Forum Post: Occupy must not _commit_ police brutality
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 12, 2011, 9:52 a.m. EST by mserfas
(652)
from Ashland, PA
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
I am seeing disturbing reports like http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2011/11/occupy-dc-protesters-push-78-year-old-woman-down-cement-stairs-at-afp-conference-video/ , http://www.theblaze.com/stories/watch-as-woman-is-viscously-attacked-at-occupy-san-diego/ , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz_bhNLiJbQ , and http://www.mediabistro.com/tvspy/kgo-cameraman-attacked-while-shooting-murder-scene-at-occupy-oakland_b28970 . A small but very well-publicized minority of protesters are doing things which, if done by police, we would not hesitate to call police brutality - knocking people down, hitting them, and trying to prevent people from filming or speaking their minds. And, in terms of percentages, it is very possible that there is a higher percentage of protesters committing such brutality than police, given how many officers have steadfastly held their ground regardless of the insults hurled at them to set a high standard for professional behavior. I think that OWS, which has inspired all these other protests, needs to make a clear statement condemning all such "protester brutality".
If anyone actually wants to stop a crew from filming - rather than turning up on the nightly news as an example - it should be sufficient simply to pray. Nobody is going to air complete prayers on the news; it should be as effective as if you had a remote control to shut the camera off.
That lady was knocked down by the security guards pushing the crowd down the steps.
No protestor pushed that lady.
I'd like to think you're right, but even the critical deconstruction of the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQpSCpgnt4Q rings pretty hollow to me - and it shows protesters harassing people coming into the meeting in a way that makes it seem plausible they could have shoved her down. Can you point to more convincing evidence?
I agree with the captions on that video, actually.
There are police all around, if some individual actually pushed this woman, why weren't they grabbed and arrested? Why are there, to this day, no police reports emerging about this phantom "pusher" of old women?
And I see no "harassment" that makes it plausible that anyone shoved anyone down.
The person I see actually physically assaulting people is that large older man coming out of the conference. Not an OWSer.
I don't have to show you convincing evidence, the people making accusations of criminal behavior like you are, are the ones who need to show proof.
I assume we're both talking about 3:00 into the video. The Occupy people try to physically prevent someone from walking out, visibly pushing on him. True, he pushes back trying to get through ... but the point is, if you resort to this sort of tactic, people are going to get knocked over. Might not be purposefully, might be accidentally, but the point is, when you make your mission to physically block people from moving rather than to protest and be heard, you've escalated to a conflict where things like this can happen.
What you call "physically preventing people from walking out" I call two people standing there.
I can see no one pushing that man in the video, the video cuts to him when he is already pushing the two people standing there. There is no evidence that those people are protestors, no evidence that he tried to walk by without pushing them, no evidence they were actively "blocking" the man, etc etc.
You are seeing what you want to see.
It's really not what I wanted to see - I actually wish you were right.
Good thing you're not a lawyer.
I am right - can you screenshot the frame where those two people are shown pushing that man?
Looks like 3:02-3:03 on the YouTube tape. Mind you, I'm not saying that they're shoving him enough to knock him over since obviously they don't - it just looks like a sign to me that things were going in the wrong direction even after whatever initial confrontation left the two women on the ground.
You are persistent, aren't you. He pushes them FIRST - the pushes begins at around 2:58 BY HIM. we can't see what happened before that but the first thing we see is him pushing people out of the way.
I'm not really trying to convince you, I'm trying to counter you from putting your erroneous conclusions up here, unchallenged.
There is NO PROOF that these protestors were assaulting people. WHY was no one arrested for pushing an old lady? Answer: because no one pushed an old lady. An old lady fell because security guards pushed the crowd down the steps.
It doesn't matter that he pushes them first. You don't push somebody back as self-defense!!! Protesters should hold themselves to a higher standard than that, to avoid turning things into a physical conflict rather than a high-minded political expression. The issue here isn't what the police do, or what security does, or what AFP does; the point is, the Occupy movement has to do better or it will continue not just to look worse and worse in the press, but to actively undercut the very rights that protesters demand.
"It doesn't matter that he pushes them first. You don't push somebody back as self-defense!"
There is nothing violent going on there, the guy with the mic looks like he is trying to maintain his footing.
The "press" namely The Daily Caller & Breitbart who are circulating this video are NEVER going to be fair to OWS and will never publish anything positive about OWS no matter WHAT they do.
This was not a violent protest. DC, Breitbart and the conference participants just did not like the fact that they were THERE.
And you are that very special form of troll called a concern troll.
Take it somewhere else. This was NOT a violent protest. NO old ladies were shoved by OWS protestors. The male conference attendee is the AGGRESSOR in this video.
Take your trolling somewhere else.
Screw that. I say...Punch those intrusive cameramen. Let em have an OWS 99% knuckle sandwich
And this is just a small group of completely unstable morons, which is indicative of the overall OWS protesters. There are lots more like this. And they wonder why so many people don't support them.
They are NOT indicative of overall OWS protesters. If you watch those videos you see other people trying to do the right thing and stop these things from happening. The problem is that a lot of others just look flabbergasted and don't know what to do; no one is prepared for things like this to happen. For OWS to succeed people have to be ready to help whoever is in need of protection, and to speak out clearly against violence or the threat of violence at the first sign.
Do you know how many videos there are of OWS protestors? The large majority, even the self shot ones, are either morons, or radicals. Whats the difference. We just want an end to corruption and good government, and this movement isn't getting there.
I think I've seen a fair number of pretty boring OWS videos in which nothing happens but chanting, speeches, and tents built for various specialized purposes. I don't know what the sane to nut ratio really is but it doesn't matter provided you disavow and disallow behavior like this.