NYPD Officer Maces Group of Detained Women

Look at the anger on this cop's face. I am certain he is enjoying himself but does he really need to be a cop? (Removing protesters from Zuccotti Park in the middle of the night. Why the middle of the night? So no one could see the violence?)

 

A woman on the Steering Committee of our occupation in Freedom Plaza (october2011.org) is married to an NYPD cop. I think a retired cop by now. Anyway, she has been telling us, repeatedly, that no matter how much we may think we may have good relations with the cops in any given place -- and we do at Freedom Plaza, we have had very good relations so far -- that when push comes to shove, most of them will hew to that Thin Blue Line and crack your skull as easy as look at you. (Yes, I see the irony of her being a peace activist and being married to a cop, but all our lives are full of contradictions, are they not?)

 

Which is exactly why I have learned not to trust any cop at all.

 

Well, I'm trying to fight that impulse. It's all very complicated -- the relations between people, the relations between authority figures and us peons, the way emotions can get tipped one way or another -- I've taken the attitude that though I know the police are often our adversaries, they're not necessarily our enemies. In other words, I'm not going in to any confrontation with malice in mind, I'm a staunch believer in confronting power with non-violence, even if I'm afraid at the same time.

In Wisconsin, for example, when Scott Walker told the police he expected them to throw the protesters out of the capitol building, the police chief responded, "We're not your palace guards."

So there's one example of the police not acting according to script.

 

Here's a link to the entire article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/16/nyregion/police-begin-clearing-zuccotti-park-of-protesters.html?hp

The comments seem to be mainly in favor of the protesters and against the cops and their actions.

 

Interesting, I posted a comment with a link to the photo posted above, together with a comment about why it was necessary for the cop to display such anger. It got 2 likes and then it was removed.

 

Is it possible the photo is copyrighted?

 

They're not supposed to be posted here either (see TUG policies on posting of copyrighted materials), but in celebration of Righthaven's latest whacking, I'll let this one slip by.

However, don't take this as a change in TUG's policies. Linking to photos is ok, pasting in others' photos is not.

 

Photojournalist Jared Malsin, arrested for filming (and thrown in paddy wagon with a NY City Council member and an AFP photographer to boot).

@jmalsinJared Malsin
I'm out of jail. I was seized by police while standing on the sidewalk and filming. Was also moving away from police at the time.

@jmalsinJared Malsin
I am one block north of the park and can't leave. Crowd on sidewalk literally surrounded by police.pic.twitter.com/ZSHc1yeN

https://twitter.com/#!/jmalsin

 

I'm sympathetic to the cause, but this guy is in the middle of an adrenaline rush where's he's actively collaring people and exposed to danger/other bad things. The camera is not kind in these circumstances and it is unwise to read too much into the physiognomy... It's not like the cop who calmly walked up to that woman in the enclosure and cold-bloodedly maced her in the face.

 

Probably but it's on the front page of the Times and I posted it in a comment to the related article.

 

Separate reports of NYPD officers engaging in flagrant civil rights abuses