Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said on Wednesday that the Internal Affairs Bureau will look into the decision of a high-ranking officer to use pepper spray on a number of female protesters at an Occupy Wall Street demonstration on Saturday.
***The video, which has been posted on YouTube and the Web sites of numerous news organizations, shows a deputy inspector walking up to a group of women standing on the sidewalk behind the orange netting and shooting pepper spray at them. Then footage then shows the deputy inspector, who has been identified as Anthony Bologna, walking away.
Commissioner Kelly said he had seen video of the pepper spraying only on a television newscast, and questioned whether the snippet he saw offered enough context to evaluate what occurred.
***“I don’t know what precipitated that specific incident,” he said, but added that demonstrators as a group were engaged in “tumultuous conduct” and were “intent on blocking traffic” as they marched down University Place on their return from Union Square to the financial district, where the protesters have been encamped for more than a week.
You gotta love the specious bullshit at the end there. First, all you need to see is the 2 minute snippet to understand that Bologna walked up to a group of penned folks, sprayed his mace all over them without even giving warning or letting the other cops know, for no reason, then nonchalantly slinked away like a coward. There’s really nothing more to it. It doesn’t matter what other demonstrators were doing, it doesn’t matter if someone somewhere else was engaged in “tumultuous conduct,” etc. None of that matters a bit, and shows a mentality of collective punishment and brutality we’ve all grown to accept in this country. Who gives a shit what other people were doing, Commissioner Kelly? Those people weren’t doing anything, and your whiteshirt thug walked up to them and maced them. Period. End of story.
Kelly’s comments indicate he is part of the problem.
David Fud
I agree with Lawrence O. I’ll believe it when I see it. Just because he had to react to being asked some questions about it doesn’t mean that it will be remembered when the multi-year investigation is finished.
singfoom
Well, that’s positive news. No commanding officer is going to be positive about doing that sort of thing, and will always question the context, but at least something is happening.
Perhaps the very fact that they’re willing to investigate (who knows what the outcome will be) will be a marker to other police who might think of doing similar things.
John Dillinger
Now just imagine if those had been Tea party types outside of Congress.
Bulworth
Well, the claim that these ferocious women were “intent on blocking traffic” pretty much settles it, doesn’t it? Sure, they were penned up in their “Free Speech Zone” but it’s possible they might have gotten out of said pen. If they had, all civilization would have been at risk.
Zifnab
No thanks to the NYPD. You’ve got MSNBC willing to start beating the drum and that’s definitely driving a PR concern. But the police administration isn’t going to lift one more finger than it absolutely has to on this.
Trentrunner
While there’s enough police brutality to go around, let’s not overlook the fact that the victims here were female.
So Bologna is a misogynist fuckwit bully.
Carnacki
Kelly might be part of the problem for the hippies, you know Americans acting in a legal manner, but he’s part of the solution for the powerful working to keep us down.
AndoChronic
A second incident/ video surfaced today as well. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/28/anthony-bologna-using-pep_n_985432.html
Stav
Oops, he did it again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-eTi5-qNgA&feature=share
The guy is a complete sicko. In this video he walks up behind a blue shirt cop and two people walking away from him and sprays them all. Seriously needs help and a suspension.
beltane
@John Dillinger: If even a single, gun waving teabagger had been maced the Republicans would have demanded a Congressional investigation over the incident. If any of these women had been armed they wouldn’t be alive right now.
singfoom
@Trentrunner: This is true, but I don’t think the gender of the victims here matters. Women and Men are putting themselves on the line equally at Occupy Wall Street.
I’m less offended that he did what he did to women, and more that they were kettled and helpless…
singfoom
@Stav: Jesus, that’s awful. The guy is seriously out of control. I hope this comes up as well when they investigate the other incident and it helps get the guy kicked the fuck off the force.
That’s not serving and protecting shit.
Stav
Since we both posted versions of the second Bologna vide simultaneously, I thought I would add that here is the place to complain about Bologna’s cowardly actions: http://www.nyc.gov/html/ccrb/
dave
He’s a pig, a pig, a pig a pig, A really big, a really big pig, pig, pig, pig, PIG.
Bologna!
B W Smith
Kelly may very well be part of the problem, but he likes his good PR image. He was prideful on 60 Minutes about what he has created in NYC. If there is enough outcry about this one cop, Bologna, Kelly’s not going to let some lower ranking beat cop mess up his PR image. If the story goes away quickly, Bologna will be unscathed. If the story escalates and hurts Kelly’s image, he’ll throw Tony under the bus.
beltane
If it hadn’t been for Anonymous releasing this guy’s identity there wouldn’t be any drumbeat for action. They are the only reason there will be an investigation at all.
Jerome
There will be no real investigation. There will be no real punishment. The people tasked with monitoring the behaviour of Law Enforcement are Law Enforcement, and nothing will be done about it.
