tagged w/ Police Brutality
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http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20091103125740393
A curious property evident in the discussion of insurrection in the United States is that it gets more respect the further it occurs from home. Anarchists who would never dream of complaining that the Thessaloniki Food not Bombs is being neglected while its members amuse themselves burning banks, who could never conceive of suggesting that the Somali pirates stop seizing ships for ransom in order to start a bike repair collective, have no problem criticizing their own friends and comrades for shortchanging local projects to attend semi-annual mass mobilizations. This is a shame, because a look at the broader picture reveals that summit demos are taking an ongoing toll on the ruling class, even when they are tactically unsuccessful.
Just for starters, any city hosting a summit has to impose de facto martial law for the duration of the meetings. Miles-long steel security fences, bag searches on the subway, black helicopters in the sky, armor-clad riot cops on every corner, among other measures, make a mockery of the myth of "civil rights." By employing such repressive tactics just to keep a few summit delegates from being confronted by those they claim to be helping, authority reveals its true nature, undisguised by the usual lies and propaganda. People who claim that we should abandon summit protests because we can never replicate the WTO (World Trade Organization) riots in Seattle are missing this point. While it's true that the cops will never again allow themselves to be defeated on the street the way they were in Seattle, the things they have to do to win in the short term erode the perceived legitimacy of the entire ruling system in the medium term. If all they had to do was stop the protests they could just shoot the protesters. But since they must also maintain the illusion of freedom of assembly and freedom of speech, their problem is complicated immensely. They have no good options, so it's not a matter of whether we will win, only of how.
Their situation becomes all the worse when, after turning the host city into a militarized encampment for a week, the cops can't even stop a few kids in black from breaking windows. The resulting frustration often leads them to attack and arrest defenseless groups and individuals who have minimal connection to the protests, further compounding their problems when the videos hit Youtube. Then to justify their own brutality, the cops make an example of a handful of protest organizers by hitting them with ridiculously inflated charges, usually for actions that most people would consider perfectly innocuous. As an added bonus, the lawsuits generated by blatantly unconstitutional arrests and searches strain city budgets, consume prosecutors' time, and extend their PR nightmare. For authoritarians, the only thing worse than appearing brutal and repressive is appearing brutal and repressive and ineffectual. Cops, by their nature, will fall into this trap every time, as long as we show up and set it for them.
full article at link......http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20091103125740393
A curious property... more
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibSwITK4jjQ
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After training for a few weeks Antonio gets his chance to join the performers in the company. He had recently mentioned to me that he would be interested in doing clowns, he usually worked as sort of an all purpose roadie. We trained some, but then an emergency came up, I was sick and nobody else was available so he got his chance. He was both nervous and excited. This is just one more example of the type of entertainment we provided for a tri-state area. Playful Entertainment Network aka American Dream Talent provided most of this type of entertainment for the area until we had a run in with corrupt local vice officers. We beat them each time in court but finally ran out of money. Check out the rest of our videos for more information and examples of this.After training for a few weeks Antonio gets his chance to join the performers in the... more
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"According to the San Jose Mercury News, Phuong Ho, 20, a student at San Jose State University was brutally beaten by San Jose police when they were called to his home following up on an alleged assault.
The arrest occurred on Sept. 3, 2009 and the video footage was recently released. It was taken by one of Ho’s roommates on his cellular phone and released by Ho’s lawyer.
The video shows Officer Kenneth Siegel hitting Ho repeatedly with a metal baton. Then another officer, Steven Payne, used a Taser device on Ho before the handcuffs were applied.""According to the San Jose Mercury News, Phuong Ho, 20, a student at San Jose State... more
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A cell phone video that shows police officers repeatedly hitting an unarmed university student with batons and a Taser gun has prompted a criminal investigation into the officers' conduct, a San Jose police spokesman said.
The video, posted by the San Jose Mercury News on its Web site late Saturday, shows one officer hitting 20-year-old Vietnamese student Phuong Ho with a metal baton more than 10 times, including once on the head. Another officer is seen using his Taser gun on the San Jose State math major.
The final baton strike in last month's incident appears to take place after handcuffs have been attached to Ho's wrists.
Officers arrested Ho on suspicion of assaulting one of his roommates. He was not armed when police arrived and he told the newspaper he didn't resist arrest.
The confrontation began Sept. 3 when Ho's roommate, Jeremy Suftin, put soap on Ho's steak. The two scuffled, and Ho picked up a steak knife, saying that in his home country he would have killed Suftin for doing what he did.
Police were called, and four officers responded.
Officer Kenneth Siegel encountered Ho in the hallway, but couldn't understand the student's accent, police reports said. Ho then ignored a police command to stand still, reports said.
When Ho tried to follow Siegel into his room, officer Steven Payne Jr. moved to handcuff Ho. Payne wrote in his report that he pushed the student into a wall and then forced him to the floor when he resisted being handcuffed.
