I saw this amazing clip this weekend from FOX where the anchors attacked a women because she left her kids with family and friends to participate in the Occupy Wall Street protests.
The mother, Stacey Hessler of Florida, was saying that she felt this was a historic moment for citizens to take to the streets. It is funny how such commitment is inspiring in those who share your views, but disgusting for those who do not.
The New York Post has a decidedly negative profile of her, though it seems short on independent sources. What is striking about the Fox report is the view that any mother who leaves her children to join such a protest is “filth.”
Are there any representatives in the courts right now ensuring that the breaches are met with obstacle and the attacks against the Constitutional rights being displayed are protected and those expressing are kept free from harm?
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really poorly constructed….this:
Are there any representatives in the courts right now ensuring that the breaches against constitutionally protected rights of assembly and speech are met with obstacle and the attacks against those expressing are immediately contained and those responsible apprehended so those who are protesting legally are kept free from harm?
The first time I heard the characterization “Police Riot” was regarding the the police actions in Chicago in ’68. It looks like it’s time to dust that description off and pt it in play again.
Oakland PD apparently violated their own policy in using the type of bean bags they used for crowd control, management or dispersal. The police set out to instill terror in the protesters and hurt people. The mayor and the Police Commissioner needs to resign immediately.
From Al Jazeera:
“Intense crackdown on ‘Occupy Oakland’ protest”
“…
‘Police brutality’
One activist told Al Jazeera that her boyfriend was beaten by police and hospitalised before being jailed and beaten again. Asking only to go by ‘Anne’, she asked that her partner not be named for safety reasons.
“They beat him… and then they took him to another room and they put his head in a toilet, put his hands in a toilet, and threw him against a wall.” – ‘Anne’
When he was first arrested around 6pm on Tuesday, she said: “The police thought that he was Latino and started calling him Poncho and making racial slurs and sexual gestures. He said the fire department people and paramedics were doing this along with the cops.”
Once hospitalised, the man filed a police brutality report, after which the officer recording the complaint told him he would “go to jail for assault or battery of a police officer and resisting arrest,” Anne said. He was then moved from the hospital to the local county jail.
“I talked to him twice now since he’s been in Santa Rita [County Jail] and he said they were basically torturing him there. They beat him in front of a bunch of people including a nurse, and then they took him to another room and they put his head in a toilet, put his hands in a toilet, threw him against a wall.” The allegations could not be independently verified.
Besides his being in a crowd of protesters, Anne said that her partner’s arrest was completely unprovoked.
Dangerous situation
Back in the streets, the clashes raged for nearly eight hours, with numerous reports of tear gas, flash-bang grenades, rubber bullets and bean bag projectiles. Al Jazeera cannot independently verify the police use of all of these weapons. Oakland Police Department’s crowd control policy says that the type of bean bags activists say were used on Tuesday “shall not be used for crowd management, crowd control or crowd dispersal during demonstrations”.
One video from Tuesday evening, from a local Fox news affiliate, shows a group of protesters being hit by what appears to be tear gas. As people began to regroup and try to carry away a woman who appeared to have been knocked unconcsious, police fired a concussion grenade into the group. An activist who was at the scene explained what happened: “She was already lying on the ground bleeding, and I watched a flash-bang grenade land right next to her head and explode right next to her face.”
Kristin, a protester and graduate student who asked to be identified only by her first name, told Al Jazeera that the situation in Oakland’s streets became increasingly dangerous.”
“At one point, the police cut all of the city lights on that intersection and then started launching tear gas canisters and concussion grenades and shooting rubber bullets,” she said.
Soon after, she said, “A group of people were being treated by medics for wounds inflicted by police. It hadn’t been long since the last round of tear gas, and then the cops launched another round and people started running and tripping over each other and the people who were getting treated.”
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2011/10/20111026135124919772.html
Bdaman:
didnt you quote Hayek on the other thread? Or am I mistaken?
