningless. The deregulation of the US financial system starting with Reagan up until now, along with the government refusing to regulate derivatives has had a tremendous impact on the rest of the world financially.
All one needs to do to realize the US financial system is broken is look at the distribution of wealth. Over the past 20 years the rich have gotten much richer, and the middle and lower classes have paid the price. They’re worse off than their parents generations were financially.
Blowing off people’s concern of the state of the US financial system is no different than blowing off people’s concern of the whole copyright and patent systems.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Heck, I can’t even think about buying a decent place to live in my city because of all the overpricing generated by the speculation!
These ppl who caused this moved by pure and deep greed should burn in hell.
I’d be all over Wall Street if I were American. I’m still cautious about what’s gonna happen in my country but all I can see are dark times ahead.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
> The deregulation of the US financial system …
> along with the government refusing to regulate
> derivatives has had a tremendous impact on the rest of
> the world financially.
Part of the problem was regulation, like requiring that sellers of mortgage backed securities need to hire the rating agency … idiotic! The free market works just fine, except for two things. First, the US controls interest rates, which means that credit doesn’t respond to market forces. Thank Greenspan for keeping rates low too long and blowing the biggest credit bubble in history. Second, Bush and Obama bailed out banks. WTF. Let them fail. Allowing big corporations to fail teaches them disciple. Bailing them out is called “moral hazard”. Yes, there would have been a lot of pain in the short term. But long term, you’d be better off and the public wouldn’t be on the hook for all this “Quantitative Easing” bullsh!t.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
I can’t agree with this more.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Yes, bailing out the rotten companies was indeed wrong.
I do partially agree with the regulation part too. But you see, we are talking about bad regulation. And how regulation tends to evolve much more slowly than the actual market itself and thus a good regulation now might become a bad regulation tomorrow.
Free market is like an wild animal. If you let it loose it’ll act on instincts (mostly). And it seems to me that the most basic and strong instinct that drives the market today is a human trait, after all the market was created and is managed and used by humans. Incidentally now the only law this market sees is unlimited profit at all costs (including worldwide crisis) and this comes from a very human trait: greed.
Let’s go back in time to the factories before any labor laws were passed. Kids working. 16h-shifts. Near slavery (and if slavery hadn’t been abolished before they’d just use the whip on the ’employees’). What keeps companies today from running like that? Laws, regulation. And in a very minor place you can add public awareness. A company acts under the profit above all law and if they could cut all costs to zero they would.
Now, there’s the laws. Some will say that laws take away freedoms. But why does any human being follow a determined set of laws? The answer is because they collectively agree with those laws. You see COLLECTIVE. Where do you see the PEOPLE in the process concerning the financial market? NOWHERE. The US are controlled by COMPANIES, by the LOBBY.
And in the end, companies were bailed while ppl got bankrupt and CEO’s and high profile financial personalities gained millions from TAXPAYING MONEY. Free market? A fable. It is regulated. But it’s regulated towards the gain of a few. That’s the issue.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Seriously this. How anyone could look at federally control interests rates, bank bailouts, and “Quantitative Easing” and call that ‘Capitalism’ is beyond belief.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
could you find me a working, sustainable, and reasonably fair* capitalist system, current or past?
Now of course i can’t find you a working marxis or communistic one, in fact i can hardly find a working one at all. They all seem to have humans in them and those damn humans are greedy, and make mistakes.
Look sure capitalism works on paper, but since we are not starting from nothing, how do you propose we insure Microsoft, Cleveland cliffs, IBM, Big tobacco, etc do not just decide to pillage the “common person” as they see fit. now remember, any regulation of any industry makes it not “capitalism”. good by EPA, child labor laws, OSHA, minimum wage, speed limits(those effect shipping times, as do stop lights and signs), basically everything. I for one, do not want to live in that world.
*fair: reasonably small spread between richest and poorest with all making enough to live (when they apply themselves to the business of doing that, no this does not mean a new BMW 3 series every year, but the ability to buy a 5 year old toyota for example) and having the ability to gain/lose money directly from their actions.
Re: Re: Re:4 You Idiot
If people like you would just wake up and smell the fucking coffee then we could ‘fix’ our capitalist system in a month. So the real problems are LAZINESS and IGNORANCE, a la: YOU.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
And do you think ANY system would survive w/o some sort of regulation? My answer is NO. What the fuck is the point of your arguement about capitalism anyway? What the hell better idea do you have? Are you SURE that it is the root of our problems. It sounds like you are, but your DEAD wrong.
Do your fucking homework.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
what?, my under standing of the fundamental reason for regulation is to make sure companies stay liquid and don’t make up money they don’t have, the reason that the the banking and real estate went belly up is because they chipped away at regulations until they could deal with imaginary money and not real money. the government needs to make sure that these companies are staying fairly liquid the problem is cyclic though where large corps chip away at regulations through lobbiny until they are allowed to do what they want then they get greedy and overreach then things fail and they have to get bailed out by the government that then imposes increased regulation acting like they have fixed the problem which then can be ignored while lobbing groups chip away at the regulation.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
Imaginary money and not real money…..
I thought you were using Fiat money – Basically money which is money because we all say it is.
and that problem with printing more money – well that’s been happening – just look up fractional reserve banking to understand how.
http://videosift.com/video/Fiat-Money-Explained-in-3-minutes
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
second of all Greenspan has been out of office for years and do you notice where the interest rates have stayed all through the depression: at record lows, because no one has the balls to raise it. rates right now are not beating expected inflation meaning we are giving money away.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
“Part of the problem was regulation”
Fix’d: “Part of the problem was deregulation, selective enforcement, and purposeful over-regulation”
I almost totally agree with you, but there are sooooo many rediculous regulations, but these were put in place by corrupt people, to muddy the water in the very least. Make us feel like idiots for regulating companies, kinda like a false flag against the idea of regulation. Plus many of these things that seem foolish may be ingenious tools to the “controllers”.
Keep a close eye on these fuckers (Feds, etc.), with everything going to shit, they seem like idiots, but they’re NOT, and that is just another piece of the puzzle.
Re: Re:
None of this has anything at all to do with the actual discussion, though. How do you feel about the police so nonchalantly walking up and pepper spraying people who are doing nothing wrong?
Speaking of good news from law enforcement. Mike seems to have overlooked the news that the founder (and apparent snitchboy) of Nijavideo has pled guilty in advance of his accomplices trial:
From Torrentfreak:
“Little over a year after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement started ?Operation In Our Sites,? the authorities have announced their first conviction. Yesterday, the first site owner targeted by the operation pleaded guilty. The 23-year old Matthew Smith, admitted to conspiracy and criminal copyright infringement charges for his role in the video streaming and download site NinjaVideo.
