G-20 articles and discussion (Oakland: legally, activities, dinner)

[WILWRadio]

^^^Not a known trouble spot. And the cop happened to be driving by and decided to stop simply because he didn't have anything else better to do with his time.

I'm equally biased. I come from a military family, have friends that are former cops and also a now deceased family member was a former cop. :-)

[TechieTransplant]

Originally Posted by groar

Oakland's long night

it is looking more and more like the police screwed up big time on friday.

and they were almost done!

I wish more of you could have been there. To be walking down Fifth Avenue and seeing all of those vans and police cars racing down the street made me think of September 11th 2001 in NYC.....you would have thought something horrible was in progress. I get down there, and just as that article says, everyone was talking and peaceful. The show of force was like nothing I've ever seen.

As far as I'm concerned, there was only one incident out of the whole two days that warranted any kind of aggressive response from the police, and that was all the rock throwing toward police near the KFC and Boston Market. Funny thing is, that was one of the more scant replies from the police. The whole thing when the group was marching down Penn Avenue, a group full mostly of reporters, was laughable.

[BrianTH]

WILWRadio,

The basic problem with your analogies is that they aren't really crowd dispersal situations, which means they don't really illuminate the cases at hand.

Again, the basic issue is that sometimes people use crowds for cover to do illegal things. And sometimes that means the police have to disperse crowds in order to stop those illegal things from happening, and sometimes people in crowds refuse to disperse. That basic dynamic has to be part of your analogies, or they don't really address the issue.

That said, I again still don't see much justification for the police dispersing the crowd on Friday night. And if we don't start with that premise--that they had a legitimate justification for dispersing the crowd in the first place--then none of the rest follows.

[WILWRadio]

^^^The gathering with 32 people most definitely would be considered a crowd. While there is no specific number that would be described as being the starting number of people to be considered a crowd I think it is a safe bet to say that a dozen or more people could be considered a crowd.

There was no need for the cops to disperse most of these crowds. And again, you can't label everyone a potential criminal by the misdeeds of a few. Therefore my analogies are relevant in aptly describing a wrong being committed by the cops and military and reinforce my original stand that they were going after a lot of innocent people. We are seeing and hearing enough stories about this on this forum and in the news to prove this was the case.

[WILWRadio]

Here's another video. I see a bunch of goons treating American citizens like they are criminals.


YouTube - Police Brutality in Pittsburgh after the G20

[groar]

i'm hearing more and more reports (from sources i know and trust, as well as from the media) of police making inappropriate, sexist remarks about women they were arresting. one friend of mine had a policeman who was arresting her say "nice ****". and one of the women interviewed in that p-g article mentions them taking pictures with arrestees. and saying "get the hot ones" out of the paddywagon.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by WILWRadio

^^^The gathering with 32 people most definitely would be considered a crowd. While there is no specific number that would be described as being the starting number of people to be considered a crowd I think it is a safe bet to say that a dozen or more people could be considered a crowd.

It is not whether there was a crowd somewhere in the story, but rather whether dispersing the crowd was necessary to stop the illegal conduct in question. See more below.

There was no need for the cops to disperse most of these crowds.

I think we have to go through them case by case.

The first crowd they dispersed was the one marching down the middle of the street in Lawrenceville without a permit. That alone is illegal, and on top of that they were deliberately marching toward the G-20 security zone, some with the stated aim of disrupting the summit. Then at some point people were overturning garbage cans, throwing rocks at the police, and pushing dumpsters at the police. I see no practical way the police could deal with that situation without dispersing the crowd.

The second notable situation was in Oakland on Thursday. I'm actually not entirely clear on the nature of the situation at every point in time, but at some point the crowd was again blocking traffic, and people in the crowd were breaking store windows. That also seems like a reasonable situation for dispersal.

The third notable occasion was in Oakland on Friday. As yet I remain unconvinced that the police had a justification for dispersing that crowd (there was one claim in the police press release of people in the crowd throwing rocks, but I haven't seen any further confirmation of that claim).

And again, you can't label everyone a potential criminal by the misdeeds of a few.

But that isn't the argument. Again, the argument goes something like this:

(1) A few people in a crowd are using the crowd for cover to do illegal things.

(2) The police need to disperse the crowd in order to stop those things. As an aside, this element is consistently missing from your analogies.

(3) They order the crowd to disperse but not everyone in the crowd complies with that order. At that point, people who are refusing to comply with a lawful order to disperse start breaking the law. This element is also consistently missing from your analogies.

(4) The police then are permitted to disperse the crowd. They are also permitted to arrest people for, among other things, their failure to disperse following a lawful order.

Nowhere in there is a simplistic argument of the type you are criticizing. The people in the original crowd may well be "innocent", but they should also disperse when ordered to because of the necessity hypothesized in the first and second steps of the argument. Your analogies simply do not address this argument because they don't involve the same sort of situation, as I noted above in the relevant steps.

Now if you want to argue that particular cases in which the police dispersed crowds didn't fit this model, that is another matter. But at least we need to start with a common understanding of what the theoretical justification would be before turning to those cases.

[TechieTransplant]

Originally Posted by groar

i'm hearing more and more reports (from sources i know and trust, as well as from the media) of police making inappropriate, sexist remarks about women they were arresting. one friend of mine had a policeman who was arresting her say "nice ****". and one of the women interviewed in that p-g article mentions them taking pictures with arrestees. and saying "get the hot ones" out of the paddywagon.

Those pictures will surface, and with all the video that continues to show up, the black eye on authorities is going to look more and more bruised as this week goes by.

[BrianTH]

Needless to say, nothing I have written constitutes a justification for sexual harassment.

[Benzman66]

Originally Posted by scottrpriester

Those pictures will surface, and with all the video that continues to show up, the black eye on authorities is going to look more and more bruised as this week goes by.

You mean like this one?
LiveLeak.com - Pittsburgh Riot Police Pose for Picture With Arrestee

Unfortunately it seems they are slowly being removed from everyones postings all over the net by LE perhaps.