Oakland cops brutalize family day celebration of workers

May Day March 2012 by Judith Scherr, IPS

By Judith Scherr
IPS News

OAKLAND, California, May 2, 2012 (IPS) – It was May Day and Oakland was bathed in sunshine. Union workers staged militant actions; immigrants and allies marched for justice with brass bands and drummers; spontaneous street parties erupted.

There was also tear gas, flash bang grenades, screams, vandalism and arrests on Oakland Streets.

“Today, as we stand in solidarity with labour, as we stand in solidarity with immigrant workers, as we strike against this exploitative economic system, we also stand up to police violence and state repression,” Laleh Behbehanian of the Occupy Oakland Anti- Repression Committee told a rally in Oscar Grant Plaza, the space renamed by protesters for a young unarmed African American man killed by a transit police officer.

Seattle cops attack pregnant protester who miscarries

By David Edwards
Raw Story

A woman who was pepper sprayed during during a raid on Occupy Seattle last week is blaming police after she miscarried Sunday. Video from IowaBoyDave, uploaded to YouTube Nov. 21, 2011.

Jennifer Fox, 19, told The Stranger that she had been with the Occupy protests since they started in Westlake Park. She said she was homeless and three months pregnant, but felt the need to join activists during their march last Tuesday.

Oakland mayoral recall underway; Police issue statement; Cop who shot Olsen ID’d

By COTO Report

Today, the Oakland Police Officers Assn. issued a statement publicizing the conflicting orders coming from the Mayor’s Office, while efforts to recall Mayor Jean Quan have begun.

Additionally, the officer who shot Oakland protester and Iraq Vet, Scott Olsen, has been identified by Anonymous as Deputy Sheriff Scott Bergstresser, of the San Francisco Sheriff’s Dept., Emergency Services Unit (Badge #1342).

Occupy Wall Street Primer: Uniformed Thugs Are Not Legally Police

Oakland Use of Illegal Force

Why Wall Street Is Not Enough, This is War

By Gordon Duff
Veterans Today

The disease is police forces in a nation of laws violating those laws, those who are supposed to protect the public safety making it more than clear to us here at VT that they are willing to stoop to criminality to work for the 1%.

My point?  It isn’t just the banks.  We are no longer a nation of civil law, no longer a nation of accountability, and those who would limit OCW (Occupy Wall Street) to demonstrations against banks may very well be working for the other side.

A Poem for Scott Olsen, the Veteran and Protester Put in a Coma by Oakland Police

By Steven D
Booman Tribune
Wed Oct 26th, 2011 at 08:39:13 PM EST

My rubber bullets smashed in the face of a veteran
and then I picked up a kitten ever so gently.
I was the perfect picture of a policeman.I was only one person in one battalion
just doing his job, and doing it superbly.
My rubber bullets smashed in the face of a veteran

but orders are orders. I followed the game plan,
and my bosses said I acted honorably.
I was the prefect picture of a policeman

The Bankers Are the Problem

By Anonymous

CA Prosecutor Says People Have a Right to Self Defence in Unlawful Police Brutality

By Freedom Watch

Judge Napolitano interviews Tony Rackauckas, Orange County District Attorney in the brutal slaying of  Kelly Thomas. Two officers have been charged in his murder.

Occupy Wall Street: Macing Protesters, Chris Hedges and Michael Moore

Olbermann interviews Michael Moore who says, “I think there needs to be a multi-pronged approach” urging civil disobedience locally as well as nationally, and refusing to move out under a foreclosure notice since no one owns your mortgage any more.  “The banks lost them,” he says, when they bundled them into their little Ponzie schemes.

Two Fullerton police officers charged in homeless man’s death

Fullerton cops Manuel Ramos and Jay Cicinelli charged in Kelly Thomas murder. Booking photos from Orange County District Attorney's Office

By Abby Sewell, Richard Winton and Scott Gold
Los Angeles Times

Orange County prosecutors charged two veteran Fullerton police officers in the death of a mentally ill homeless man, accusing them of a callous cascade of violence against Kelly Thomas as he begged for his life.

Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas on Wednesday said what began as routine questioning by police devolved into a “beating at the hands of an angry police officer,” with other officers eventually joining in. He stressed that Thomas did not provoke the attack and that all of his movements were purely defensive.

Million dollars not enough for brutal police slaying of Kelly Thomas, says family

Warning: Graphic images

By Rady Ananda

The surviving family members of Kelly Thomas, who was brutally murdered by Fullerton Police (Orange County, California) in July, rejected an offer of $900,000 not to pursue civil action.  [Image:  Kelly Thomas]

9/22 UPDATE: Two Fullerton police officers charged in homeless man’s death

On July 5, 2011, closed circuit TV caught six Fullerton cops brutally murdering a homeless, mentally ill man.  Kelly Thomas, age 37, died after being taken off life-support five days later.

A whistleblower who viewed the unreleased city-owned video of the event says an officer crushed Thomas’ windpipe by “drop-kneeing” him “more than once.”

Former Black Panther in England: ‘I don’t call it rioting, I call it an insurrection’

The pre-planned assassination of a gang member by London’s thug cops on August 4th set off a fresh wave of riots in the Tottenham area. When this BBC anchor didn’t like what 68-year-old journalist and former Black Panther Darcus Howe, had to say about it — the interview became hostile.

Ohio Campus Cops Execute Star Athlete with Taser

By Paul Thompson
Daily Mail

A student who died after being shot with a Taser by campus police had also been shocked with a stun gun last year, it has emerged.

Everette Howard, from Cincinatti, went into cardiac arrest after being struck by the stun gun on Saturday after police were responding to reports of an assault.

The 18-year-old, who was due to attend the University of the Cumberlands in Williamsburg, Kentucky, was said to have approached a campus police officer with clenched fists.