At the end of June last year, nine sites connected to movie streaming were targeted by the U.S. government, including NinjaVideo.net, one of the Internet?s most prominent video streaming sites.
It was the first round in the ongoing ?Operation in Our Sites? through which more than 100 domain names have been seized to date.
In NinjaVideo?s case, the authorities not only seized the site?s domain names, but also launched a full-fledged criminal investigation into the people involved.
As a result, five people connected to the movie streaming site were indicted by a federal grand jury two weeks ago. All are suspected of conspiracy and several copyright-related offenses. One of the five, 23-year old Matthew Smith, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and criminal copyright infringement yesterday.
The guilty plea results in an automatic conviction and the court documents further reveal that Smith has waived his right to appeal.
The NinjaVideo founder plead guilty to two of the six counts, including conspiring with the other defendants to willfully infringe the rights of third parties for profit. Smith admitted that the site generated more than $500,000 from advertising and donations during the two-year period the site was active.
Four of the five criminal copyright charges were dismissed by the court; these all referred to specific movie titles (2012, Iron Man 2, Avatar and The A-Team). Smith did, however, plead guilty to the more general copyright infringement charges below, as stated in the original indictment.
?[Smith] Did willfully, and for purposes of private financial gain, infringe the copyrights of copyrighted works, that is, motion pictures, television programs, and software, by the reproduction and distribution over the Internet, during a 180-day period, of ten or more copies of one or more copyrighted works which had a total retail value of more than $2,500.?
The maximum penalty for both counts Smith plead guilty to is five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. He will be sentenced in December, and considering his cooperative stance it seems unlikely that he will receive maximum punishment.
The four other NinjaVideo defendants, including co-founder Hana Beshara, are scheduled for a jury trial February next year.”
Re: Re:
There is a link at the top of the page marked “Submit a Story”.
Re: Re:
How is law enforcement pepper spraying an unarmed woman to be considered “good news”?
Re: Re: Re:
Because it’s easier to bury “Bad news” beneath it.
Re: Re:
That a twenty something had their life ruined is good news to you reveals a lot about your character. It’s a tragic story no matter which ‘side’ you were rooting for and there’s really no other way to slice it. People that cheer when someone’s life is ruined over so small a thing are pathetic.
Re: Re: Re:
In a small way, I can almost see how this isn’t off-topic. I mean, think about it; the kid who plead guilty made less than a million dollars, he didn’t hurt anyone, and now he’ll be broke after paying substantial fines. In contrast, the financial thieves like Angelo Mozilo will never see the inside of a prison cell, despite having millions left over after paying his SEC “fine”.
It’s a two-tier system of justice. The harshest penalties for insignificant infractions on the part of the rabble, while reserving only the slightest slap-on-the-wrist for the elite in spite of ruining countless lives.
Re: Re:
If you think that’s good news from law enforcement, wait till you hear this: that annoying blogger called Anne Frank has finally been caught! Now there’s a true victory for the law!
/sarc
Re: Re:
“criminal” copyright infringment…retarded. Copyright infringement is a civil offense and should remain that way. The only reason it’s “criminal” is because of that corruption in government you speak of.
Re: Re:
I agree with you on this one: Mike ignores these sorts of stories, because they don’t fit his agenda.
Hotfile getting reamed out and ordered to turn over everything but their source code? Not a peep. This story? Nada.
Mike doesn’t want to admit that the law is now starting to catch up to infringing activities, and that the WWW (wild wild west) of copyright infringement is getting a serious beat down.
Re: Re: Re:
You get a cookie for your trolling. Feeling better?
Re: Re: Re:
You people are still missing the boat on the whole thing aren’t you.
Shame.
Someday, you will be sitting in a rest home, and go … DOH! That’s what they meant! By then it will be too late. The industry will have moved on without you.
Re: Re: Re:
Routine discovery is ‘reamed out’ now?
Police are scum
Why did none of the other police stop him. I imagine if one of the protesters took out a can of mace and started spraying they’d be locked up. So why are the police allowed to do this?
Re: Police are scum
They all kinda looked around in confusion.. Does that help?
Re: Re: Police are scum
It doesn’t when they’re there to protect and serve, yet the police are the ones doling out the punishment.
Re: Police are scum
I also noticed not a single one got attention when they fell to their knees. Don’t know about you, but I have been pepper sprayed before (Some locals thought it would be funny to spray some into a fan at a party we kicked them out of). It can cause serious injury. Not a single cop checked on them
Re: Re: Police are scum
Many police departments are required (by regulation, if not actual law) to use their equipment properly, as the manufacturer directs.
There was an interesting blurb on the first generation of police pepper spray dispensers, urging the user not to use pepper spray unless emergency medical treatment could be supplied within five minutes of exposure, lest permanent injury result. Pepper spray was always intended to shock and disrupt an unruly crowd, not for use as a pain compliance tool. The idea being that nobody will be resisting much, if at all, so police would then move in, secure people, and begin providing medical treatment to those who needed it.
Those warning labels are long gone, police have stronger formulations of pepper available now than they did then, and it’s routine to give medical treatment hours after exposure, or not at all. Great bunch of people, eh?
Re: Police are scum
I probably would have reacted the same way as they did, and I’m not exactly a jack-booted thug. If your lieutenant stepped up and started pepper spraying someone, you’d be confused maybe, but if you didn’t see exactly what happened you would probably assume your lieutenant had a good reason. Even if you had your doubts, you discuss mistakes back at the station house, not while you’re performing crowd-control.
I don’t agree that the use of pepper spray was appropriate, but I also understand why the police didn’t physically restrain a superior officer.
Re: Re: Police are scum
If he had, instead, drawn his sidearm and fired into the crowd, would your reaction be the same?
Attempted murder is a more serious crime than assault & battery, true. But both are crimes.
It is very similar to the Arab Spring in Egpyt, which was inflamed by a man protesting economic corruption who received heavy handed treatment from the police.
nonsense
re: your first paragraph…if you do not understand what is happening you should educate yourself. they will not stop, they will grow, and they will get what they so desperately want, need, and are entitled to.
Re: nonsense
Just what, exactly, are they “entitled to?”
Re: Re: nonsense
How about equal treatment under the law?
How about the very rich paying their share of the Tax Burden?
Did you know that the top 5 percent of income earners pay more in taxes than the bottom 95 percent of the pay scale?