Elaine,
You didn’t end yours with “or your mouth shut” after spouting Breitbart garbage elsewhere. Context is important.
Bdaman:
Gene is not Buddha. ,
Gene,
Bdaman was quoting one of my comments.
http://jonathanturley.org/2011/10/24/protesting-mom-called-more-disgusting-than-any-of-these-filths-down-on-wall-street/#comment-282418
Freedom of speech is very loudly expressing!
And freedom of assembly is struggling along.
Are there any representatives in the courts right now ensuring that the breaches are met with obstacle and the attacks against the Constitutional rights being displayed are protected and those expressing are kept free from harm?
Gene the Buddha is coming out in you 🙂
“Maybe it’s only the 1% that truly has freedom of speech. The rest of us just have to keep our fingers crossed.”
You say that after you quote directly and agree with someone quoting a propaganda homonculus of the neocons like Breitbart elsewhere on this blog? http://jonathanturley.org/2011/10/26/egyptian-party-leader-%e2%80%9ci-am-the-enemy-of-democracy-%e2%80%9d/#comment-282416
I may have to revise my opinion that you’re not a troll, Bdaman.
Either you’re stunningly hypocritical and stupid or you’re a troll based on your performance here today.
Can you imagine….2 tours of duty in a war zone to protect your Country, you come home, stand up against the smarmy exploitophiles who never grew the balls or the guts it takes to do anything but what some greedbucket tells them to do, and some faceless wonder busts your skull with a close range limpd*&^ lobbed gas canister (which was probably aimed at some pig-tailed girly-girl…)…..and then tosses another into that horribly frightening assembly of concerned faces rushing in to help.
Some uniforms are decidedly not sexy…..
Maybe it’s only the 1% that truly has freedom of speech. The rest of us just have to keep our fingers crossed.
or your mouth shut 🙂
Dispatches from Oakland:
The public is no longer welcome in the public park.
There are some honest officers left on the Oakland Police Department, but not for long, apparently.
If this had happened on the streets of Cairo, Kabul or some city in China, the news media would be all over it. Here, not so much. At least some media are noticing.
I think you are correct Elaine.
rafflaw,
Maybe it’s only the 1% that truly has freedom of speech. The rest of us just have to keep our fingers crossed.
Elaine,
It is getting ugly out there. What happened to the freedom of speech?
Man charged with getting 11-year-old boy drunk at Occupy Missoula camp
A 27-year-old Missoula man at the Occupy Missoula encampment on the Missoula County Courthouse lawn is accused of getting an 11-year-old boy drunk.
Read more: http://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/article_21772c06-fe86-11e0-aec5-001cc4c002e0.html#ixzz1bvV1mAc4
Read more: http://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/article_21772c06-fe86-11e0-aec5-001cc4c002e0.html#ixzz1bvUrrFER
From Current TV:
http://current.com/community/93513164_occupy-oakland-police-brutality-gets-serious-scott-olsen-now-sedated-skull-fracture-and-swelling-of-the-brain.htm
I hope the cop who threw that flash-bang grenade while people are coming to his assistance has nightmares from now on. But that would require a conscience, a commodity in short supply in some circles these days.
Oakland Police Critically Injure Iraq War Vet During Occupy March
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/26/iraq-vet-oakland-police-tear-gas_n_1033159.html
Excerpt:
WASHINGTON — The Oakland Police Department fired tear gas on Occupy Oakland demonstrators Tuesday night as they marched through downtown, determined to reclaim the camp that officers destroyed that morning. As the marchers zigged and zagged in search of safe ground, authorities bombarded and barricaded the activists into a drawn-out stalemate that resulted in further arrests.
The local police’s use of force seriously injured an Occupy activist and Iraq War veteran.
Scott Olsen, 24, remains sedated on a respirator, in stable but critical condition at Oakland’s Highland Hospital after being hit in the head with a police projectile.
Olsen’s roommate, Keith Shannon, 24, told The Huffington Post that Olsen is still in the emergency room.