"…the deputies in the cordon surged forward and, using their clubs as battering rams, began to hammer at the bodies of the line of students. It was stunning to see. They swung hard into their chests and bellies. Particularly shocking to me — it must be a generational reaction — was that they assaulted both the young men and the young women with the same indiscriminate force. If the students turned away, they pounded their ribs. If they turned further away to escape, they hit them on their spines.
NONE of the police officers invited us to disperse or gave any warning. We couldn’t have dispersed if we’d wanted to because the crowd behind us was pushing forward to see what was going on. The descriptor for what I tried to do is “remonstrate.” I screamed at the deputy who had knocked down my wife, “You just knocked down my wife, for Christ’s sake!” A couple of students had pushed forward in the excitement and the deputies grabbed them, pulled them to the ground and cudgeled them, raising the clubs above their heads and swinging. The line surged. I got whacked hard in the ribs twice and once across the forearm. Some of the deputies used their truncheons as bars and seemed to be trying to use minimum force to get people to move.…"
Photo by Ben Margot, Asociated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/opinion/sunday/at-occupy-berkeley-beat-poets-has-new-meaning.html?_r=3&pagewanted=all
7 comments:
Looks like the cops don't even want witnesses to what they're doing. I saw a youtube video of a camera hooked up to a drone that showed the police as they got ready to attack demonstrators in Europe. Maybe the demonstrators should use a few of those helium balloons to house cameras.
BTW, I took a class from Bob Hass and I can't imagine anyone more unlikely to be a "violent" protester.
MY grandfather told me how the big corperations used cops to bust the heads of union men.The universities and the big banks use preditory loans on the students. The universities and banks are in bed together.The Universities now have their oun credit cards issued to students that bring in more money to the pig universities.They get the money from the banks and screw the students. That is Why are the pigs on the universities.
I spit my morning coffee all over my computer when I read about the balloons. God, I love Berkeley!
I am really disgusted with the police tactics now used in this country, particularly the militarization of police via the proliferation of SWAT team posers. We have SWAT teams busting in on everyone these days, 100 cops and SWAT members shut down hgwy 101 in San Rafael a while back for hours and caused a massive all day bay area traffic jam over a single individual in a motel (who had killed himself the night before). You have to remember that the police powers of the state cut both ways, they are not just directed at protesters. There was a recent raid by Federal agents armed with automatic weapons and armored vehicles on the Gibson Guitar factory, they confiscated millions of dollars worth of materials months ago, yet have still not charged the company with anything. Gibson has long been affiliated with Rainforest Alliance and GreenPeace in the interest of promoting responsible harvesting of exotic woods, they have a good reputation and it is doubtful they are guilty of anything more than faulty paperwork. In any case it is preposterous to be raiding an employer in an armed assault, threatening employees with federal prison sentences, and then letting the company hang in limbo since no charges have been filed.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903895904576542942027859286.html
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/31/famed-guitar-maker-raided-by-federal-agents/
Four dead in Ohio. How many more? (It wasn't that long ago. I remember. Do you?)
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible,...make violent revolution inevitable." Martin
So now unprovoked assault is an acceptable law enforcement technique? Cops are now authorized to punish on the spot? The Occupier's crime was NOT trespassing or illegal assembly, it was "Promotion of Unacceptable Viewpoint", which now IS a serious offense.
The Fascists are not coming............they are already here.
Chris Johnson
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