The counterproductive response to 9/11, in which the federal government began providing military equipment and training even to some of the smallest rural departments, has fueled the militarization of police forces. Everyday policing is characterized by a SWAT mentality, every other 911 call a military mission. What emerges is a picture of a vital public-safety institution perpetually at war with its own people.

Paramilitary Policing From Seattle to Occupy Wall Street (via wreckandsalvage)

It’s hard to believe an ex-police chief wrote this, but it’s spot-on:

The paramilitary bureaucracy and the culture it engenders—a black-and-white world in which police unions serve above all to protect the brotherhood—is worse today than it was in the 1990s. Such agencies inevitably view protesters as the enemy. And young people, poor people and people of color will forever experience the institution as an abusive, militaristic force—not just during demonstrations but every day, in neighborhoods across the country.

A must-read. (via spytap)

(via spytap)

Source: thenation.com

spotted via kateoplis, and motherjones This is Lt. John Pike. 530-752-3989. japikeiii@ucdavis.edu “I am writing to tell you in no uncertain terms that there must be space for protest on our campus. There must be space for political dissent on our campus. There must be space for civil disobedience on our campus. There must be space for students to assert their right to decide on the form of their protest, their dissent, and their civil disobedience—including the simple act of setting up tents in solidarity with other students who have done so. There must be space for protest and dissent, especially, when the object of protest and dissent is police brutality itself…” — Assistant Professor Brown
Pop-upView Separately

spotted via kateoplis, and motherjones

This is Lt. John Pike. 530-752-3989. japikeiii@ucdavis.edu

“I am writing to tell you in no uncertain terms that there must be space for protest on our campus. There must be space for political dissent on our campus. There must be space for civil disobedience on our campus. There must be space for students to assert their right to decide on the form of their protest, their dissent, and their civil disobedience—including the simple act of setting up tents in solidarity with other students who have done so. There must be space for protest and dissent, especially, when the object of protest and dissent is police brutality itself…”

— Assistant Professor Brown

Source: motherjones

via chriscavs:

crosscrowdedrooms:

It’s proved impossible for me to get this shot of former Philadelphia Police Cpt. Ray Lewis being arrested, published anywhere.  I was adamantly rebuffed by the Philadelphia Inquirer, NYT, local NY papers, and Newsweek, before even looking at the photograph.  One of the only published photos of this paradoxical and intense event is located here at the NYC Observer.

If mainstream media won’t, I will. 

(via parttimevagabond)

Source: observer.com

spotted via drink your juice, via cognitive dissonance

“You should, by law, only use force to protect someone’s life or to protect them from being bodily injured. If you’re not protecting somebody’s life or protecting them from bodily injury, there’s no need to use force. And the number one thing that they always have in their favor that they seldom use is negotiation – continue to talk, and talk and talk to people. You have nothing to lose by that. This bullrush–what happened last night is totally uncalled for when they did not use negotiation long enough.

“They complained about the park being dirty. Here they are worrying about dirty parks when people are starving to death, where people are freezing, where people are sleeping in subways and they’re concerned about a dirty park. That’s obnoxious, it’s arrogant, it’s ignorant, it’s disgusting. 

[The NYPD], they’re trying to get me arrested and I may disappear OK? But as soon as I’m let out of jail, I’ll be right back here and they’ll have to arrest me again. All the cops are, they’re just workers for the one percent and they don’t even realize they’re being exploited.” 

- Captain Ray Lewis

(via wreckandsalvage)

Source: cognitivedissonance

via paul currier:

New York Police are evicting anti-Wall Street demonstrators from the New York square where the nationwide ‘Occupy’ movement first began.

Occupy Wall Street is being Evicted right now!!!!!  ”Liberty Square [Zuccotti Park], home of Occupy Wall Street for the past two months and birthplace of the 99% movement that has spread across the country and around the world, is presently being evicted by a large police force,” the demonstrators said in a statement released on Tuesday.

According to police officials, most of the protesters left peacefully. However, 15 people were arrested for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

Mr. Bloomberg met daily with several deputies and commissioners, and as more business owners complained and editorials lampooned him as gutless, his patience wore thin.

- Police Oust Occupy Wall Street Protesters at Zuccotti Park - NY Times

This meme, of journalists describing elected officials (or, nonsensically, municipalities) as moving to dismantle these protests because their “patience wore thin” is particularly irksome. Because, and any competent editor/reporter should know this, the right to peaceably assemble isn’t subject to the “patience” of an elected official. To describe it this way is to accept that citizens are allowed in any public space only at the sufferance of their government, and at least for now in the U.S., that simply isn’t true. 

