My Occupy LA Arrest, by Family Guy writer Patrick Meighan

[Honu]

Originally Posted by Riot

Actually, no. I watched it happen live on multiple UStreams, with live comments from people there.

Were you there? I doubt it. Because the night of the arrests there was no march. The marched on the sidewalks around the city hall (which blocked no one). Police set up a perimeter and wouldn't anyone in (clearly visible from the news helicopters covering the story). So yeah, those businesses were affected: at midnight. But it wasn't due to the protesters. It was due to the police coming in. Coming in to make arrests over something they allowed for 2 months. In fact, the LA PD liason officer to Occupy, the officer that works with Occupy, at 10:30pm, was broadcast saying, "No, there will be no arrests tonight". Of course, the arrests came at midnight, so he was not lying.

But the validity of Occupy isn't what this thread is about. It is about what the police did to the protesters and how they treated them during and after the arrest process. What do you think about that?

No I wasnt there, why the hell would I be downtown in the middle of the work day? Not much pay in that.
They marched down the middle of Fig. St at 7 am in the freaking morning, they put up tents in the streets after they were told they would be arrested.
Half the freaking police force of L.A. were there making sure everything went down smoothly. People got to march and they got to be heard, they Occupied 4 lanes of a public thoroughfare and the surrounding streets and they got to camp out and protest for days, with no police officer impededing them.

They were fair warned that they needed to move and they didnt care......you cannot just freaking take up public space forever and if you dont believe that the whole Occupy L.A. protest didnt affect people's forward progress you are blind.

[Cannon Shell]

People have no sympathy for OWS because they see them as simply being obstructionist as in cases like this. They are desperate for publicity so they do thing like this but the shock value is now gone. If they disobey direct police orders then thy will get arrested. We cant have people in the street deciding that they are going to do as they please against police/local authorities orders. The money spent on this nonsense including the unwarranted lawsuits (the vast majority which will be thrown out) is not helping OWS in the eyes of the average US citizen, it is hurting them.

F.uck Hollywood.

"Occupy" was taken over by brainwashed over-educated idiots. The agenda now is less free market, more government. Yeah government isn't responsible for 15 trillion in debt. Government is very responsible. They have great accountants. Lets make it bigger.

[Antitrust32]

Originally Posted by Honu

They werent sent to prison and he failed to mention the fact that the protest impeded people from going to their jobs as they Occupied dowtown L.A. they also fail to mention that some buisness couldnt open and some couldnt recieve supplies. I thought L.A. handled the situation very well they told them when they had to leave and even after that they gave them additional time to get their crap and go. No sympathy from me. They knew the score and made their choice.

yeah lets promote police violently infringing on the constitution.

[Danzig]

the police aren't infringing on the constitution! lol how ridiculous!

people have the right to free speech and free assembly. they do not however have the right to squat on private land, block traffic, impede others, trespass, build structures, litter, damage property, etc, etc.

go back and look at everytime the police were called in to remove protesters. it had nothing to do with right to speech or assembly. had everything to do with ignoring no 24 hour stay laws, camping rules, etc, etc


i doubt their rights would worry some on here quite so much if they didn't agree with the protest in question! i don't recall certain posters always backing protesters (whereas some of us do-i defend the aclu on a regular basis as well, gets me grief) regardless of their stance. i guess some protesters are more equal than others?
much like your right to speech doesn't include yelling fire in a crowded theatre when there isn't one, one hasn't got the right to congregate wherever they please, for however long they choose, for whatever reason however noble they may feel it is.

protesters are given ample opportunity to remove themselves before being removed by force. it's a fact that some of them actively seek arrest so that they can help portray cops as attacking innocent protesters and get headlines, and get people bewailing their fate. many others get their point across just as well but move when told to. an arrest isn't a violation of their rights. a trial without a jury is, or a long incarceration without formal charges brought.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by Danzig

the police aren't infringing on the constitution! lol how ridiculous!

Nonsense. The ACLU and others say that in a lot of instances (not all, but yes in certain towns of the 200 sites) in Occupy they most certainly are.

