Occupy THIS, Commie!

"I made no reference to her pregnancy or economic status, neither of which should matter anyways when it comes to equal treatment under the law and the right to exercise constitutional rights without the fear of reprisal."

Civil disobedience is still disobedience. If you want to ignore the Po-Po when they tell you to kick rocks, then you pay the price. 19 is old enough to make a conscious choice to break the law.

 

and who the fuck else other than some dirty-hippie is gonna name their daughter "Miracle"? She deserves an ass whipping for that alone.

(this is coming from someone who has a niece name Precious Unique, I see how a fucking retarded name can cripple a child)

 

I'm having trouble finding anything in the Constitution or Bill of Rights that grants law enforcement the authority to unilaterally declare 'disobediant' and punish (without due process) an American citizen for excercising their explicitly enumerated and inalienable rights to free speech and to petition their government for redress of grievances.

If I recall correctly, similarly thuggish behavior by the redcoated British troops in the 13 colonies was one of the original grievances that prompted the American Revolution. Yes - logic dictates that you are playing with fire by not complying with the demands of law enforcement (no matter how illegal, stupid, or inane those demands may be), but that doesn't mean we are absent the *right* to argue and not comply with those demands.

 

Federal precedent does not support your assertation that people who nonviolently ignore law enforcement deserve to be abused.

Courts, police say pepper spray 'defensive' only

 

While Federal law always trumps state and local laws, once the demonstration is deemed unlawful, and the crowd is ordered to disperse, and they don't, then they are in fact breaking the law. It's for a court to decide whether or not to decide it was excessive force.

While they have the Constitutional right to peaceably assemble, they don't have the right to impede anyone else's throughput on the sidewalk, it's public property. Their rights in no way supersede anyone else's.

 

OWS is now occupying places like a steel ball occupies a pinball machine. Even this discussion is evidence that OWS has lost its way, whatever that was. It now seems to be about resisting authority and agitating police officers. All police forces would do themselves a favor by acting with restraint and having someone film their confrontations.

 

Agreed that their rights in no way supersede anyone else's, and that once the crowd is ordered to disperse - it is up to the courts to determine whether or not law enforcement gave a lawful order.

But because law enforcement is given such far-reaching authority and legal protection, they should be summarily held to much higher standards of behavior and conduct. How can anyone trust that Lt. John Pike made an accurate assessment in determing that the demonstration was unlawful, when he then immediatly violated his own departments code-of-conduct when it comes to the proper and legal escalation of force? If (as it has been pointed out elsewhere on the internet in defense of his actions) this is indeed "standard operating procedure" for law enforcement, are you really defending that lack of due process and the "shoot first; ask questions later" mentality?

Two Views of Pepper-Spray, Abuse of Power, and the Militarization of the Police

 

You apparently don't get it.

 

Explain how the protesters at UC Davis are going to get the crooks on Wall Street punished by sitting in a line and getting sprayed. Again, my point is that OWS hasn't done anything to change the things they're complaining about. The more confrontations they have with police about where they can be and what they can do, the further they get from ever achieving any results at all.

Even this discussion has evolved into what constitutes police brutality and whether a 19-year-old homeless girl is pregnant.

 

Generally, the Court applies a time, place, manner test (See Heffron) to determine if an area is open to public speech and one of the places that has been found to be the most open for public use (and therefore most protected for the exercising of free speech) is sidewalks.* So, implicitly, it must be okay for those protests to impede others use of the sidewalks. This kind of cost is considered part of the costs that society has to bear in order to maintain the benefits we get from free speech. This burden is similar to the restriction on making permits for marches overly expensive. Cities tried to impose expensive permits to help offset the costs of policing and cleaning up after the march. The Court found this to be an impermissible restriction on free speech. See Forsyth City v. Nationalist Movement, Schnieder v. State, and Martin v. Struthers.

*Certain exceptions apply but those are generally very specific. See Kokinda.

 

They've changed the discussion in this country; individually they all might be clueless and homeless reprobates for all the results they are going to be able to deliver. But en masse they've been able to capture headlines around the world and start making the Powers-That-Be pay attention. The Civil Rights movement lasted approximately 13 years before meaningful change was finally legislated; of course it will take a while for #Occupy to coalesce and become an agent for change - whatever kind of change it ends up being.

 

I realise the importance of the constitution and its given rights to you, but see past it for a second. If you read one thing from my post, make it this line:

There's a difference between being "right" and being "correct"

Forget that this woman is either a victim of tragedy or a lying sack of meat for a second - that's moot. Slavishly adhering to "what I have a right to do" and hanging the consequences is fucked up. If exercising her constitutional given rights to engage in protest is more important than safeguarding her unborn child, especially when she was just one of many so it's not like those rights are in danger of not being exercised, that's a pretty sad indictment on society.

And, it's perversely ironic. A measure of what the protest is about is the position of the 1% who got where they are because they could... because they had a right under the law to do so (as opposed to that part that got there through illegal means).

Taking a broad brush approach: If there's laws saying someone has a right to protest and laws saying someone has a right to earn money, how can those exercising the former rightfully criticise those exercising the latter when both are disavowing themselves of the outcome? If your answer is "because the latter group are hurting someone else", then explain that to a miscarried foetus that is both completely innocent and has paid the ultimate personal price.

If you honestly can't see that, there's a bigger problem than what OWS is on about.