These officers should be going to *jail*. They should be pleading out against assault charges. Instead, they’ll be quietly forgotten, and nothing will be done.
Stefan
but added that demonstrators as a group were engaged in “tumultuous conduct” and were “intent on blocking traffic” as they marched down University Place
My god, the monsters. The monsters. That settles it for me — pepper spray ’em all and let God sort ’em out.
For those who don’t know, University Place runs only about seven blocks long, or roughly one-third of a mile, until it dead-ends at Washington Square Park. It doesn’t even have that much traffic to block as it’s not a through street.
Cat Lady
Protesters need moar Gadsden flags.
Tony J
If virtually every case of police brutality I can think of from this side of the Atlatic is anything to go on, the very worst that will happen to this officer is that he’ll have to wait a year, eighteen months maybe, for the NYPD’s internal investigation to decide that his actions, while regretable, do not, when understood in context, constitute enough of an offence for any further action to proceed.
Shit. Over here gung-ho Police thugs can kill innocent bystanders and get away with it because, y’know, maybe the officer did over-react, but that’s only because all those DFHs kettled behind steel fences put him in existential fear of his life!
Corner Stone
I think it’s amazing that people see these individuals being “kettled” and that isn’t the most outrageous shit.
Winston Smith
My wife is an ex-cop. Her take is that the rationalizations are standard boilerplate. That’s the department CYA. Of course they aren’t admitting anything wrong was done. You wouldn’t if you were in their shoes either.
She notes the fact that IAB is on it shows that they are taking it seriously. Looking at the video, she saw a guy who thinks that he is exempt from the rules and fears no reprisals for this behavior. A well-run department (and that’s an open question here) doesn’t want this guy in their ranks. This is the guy who maces a few protesters with impunity today and ends up shooting an innocent person tomorrow.
The public pressure is working — so we need to keep it up.
Stefan
Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said on Wednesday that the Internal Affairs Bureau will look into the decision of a high-ranking officer to use pepper spray on a number of female protesters at an Occupy Wall Street demonstration on Saturday.
Nice that IA is looking into it, but why hasn’t Bologna been arrested? There’s clear evidence of him wilfully and maliciously assaulting several New Yorkers on the street. The DA needs to file charges against this guy, right quick.
Ziggy
This is the same Chief Raymond Kelly who claims to have the capability to “take down a plane” if need be. *Good thing his judgment is top notch.
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/44666835/ns/today-today_news/t/nypd-chief-we-could-take-down-plane-if-necessary/
*this is sarcasm in case it needs to be said.
Corner Stone
Maybe instead of donating money for pizzas we should be buying these protestors tri-corner hats to wear.
AndoChronic
@Stav: Right on!
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Winston Smith:
This. My dad was a 30+ year cop. If there’s enough public and media pressure (I’m choking on the thought of that last bit) over the long term, the Dept won’t have any choice but to exercise due diligence on the matter.
Remember, Rodney King would have gotten the shit beat out of him and nothing would have happened if it weren’t for video and the fact that enough people (and media outlets) got outraged.
Jay in Oregon
@Jerome:
Heck, if you watch enough cop shows you see that the IAB cops are the real bad guys, because they are harassing good cops just trying to do their job.
dave
@Corner Stone:
I’m outraged! Shit man, I don’t know why those women were kettled EXCEPT TO INVITE SOME FUCKING COP TO COME ALONG AND MACE THEM.
I mean, fuck. Cops are doing to people now what Israel has done to the Gaza strip.
I dunno, I want fucking blood.
Amir Khalid
I can think of one good reason for the commissioner not to admit Tony Baloney’s guilt right off the bat: this might be seen as potentially prejudicing the police inquiry. If the inquiry panel were to wind up recommending disciplinary action or even criminal charges, Tony’s lawyer (and of course he’s lawyered up by now) might be able to exploit any such words from the commish to appeal against the disciplinary action; or, in court, to justify a motion to dismiss the charge against his fine, upstanding, wouldn’t-hurt-a-fly, long-serving public servant of a client.
PurpleGirl
@John Dillinger: A teapartier wouldn’t be pepper sprayed, even holding a gun/rifle. We know this — a number of teapartier have brought guns to rallies and town hall meetings and nothing happens to them.
AndoChronic
@Cat Lady: The Anarcho-syndicalism flag is our Gadsden flag!
Citizen_X
@AndoChronic: @Stav: This Lt. Bologna can’t be trusted with so much as a nightstick. He has no fire discipline whatsoever. Look at the slow-motion video: he’s spraying wildly, as soon as his arm starts coming up–when his arm is only at about a 45 degree angle to the ground. He probably even sprayed the cop in front of him on the arm.
beltane
@Corner Stone: The kettling really is the appalling part. People who want to exercise their supposedly sacrosanct rights of free speech and assembly must first forfeit their rights to free speech and assembly. I guess some parts of the Bill of Rights are more equal than other parts. Or maybe anyone to the left of David Brooks does not have the same Constitutional rights as the 2nd Amendment remedy folks.