We are not owned nor controlled by a militarized police. They cannot order us not to protest on public property, to move along, to be quiet. Guess what? It worked for Ghandi, and it worked for Martin Luther King, and it's being used here to draw attention to the movement. And it's certainly worked - the national conversation has changed. But we in America have the right to protest, and to peacefully assemble, and to address our government and ask for redress: "they" cannot make special rules to tell us that 4 or more cannot be on the public sidewalk at the same time, or that we have to leave a public sidewalk after 11:00pm, or that we need a permit to walk into a public building without disruption.

Guess what? This is America, and if someone doesn't like that everyone has the same rights (includings Occupy, Muslims, blacks, and The People of Wal Mart in South Beach, Florida) too bad.

go back and look at everytime the police were called in to remove protesters. it had nothing to do with right to speech or assembly. had everything to do with ignoring no 24 hour stay laws, camping rules, etc, etc

That is factually not true. Many it was just last-minute bullshiat rules suddenly made up to yank people out of there. Several times they yanked them out, then made up charges. They have arrested people who were there but not involved in the protests. They have arrested bystanders. They have arrested journalists doing their jobs.

There are independent legal observers at every Occupy (NY even arrested a bunch of them and forbade them to watch, which got NY into a huge amt of trouble). There are lawyers advising the protesters. Constitutional rights have indeed been violated in some instances.

That is exactly what the lawyers are fighting over in court: defending our rights and liberties. And they are winning so far. Check the court cases involving Occupy.

If you don't stand up for your rights, you won't have any. Congress just this week passed a bill that allows you, an American citizen on American soil, to be detained indefinitely if you are suspected of being a terrorist. Have a cache of food for several months? A few guns? Better watch out!

You'd better pray Obama doesn't sign it. Patriot Act ring a bell?

You think those people being pepper sprayed in Oakland were being treated according to their rights? Hell no! They were NOT.

The people in LA who were denied bail when they had the money in their hands? No - their Constitutional rights were violated. Were they allowed lawyers? No - their Constitutional rights were violated.

And yes, the Lawyers Guild, and the ACLU, is providing tons of free legal service to the Occupy movement, due to the terrible rights abuses of many of the PD departments and the cities.

This, the below, is when the LAPD first moved into Occupy LA. Notice the deliberate and determined destruction of private property - which the city denies (they didn't get all the videos out of there before they started, although they moved the press several blocks away - another Constitution issue that is going through the NYC courts now with OccupyWS and the NYC press)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=qmtBFAk1864

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLNFb...eature=related

i doubt their rights would worry some on here quite so much if they didn't agree with the protest in question! i don't recall certain posters always backing protesters

Baloney. No more so than some here are defending the police because they don't like the protesters. The KKK is a bunch of hate-filled idiots, but yeah, they have the right to demonstrate in this country.

it's a fact that some of them actively seek arrest so that they can help portray cops as attacking innocent protesters and get headlines, and get people bewailing their fate.

Yes, peaceful non-violent, non-resisting protesters are willing to get arrested for minor civil disobedience like refusing to move. They are briefed by legal teams, and some choose to get arrested, and some do not. They should be arrested, booked, fined, etc. Minor misdemeanors.

That does not entitle the police to physically or mentally abuse them or treat them differently, or abuse their constitutional rights.

I've worked with and known and cared about lots of cops, FBI agents, etc., and I have the greatest respect for law enforcement. But when they screw up, they have to be called on it.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by Coach Pants

F.uck Hollywood.

"Occupy" was taken over by brainwashed over-educated idiots.

The agenda now is less free market, more government. Yeah government isn't responsible for 15 trillion in debt. Government is very responsible. They have great accountants. Lets make it bigger.

Good grief. Idiot dirty unwashed hippies, over-educated ne'er do well entitled jobless rich kids.

I wish you guys would make up your minds about what narrow slot you are going to place thousands of your fellow citizens within.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by Antitrust32

yeah lets promote police violently infringing on the constitution.

How you cousin doing? How's Occupy NC (?) doing?

Originally Posted by Riot

Good grief. Idiot dirty unwashed hippies, over-educated ne'er do well entitled jobless rich kids.

I wish you guys would make up your minds about what narrow slot you are going to place thousands of your fellow citizens within.

The reality is the socialists are the ones getting the majority of airtime on pmsnbc, cnn, cbs and abc. Poll most Americans and a staggering percentage will say Michael Moore is the figurehead of OWS.

