AAO Occupy Wall Street

Post by **Ami** » Tue Nov 22, 2011 6:12 am

Spoiler : :

Her name is Aoshi, a woman that came by AAO a while back... she was beaten by the NYPD recently. This was during a protest in a chain of protests beget by the original OWS: lack of transparency and accountability. Not sure what the exact focus is anymore, but I'm damn angry at places of power having a lack of transparency and accountability.

E.D.Revolution · Post by **E.D.Revolution** » Tue Nov 22, 2011 6:24 am

Goddamn. I don't know what to think anymore. I even know a few people from Baruch through my Filipino Intercollegiate Networking Dialogue's District 3 (F.I.N.D. D3) affiliation. God, I wish these students the best. I wish these students get they change they have been protesting for. If there's any Filipino brothers there, I support you from across the river (NJ).

By the by, pepper spray at close range? That's stupid on any level: pepper spray is done at a distance of at least 20 yards for a reason: there's backspray from close-range firings, and if there's a strong wind, it dissipates on the trip back to your face

Yes, if it applied outside, but it was inside Baruch. I highly doubt Baruch had strong air blowing inside. So backspray wouldn't be a problem. Still, that was a bit excessive.

Post by **Ami** » Tue Nov 22, 2011 7:19 am

Backspray still applies in short distances. That's how powerful the misting effect is. This isn't that much of an issue with something like, say, bearspray, where the agent is more of a foam than a stream of mist.

SuperGanondorf · Post by **SuperGanondorf** » Tue Nov 22, 2011 9:48 pm

Sorry, I watched the video twice but both times I missed the part where the cops burst in on the peaceful protest and began beating people down with batons as the sensationalist name might suggest. I side with the police in both of these instances. In the Baruch instance, that crowd was going insane. When the crowd is practically forcing the police out the doors of the building and pushing the cops back that are trying to control the situation, they have every right to use force to calm the situation down. And I think they did so fairly successfully. You can't look at that crowd and tell me that the police could have done their job to calm the situation down without using some sort of force on the participants. I think they went an admirably long time without resorting to it but in the end it was necessary.

As far as the Davis incident is concerned, I will allow that the picture looks bad, but it comes with absolutely no context. The students at Davis were participating in an illegal sit-in. The chancellor of the school sent in the police to disperse them. When they refused, the police didn't have many options; they would have to move them by force. However, the students showed signs that they weren't going to come easily if the police tried to forcibly disperse them, so they employed pepper spray to minimize the resistance they would receive. Again, while this looks bad, the students really had minimal reactions to the spray- I'm pretty sure it wasn't straight pepper spray but rather diluted with something, as it really did not elicit as much of a response nor deal as much damage as pure pepper spray probably would have.

So yeah, maybe the situations weren't handled completely perfectly in an ideal way, but remember cops are only human and can't be expected to have superhuman powers of calming people down. Given the scenarios I think they performed admirably and these attack videos are just giving them a bunch of undeserved crap for doing their jobs. These people have every right to protest but when the situation gets out of hand and you stop listening to the police you had better be prepared to accept the consequences.

Post by **Ami** » Wed Nov 23, 2011 12:40 am

This oversight of basic protocol is an affront to good police everywhere. The use of force wielding a baton or a pepper spray can MUST ONLY BE USED when the subject becomes violent. The right to protest has been something of horrid repute- for a protest to be "legal", you have to run it by the government, wait until the bureaucrats finish sorting it out, and THEN MAYBE you get your protest. True protests aren't something that is technically legal- it's civil disobedience. It is when civility is met with hostility that things go awry, and clearly the police started beating people.

Holhol · Post by **Holhol** » Wed Nov 23, 2011 12:49 am

It's hilarious that in a country where you have a right to speak freely, you get punished for doing so.

No physical violence was necessary... at all. When it all comes down to it, it just makes the protesters want to stand by there opinion even more. Besides, police are only supposed to use force when their is a threat on one's life and, quite frankly, I don't see the peaceful protesters planning a riot anytime soon.

Unethical? Maybe. Right thing to do? Probably not. But a right to do it? Absolutely.

SuperGanondorf · Post by **SuperGanondorf** » Wed Nov 23, 2011 1:27 am

Ami wrote:This oversight of basic protocol is an affront to good police everywhere. The use of force wielding a baton or a pepper spray can MUST ONLY BE USED when the subject becomes violent. The right to protest has been something of horrid repute- for a protest to be "legal", you have to run it by the government, wait until the bureaucrats finish sorting it out, and THEN MAYBE you get your protest. True protests aren't something that is technically legal- it's civil disobedience. It is when civility is met with hostility that things go awry, and clearly the police started beating people.