Tasered: The coroner revealed that Everette Howard, pictured with a friend, had also been shocked with a stun gun and rushed to hospital last year

Ontario Cops Gone Wild: False arrests, beatings, and naked detentions

By Rady Ananda

Ontario police have a penchant for brutality, sexual assault and false arrest, the latest example exposed during a civil lawsuit filed last month.

During preparations for the G20 Summit last year, Sean Salvati was arrested in Toronto for saying, “Well, good luck on Saturday.”

Here’s police video of the incident:
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“One of the officers grabbed the neck and began punching me,” Salvati said in an interview with the Star [on June 23]. “(He) mentioned something about ‘These are your rights.’ You know? Like: ‘You think you have rights? These are your rights.’”

Killer cops stand trial for Katrina killings

After the barrage of bullets stopped, while Susan Bartholomew was lying on a concrete walkway of the Danziger Bridge, the men shooting at Bartholomew’s family ordered her to raise her hands. But Bartholomew recalled realizing that would be impossible.

“I couldn’t do it, because my arm was shot off,” she said softly. “I raised the only hand I had.” ~Times-Picayune

The trial of five current and former New Orleans police officers accused in the Danziger Bridge shootings case in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina began Monday morning in federal court in New Orleans. The defendants are former officer Robert Faulcon, who resigned not long after Katrina; Sgt. Kenneth Bowen; Sgt. Robert Gisevius; officer Anthony Villavaso; and retired Sgt. Arthur Kaufman. ~Times-Picayune

Jackboots in Asheville NC

By Puddy Dunne

So I saw my friend today after 48 hours in the slammer. His head bruised and battered, knots on his head and bruises down his arms.

Thursday morning he started his day driving from Asheville to a nearby town. A cruiser had pulled behind him and followed until moments later when the gumballs began to flash. My friend pulled over and when the thug got to his window my friend asked if he was speeding. Without a single word the thug opened his car door and ripped him out of his car, threw him violently to the ground while screaming to stop resisting the assault.

With threats of taser, several more Asheville thugs joined in the melee and began to beat him about the head while he lay on the ground. After the knee was applied to head on the asphalt and the cuffs were on they threatened him with arrest.

Riot police break up campus party with sound cannon, tear gas

Mass Arrests, Tear Gas, Sound Weapons used Against WIU Students

By Reality TV

At Western Illinois University last week, police broke up the annual campus block party with LRADs, piercing the eardrums of partying students. Journalists were threatened with arrest for daring to video the police. University president Alfred Goldfarb is responsible for bringing this action against the student body. Student journalist Julio Rausseo reviews video footage and recounts the abuses:

Houston cops who stomp 15-yr-old charged with misdemeanor

By Rady Ananda

The recent public release of a video capturing police brutality that resulted in seven Houston police officers being fired while only four have been charged with misdemeanors has prompted fresh outrage. In the video above, we see 15-year-old Chad Holley running from the cops after a robbery on March 23 of last year. After being knocked to the ground by a police car, he immediately rolls onto his stomach and puts his hands behind his head. Before cuffing him, Houston police begin kicking him in the head and punching him several times in a clear felonious assault.

Note that one cop, standing between the boy’s legs, kicks him in his groin four times, and smashes his knees in an apparent attempt to break them. Another cop slugs him several times while others hold the boy down.

Silent protester Ray McGovern brutalized by cops at Hillary Clinton talk on free speech

By Rady Ananda

Walking like an Egyptian pharaoh more than an Egyptian, during Hillary Clinton’s talk on free speech on Tuesday at George Washington University, she allowed the arrest and brutalization of a silent protester, Ray McGovern, who since his retirement from the CIA has been actively protesting war. The university’s newspaper, GW Hatchet, reported Clinton’s words:

“What happened in Egypt and what happened in Iran, which this week is once again using violence against protesters seeking basic freedoms, was about a great deal more than the Internet,” Clinton said. “In each case people protested because of deep frustrations with the political and economic division of their lives.”

Try looking in the mirror, Clinton.

A Truth More Powerful than an Army

Dear readers, for those of you who live near Appleton, Wisconsin, I will be reading from my book, Courage Grows Strong at the Wound, at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 2600 Philip Lane (just south of East Calumet Street), on Sunday, 2-13, at 6:30 p.m.

By Robert C. Koehler

It was just a routine murder.

Last June, police accosted a young man at an Internet café in the city of Alexandria.  He had just filmed their drug deal, or he simply refused to show them his ID.  Whatever the provocation — accounts vary — they slammed his head against the table, dragged him outside as he screamed, beat him viciously for 20 minutes.  That was that.  You can pick up the body later.

In a thug society, power is as power does. And in Egypt, power flowed from the top — from, indeed, beyond the top.  It flowed from the superpower that had been a cornucopia of military aid, nearly $2 billion a year, to President Hosni Mubarak for the last 30 years.  In return, Mubarak had to be a useful friend to that superpower: open his prisons for secret torture operations, acquiesce to Israel’s blockade of Gaza and, of course, keep the oil flowing from Saudi Arabia. Otherwise, his only obligation was to stay in power, and he did so with a simple and basic brutality.  Do what we say or we’ll kill you.

Almost Everything Is a Crime in America Now: 14 of the Most Ridiculous Things Americans Arrested for

By Economic Collapse Blog

Doesn’t it seem like almost everything is becoming a crime in America now?  Americans are being arrested and charged with crimes for doing things like leaving dog poop on the ground, opening up Christmas presents early, not recycling properly, farting in class and having brown lawns.  But is it healthy for our society for the police to be involved in such silly things?  Every single day the United States inches closer to becoming a totalitarian society.