Sounds awful unless you happen to know that the top 5 percent also controlled 60 percent of this nation’s wealth (and most likely significantly more today, maybe as much as 70 percent).
It gets even worse when you realize that the bottom 95 percent is also paying their own way in life, i.e. they are responsible for the day to day expenses out of their own pocket for 95 percent of the population. The top 5 percent, with most of the wealth, pays for themselves, 5 percent of the population.
So what is the common man entitled to? Well, they are entitled to a reasonable opportunity to succeed and better themselves with the resources of this country. Access to college, access to capital, access to opportunities. The benefits of the efforts of ALL the people should not be concentrated in the hands of a privileged few.
Re: Re: Re: nonsense
You seem to claim that the rich somehow aren’t paying their way, despite acknowledging that the top 5% pay more than the bottom 95%???
Why does the proportion of wealth controlled have anything to do with the “fair” proportion of the tax burden?
As people’s weath increase (ie they earn money) they are taxed on that increase – through income tax, capital gains tax and even inheritance tax. Once they have the wealth, it has already been taxed. Why is it fair for the government to then come back and ask to tax those funds again?
Also, you should realise that the bottom 95% are not paying their own way in life, they are being subsidised by the top 5%. Despite the top 5% contributing over 50% of government tax income by your own acknowledgement, they will use far less than 50% of government expenditure. Therefore the lower 95% gets the advantage of a cheaper police force etc than if half the bill wasn’t being paid for them.
Re: Re: Re:2 nonsense
I would agree that Paul didn’t do a great job outlining his points … but, it is very important for people to notice the wealth shift in this country.
The concentration of wealth to a small portion of the population is one of the few historical indicators of impending societal collapse.
As people’s weath increase (ie they earn money) they are taxed on that increase – through income tax, capital gains tax and even inheritance tax. Once they have the wealth, it has already been taxed. Why is it fair for the government to then come back and ask to tax those funds again?
I think you point out one of the biggest sources of frustration. Most people in the middle class pay a tax burden of somewhere between 35 and 45% of their income (between income taxes, payroll taxes, sales tax etc.) Wealthy people typically pay a tax burden between 18 and 25% of their income. This is primarily due to the low capital gains tax and low corporate tax rate (expenses are filtered through a “holding company” instead of being paid for directly).
There will always be rich and poor (even if we abolish money, some people will get more privileges, opportunities, etc.) but every once in a while the poor rise up against the rich (when the disparity becomes too great.) This could be the first signs of revolution … or it could turn out to be nothing.
Re: Re: Re:3 nonsense
Yes, I think great disparity in wealth tends to be a good indicator of pre-revolution. Will have to wait and see whether it’s correlation or causation.
Re: Re: Re:2 nonsense
“You seem to claim that the rich somehow aren’t paying their way, despite acknowledging that the top 5% pay more than the bottom 95%???”
i LIKE YOUR STATEMENT…and would like to answer..
BECAUSE those top 5% are taking home, 10 times more then the WHOLE bottom 95%, and then..
NOT paying into the system..Social sec, and others parts of the gov REQUIRED of the lower 95%
AND they are paying
Re: Re: nonsense
Just what, exactly, are they “entitled to?”
How about equal representation within the law?
Not just judicial advocates, but a political arena that hasn’t been dominated by campaign funds supplied by those who can afford to push an agenda. In a time of economic recession when individuals can barely afford to donate $10, the two major parties are hosting fund raising dinners that cost thousands to tens-of-thousands of dollars per person. The media keeps a tally of which campaigner has raised so much money in the same way that sports commentators report on the previous night’s big game.
How about the right to work a well paying job?
With the Citizen’s United decision, corporations are now free to unlimited campaign spending. Those with money can push their personal views ahead of the rest of us with company funds. They are now allowed to spend millions in corporate finances which could go towards employee paychecks, safety measures, medical insurance, or better product materials for goods and services. And while the top CEOs are getting bonuses in the millions of dollars, their companies are reducing their local workforce by thousands.
Maybe they’re entitled to equal representation under the law?
Those with vast amounts of money to spend lobby local and national governments to pass laws which benefit their businesses at the expense of the citizenry. Everything from local water rights to health care has been skewed in legality towards larger corporate benefit. Companies like Coca-Cola and Pepsi Co. have been accused of tapping into reserves and locking up fresh water, keeping it from the those living downstream and raising costs to the people. And has been discussed on this very site, issues in intellectual property from patents to copyright have stifled innovation in several areas of medicine and technology. With regulatory capture and large financial donations, companies are allowed to make their own laws that the rest of us are bound to to follow.
What do we have left with which to fight? Townships can pass local ordnance to counter land grabs by large businesses, or declare “free” zones which can only serve local communities (and bring expensive lawsuits in retaliation), and we can protest in hopes to bring about a change that restores some sort of equilibrium between those with means, and those without.
Re: Re: Re: nonsense
Since when do people have a *right* to a well paying job?
It is not the government’s place to provide jobs, or even ensure everyone has one and that it is well pais. It is the private sector’s place to do that – the government is there to provide governance in how that is run.
Granted it is best for the country, and therefore a goal of the government, for unemployment to be low and for as few people as possible to be below the poverty line – but that in no way translates into a right to a well paid job.
Re: Re: Re:2 nonsense
Our forebearers fought for that right during the Industrial Revolution and beyond. Workers’ rights to fair wages, reasonable hours, and child labor laws to name a few.
It might not be the government’s job to provide work for everyone, but when the government and businesses are so entangled, how can you tell the difference? Kickbacks, regulatory capture, campaign endorsements, revolving-door lobbyists. Industry insiders who hold civilian jobs one year, and federal oversight jobs the next.
You are correct that it is in the government’s best interest that businesses that operate within its borders do what they can to help support the communities within. It’s a long-term solution that must be continually maintained.
Re: Re: Re:3 nonsense
I think I was misinterpreting the right to work a well paid job, if so I apologise.
In the contract between employer and employee there is a disparity of resources so the employee generally needs protection. As such I agree that part of the government’s role is to ensure that wages are fair, hours are reasonable etc – but not necessarily to provide those jobs, only to provide the circumstances that the private sector is able to create the jobs.
Re: Re: Re:2 nonsense
Our country’s based on the ideas that everyone is entitled to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. Without a job you won’t be able to have a roof over your head or food to eat. Those are kinda prerequisites to life. You’ll notice that the quote does not say pursuit of life or liberty, only of happiness. Being happy isn’t a right (only pursuing happiness is), but being alive most definitely is a right. So yes, having a well paying job, which is defined as one that covers the basic necessities to ensure life IS a right in the US.
