Cops to investigate brutal arrest

[photo caption] Code Pink demonstrator Alicia Forrest gets help from a fellow demonstrator after a Denver police officer shoved her to the groud with a baton Tuesday morning at Civic Center Park in downtown Denver. Police moments later pulled Forrest out of group of reporters while she was talking about the incident and placed under arrest. Forrest had been questioning the officer about the arrest of Carlo Javier Garcia, left, when video shows the officer violently shoving her.
Paul Conrad The Aspen Times

http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20080827/NEWS/808269948/1077&ParentPro...

Code Pink protester still in jail after skirmish

[excerpt] The video shows an officer quickly shoving Forrest with the length of his baton, forcing her to the ground with a smack. Later, as she was speaking with reporters, the video shows police coming behind her and dragging her away.

Lt. Ron Saunier, a police spokesman, said the 30-second video is “kind of jumpy” on his computer and doesn’t give the full context of the situation.

“Just shown in that context, you don’t get what the whole dynamics or the full situation is,” he said.

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/aug/26/code-pink-protester-st...

See the full video here:

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/videos/detail/protester-and-police-conf...

If I remember right, the cops

If I remember right, the cops said the same thing about the Rodney King video.

Funny how they try to get people to believe that a plain and clear video doesn't really represent what happened.

What part about some cop violently attacking a woman who clearly poses no physical danger to the cop is hard to understand?

Lying is standard operating procedure

I covered a number of protests by the global justice aka antiglobalization movement around 2000 and 2001 for an alternative weekly. I was also part of a radio and Internet-based journalist team covering the events at the 2004 RNC in New York.

One thing I learned is that the police ALWAYS lie about their "policing" of these actions. I put the word "policing" in quotes because the real purpose of the police's efforts is repression of political speech.

The proof of that is in the well-documented fact that in almost all of these situations the cases against the arrestees are later dismissed after the fact (and the authorities have to pay out hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages for civil rights violations).

The pattern is always the same:

(1) Gin up fear beforehand using the pliant dimbulbs of the mainstream media. Get the local TV news crews to videotape and salivate over all the police weaponry. Take protest organizers' rhetoric out of context--or inflate it--in order to paint activists as potential violent threats. (The overwhelming amount of violence at these events is committed by the police.) Create a climate of fear that can be used to justify repression.

(2) Engage in massive surveillance and infiltration of protest groups, including with agents provocateur. Harass activists on the street who are engaged in legitimate First Amendment-protected activity. (see for example this instance that just occurred in Minneapolis: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/27/85558/7052/357/576284 )

(3) Strictly limit the locations where individuals can exercise their right to gather and petition for redress of grievances. Deliberately limit those locations in such a manner as to curtail the ability of demonstrators to be seen by the targets of the demonstration. On top of that, then break agreements made with organizers and harass permitted actions with the presence of overarmed riot police.

(4) Engage in mass arrests on phony pretexts in order to intimidate activists and sweep people off the street. Keep arrestees sequestered for extended periods of time in cramped anduncomfortable conditions.

(5) Use agents provocateur in gatherings to act up and provide police with an excuse to step in.

(6) Lie, lie, lie to reporters and lawyers.

(7) Release everybody eventually on minor charges which are then later dismissed, having accomplished the goal of further continuing this country's devolution into a squalid police state.

I sometimes wonder whether the police officers and intelligence operatives who are engaged in these assaults upon democratic expression have any sense of shame. Do they (or perhaps I should write "you" to those secret police who are reading this) ever recognize their sad kinship with such reviled forebears as the German Gestapo and Soviet NKVD and KGB? Is it with pride that they (you) tear apart the Bill of Rights, the most glorious expression of American ideals?

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