NORTON META TAG

13 August 2014

Public Enemy Number One? & (VIDEO) White guy starts fight, black guy gets pepper sprayed 12&13AUG14

"Our common humanity is more important than all the things that divide us."
- Mairead Corrigan
 

Since 9/11 there has been a militarization of police forces in villages, towns and cities, communities big and small all across America. The general populace has been propagandized into believing this has been and is necessary to keep us safe. The question that has been ignored for to long is who will protect us from the police, those men and women who used to be in blue but are just as likely to be in camouflage now. Beat cops and neighborhood patrols take a back seat to SWAT teams. Citizens are seen by too many, but not all police officers, as the enemy until they have proven themselves as friendlies, and police rules of engagement at times seem little different from military rules on the battlefield. It is just more proof of America's slide into Third World status, the rich and powerful being protected by a military police force that has no respect for and will not protect the lives and liberties of the 99% From +Daily Kos .....
Tue Aug 12, 2014 at 07:21 PM PDT

Public Enemy Number One?

Yes, this is the Front Page photo on Huff Post right now, but it needs to be seen and studied by every American. There more I study it, the more my blood boils. When did it become okay for multiple officers, dressed for war, to aim assault rifles at unarmed civilians who pose no threat? Even if they pose a non-lethal threat, being unarmed, do the police have cause to respond with lethal force?   Who cleared this with the public, this tactic of heavy weapons and implied instant death? Do we not have a say in how our law enforcement officers conduct themselves? Have we not learned the failure of shock and awe? Is there a sentient being on the planet who does not agree these are the actions that breed distrust, hate and eventually armed resistance? You dare to ask us to trust authority when you refuse to treat the public with decency and dignity? How did these tactics work for us overseas? Anyone think this assault on the public on the home front at the ends of our driveways will yield any better result?
As a culture, we've lost all sense of proportion. We are insane. We answer peddling of "loosies" with death. We answer retreat with shots to the back, and 4 more point blank for good measure, and then get left on the street in the heat of summer while the flies congregate and the blood hardens on the asphalt. Jump a turnstile at a train station? Get shot. Are you a 94 year old infirm veteran waving a steak knife at a cop as you sit in a chair in a nursing home? Take two in the chest. Link arms on the ground and sing in non-violent protest? Get kicked, pepper sprayed, get shot in the face with a bean bag cannon at point blank range.
You bastards, you don't own our streets. We owe you no obedience. We put the food on the table of your families. You serve at our pleasure. This needs to end.
For every action, there is an equal and opposite action. Newton's Law, damn it. Basic physics. See that sentiment scrawled on the mailbox in that image? If this is what law enforcement has become, if this is the default response to its own crimes, then, yeah, I agree.
Peaceful protestors stage demonstration. Random white guy passing by starts screaming at them, takes off his shirt and approaches black man in the crowd, still screaming. Security guard promptly pepper sprays the black guy.
According to a police report, the guard said he used the spray because Wilford balled his fists and “took an aggressive step towards him.” [...] “I thought he (the guard) was the helper, that’s why I approached him. But he thought I was the threat,” Wilford said Monday. [...]
Afterward, the heckler walked away and a YouTube video shows that the guard held and eventually handcuffed Wilford, about the time police showed up. A Seattle police officer shouted at a few of the onlookers to stay back as the guard escorted Wilford into Westlake Mall. Demonstrators shouted, “You pepper-sprayed the wrong guy” and similar comments.
This is in Seattle, not Ferguson. Yes, yes, it's all a misunderstanding. One that keeps happening over and over.

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