Christian Science Monitor blogger/reporter's scary account of

police crowd control tactics.
The comment notes: I just have to pause here for a moment to make an observation. How many times have I seen an interview with an arrested protester who claimed he or she had done nothing to provoke the police. Almost always my reaction has been, "Yeah, sure." Only now I was seeing this very situation unfold in front of my eyes. These protesters, while certainly noisy, had obeyed police instructions down the entire length of the street. Now they were being treated as if they had gotten wildly out of control, but they hadn't. I know, because I was there.
I saw scenes like this repeated throughout Tuesday night. There would be an uneasy equilibrium between the police and the protesters, and then for some reason, the police would start arresting people. I saw it happen at Herald Square, and near 6th Ave and 29th St. In each case, the police seemed to lose control of the situation, often in ways that they were responsible for themselves.
* * *
Meanwhile, back on 33rd Street, the police had pushed us into a tight corner. We had no room to move in any direction – we were practically standing on top of each other. Then the police moved forward again, and started pulling people from the crowd, mostly other reporters. When one of the young people asked what was going on, the captain who had pushed a few of them around earlier told her she and her friends were being arrested for blocking the sidewalk.
Well, that's a neat trick, I said to myself, considering that the only reason we were blocking the sidewalk was that the police has pushed us there. "Just let us through and we'll leave," one young protester pleaded. One of the motorcycle cops snarled back, "Yeah, and where will you go?"
Finally, the police captain came to me. I kept quiet. I wanted to see where they would go. But he saw the convention credential in my shirt pocket. "Get him out of here," he said. As another officer grabbed me, I asked the captain, "Why are you arresting these people? What have they done wrong?" He ignored me. I continued to shout the question at the captain as I was pulled away. "Why are you guys doing this?" I said to the young officer who was pushing me away from the crowd. When we reached the end of the street, he let me go, smiled and said "Thank you sir."

Sick.

Comments

[Don Myers]

I got arrested with the crowd on 42nd Street, and I can tell you that the cops attitude did not improve after we got to "Gitmo on the Hudson."

[Crazy Bob Smith]

The root of this problem isn't partisan, or even specific to the USA, or this time period. As long as cops have existed, anywhere, they have abused power. For all we know, it's gotten better in modern times -- since police departments are more transparent than ever before. The fact that someone can raise awareness of these abuses to a worldwide audience at any time, thanks to the internet, is glorious. But it's only exposing the problem -- how can it be solved?

There is no viable political answer, due to symbiosis. The real answers lie in technology.

[John Wilkins]

scary! Good to tell these stories.

[Caitlin]

I worked for a police department as a dispatcher. It's all about the administration. You get a young guy or gal, wants to save the world, gets only six months of training, gets thrown on the street, most people he deals with are jerks and treat him with hatred, or have treated someone else with hatred; the "good people" he helps are victims and therefore aren't exactly giving him positive feedback or may even blame HIM for what someone else did to them...new cops have got to have a strong positive supportive administration (and not just touchy-feeling human relations crap, either) to make them see the strong positive side of all of this..or they quickly turn into cynical cops, fast, and only the very best manage to keep some semblence of what they were looking for when they started out. Bad cops (or even just cynical cops) are made, not born. If the administration's only concern is that they have bodies putting in the hours, you are going to have lousy cops pretty fast.