Is This What Democracy Looks Like?

[webfarmer]

Mass Arrest of About 200 on Labor Day in St. Paul, MN Park [ video ]. Obviously very dangerous anarchist types getting put away. Not.

"A story about how the St Paul Police mass arrested 200 people in a city park on September 1st. Featuring footage from an arrestee who buried his tape in a planter before being taken in."

FOX: Protester roughed up by police #2, St. Paul, MN, RNC, Sept 4th 2008 [ video ]

The local Fox reporter notes: "Now in the meantime, they tried to keep us from observing this arrest. And we insisted on staying there so that we could see what happened to her."

"2 minute and 8 second FOX video including scenes of a nonviolent protester being pepper sprayed, paint-balled, pushed to the ground, hit with bicycles, briefly targeted with two laser sights (visible in CNN version at 0:13/0:14), and otherwise roughed up by several police officers during the 2008 Republican National Convention on September 4th, 2008, in St. Paul, Minnesota.

See the CNN footage of the same incident here:

Once you get sprayed with pepper spray, you can't see where you're going.

Here is a very thorough article about the protester, Leah Lane, who came from Eau Clare in our neighboring state of Wisconsin, to protest the RNC:"

Comments

[webfarmer.livejournal.com]

I don't think they all are but enough of them that they get a rep and some of the self-policing process isn't always the best, imo.

And politicians are generally not going to be getting after them unless they come from a community that's having on-going systematic problems with the police force.

On this topic, Obama got a law passed in Illinois that required that police tape all interviews on homicide cases.

Sometimes people who want to be in authority may be the absolute worst people to have in positions of power. That's true no only with the police but other areas.

[markmc03.livejournal.com]

I remember it was always a standing joke in Delta where I grew up how all the school bullies went into law enforcement. And, surprise surprise, the police had a reputation for being too rough. Go figure.

[webfarmer.livejournal.com]

I have a high school friend who ended up being a captain in the local police force. He's one of the good ones and fortunately he's in a position of power.