Or at least it’s supposed to be, it’s not working out that way.
NYPD is full of under-educated asshats on power trips. Why is this news? Did we not know that the police constantly abuse their power before this? Those girls should consider themselves lucky that it was a can of mace, and not a full clip of 9mm.
Re: Re:
I think it’s news because a police officer sprayed mace into the eyes of random bystanders for no reason and walked off like a crazy person. I don’t think everyone is as smart and all-knowing as you so a lot people consider police corruption newsworthy.
Re: Re:
Go read some peer-reviewed studies. Police consistently score higher marks than the average person on aptitude and intelligence tests, and have for a long time. All your doing is spreading negative, uneducated stereotypes.
Re: Re: Re:
Actually, until the police step up and take responsibility for the actions of the few bad apples, remove them from the force, and move aggressively to deal with situations where police are proven to have used excessive force, lied to protect themselves, etc. they SHOULD be criticized, and we as the public SHOULD act to eliminate leaders that refuse to enforce common sense standards of conduct.
Re: Re: Re:
…browsed trough my memory and found this link… I don’t find it bad or good, but I do find it funny and newsworthy.
Revolution
Periodic revolution, ?at least once every 20 years,? was ?a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.?
-Thomas Jefferson
A revolution may just be gearing up.
This video just reminds me that the US exists in Police State currently. Martial Law isn’t far away.
The folks in the Middle East had real problems with their government. Protesting against a “financial system”? What does that do?
They’re not just protesting a “financial system,” but the preferential treatment that this financial system is getting at the hands of the Government. I’d say that preferential treatment causes real problems.
Regardless, thanks for covering this. The mainstream media generally doesn’t cover the mistreatment of protesters.
Re: This is the shortest, most succinct explanation
Thanks Karl!
Re: :-]
Ah, you’ve beaten me to commenting on that. Thanks.
Also, to reiterate for Mike;
I suspect the protesters have real problems with their government too.
Were I able to afford the time off of work and the ride to New York *I* would be there with them.
It frustrates the people with the money and power.
We have protests, walks, marches, gatherings and the political powers that be do everything they can to ignore them. It does not matter if you do it in the heart of DC they somehow manage to miss it.
By taking the protest to those that people feel, quite possibly rightly, who are responsible for much of the misery in this country they are making a point.
We can reach into your domain and cause you difficulty.
The apparent overreaction by the police to a peaceful protest seems to highlight what is wrong in the country. The “people” are not important enough to be listened to or considered when there is a threat to the top monied interests. The protests have been going on for days, and only when the Youtube coverage shows that peaceful people are being abused in the street does it get any mention in the media (most of which is backed by those monied interests.) And some of the coverage is designed to show the protestors as somehow deserving of the treatment they are getting, and showing the police as the victims of these out of control protestors.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2011/09/occupy-wall-street-protests-turn-violent-video-shows-police-macing-women/
The comment page is filled with people pointing out how misleading the headline is and demanding it be fixed. The protesters are not being violent, the police are.
The police in this situation are overreacting and we see the standard response within the police, they close ranks to protect someone who has done something obviously wrong. That they must support each other and present a unified front even when they are out of control.
New York is a good example of what it wrong with this country, they have spent over 3 billion on their counter-terrorism plans and have the ability to take down an aircraft on their own. They are hyperprepared for the outside attack, and seem woefully unprepared to deal with a simple protest by the people. They have allegedly tried to stop the streaming of footage from the protest so they can claim that the footage being shot by people is missing things and is edited to show them in a bad light. The footage of the woman being pepper sprayed point blank is just the tip of the iceberg, the way the officer responsible quickly leaves the scene adds to the feeling he did something he does not want to explain. Many of the “attacks” on the protesters seems to be sourced to the white shirted officers, but I am unsure what that denotes in their system. This seems to be officers who seem to take extra offense that people dare to challenge their authority and then take those frustrations out on the protesters.
Social media helped create this protest, and social media is covering it. How the NYPD thinks they can spin control raw footage is beyond me. As these things continue it will become much more clear exactly how much of a blind eye they are willing to turn to protesters being put down for causing inconvenience.
When there were the lunch counter sit ins, you only had the police version and the version from the people many of the police attacked. Eventually people decided maybe the police were being inaccurate in their descriptions and were not upholding the law as much as their own prejudices. Now we can see in living shakycam color the out of control response some officers are having, and no amount of explaining should make this seem right to anyone.
Re: Re:
That! I’m not American and the Americans that talk to me voice exactly what you just said. The Govt and the mainstream media refuse to listen to them, give proper coverage and solve their problem.
And when coverage is given it is distorted. Any1 seen the Israeli youngsters protesting against the real state speculation? I bet most haven’t.
Ppl are fed up. Plain and simple.
Re: Re:
From what I understand White Shirts are detectives, a slightly higher rank of goon/thug.
As a long time reader and lover of this blog Mike’s take on the protest confuses the shit outa me.
Everyday Mike talks about the injustice of police, out of control copyright, regulatory capture, and general government corruption.
Yet when people finally do something about it he gives the same flippant response as the suits sipping champagne as they watch one of the marches from the first day of the protest, ‘lol look at those hippies’ its not hippies, if you did your research you would see people from all walks of life and political background are gathering by the thousands in new york and its only growing…
i thought we told you to expect us?
Re: Re:
Careful, TAC. The U.S Marshals are watching your dissenting language.
Re: Re: Re:
I’m okay with that, it’ll be a bitch to pick me out of the line up of people in Guy Fawkes masks.
Re: Re:
I really want to joke about the fact that your icon is a guy Fawkes mask, butni agree too much.
Rich kid Mike
Mike, I love you, really I do, but you really come across as one of these Silicon Valley, Hollywood rich kids, having a really bad time when they’re Amazon orders do not come in fast enough.
One day you’ll you understand and when you do, this website will improve.
By the way, this protest is already in its second week.
Re: Rich kid Mike
Trolling +1. Awesome job AC.
Re: Re: Rich kid Mike
I don’t “me understand” this troll!
Re: Re: Re: Rich kid Mike
Oh boy.. classy, going after a typo. How crude… umm, Crade of you.
Re: Re: Re:2 Rich kid Mike
just trolling the troll 🙂 Of course I make typos all the time that are much worse. The actual comment I didn’t really think needed to be addressed.
Why..
would police need a reason to just pepper spray people? The police are not on your side – if they think you are not being appropriately submissive you get sprayed or tased.