Ho, who weighs more than 200 lbs., said his glasses fell off. As he went to pick them up, the officers struck him, he said.
Another one of Ho's roommates, Dimitri Masouris, captured the events on his cell phone. An officer can be heard on the video shouting, "Turn over!" Ho can be heard moaning and crying as he's struck.
More @ linkA cell phone video that shows police officers repeatedly hitting an unarmed university... more
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A group of San Jose police officers are on the other side of the law, after using what some experts call "excessive force" on an unarmed San Jose student after responding to a roommate dispute.A group of San Jose police officers are on the other side of the law, after using what... more
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The video, posted by the San Jose Mercury News on its Web site late Saturday, shows one officer hitting 20-year-old Phuong Ho with a metal baton more than 10 times, including once on the head. Another officer is seen using his Taser gun on the San Jose State math major..
the final strikes took places he was handcuffed
"It takes me back to the day I saw the Rodney King video on TV," said Roger Clark, a police expert and a retired lieutenant with the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department.
what did he do? he was being arrested for assaulting one of his roommates.. he was not armed nor did he resist arrest....
maybe they thought he knew kungfu... sadly not really a joke
watch the video and decide on your own
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid31377651001?bctid=46104944001The video, posted by the San Jose Mercury News on its Web site late Saturday, shows... more
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Several Organizations came out on October 22nd 2009 in support of The October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation.
Calling on an end to the constant criminalization, and murder of community members by the NYPD.Several Organizations came out on October 22nd 2009 in support of The October 22nd... more
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Im so fucking tired of these community college drop outs getting away with murder.
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Missy Jarzenske was headed to her Lawrenceville home on 37th Street after an afternoon of photographing the Sept. 24 anti-G-20 anarchists' march when, three blocks from her front door, she stopped on the sidewalk to take one more shot. Her boyfriend, Michael Kocis, and two other friends were photographing as well.
Police swarmed them on the sidewalk on Butler at 34th, pulled them into the street and arrested them all, she says.
"We live here! We were just taking a picture!" she recalls shouting.
Today, says Jarzenske, "I'm charged with failure to disperse in my own neighborhood, and obstructing my own sidewalk." And when she got out of jail five hours after being arrested, Jarzenske says, her camera was broken and the film ruined.
"They had ripped the back open and they had tried to tape it together" -- unsuccessfully, she says. Her other exposed roll is still missing. (Kocis' digital camera was intact, as were the photos he shot with it.)
"We weren't doing anything but documenting," says Jarzenske, who teaches photography at Manchester Craftsmen's Guild. "It's kind of my job."
Some 200 people were arrested during G-20-related protests. Among them were several people trying to document the events -- either for established media outlets, or for "indymedia" enterprises and other projects. The best-known example is Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter Sadie Gurman. But two Pitt News photographers were also arrested, and other journalists were exposed to crowd-control devices like pepper spray.
Post-Gazette and Pittsburgh Tribune-Review staff, who were either arrested or reportedly targeted during the week, did not reply to requests for comment. But Beth Pittinger, who heads the Citizen Police Review Board, says she has already received numerous complaints about police conduct during G-20 week, including some involving camera damage.
"The frightening part of that is, it's trying to control information that comes into the public," she says.
For example, one YouTube-posted video -- by independent journalist John Moschopoulos -- was shot Sept. 25 on the corner of Fifth Avenue and South Bouquet Street in Oakland. The video (http://tinyurl.com/ylnvhkn) shows a young male being arrested: When Moschopoulos asks the arrestee's name, a K-9 officer approaches, pointing to the camera. "Spray him," the officer orders another. He is sprayed twice. "I'm on the sidewalk," he protests.
"Disperse!" comes the reply. "You were ordered to disperse. Do it now."
Moschopoulous says there were numerous people milling on the sidewalk behind him -- proof, he says, that police targeted him not for failing to disperse, but for shooting video.
Moschopoulos was not arrested. But Nate Monkelien, with Twin Cities Indymedia, doesn't expect to get his cameras and tapes back after filming several arrests Sept. 25. He was charged that night with aggravated assault, resisting arrest and other, more minor charges -- all of which he claims are "completely fabricated."
"They were definitely targeting cameramen," he says. Not everyone agrees.
Local freelance journalist Shane Dunlap, who moved to North Carolina just after G-20, says he was photographing the protests when he was arrested. Still, he doesn't feel police were taking extra notice of being filmed.
"They had their hands full," Dunlap says. Officers "were just indifferent to who you were -- professional media or not. I don't really think they cared."
Police did run right by this working journalist to catch non-media ordered to disperse during an unpermitted Sept. 24 march. And protesters weren't always fond of photographers; one of the first chants during that protest was "cameramen assholes!"
