As fellow law professor sent me this video of Oakland police shooting a photographer. The video raises serious questions of the unjustified use of force.
In the video, the police appear to be standing without challenge when, around the 33 second mark, an officer suddenly shoot a photographer who is a good distance from the police line.
I cannot imagine the claim of justification in this case when the use of rubber bullets present significant potential harm to citizens, as shown below.
Kudos: Professor Alberto Bernabe (John Marshall Law School)
Source: Lowering Bar
Bdaman and Bron: I worked for the .01% for 22 years riding their racehorses. If you want to see real waste, fraud and abuse- spend some time at one of their country estates. I saw them write off a perfectly healthy 1.2 million dollar yearling TB purchase because they needed a tax break one year.
This is only the tip of the iceberg for this economic class. They write the tax laws and get enormous advantages in doing so. I think we could all agree on this point.
Gene:
go look at the 2010 Forbes 400. Filter by self made. All but 3 earned it themselves.
And that is what you get when you have a dynamic economy, upward mobility and new people entering the upper levels of wealth as the old industries and inherited wealth fall.
You want to spread the wealth? Then have true freedom in this country.
Let a person start a business by going to city hall and waiting in line for 30 minutes and paying $10 for a business license. And then doing away with all of the stupid regulations that are on the books which do nothing to protect the public, like the color of margarine. Who the hell cares what color margarine is and why is congress involved in that anyway?
3 men claiming to be Occupy Portland protesters arrested in Marion County for possession of explosives
When the deputy made contact with the driver, William Maxwell Patterson, 21, he reportedly smelled the odor of marijuana coming from the car. When he searched the car, the deputy found a bag of marijuana and drug paraphernalia.
Inside the car was also Emery Nicholas Luff, 21, and Zachary Salzwedel-Kemp, 20, and all three are from Klamath Falls.
Inside the car, the deputy also found a number of firecrackers and two commercially made mortars inside glass canning jars, designed to be fired into the area during professional pyrotechnic displays. One was found in the floorboard of the vehicle, and the other was allegedly in Luff’s jacket.
The deputy also found two gas masks, protective eye goggles and a safety helmet. All three men told the deputy that they had spent the night at the Occupy Portland demonstration, and they brought the mortars and safety equipment to the demonstration in preparation of the expected confrontation between police and protesters Sunday morning.
http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2011/11/3_men_claiming_to_be_occupy_po.html
On DKos, blogger Lefty Coaster writes, “The time honored American pattern of dealing with persistent displays of dissent embodied in Occupy camps by trying to eradicate them in spasms of violent stupidity, continues to spread among U.S. mayors. Last night it was Portland’s Sam Adams. This morning its Oakland’s Jean Quan who is unleashing more violence to eradicate yet another annoying occupation.”
Article, with pictures and videos:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/14/1036298/-New-videos-of-Police-Assault-on-Occupy-Portland?via=recent
Thanks O.S. I like you to. It’s nothing personal but that is my opinion. This movement is infringing on the rights of others. When people within the movement start spraying graffiti, smashing windows, tearing stuff up, committing rapes and murders it’s time for it to stop. Even if it’s a few bad apples. Sorry but it’s out of hand. They have a right to a peaceful protest but thats not whats happening. I liken it to a child who is throwing a temper tantrum to try and get what they want. Most of the protesters look to be in there 20’s to 30’s and are acting in that manner.
Bdaman, I like you because I think you are a good guy. But I am not buying what you are selling.
Now off to generate some billable hours.
O.S. it’s obvious that this movement is in disarray. They are a breeding ground for crime. The movement has been hijacked and thats a shame. With that said it needs to be put down by force and they need to regroup and get whatever they want done in a law abiding manner and not by destroying public and personal property.
Did you say a deaf guy was raped? Yeah
In the meantime, there was a wedding and a number of arrests of really dangerous individuals, who were caught by police in the act of praying in the Interfaith Tent.
Bdaman, you really get off on this shit, don’t you? “A woman protester at the Occupy Philadelphia encampment at City Hall was raped in a tent…”
I am sure that is the only rape that happened last night across this country, where the rapist is a known criminal with a long rap sheet. In the meantime, our 4th amendment rights are being ravished by the 1%.