And complaining to the NYPD isn’t going to work – they will ALWAYS back up their cops. “Internal Affairs” exists to show that cops did the appropriate thing, NOT to see if cops did anything wrong.
Just avoid cops and you will be far safer.
Re: Why..
In this situation, you can’t. They were sent specifically to harry the protestors. I don’t know the exact tactics brought on by the protest, but if it’s being “sourced” to the white shirts as That Anonymous Coward claims, then this is what we know:
They are deputies and higher ups
Highly doubtful if it’s Lieutenants doing the actual dirty work, since they are the ones that oversee an entire operation.
Other than that, TAC has a better write up on this. But avoiding the cops? Won’t happen.
Re: Re: Why..
Awww shucks….
And if Internal Affairs does not want to sacrifice a few of the bad actors, there are other powers to appeal to.
While we still are allowed to have some, your civil rights are still given some lip service, you would have an easy time proving violations of your civil rights and extracting justice from the city in another way.
Re: Why..
Just avoid cops and you will be far safer.
Counter-attack is certainly an option as well. You protest, they start soaking people down with mace / pepper spray / water cannons, you start launching RC planes with home-made explosives.
Fuck them. “Community control” of the police occurs when there’s a shotgun poking in their direction.
Re: Re: Why..
Escalation of force is a bad idea, particularly when dealing with a police force so well-armed, they have their own anti-aircraft weaponry.
But I wonder what the police response would be, if that particular white shirt were walking down a street, and suddenly someone stuck their arm out and hosed him down real good with mil-spec pepper spray?
Or if someone were to get some of the more interesting pepper powder available in spice shops these days, put it into water balloons, and threw it off building roofs into the police staging areas?
None of it would be any greater use of force than police are already using, arbitrarily, on people whose actions don’t warrant such a level of force. But I bet they’d start SCREAMING about “domestic terrorism” the instant someone started using their own tactics and weaponry against them.
no clue what subject to use
well I wonder when the lawsuits for false imprisonment and police brutality/harassment/and whatever else the lawyers guild might think up will happen :-). my personal opinion is that the police/government will lose out on this 1.
Civility and the First Amendment...
There are big issues here from those protesting and from those trying to keep order during a lawful protest. But I am going to ignore them because I want to bring up something lost in the debacle.
Civility. In this age when everyone is viewed by a police as a threat and everyone viewing the police as out of control. We have lost a basic level of civility and decency for each other. Why should I view it as my job to forcibly move someone or pepper spray them when they don’t move fast enough? It’s take less effort to simply say please you need to move here or there so that we can keep order than it does to forcibly move them or drag them.
I know civility is a quaint and archaic behavior but when we act with even the most basic level of it we all are better off for having done so.
Think about, Civility. Simple concept but if everyone involved on both sides of the protests (this one and others) showed a bit more of it would it not be just simply better for everyone?
Re: Civility and the First Amendment...
If the protesters simply moved to the areas the police wanted them to be in, they would have ended up on the other side of the Hudson.
Re: Re: Civility and the First Amendment...
True, but civility does not mean acquiescence.
Just saying to the police we are here lawfully and therefore your attempt to move me from this public place puts you in to a place of committing an act that is illegal. Please reassess your actions as I do not want you to break the law.
Re: Civility and the First Amendment...
It might work, but then again the girl who was pepper sprayed (or her companion shaky cam is shaky) ask the officer where do you want us to go? Into the garage? and then they get pepper sprayed. The question was polite, not screamed, and not something to set them off.
Now from the footage from the camera leading up to that event, they yanked someone out of the crowd, the crowd chanted shame, the person they pulled out seems to have possibly gotten free or someone else is then thrown to the ground (it is hard to tell). They move in and go after someone else, more chanting of shame, the question, then the pepper spray.
This was a cop out of control, he removes himself from the scene after having his outburst for feeling put upon. This is not the act of an officer doing his job, this was someone who lost control and then taking off before anyone could catch his name.
There is some civility happening, but there are more people who feel challenged and civility is the first thing to be thrown under the bus. The situations then grow and expand out of anyones control.
Re: Re: Civility and the First Amendment...
Makes one wonder, how many of the ‘violent riots’ out there started peaceful and would have ended that way if the police didn’t go pepper like this “””””fine””””” officer??
Re: Re: Re: Civility and the First Amendment...
Almost every so-called riot in Seattle goes that way.
About 99% of all the people who assemble to protest do so peacefully. There’s a bunch of violent anarchist types who, as a form of recreation, use protests as cover for smashing everything they can find, but the group is well known to both police and protest organizers, and nobody likes them.
Every single case of a protest becoming a “riot” we’ve had here in Seattle, the riot didn’t break out among the protestors. The police rioted, every single time.
There’s a point where the frustration inherent in dealing with a mass of people who are uncooperative just gets to enough of the local cops, that they start misbehaving en masse. The resulting riot is usually in the form of the police going nuts (luckily while armed for crowd control, not lethal force) and attacking the crowd. The riot is always blamed on the protestors, but without exception, every protest-related riot in the past 20+ years was initiated by police losing it.
Re: Re: Re:2 Civility and the First Amendment...
That. You can replace Seattle with almost any city and it won’t be too far from the truth. I’ve seen a picture of a police officer spraying shitloads of pepper spray on a student in Brazil. They were protesting peacefully against abusive increases of public transportation prices.
I mean, when the police stop working to maintain law and order and act like some wild thug then there is something wrong…
Re: Re: Civility and the First Amendment...
According to The Guardian, Anonymous has already doxed him.
simply put on police brutality, they should be tried as traitors since they swore to protect the people and defend the constitution and have knowingly broken that vow!
Re: Re:
Treason is a bit of a stretch, but a charge of “conduct unbecoming” applies to police as much as it does to the military.
I think this one is a pretty simple story to figure out.
Mike Masnick wasn’t there, and is giving us the “fourth hand” report of what happened. Like any fourth hand report, it absolutely lacks balance, information, or scale.
It is sort of the ultimate on “internet reporting”, because there is no attempt to look at what all is going on, only looking at a single act in abstraction and trying to say “good or bad”.
Congrats Mike, you have proven yourself to be willing to run any story just for views.
Re: Re:
First I will defend Mike. I have been reading Techdirt for over 8 years and Mike never runs a story for just for the views.
Second I will say that I am baffled by Mike’s inability to understand the premise of the protests, whether or not you agree with them.
There is always going to be a segment of the population who shows up to protests for the very purpose of exposing police brutality and dishonesty and violations of the constitution where is regards the State’s response to peaceful protests.
