http://thelastword.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/09/26/7978720-rewrite-police-vs-protesters
There is clear video evidence of police abuse of power. Is this simply a glimpse of what goes on all the time, without cameras, and will go unpunished by the department; or is this more of the actions of some rogue individual officers and they will be held responsible?
They should be punished for stepping if they stepped out of the line certainly. However we should not weaken police powers so that mobs control the streets of our cities as in Britain.
:rolleyes:
I really wish you would take the time to do some reading of history and current events before you pop off like this.
Mobs are not controlling the streets of Britain any more than mobs have been controlling the streets of the U.S. between the various riots that have occurred, here, over the last couple of centuries.
Any large society is liable to suffer periodic breakdowns of order in specific locales in specific circumstances. Claiming that the (now, already ended) riots in Britain from a few weeks ago are an indication that “mobs control” the streets in any ongoing manner is a baseless claim that demonstrates a provincialism unworthy of the Straight Dope.
I’m not seeing any abuse of power there. You have a bunch of protestors who aren’t complying with police instructions, are, in some cases, threatening police, and are leaving the protest areas, and the police making arrests. So I really don’t see what these officers should be held responsible for. Doing their jobs?
And, as an aside, God, that woman with the microphone at the end is annoying.
Since this is GQ I propose that the basic formula of ‘if people doing bad things to bad people is good’ is the basic premise of the modern police force. It is something that good people have to monitor and evaluate to what extent such power is warranted.
I dunno, I watched the whole eleven minute clip, and the only questionable thing I saw was one cop pull a girl out from outside the barricade to be arrested. But I have no idea what she did to have that happen. And if she did nothing to have that happen to her, why weren’t others treated the same way?
Oh, that and one guy got arrested apparently for waving a flag upside-down, but he was inside the barricade, so I dunno.
None of it looked like real “police brutality”. No punching, no batons, no gas, no hoses. I guess brutality ain’t what it used to be.
Caught one cop smiling into the cameras. Cute guy.
[del]Trolled![/del] Provoked to mild righteous indignation! By a fourteen-year-old with emotional problems.
Two protestors got “drive-by” pepper sprayed by a cop, for no reason. That plus false arrest and the assault on the woman. Oh, and the guy who was doing nothing but legally videotaping the police had his equipment snatched and had his head rammed into the front of a parked vehicle.
Police brutality is so very low compared to ‘back in the day’. Hell, even the 80s and 90s were much worse. I think that as long as people are in positions of physical (and legal and political) power, there will be some corruption.
I feel much safer in a protest here than I do in, say, Tehran or Cairo. It doesn’t mean police brutality doesn’t exist - I just think that if you’re going to put yourself in the position of a protestor (as we have all done many times, right?) you have to be responsible about it. <shrug> Here’s a swell idea: Don’t antagonize the guys with the big sticks, tasers, guns and handcuffs.
So you advocate not protesting anything ever, then?
I’m not really seeing it. I mean, two protestors got pepper sprayed by a policeman, but I don’t know what they were doing that led them to get pepper sprayed. It looks like one was shoving something in an officer’s face. And, as far as I saw, all the arrests seemed justifiable. They were all people who were leaving the protest area to block the road or not complying with police instructions.
Is that what I said? No. Don’t be snarky.
I just think that disobeying an officer’s orders, exerting any kind of force against an officer, or getting up on one’s face is very stupid.
I recall a Secret Service agent telling us to back up or get arrested at a Bush protest in 2004. Those who were smart stepped back. The ones that wanted to get arrested ignored the officers and stepped forward into the street about twenty minutes later after suggesting they’d do it for awhile. They were arrested, obviously, and they full well deserved it.
Now, is getting arrested part of ‘police brutality’? No. But I have been to many protests in my short years already and you can clearly tell who is likely to be a pain in the ass.
The problem wasn’t the protesting. The problem was the unlawful acts committed during the protest.
So we agree that the unlawful tactics used by the police were the problem; that’s good.
They used standard police tactics. there are not buried bodies in the woods, no blood bath, nothing. A bunch of out of work anarchists wanted to martyr themselves to their cause which in this case means 24 hrs away from their War Quest-12 game.
No, I think you misunderstand. I don’t think the police committed any unlawful acts. The problem was the unlawful acts committed by the protestors. It’s possible some future investigation will show police misconduct, but I don’t see it there.
Regardless of whether or not the OP’s video was police abuse of power, it really isn’t hard to find examples.
Government brutality is a necessary step in effecting change through protest. It convinces observers that the protesters believe in their cause, and that government is attempting to maintain the status quo in the face of obvious injustice.
Beatings, teargas, and mace are the means of earning your stripes as a protester.
Bullshit. The last thing you want to do is get singled out by the police. There is a lot of fear in protesting. The cops do not work for you. They will stomp on you and love it. protesting is scary. you could get hurt . You could get killed..
These cops penned women in with thin plastic fences. If the people were not giving in, those crappy fences wouldn’t do anything. But a cop squirted a spray in the face of women standing there ,being absolutely no threat.
I’m trying to figure out which part of my post you have a problem with. Your response seems to be unconnected in any way. Could you possibly point how the non sequitors in your response are intended to connect to my post?