(11-14) 07:05 PST OAKLAND —
Oakland police have arrested about 25 protesters at the sprawling Occupy Oakland encampment outside City Hall while hundreds of law-enforcement officers square off against demonstrators in the second such raid of the downtown tent city.
Law-enforcement officers from numerous Bay Area agencies began arriving in force at 5 a.m. as a police helicopter flew overhead. Clad in armor and riot helmets, they stood in lines and surrounded the camp near the corner of 14th Street and Broadway adjacent to Frank Ogawa Plaza, where dozens of demonstrators have been camping to protest economic inequity and corporate greed.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/11/14/BAD91LUQMM.DTL#ixzz1dh23FPhO
Woman Raped at Occupy Philadelphia Video
A woman protester at the Occupy Philadelphia encampment at City Hall was raped in a tent, allegedly by a man who had traveled from out of state to join the protest, police said.
The suspect was arrested almost immediately after the alleged attack, and the woman is with the police Special Victims Unit.
The alleged rapist is reported to have been arrested multiple times in connection with a string of armed robberies in Kalamazoo, Mich., officials said.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2011/11/woman-raped-at-occupy-philadelphia/
The Oakland Police Department is planning an enormous operation to evict hundreds of Occupy Oakland protesters from their encampment near City Hall early Monday morning, according to police and city offcials with direct knowledge of the plans.
Gene,
You mean you don’t think that Paris Hilton is a self-made woman who had to struggle long hours for many years to earn her fortune?
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DOn’t mean to jump in but NO, she’s not…
And on the subject of taxation, let’s talk “crash taxes”.
“Wall Street waged war on the American economy and middle class with its reckless gambling.
It wasn’t Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac that crashed the economy. It wasn’t the federal government. It wasn’t hapless homeowners who were sold mortgages they couldn’t afford. It was Wall Street financiers that aggressively sought and bought mortgages to package and sell as derivatives, which the banks could wager on.
Americans bailed out Wall Street, handing it a Marshall Plan for reconstruction after its bad bets blew up the world economy. Now, three years later, happy days are here again for the Wall Street banksters. They’re hauling in big profits and paying outrageous bonuses. But the American middle class continues to suffer high unemployment, record foreclosures and rising poverty.
So it’s time for Wall Street to pay reparations. It’s time for a crash tax, a tiny sales tax on Wall Street transactions, the revenues from which would pay for Main Street restoration. It’s time for the 1 percent to repay the 99 percent, for Wall Street to share in the sacrifices necessitated by its rogue behavior.
The levy, sometimes called a Tobin Tax after the American economist and Nobel Laureate James Tobin, who endorsed it in the 1970s, is far from shocking or novel. A financial transaction tax is advocated by a huge range of groups and individuals, from billionaires to conservative heads of state. Thirty nations, including Great Britain and Switzerland, already tax some financial transactions. The United States imposed a similar tax from 1914 to 1966. In addition to raising revenue in a time of government deficits worldwide, the tax would suppress the very kind of risky speculation that got the global economy into this mess.”
Read the rest at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leo-w-gerard/crash-tax-wall-street-rep_b_1091446.html
“Most of the 1% were the 99% at one point in time. If economic justice means keeping those (the 1%) who produce wealth in chains, then there is no political liberty and you have what the Chinese have ā state sponsored ācapitalismā which is worse than we have now. There is no political freedom.
Myth.
The facts look more like this:
“The Nation, October 20, 1997
Editorial
FORBES 400 WORLD SERIES
It’s that time of year again, when rich people feel downright middle class compared with people even richer. Why, if you have to ask the price of a Learjet 31A, you can’t afford one ($5,775,000). It took a net worth of $475 million to get on this year’s Forbes 400 lineup of the ultra-rich, up from $415 million in 1996. Oprah Winfrey, ranked 343rd with $550 million, is the only black person on the team.
The estimated combined wealth of the Forbes 400 increased 31 percent, from $477 billion in 1996 to upwards of $624 billion this year. When Forbes introduced the first 400 in 1982, their combined net worth was $92 billion. Today, that wouldn’t even field a Forbes Five. While the average worker barely kept up with inflation last year, the richest American, Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates, more than doubled his net worth, from $18.5 billion to $39.8 billion. It would take the median U.S. household earning $35,500 some 600,000 years to make as much as Bill Gates did last year. He is worth more than the G.N.P. of Central America.