These people show up, with cameras in hand. They know there is a segment of the police that will always use physical force to disrupt the protesters. They are also there to expose the police coverups that always occur at these events.
Re: Re:
Why not try this thought on for size?
“The people that have been with the protest since the beginning have been recording the police and their responses with no provocation whatsoever”
Re: Re:
It’s a long-standing tradition here in Seattle, to dress up as what you’re protesting about. I’ve often wondered how it would work out, to show up at a protest in a mockup of what a riot cop wears, but color reversed? Big bold text across it saying PROTESTOR where the riot cop has POLICE. Perhaps a backpack, with a pole-mounted sign proclaiming “MEDIC” too?
Such a suit, properly constructed, would make the wearer almost completely invulnerable to every single crowd control weapon currently in the police arsenal, with the exception (obviously) of water cannons.
Just having half a dozen people in what looks like snow-white riot armor, armed with flowers in place of batons, labeled PROTESTOR and MEDIC, would tend to psychologically mess with the jack-booted thug types.
Having a guy who just stands there (with cameras rolling, mind you) as a cop beats him with a riot baton, completely impervious to the impacts is a powerful image…
I believe the people this time.
https://www.commondreams.org/further/2011/09/26-1
They get some background on the officer who pepper sprayed.
http://pastebin.com/nC4f5uca
Anonymous Doxed him.
Notice the civil rights violation case filed against him previously.
Its nice that this is the “appropriate” way to respond to protestors, to pepper spray them and flee hoping to get away with it with no witnesses.
And the trust in the police erodes more… and no one seems to know why.
Re: Re:
Oh the bemusement…
http://www.thevillager.com/villager_113/afteryearsoftrouble.html
Manhattan South Task Force, the unit that responds to special situations like demonstrations and received the full appointment in May the following year.
So all of his special training and being in charge of handling demonstrations taught him to pepper spray and run away?
This could have been you Mike
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2LmXXvCE_M
American version of London?
I guess that they’re supposed to be some sort of American version of … the riots in London, but, honestly — like many of these things in the US — they strike me as people protesting for the sake of protesting.
Protesting for the sake of protesting? Sounds exactly like the riots in London (and other English cities). A lot of the people here were rioting for the sake of it – a chance to have some fun and nick a TV without facing the consequences. No higher motives there.
If the protesters really wanted to send a message, they wouldn’t just stand on Wall Street?they’d destroy it. Literally. They’d level every last financial building there.
Or Anonymous should hack into these organizations’ mainframes and destroy them, after getting all their files and records and uploading them to sites all across the net for all to see.
Re: Re:
Except everytime Anonymous or AntiSec followers do this sort of thing something magical happens.
The media waves their hand and points out how sad this event was for the poor victim of the hack. (Sony Hack #1-6)
They distract people with how what has happened will cause all of these problems for “regular people”. (Pick a hack any hack.)
That these evil hackers are out to get them, after all Anonymous has been compared to terrorists, and they use the same phrasing about how Anonymous members are coming to cause more trouble and disrupt their lives. (Commentary on BART protest.)
Truth, Justice, the American way mean NOTHING if it disrupts American Idol.
People calling for the hackers to be executed because a gaming network was down.
People bitching about having to change all of their passwords:
-blithely ignoring the problem with using the same password everywhere.
-ignoring the “hack” was not skill or talent, and it is very likely they were not the first ones into the system filled with data with no protection.
People bitching about others daring to protest the right to protest and free speech issues, because it might make them late for dinner.
People protesting the jack booted thuggery we use on those who dare to express any dissension to the actions of those who are supposed to protect and serve.
It might be overused to being trite but the quote rings true.
“People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.”
The problem is we’ve been fed a diet of me first, and have no problem seeing people “less” than us being crushed underfoot because it means we are better than them. They fail to understand when those at the bottom are crushed out, you move one step closer to the bottom.
Sometimes the people we fear the most are those trying to wake us up to the world, we cling to what they want us to think is important and ignore all that is wrong around us.
A protester was pepper sprayed at point blank range, and as the media cycles they will find a way to make it her fault for daring to speak out. She was just causing trouble, there is no issue with the rich and powerful abusing the system on the backs of the common people. The financial industry matters more than any of those silly “rights” we let the common people believe they have.
I believe this is not the America I once knew. I am very discouraged.
File the complaint if you don't agree - I did!
Following the links on the commondreams.org website I filed a complaint with both the Mayor’s office and the Police Department. My complaint read:
Deputy Inspector Bologna should be investigated and possibly prosecuted for his abuse of power recently. The Police Department?s chief spokesman, Paul J. Browne, said the police had used the pepper spray ?appropriately.? This is the “appropriate” way to respond to protestors, to pepper spray them and flee hoping to get away with it with no witnesses? Please see that those who are there to protect and serve the public are not the ones the public needs protection from!
I love TD but this place is only a sounding board – take some action if you want to see change. If you just want to complain that nothing will ever be done…you will probably be right since you chose NOT to take action. Nice self fulfilling prophecy, nice! NOT!
Re: File the complaint if you don't agree - I did!
On the bright side, it was Inspector Baloney, not Inspector Callahan.
Protesting the financial system makes solid sense.
The financial system and the fact that we use money is directly to blame for almost all the worlds ills. No, it’s not “human nature” or anything nebulous like that – it is a system that’s basically still feudalism with rulers and peons, a system that’s basically predicated on having some people who live well – at the expense of others who live poorly or not at all. It’s one thing if that sort of thing is necessary due to severe resource shortages or needing to force a major segment of the population into servitude just to keep the wheels of progress turning, but we’ve long since passed any such need. If we abandoned this nasty trap we call a “financial system” we could automate, use science and reason and thus provide every human being with all their needs and a lot of their wants – without any sort of need to slave away or “earn it”.
That said, the protests aren’t (unfortunately) so clear sighted, they are merely protesting the vast systematic abuses of the current system that has speeded up the coming of the second great depression. It was inevitable eventually, but it’s here early due to the incredible bullshit that Goldman Sachs and their ilk have pulled the past couple of years, and all the “financial innovation” (which really should be written “criminal gambling with people’s lives by creating byzantine and incredibly complex ways of making money out of thin air by betting on more money”) is an atrocity against mankind. The people protesting on Wall Street are heroes – not sufficiently well focused heroes, but at least they have the right idea. They just haven’t seen far enough – to the fact that we do, in fact, have to protest the financial system, since that is the single most evil thing in the universe. Up until recently, we had to accept the vast and pitch black dark sides to using money and the profit motive, but with technology and information technology, we can now transcend that particular hell and move on to some actual civilization.