There will be no real change until the big networks and cable news outlets are forced to report riots and martial law. Free press my as.s.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by Coach Pants

The reality is the socialists are the ones getting the majority of airtime on pmsnbc, cnn, cbs and abc. Poll most Americans and a staggering percentage will say Michael Moore is the figurehead of OWS.

There will be no real change until the big networks and cable news outlets are forced to report riots and martial law. Free press my as.s.

I wish we had more socialists in our government. And you are right, unfortunately, about Michael Moore, and martial law.

The mainstream media is being successfully bypassed. The only reason we know so much about Occupy WS, police brutality, etc. is exactly the reason we know what really happened in the Arab Spring: citizen journalism and the internet.

The pepper-spray Oakland incident was completely covered up and lied about by the Berkeley Campus Police - but by the time the Chief had hit the evening news lying that the police were "afraid" of the protesters and "had" to pepper spray in self-defense that afternoon, multiple citizen journalism videos had already hit YouTube and UStream and the Occupy Websites, showing the blatant lie.

The powers that be are very worried about the freedom of the internet - they are trying, now, to take that away. We know that the internet was deliberately cut off during the Arab Spring.

The night of the huge march across the Brooklyn Bridge in NY, internet access and cell access from Zuccotti went down for 2 hours at about 10:30pm. Overuse of the network, or deliberate? We don't know.

[Danzig]

Police cleared an Occupy SF encampment in front of the Federal Reserve building in San Francisco overnight.

Riot police moved in on the encampment on the sidewalk at 101 Market St. at around 4 a.m. Sunday. Police said they gave campers several warnings that began Friday morning.

Police said they arrested 55 protesters were arrested for illegal lodging, and while interactions between police and protesters was tense, no officers or protesters were injured.

Police said some officers were spit on(gross!!) and one officer was pushed by demonstrators.

All of those arrested were taken away in zip ties and released before sunrise.

It was not immediately clear how the occupiers would respond to the arrests. The Federal Reserve encampment became the largest in the city after police raided the camp at Justin Herman Plaza last week.



...of course i'm sure the spitters and shovers weren't real occupiers. they're all occupiers til one does something wrong-then that person is no longer an occupier!! remember that everyone.

[Honu]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40KfE...layer_embedded

[Riot]

Originally Posted by Danzig

...of course i'm sure the spitters and shovers weren't real occupiers. they're all occupiers til one does something wrong-then that person is no longer an occupier!! remember that everyone.

Well, that's certainly a reason to paint hundreds of thousands of other people with the same brush. Glad you caught that!

What's your point? Occupy is a peaceful movement, that absolutely promotes non-violence. Yeah, there are some that can't hold to that. Nobody has ever said there were not - but yes, if they are not peaceful, they are not following the Occupy movement's outline for protest. They may still be Occupiers. But that doesn't mean that those that are just showing up for Black Bloc violence tactics have anything to do with Occupy. Not at all.

Is that too much nuance to understand?

Police said some officers were spit on(gross!!) and one officer was pushed by demonstrators.

Police in Berkeley also publicly said at a news conference that the protesters had them surrounded, and they feared physical harm. Thank goodness Mr. Pepper Spray was there to step over those vicious threatening protesters, and save his fellow officers from them!

You choose to believe the police public line. I'm pointing out that over and over, actual video proves the police (some police) have been proven to be lying outright. Dell just immediately dismissed those that document police abuse as liars.

Believe your eyes, or believe the stories (from either side) Multiple expensive lawsuits have been filed against certain cities, by organizations such as the ACLU and by individual citizens, over infringement on freedoms and police brutality. When you have documented evidence, rather than only, "he said, she said", it's easy to do.

You'll notice that nobody is painting all the police with the same broad brush you are trying to paint the Occupy'ers with. There are multiple Occupy encampments where there have been zero negative interactions with the police, where the right to protest peacefully is 100% supported by the locals, police and government - no matter how inconvenient some may find it.

[Antitrust32]

I never believe the police public line. I dont believe the public's public line most of the time either.. but certainly dont believe the police. I can post article after article about the police "public line" covering up for the illegal **** the police just did.