 

Dude, again, you're making it seem like one should just expect to get kicked in the gut by cops for showing up at a peaceful protest. Those other things that you listed in a previous post that pregnant women are precluded from doing (skydiving, etc.) carry risks which are obvious. I ask, should a violent response from police be the obvious risk of a peaceful protest? Assuming she isn't a lying shitsack (and she very well may be, but we could still do this in the hypothetical) I fail to see how attending a peaceful rally should carry the assumption of being socked by a cop, pregnant or not.

Edit: Missed the link on the last page that seems to confirm she's full of shit. Argument is pretty much moot, but from a hypothetical standpoint I guess we can continue the debate.

 

Expect? No. Realise there's a risk of physical danger? Yes. It might not be a police baton, it could be any number of things. This is an example of the extreme, but it could just as easily come in the form of being pushed over if the crowd decides to move suddenly. Statistically (and I pull this out of my butthole), you could probably be reasonable in saying it's no more dangerous than going into a mosh pit. But I sure as hell would not consider it responsible for a pregnant woman to do that.

The simple fact is it must be realised that these protests have turned ugly in instances, and law enforcement have taken action. And the more it happens, the more likely it is to happen - because there will be a mentality of "quash it before it gets out of hand". Simply saying it is a peaceful rally is being ignorant of the overall situation.

 

Yeah I guess I can agree with that. As long as we're not excusing the cops' actions either.

Semi-related, I think the cops aren't doing themselves any favors by escalating these situations, if their goal is to end the protests. It was mentioned a couple pages back, but all they're doing is increasing the Us Vs. Them mentality of the protesters, and perhaps pissing off those who were on the fence enough to join the movement. If the cops were more calm and even-handed, you may start to see some people getting bored and going home. By giving those people a common, tangible target to rally around it strengthens their resolve and desire to cause trouble for the establishment.

 

If a protest starts as a peaceful one and becomes violent, is it still her fault for being there?

Again, in the course of a 60 day protest, the majority of the time people spend there has been completely peaceful. She could reasonably infer that she could go to the protests pregnant and not get beaten and pepper-sprayed.

Also, if things become violent, the duty of the police is to protect people specifically like her. If she falsely claims pregancy, what kind of human being says "Probably a liar, better hit her in the gut anyway."? You take her at her word and keep her out of harms way, even if she is lying. Why? So she doesn't have a fucking miscarriage. Better to err on the side of caution.

I agree with you that the cops should not be presumed guilty of mishandling the situation, but I have a hard time coming up with a situation that a cop in riot gear beating up a teenage girl is ok and justified.

 

Regardless of the truth of her pregnancy, once the cops knew it was a possibility, they were obligated to not target her stomach for blows unless they're awful people. Punching her in the face would have been a better option. It's one thing to stand up infront of the post incident media circus and say 'I thought she might be pregnant, so as an officer of the law faced with a difficult choice, I punched her in the face, which I regret, but I couldn't risk harming an unborn child no matter how I felt about the actions of it's mother.' and another entirely to say 'Maybe she was pregnant, but I have super cop powers, and I was pretty sure she wasn't, so I beat on that bitches stomach like it was the second coming of Rodney King. Respect mah authoritah!'

 

I tend to think this little-bit-pregnant thing is a neat microcosm of the problems faced by OWS as a whole.

1. Something undeniably bad and fucked up happens. (Bankers/Govt screw people, cops pepper spray and beat protesters).
2. People capitalize on the outrage at that event to push their own particular barrow. (Whiny college hipsters bitch about having to repay college loans, person claims to have been pregnant and miscarried when neither is true.)
3. A lot of the justifiable outrage at the original fucked up thing is watered down because of the focus on the subsequent events, which then turn out to be not quite as advertised. The whole movement suffers because of the actions of the fringe.

That's the downside of any movement really, but especially one which is founded on being inclusive. In other words, there's a hell of a lot of dickheads in the 99%, who are now speaking for the group. This is where central leadership would be useful, to officially endorse or decry the actions of the fringe.

As an aside, on the issue of 'people shouldn't have to expect a violent reaction from police if they're protesting';

Spoiler

have any of you actually tried to disobey a cop's order? Or had much interaction with the police at all? Hint: they don't give a shit whether or not you believe their actions to be unlawful. Your role is to hear and obey the cop's commands. If you disagree, that is most certainly at your own risk. Unless there's someone with a video camera passing by, the system is set up to back the cop's testimony. This is a necessary evil; the courts would cease to function if a cop's word was given equal weighting as that of an alleged criminal.

Regardless of whether it's right or wrong, that is the current state of play. If you have even the barest grasp of history, or current world events, or you've had multiple dealings with police (and if she homeless, odds are pretty damn good she's met the odd cop or two in her time) you should know damn well that if you argue with cops you're liable to get beat. And then probably charged with resisting arrest. If the mother of our hypothetical child wanted to attend a protest rally I'd tell her she was out of her goddamn mind.

I should add that I'm not as anti police as I seem in these posts. I think they do an impossible job with limited funding and very little support, and they deal with the worst of human nature, day in day out. I wouldn't do their job for triple their pay. That said, interacting with them is dangerous and rarely has a positive outcome. E.g. Stephen Wardle, a 19 year old kid arrested for drunkenness after a concert and beaten to death in police custody.

17 police refused to testify at the subsequent inquest

 

Question: Why do we care if she was pregnant or not? Is it ever okay to punch a female at all?? I have not read anything suggesting she needed to be targeted with such violence to counteract her civil disobedience.