I laughed, the damn dirty hippies got what they deserved. In America, we settle things by the democratic process and by votes, not by what a bunch of liberal socialist hippy douchebags can rant, rave, bitch and yell in the street throwing a temper tantrum like the shrill shrews they are.
Ohh, you don’t have any money? I’m so sad. Maybe it’s because you spent it all on a iphone and a gram of cannabis. Don’t make enough at your job? Well maybe you should have realized there wasn’t much work in the field of marxist-lenninist womens studies that you got your degree in. The reason you don’t have any money is because you are unemployable, you’re stupid, bitchy, lacking morals and lacking any marketable skill and you have nobody to blame for that except yourself.
Re: Re:
I laughed, the damn dirty hippies got what they deserved.
I laughed at your extremely outdated 60’s reference.
In America, we settle things by the democratic process and by votes, not by what a bunch of liberal socialist hippy douchebags can rant, rave, bitch and yell in the street throwing a temper tantrum like the shrill shrews they are.
Umm, have you ever read any history at all? Like maybe how the US Government came into existence in the first place.
Ohh, you don’t have any money? I’m so sad. Maybe it’s because you spent it all on a iphone and a gram of cannabis. Don’t make enough at your job? Well maybe you should have realized there wasn’t much work in the field of marxist-lenninist womens studies that you got your degree in. The reason you don’t have any money is because you are unemployable, you’re stupid, bitchy, lacking morals and lacking any marketable skill and you have nobody to blame for that except yourself.
Ohhh, are we stereotyping people we don’t even know?
I wanna play too – you are miserable, whiny, lowlife who has never been able to convince anyone, beside yourself, to have sex with you.
Re: Re: Re:
Funny, how public sector workers such as police and corrections officers are asking for Americans to protect their job/pension/health care security from Republican/Conservative spending cuts (examples in Wisconsin and Ohio). But then the police state pays us back by beating, gas, shoot with rubber bullets and wrongfully arresting Americans who are demanding accountability from the Wall St con-artists who ruined our economy. The Class War has begun and the LAW better get out of the way.
Back in the late 90?s while the Newt Gingrich and Tom Delay were busy selling out the American middle class for a very few silver spoon trust fund babies…
I don?t remember the public sector union workers standing up for their private sector union brothers and sisters. Check out this newpaper headline from 4/16/99 article titled: ?Mattel to layoff 3,000 workers. WALL STREET CHEERED the news of restructuring, sending Mattel?s stock up nearly 16 percent?? WHAT? We all know how IT turned out now that our children have all the latest LEAD based toys from China.
Questions one must ask: How did Wall Street become the enemy of the American working class? What did the 90?s Congress legislate to make it easy for Corporations to move jobs out of the country? Would the police of the time blame 3000 Mattel workers for being VERY angry? Because that news article was about as ?in your face? as it gets?
The reason why I bring police into the picture is because law enforcement UNIONS and associations have become some of the most powerful, wealthy entities on the American political scene. I can?t help but remember how many times in US history POLICE harassed, abused, beat, gassed and shot those who supported UNION organizing efforts. Public Service UNIONS have the sort of job/pension/healthcare security those of us in the private sector can only dream about.
Note: (civil servants my skinny Italian-American @$$? just who is serving WHO?)
Re: Re:
Oh Mr. Anthony Bologna, I hardly recognized you without your jackboots on.
A similar thing happened in France
At Anduze in the Gard ( https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Anduze,+Gard,+France&hl=fr&ll=46.709736,2.416992&spn=8.438197,19.709473&sll=44.370987,-0.791016&sspn=17.587564,39.418945&vpsrc=6&t=m&z=6 )
A gendarme started spraying people with tear gas.
It can be seen here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3pv4L6wXpY at 1:40
Strange points to make..
Why does a Large corp need to use the stock exchange?
They used to use their OWN PROFITS to make/improve something.
I can see why a small company would LIKE/NEED to be on the stock market.
The role of police is to uphold the law. They are for the protection of the people, and to enforce What is needed.
It would be nice if they would just walk thru the group and ASK what they are doing there, and the NEED to be there.
OUR economy does NOT NEED the stock exchange. it was created for the FARMERS to stabilize food prices. We now export 10 times the food we eat, after the Farms were bought out in the 70’s and went CORP.( I wont go into this)(middle men getting 2-4 times as much as the farmers)
This video should lead to the automatic suspension of the officer who used pepper spray with out an apparent clear cause. It does the police no good to be seen as goons especially someone in the officer class. This makes the police appear to be out of control and could invite real violence.
Re: Re:
but but but the spokesweasel came right out after this story broke and said it was perfectly by the book.
That is up until you see the other footage of the same thing from the other side of the barricade. But it was hastily edited cell phone video that could have been anywhere…where there were actors in NYPD uniforms, using orange plastic to do crowd control, where having done nothing to the former IA investigator (other than yell shame as they swarmed someone they were arresting) decided these uppity protesters needed a point blank shot to the face of pepper spray, and then he promptly fled the scene to avoid everyone knowing who he is, what his background in the department was, and that he needs to be removed from his position.
There is video of what happened, and they claim it is not enough. He pepper sprayed someone being detained by the stupid orange fence who even on a good day represented no real threat to him, because he lost his temper. I guess we are lucky he had enough forethought to not pull his weapon and shoot her in the face.
Despite the beatings and harassment the protesters have been very restrained given the abuse they are getting.
The political talking heads want to tell you that class warfare has never created a job, I expect to see many lawyers suing NYPD, officers, and the city very soon. They will most likely end up hiring many paralegals to help out with as busy as they will be.
I hope the women sue the police department and that thug for assault.
Anti-abuse of POWER
Funny, how public sector workers such as police and corrections officers are asking for Americans to protect their job/pension/health care security from Republican/Conservative spending cuts (examples in Wisconsin and Ohio). But then the police state pays us back by beating, gas, shoot with rubber bullets and wrongfully arresting Americans who are demanding accountability from the Wall St con-artists who ruined our economy. The Class War has begun and the LAW better get out of the way.
Back in the late 90?s while the Newt Gingrich and Tom Delay were busy selling out the American middle class for a very few silver spoon trust fund babies…
I don?t remember the public sector union workers standing up for their private sector union brothers and sisters. Check out this newpaper headline from 4/16/99 article titled: ?Mattel to layoff 3,000 workers. WALL STREET CHEERED the news of restructuring, sending Mattel?s stock up nearly 16 percent?? WHAT? We all know how IT turned out now that our children have all the latest LEAD based toys from China.