Today the United States has 170 billionaires by Forbes’s count, up from 135 last year, and more than 36 million people living below the official poverty line–and millions more living in poverty above it. The latest poverty thresholds are $7,995 for a single person and $12,516 for a family of three. According to the Census Bureau, the top 5 percent of households (with income above $119,540) increased their share of the national income from 15.6 percent in 1981 to 21.4 percent last year; the bottom 80 percent lost ground to those above. The top 5 percent has an even larger share of national wealth, holding about 60 percent of all net worth, according to economist Edward Wolff.
Forbes celebrates bootstrappers, but its 400 are better represented by Jim Hightower’s remark about George Bush, “He was born on thrid base and thought he hit a triple.” (Steve “Flat Tax” Forbes can relate. The Forbes family is conspiciously abstent from the 400, but Fortune pegged inheritor Steve’s personal wealth at $439 million in 1996, enough to make that year’s cut.) “Born on Third Base,” a new study by the Boston-based United for a Fair Economy, shows that a majority of the Forbes 400 inherited their way onto the list, inherited already substantial and profitable companies, or received key start-up capital from a family member.
42 percent were born on home plate. These include older dynasties like the Rockefellers and du Ponts, and newer family fortunes from companies like Walmart and Gap. The Waltons of Wal-Mart are ranked nine through thirteen on the Forbes 400, with a combined $32 billion. Forbes thinks some of those born on home plate hit a home run. For example, it calls Philip Anschutz “self-made” even though he would have made the 400 cut just from the mineral wealth he inherited from his father.
At least 6 percent were born on third base. They inherited wealth in excess of $50 million or a large and prosperous company, and grew this initial fortune into Forbes 400 size. For example, Edward Johnson III inherited Fidelity from his father and led it the mutual fund world series.
At least 7 percent were born on second base. They inherited a medium-sized business or wealth of more than $1 million or received substantial start-up capital for a business from a family member. Examples include poultry tycoons Donald Tyson and Frank Perdue.
At least 14 percent were born on first base. For example, Bill Gates’s parents were well-off professionals and he went to a private school where he and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen began their exploration of computers.
Nike founder Phil Knight was born in the batter’s box and hustled his way to number 17 on the Forbes 400 with $5.4 billion. But the high-priced Air Jordans that bring such profits aren’t self-made: The typical Nike worker is an Asian girl or woman working in a sweatshop for less than $10 a week. Forbes comments, “An unrepentant Phil Knoght blasts his sweatshop critics: ‘This isn’t an issue that should even be on the political agenda today. It’s just a sound bite of globalization.'”
Rich Americans have been scoring off workers’ sacrifice flies for decades. It’s time to give workers their fair share at bat.
HOLLY SKLAR AND CHUCK COLLINS”
If economic justice, the first step is acknowledging the fact that a weak inheritance tax fosters the trans-generational concentration of wealth in addition to the fact that wealth is based on economic exploitation and/or anti-competitive business practices more often than not.
economic justice must be side by side with political justice. Or liberty if you prefer.
Most of the 1% were the 99% at one point in time. If economic justice means keeping those (the 1%) who produce wealth in chains, then there is no political liberty and you have what the Chinese have – state sponsored “capitalism” which is worse than we have now. There is no political freedom.
Justice is all well and good if it is fairly applied. In my opinion the middle class is being decimated by government. A man or woman making $50,000 per year needs most of it to exist. In my mind justice would be a single tax rate for all with no deductions and no taxation on the first 40,000 dollars of income. Give people back their money.
Somewhere between 700 and1,000 police officers are massing for an attack on the Oakland OWS protest site. From The Bay Citizen:
http://www.baycitizen.org/occupy-movement/story/sources-occupy-raid-imminent/
There are reports of union organizers mobilizing union members to turn out to aid the OWS protesters. The purpose of 1,000 police officers is to clear the park and try to keep the OWS group from retaking it.
Folks, the authorities hiding in their impressive edifices, are scared. Really scared. More scared than even I had thought.
Mike,
You are correct that OWS has gone global. I echo your hope!
MS; that is why the movement will be more effective if it goes global. We have a global economy now, and labor is captive, so it has to be everywhere on Earth. Justice.
Shano,
I agree, but think it already has gone global. The hope and prayer is that it retains it’s independence and creativity.