You might be able to argue that in the UC Davis instance. The Baruch people were practically swarming the police and shoving them out the doors. Life-threatening? Probably not. Violent? Yes. I saw the video. I think the police were fully justified in their actions there.

Could the Davis protest have been handled better? Probably. I'm not saying I fully agree with their decision to use the pepper spray despite no demonstrated physical resistance, and they probably could have handled the situation better. However, the crowd was indeed hostile and the students refused to budge. The cops were under orders to get the students out of there and it's pretty clear that they wanted to avoid bodily moving them if possible. The pepper spray was an attempt to move them with as little physical confrontation as possible. Perhaps not the best decision they could have made but I still throw my support behind the police 100%. They are fallible but they are there to protect the people and I think they do a damn good job.

Holhol wrote:It's hilarious that in a country where you have a right to speak freely, you get punished for doing so.

No physical violence was necessary... at all. When it all comes down to it, it just makes the protesters want to stand by there opinion even more. Besides, police are only supposed to use force when their is a threat on one's life and, quite frankly, I don't see the peaceful protesters planning a riot anytime soon.

Unethical? Maybe. Right thing to do? Probably not. But a right to do it? Absolutely.

Nobody's punishing the people for speaking freely. They're being punished for illegally demonstrating on school-owned property despite demands from the school to stop. And that crowd does seem pretty violent.

Saying they have every right to be there protesting is like saying they have a right to come into my house and protest even after I tell them to get out. No, they absolutely do not have a right to protest there if they are told by the school they cannot protest there and they need to obey the school's orders or prepare to face the consequences. Same thing with the police- if they are told by the police they need to move, they need to move even if they feel like they are doing nothing wrong. That or prepare to face the consequences. Could you argue that the police overreacted? Yes, but saying that they just started beating up on people or that they are being oppressive and abusing their power and trying to prevent peaceful protest as that video title suggests is totally bogus. They did not come in, guns and batons blazing, and beat people down. The crowd reacted violently to their presence and they reacted accordingly after several attempts to calm the situation. The police did absolutely nothing wrong at Baruch and I think they were justified at Davis as well.

Also, funny you should mention riots, because several of these "peaceful protests" have turned into riots. Like Occupy Oakland: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/0 ... 73325.html

Holhol · Post by **Holhol** » Wed Nov 23, 2011 3:36 am

SuperGanondorf wrote:
Holhol wrote:It's hilarious that in a country where you have a right to speak freely, you get punished for doing so.

No physical violence was necessary... at all. When it all comes down to it, it just makes the protesters want to stand by there opinion even more. Besides, police are only supposed to use force when their is a threat on one's life and, quite frankly, I don't see the peaceful protesters planning a riot anytime soon.

Unethical? Maybe. Right thing to do? Probably not. But a right to do it? Absolutely.
Nobody's punishing the people for speaking freely. They're being punished for illegally demonstrating on school-owned property despite demands from the school to stop. And that crowd does seem pretty violent.

Saying they have every right to be there protesting is like saying they have a right to come into my house and protest even after I tell them to get out. No, they absolutely do not have a right to protest there if they are told by the school they cannot protest there and they need to obey the school's orders or prepare to face the consequences. Same thing with the police- if they are told by the police they need to move, they need to move even if they feel like they are doing nothing wrong. That or prepare to face the consequences. Could you argue that the police overreacted? Yes, but saying that they just started beating up on people or that they are being oppressive and abusing their power and trying to prevent peaceful protest as that video title suggests is totally bogus. They did not come in, guns and batons blazing, and beat people down. The crowd reacted violently to their presence and they reacted accordingly after several attempts to calm the situation. The police did absolutely nothing wrong at Baruch and I think they were justified at Davis as well.

Also, funny you should mention riots, because several of these "peaceful protests" have turned into riots. Like Occupy Oakland: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/0 ... 73325.html

Did I ever say they had the right to be in the school?

And yes, they did abuse their power. Again, they are only supposed to use physical violence when a life is at stake. Do you see anybody in danger of dying?

And I wasn't aware of that, actually.

Post by **Bad Player** » Wed Nov 23, 2011 4:28 am

Holhol wrote:It's hilarious that in a country where you have a right to speak freely, you get punished for doing so.

There's a difference between "Freedom of speech" and "You can say whatever you want whenever you want"

(Also, I'm with SG on this one. He's doing a pretty eloquent job, so... yeah, I'll just leave you to it for now

)

Holhol · Post by **Holhol** » Wed Nov 23, 2011 4:31 am

Bad Player wrote:There's a difference between "Freedom of speech" and "You can say whatever you want whenever you want"

It's funny how this has nothing to do with that, but okay.

Post by **Bad Player** » Wed Nov 23, 2011 6:33 am

The exact "fire in a crowded theater example," doesn't, but the idea that "free speech" does not entail 100% free speech does.

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