(via librarysciences)

Source: The New York Times

NY judge this morning temporarily enjoined the city...

spotted via kateoplis:

A NY state judge this morning temporarily enjoined the city from keeping the protesters out of Zuccotti Park, but Mayor Bloomberg is simply ignoring the Order and deliberately breaking the law by refusing to allow them back in. Put another way, Bloomberg this morning has broken more laws… 

Source: salon.com

Photographers: Know Your Rights

via future journalism project:

The ACLU’s published a photographer’s cheat sheet on their rights when shooting in the field (US only):

  • When in public spaces where you are lawfully present you have the right to photograph anything that is in plain view.
  • When you are on private property, the property owner may set rules about the taking of photographs.
  • Police officers may not generally confiscate or demand to view your photographs or video without a warrant.
  • Police may not delete your photographs or video under any circumstances.
  • Police officers may legitimately order citizens to cease activities that are truly interfering with legitimate law enforcement operations.
  • Note that the right to photograph does not give you a right to break any other laws.

Click through for explanations of each, advice on what to do if stopped or detained, exceptions for shooting around airports and special considerations for videography (eg., “With regards to videotaping, there is an important legal distinction between a visual photographic record (fully protected) and the audio portion of a videotape, which some states have tried to regulate under state wiretapping laws.”) 

(via elspethjane)

Source: futurejournalismproject

the daily what:

[…] Cell phone service was temporarily suspended in several Bay Area Rapid Transit stations to prevent protesters from communicating with each other, according to BART police Lt. Andy Alkire.

Word that members of “No Justice No BART” would be protesting the shooting death of Charles Hill by a BART police officer reached BART’s media relations department, which asked wireless providers to shut off service at four downtown San Francisco stations to prevent “disruptive activities.” A similar protest on July 11th delayed trains for hours during the evening commute.

“Paid areas of BART stations are reserved for ticketed passengers who are boarding, exiting or waiting for BART cars and trains, or for authorized BART personnel,” BART said in a statement explaining their actions. “No person shall conduct or participate in assemblies or demonstrations or engage in other expressive activities in the paid areas of BART stations, including BART cars and trains and BART station platforms.”

Alkire called the service disruption “a great tool to utilize for this specific purpose.”

Charles Hill, a heavily intoxicated 45-year-old transient, was shot and killed by a BART police officer who claimed Hill was threatening him with knives. According to witness testimony, Hill was not running or lunging as the two officers who intercepted him reported.

CCTV footage released by BART does not appear to verify either version of the story. [ktvu / bart / image: baycitizen.]

You hear in other countries - countries that you think of less democratic than the Westernized World - how during protest and demonstrations and riots, the oppressive governments react by killing internet connections and cell phone service - nothing comes in, nothing goes out. Movements die. Nothing changes. Then you read a story like this… and realize… we’re the same, at least in all the ways that really matter when people need to fight back. 

via tanya 77:

8 Reasons Young Americans Don’t Fight Back -

How the US Crushed Youth Resistance

via kateoplis:

1. Student-Loan Debt. Large debt — and the fear it creates — is a pacifying force. […] Public universities continue to be free in the Arab world and are either free or with very low fees in many countries throughout the world. The millions of young Iranians who risked getting shot to protest their disputed 2009 presidential election, the millions of young Egyptians who risked their lives earlier this year to eliminate Mubarak, and the millions of young Americans who demonstrated against the Vietnam War all had in common the absence of pacifying huge student-loan debt. 

Read on. 

#3 fucking kills me. It’s so dead-on, no shit.

#7 is missing “Reality TV” which has helped create one of the worst generations as far as work ethic and heightened many Americans’ assumption that being on TV is the pinnacle of human existence.

It’s all so sad. 

Just this morning, I listened to a fantastic interview with this author on the Majority Report. Reading this article, alongside breaking news out of San Francisco - regarding the police making a quick phone, and ta-da!, the telecoms happily shut off large areas of cellphone service, as to keep people from being able to… you know, fight back against police gunning down the homeless in crowded metro stations - is making me sick to my stomach. It almost feels inevitable now… we’ve been squeezed and squeezed and watered-down to the point where all it takes is someone being shot in the back by the law to set people off who have felt neglected their entire lives. 

Source: kateoplis

via dalas verdugo : Phil Mocek found “NOT GUILTY” by Albuquerque jury

Uncontested TSA and police testimony at the trial established, among other things, [this] important point:

You have the right, recognized by the TSA, to photograph or film anywhere in publicly accessible areas of airports including TSA checkpoints, as long as you don’t violate any local laws, photograph the images on the screening monitors, interfere with the screening process, or slow down the line. (Whether those limitations to your First Amendment rights claimed by the TSA are legal or Constitutional was not decided in this case, since Mr. Mocek wasn’t filming the images on the screening monitors, interfering with the screening process, or slowing down the line.) Signs or statements that photography is prohibited at Federal checkpoints are, in general, false.

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