Questions one must ask: How did Wall Street become the enemy of the American working class? What did the 90?s Congress legislate to make it easy for Corporations to move jobs out of the country? Would the police of the time blame 3000 Mattel workers for being VERY angry? Because that news article was about as ?in your face? as it gets?
The reason why I bring police into the picture is because law enforcement UNIONS and associations have become some of the most powerful, wealthy entities on the American political scene. I can?t help but remember how many times in US history POLICE harassed, abused, beat, gassed and shot those who supported UNION organizing efforts. Public Service UNIONS have the sort of job/pension/healthcare security those of us in the private sector can only dream about.
Note: (civil servants my skinny Italian-American @$$? just who is serving WHO?)
Dont get me wrong
But, I think that if over 70% of your workers are NOT in this country, then your CORP is not American. Even if most of 1 division of your company, ISNT IN THE USA…
Why not ship the other PART over seas.. LET them get wages from those areas.
THEY WANT our money. they will send goods over. but if MOST of your business is DONE in another nation–GO LIVE THERE.
I know the price in another country, for the OBD II unit, computer unit is only $200, and they sell it for $2000+ in the USA. With those profit margins, those OTHER countries would LOVE IT. They dont CUT taxes on rich.
netpolitik
I have been covering this story from my position in following the political implications of distributed, peer-to-peer information. I’ve been doing that analysis a long time… since Operation Sundevil and the formation of the EFF.
I’ve been making my own protest video using raw footage, about 9.5 hrs worth. I have 4 separate camera feeds (2 additional besides the above two linked) and have watched them repeatedly, in slow- and 4xslow motion.
I have a short analysis here: Video Analysis- Pepper Sprayed at OccupyWallStreet .
As an artist who uses and composes video, I find Paul J. Browne’s assertions both ignorant and a pack of reflex lies. Sound triangulation, comparisons of timelines and shadows and overlays convince me that this is indeed raw footage and unedited, unless it was done in a very extensive lab setup, and would require a lot more time to “edit” that was possible, given the rapid upload times for the footage.
The second video, linked above, shows why the penned women were screaming: when the camera swings right, you see a young man whirled around and taken down; what you can see from the first video and other videos is the cop used the bumper of a patrol car to “assist” in the takedown. The women can clearly be heard responding to both this brutality and the takedown of the black male at the beginning of video 1 linked above.
Another point of congruence is the balding blue-shirt, who can be observed on all videos wiping his eyes and mouthing something; on video 2 above,which has better audio, he can be plainly heard saying, “Jesus, he just fucking maced us!” In video 1 he can be observed saying this to his fellow blue-shirt to the left but the audio is much clearer on video 2.
What’s also much clearer on video 2 is that the women are also reacting to the seizing of the large black woman in front by her hair and her being dragged over the orange netting. It is this that the women are turning left towards in video 1, after turning to watch the “bumper-car takedown” to the right, and why they are either yelling, “why are you doing this?” and “where do you want us to go?” as well as one of them saying, in amazement to herself (the one closest to “bumper-car”) “What the fuck…. what the fuck?!”
I have publicly called out both Patrick J Browne and the New York Times, sending a much-more detailed video analysis. I have advised the 3 identified girls to retain a videographer and a forensic analyst and they are currently seeking the original raw footage from the camerapersons with digital stamps and embedded video information. But an armchair and remote analysis, just working with the footage I have, is certainly enough to call Browne a liar and implicate him ans an idiot who must think digital footage is “film.”
And yes, I do think this is a topic for Tech Dirt, as it involves crowdsourcing, peer-to-peer networking ala “sneakernet,” manipulation and propaganda and distribution of information outside the Gatekeeper’s controls.
Miso Susanowa
Wth
Are you fucking thick man? How can someone who writes for this website not know what the hell is going on here? You’ve lost all respect from here. If you don’t know why they’re protesting then why don’t you fucking LOOK INTO IT, instead of prefacing your article with that BULLSHIT.
No one is going to educate you on this because it is better you do it yourself.
And if you do know what is going on, and your just being “smart”, then you can get the FUCK off this planet.
Drama Queens
Ha ha Drama queens
protest wall street? get specific
I think the wall street protests are misguided. Sure, big banks defrauded thousands of people, and so has the government. That’s not WALL Street, though. Go protest those banks. Wall street, generically, is a big equalizer; anybody with a dollar can go invest and make money without going to big banks. If the thousands defrauded had managed their own money, using fundamental best practices like diversification, they would be in better shape. Just go look at the CNBC Stock Market Challenge, where anybody, with no money, can win a MILLION dollars by understanding Wall Street. Wall Street is the individual’s friend, a great equalizer. If you want to protest the banks that ripped people off, get specific.
I saw one of the protesters whining about his mom lost 550k in a company pension; that’s her own fault; it should have been moved out and diversified. I have a friend that had 500k in Sprint stock years ago and I always told them to move it out and diversify, but noooo. The fact that they lost their ass is their own fault.
Also, I think anyone should be allowed to pepper spray large unruly crowds. If I were a tourist, I wouldn’t even have been able to walk through there. They are out of control.
Writer is clueless
The dipshit that wrote the first paragraph has never had an open minded thought. I believe the bacteria in my shit makes a more consorted declaration of free thought by making it stink!
In Sweden we learned long ago to 1. never trust cops 2. never expect cops to act nice 3. never expect cops to follow laws 4. always fight back when you can, and 5. always assume they are out to get you, if your not white and/or rich.
Welcome to reality, stupid white yankees.
comments and law
Mr Lackman blames a person for losing 550K in a pension fund without diversification. I was diversified and lost almost 7 figures. Mr Lackman fails to mention the dishonesty of the financials and large funds. A pension fund is not a day trading affair and the pirates were swift and mobile.
Mr Lackman says anyone should be able to pepper spray a protest. He does not care about people or their health.
The film shows it was a planned secret attack and retreat. The trained officer (in police and law) should be himself arrested and charged with assault.
Then the spokesman, cop and city should be sued for damages.
The cop is not a true officer, but a sneaky coward.
nonviolent women is what I saw. I am glad no children were there
Wall Street and Mr Lackman did not approve of these protests, hence their minions did these unlawful actions
Mike may be a totally clueless silver-spooner, but Glenn Greenwald isn’t: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/09/28/protests/index.html
they the nypd they can make you vanish son