Black Lives Matter: Across The Brooklyn Bridge
Unlike the usual New York protests that end in violence from police and dozens of arrests, this march happened peacefully. Carrying mock coffins that had the names of those killed by the NYPD, at least a thousand people marched across the Brooklyn Bridge Thursday night. Circled by police helicopters and joined by members of the NYPD, the protesters chanted ‘Black Lives Matter,’ occasionally changing it to ‘Thugs Lives Matter’ – meaning that even those committing minor crimes don’t deserve to be shot or strangled.
Did the police in NYC use a military sonic weapon to disperse the crowd? Apparently, an Lrad sonic cannon, with 162 decibels (130 db is the pain threshold in a human) was used, in a residential area: http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/video-nypd-uses-military-grade-sonic-weapon-eric-garner-protesters
IMO, NO police department ‘needs’ these military weapons. Too many have been hurt (mostly by SWAT serving drug warrants), like the toddler in his playpen who was burned by a flash-bang grenade. The kill family pets with impunity.
If you haven’t read it yet, Radley Balko’s excellent book, Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces is not out in paperback, and I recommend it VERY highly.
I marched for the climate, and during Occupy (I left at sundown because I could smell the coming violence against protestors), but I’m too old to take to the streets on a regular basis. Thanks for your photos, Zach.
THEY kill family pets, sorry for the typo. The burned child was in Georgia. What happened to protecting and serving?
http://www.politicususa.com/2014/12/04/republican-congressman-peter-king-eric-garner-blame-death.html
Wingnuts blame Eric Garner for his demise because he was overweight and had asthma( not to mention skin color).
Way to reach out to expand your part,guys. Offend fats and asthmatics. That oughta help,doncha know.
In the protest years of the sixties it was fashionable to respond to criticism with “love it or leave it,” which was intended to mean that to criticize part was to criticize all. Being critical of certain police behaviors is not a blanket criticism of police.
In the case of the Garner incident, one of the justifications for the use of force was resisting arrest. That is not what the video suggests. Sure, his hands go up and he backs away from the policeman. That would be the natural reaction of anyone who was suddenly accused of something they didn’t think they had done and were aggressively confronted. You would attempt to make your case and back away from being apprehended.
You would want the opportunity to talk it out, to explain.
Some have the opinion that’s what one can expect if one doesn’t immediately comply and become immediately subservient. No one is suggesting the job of policing is not difficult and fraught with potential danger. Yet restraint under the most challenging circumstances is something all individuals learn to exercise.
I have become so jaded that I think that a black man, if he complies perfectly with the police, might still be killed for no reason. There simply does not seem to be any self-control or moral compass among policemen. They are universally arrogant and, because they’ve been given a license to kill and are heavily armed, there simply is nothing to stop them.
Except us. All of us. It should not be an excuse that the person in question might have done something wrong at the time or at some time in the past. Excessive force should be excessive. Period. And not done. Perhaps it’s time to inundate out elected representatives, despite the fact that so many of them of dreadful, with demands that the police in every state be brought under control. The risk to one citizen is a risk to all of us.
Well and truly spoken,Beaglemom. You get two smileys today. 🙂 🙂
In these high profile incidents arrogance and lack of restraint often seem to be the case, but clearly not every officer of the law exhibits those behaviors, even under the most challenging circumstances.
The problem for any of us is when we are randomly confronted, which of those officers will we meet?
The airwaves have been buzzing with calls for a national conversation. We don’t need a national conversation to determine if there is a problem. There is. Everyone knows it. What is needed is action on the part of every law enforcement agency to obtain the tools and training to make such incidents rare. It goes without saying that officer safety is paramount, but so too is the safety of individuals who are clearly not carrying weapons.
Police video is out on the 12 year old Black Cleveland boy. Within 2 seconds of driving up to the boy,they had him shot and on the ground.
Black lives matter. I wonder. Yesterday on HLN there was a story of two white kids that called 911 to talk to Santa. How did the pigs react,you wonder? They brought both in peacefully,let them play in a squad car and gave them replica cop cars and had smiley pictures taken of their good deeds.
Using an emergency line for personal business is a crime. Black kid walking around a public park with a toy gun was not a crime. Which child of color was shot to death? Those two little white kids looked dangerous to me. Hmnnn?
That IS a crime. I guess they are are desperate for good publicity.