This is why we are protesting

NYPD pushes retired New York Supreme Court justice Karen Smith into a wall, threatens her with arrest. At the time, she was serving as a legal observer at Zuccotti Park. Police state?

wegiveadamn:

Report: NYPD cop pushes New York Supreme Court Judge into wall

By Rob Beschizza at 6:59 am Friday, Nov 18

Democracy Now quotes New York Supreme Court Judge Karen Smith:

I was there to take down the names of people who were arrested… As I’m standing there, some African-American woman goes up to a police officer and says, ‘I need to get in. My daughter’s there. I want to know if she’s OK.’ And he said, ‘Move on, lady.’ And they kept pushing with their sticks, pushing back. And she was crying. And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, he throws her to the ground and starts hitting her in the head,” says Smith. “I walk over, and I say, ‘Look, cuff her if she’s done something, but you don’t need to do that.’ And he said, ‘Lady, do you want to get arrested?’ And I said, ‘Do you see my hat? I’m here as a legal observer.’ He said, ‘You want to get arrested?’ And he pushed me up against the wall.

“You should, by law, only use force to protect someone’s life or to protect them from being bodily injured… 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.”

“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. “

— Retired Philadelphia Police Captain Ray Lewis

http://youtu.be/ocdnl4XlTOU

(Source: chuckkcuhc)

The NYPD has discredited itself. “The NYPD’s ‘crowd control’ tactics became increasingly aggresive: historic mass arrests, motor scooter attacks, destruction of books, ramming horses into demonstrators, putting New York Post reporters in choke holds – to name only a few. And following Tuesday’s brazen raid of Zuccotti Park, carried out in the dead of night, the NYPD indicated that de-escalation is not on the horizon. Quite the opposite, in fact.”

rubeo:

The NYPD has discredited itself

What could be more central to Occupy’s guiding philosophy than the idea that the rule of law has been subverted by corporate interests? In collusion with government functionaries and beyond meaningful accountability from the public, these interests have created a separate realm of law for themselves — one that orients the financial and political systems in their favor, to the detriment of everyone else. If this is indeed true, and the law itself is marred by a systemic corruption, then law enforcement —  manifested physically in the form of police officers — is an  appropriate focus for a social movement seeking redress of grievances.

As Occupy Wall Street grew, the New York Police Department’s “crowd control” tactics became increasingly bizarre and aggressive: historic mass arrests, motor scooter attacks, destruction of books, ramming horses into demonstrators, putting New York Post reporters in choke holds – to name only a few.  And following Tuesday’s brazen raid of Zuccotti Park, carried out in the dead of night, the NYPD indicated that de-escalation is not on the horizon. Quite the opposite, in fact. Police officials at the highest ranks, under the direction of Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, have taken to simply making up the rules as they go along.