But the advent of cheap digital recorders, YouTube and even cell-phone cameras means that the line between journalist and citizen can get blurry. That's especially true in the case of "indymedia" journalists, grassroots reporters who furnish content to online sites... full article at linkMissy Jarzenske was headed to her Lawrenceville home on 37th Street after an afternoon... more
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Eleven sentences from the Appeal Court to the people who were marching in Genoa: about 100 years of imprisonment. But 14 people were acquitted for self defence, because the police charge was illegal.
"This is not a sentence, but it's a revenge", said Haidi Giuliani, mother of Carlo, the man killed by the police.Eleven sentences from the Appeal Court to the people who were marching in Genoa: about... more
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DOLTON, Ill. (CBS) A 15-year-old student was walking down a hallway at school when he says a police officer grabbed him and threw him to the ground. But that’s not all. The teenager says he was beaten and nearly suffocated. He told his story to CBS 2 Investigator Dave Savini.
Security cameras captured the beating of a 15-year-old Special Education student by a police officer. Marshawn Pitts says the officer started shouting and swearing at him because his shirt wasn’t tucked in.
“I was tucking my shirt in,” Pitts said.DOLTON, Ill. (CBS) A 15-year-old student was walking down a hallway at school when he... more
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KSirys
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added this
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1 month ago
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Click link for video- wouldn't embed right on current!
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ―
Several protestors interrupted Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato's speech at IBEW headquarters on the South Side.
Onorato, who is running for governor, hardly got into his announcement when a woman approached him at the podium.
"So I just want to let you know that the G-20 protestors …," she said before she was escorted off the stage.
It did not derail Onorato who turned it around to make his point.
"We want to hear everybody's voice and you all know me. I've never shied away from any criticism," he said. "I make the tough decisions, what we got to do to move this region forward, and that's why we're going to move this state forward next."
But a minute later, protestors from an organization called What Happened At Pitt or WHAP tried to unfurl banners, shouted protests and tried to disrupt Onorato's address.
Police intervened, scuffled with several protestors, handcuffed them and led them through the crowd.
"This Italian kid born and raised on the North Side, still leaving there, raising my family," Onorato said. "These protestors, they don't know what tough work is. We grew up with tough work. Western Pennsylvania knows tough work."
A spokesman for the group told KDKA Political Editor Jon Delano the demonstration was a follow-up to earlier protests about alleged police mishandling and arrests of students in Oakland during the G-20 Summit and Onorato's failure to address it.
Police say that at least four of the protestors have been issued citations for defiant trespass, a summary offense with a fine that could be as high as $300.
Onorato is taking his campaign back on the road to Johnstown, State College and Wilkes-Barre.Click link for video- wouldn't embed right on current!
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ―... more
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Elliot Madison was arrested last month during the G-20 protests in Pittsburgh when police raided his hotel room. Police say Madison and a co-defendant used computers and a radio scanner to track police movements and then passed on that information to protesters using cell phones and the social networking site Twitter. Madison is being charged with hindering apprehension or prosecution, criminal use of a communication facility, and possession of instruments of crime. Exactly one week later, Madison’s New York home was raided by FBI agents, who conducted a sixteen-hour search. We speak to Elliot Madison and his attorney, Martin Stolar. [includes rush transcript]
Video at link, current would not let me embed.Elliot Madison was arrested last month during the G-20 protests in Pittsburgh when... more
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Turkish police used water cannons and pepper spray on Tuesday to disperse protesters demonstrating at the annual International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Istanbul.
Riot police clashed with protesters in a square close to where thousands of finance ministers, central bankers, and economists from around the world are meeting to discuss the global economy. Police followed some protesters as they fled onto nearby streets.
The demonstrators were seen breaking the windows of some banks and shops. Some were seen throwing Molotov cocktails.
Dozens of people were detained during the protests, which were organized by several Turkish unions.
Last week, a student was detained after throwing a shoe at International Monetary Fund Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn during an appearance at an Istanbul university. The shoe missed the IMF leader.Turkish police used water cannons and pepper spray on Tuesday to disperse protesters... more
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Turkish police have fired tear gas to break up hundreds of protesters outside a meeting of the International Monetary Fund in Istanbul.Turkish police have fired tear gas to break up hundreds of protesters outside a... more
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An Oklahoma trooper previously suspended for fighting with an ambulance driver is on paid administrative leave after being accused of using excessive force.
Trooper Daniel Martin is accused of beating Khristopher Douglas of Holdenville. Douglas says he was at a friend's home helping with renovations Saturday when troopers pulled up to handle an apparent traffic stop.
Douglas says he was going inside when Martin demanded he come toward the street. Douglas says Martin grabbed his arm and began beating him when he questioned the order.
Oklahoma Highway Patrol Capt. Chris West says Martin and another trooper are on paid leave during the investigation.An Oklahoma trooper previously suspended for fighting with an ambulance driver is on... more
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