Chris
@Winston Smith:
Comforting to know that IA’s on it, though as someone else noted above, the absolute laxness with which police brutality seems to be treated in this country is enough to make anyone despair.
This.
AndoChronic
@Citizen_X: No muzzle awareness or finger etiquette at all. Do’in the ‘ol “Barney Fife”, or “Rambo” depending on how you look at it.
Chris
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
This.
Frankly, it’d be nice if this kind of public pressure was a permanent enough thing (rather than just something that flares up now and then when there’s absolute and irrefutable proof of someone crossing the line by several hundred miles) to deter police brutality in the first place, rather than occasionally punish it after the fact.
Corner Stone
@dave:
Thank you! That’s one. Who else is with dave and me on this?
Citizen_X
@Cat Lady: Fuck the tea partiers. The Gadsden flag is an American flag; it belongs to the DFHs as much as the tea party types.
Half the time I see a righty flying one of those, I feel like saying, “Yeah? Well don’t fucking tread on me either.”
jwest
@PurpleGirl:
Of course a Tea Party member carrying a weapon isn’t going to be maced. The police would need to be crazy to try that.
On the other hand, any band of dirty hippies is begging to be sprayed.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
All I’ll say is that this really does stress the importance of citizen video as well as the power of viral video.
Which is probably why so many state police depts. want to criminalize videotaping cops on duty, probably.
Elie
Of also important significance, more articles and coverage are starting to appear in the media on the whole “occupy Wall Street” thing. That is MAJOR AWESOME, to me and what we want as much as the making a Bologna sandwich. We need to keep building it and building “IT”. If that happens, Bologna will be pulled right into that vortex of attention…
Just my take anyway
Chris
@PurpleGirl:
That was my first thought too upon watching the Wall Street protests.
It’s a very old double standard in this country that conservative mobs, peaceful or violent, can get away with damn near anything and the government’ll just chuckle and shake its head going “oh jeez, boys’ll be boys.” While liberal mobs are treated as a full-blown national security crisis even when they’re explicitly nonviolent and have never posed a threat and show no sign of posing one any time soon.
Hence, MLK and the entire civil rights movement gets put on J. Edgar Hoover’s COINTELPRO target list, while the feds turn a blind eye to the KKK for close to a hundred years.
Culture of Truth
Actually, I’m glad Kelly said that, because it suggests that he thinks actions like blocking traffic might justify applying pepper spray to others remotely associated with them, but necessarily, even more so, spraying and macing people blocking traffic and other disruptive behaviors is appropriate. So that’s helpful.
Tony J
@efgoldman:
The theory is that ‘kettling’ protestors lets them do their hippy, anarchist street-performance in secure areas where the Police will be on hand to remove any troublemakers who would otherwise be free to hijack their protest to commit property damage. They can ‘let off steam’ without it causing a public-order problem.
The truth is that it puts all the protestors in a cage where they can be photographed and identified by those who keep track of such things, while giving those police officers who might be so inclined free rein to indulge their need to taunt, threaten and assault anyone they damn well feel like.
Shorter me – Kettling means the Police get to let off steam, not the protestors.
Ruckus
@Corner Stone:
Been outraged for years. So I’ll join in. That’s 3.
But according to some on this blog I’m a cop hater so you may not want me on your side.
Amir Khalid
I’ve just been reading up on a few high-profile NYPD brutality cases in Wikipedia — Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell, Abner Louima. Precedent, in regard to cops actually getting punished, does not seem encouraging, except maybe in Louima’s case.
Elie
@Corner Stone:
do you also want “blood” like dave mentions in his comment?
Be careful, Corner. That is not a trivial thing to “want”, no?
Or are you just your usual thoughtless, reckless asshole self?
Culture of Truth
Agreed, without the video, less than nothing would happen. By which I mean, free drinks for Tony. But Tony may yet be under the proverbial bus, because he violated the cardinal rule.
Don’t get caught.
AndoChronic
@Chris: It’s because we are smart, hold advanced degrees, and have influential careers. This is why they are scared of us!
Dead Duck Fucking
Corner Stone: My outrage has been depleted due to overuse.
No, sorry it has been depleated due to over-ironing, as kettling still pisses me off.
Kola Noscopy
FIVE days later and the motherfucker hasn’t even begun to look into it. He needs to be fired too.
beltane
@Culture of Truth: Would this apply to bad drivers also? They do tend to block traffic on occasion. Maybe pepper spray would improve their driving skills so they don’t block traffic any more.
geg6
How unfortunate for Commissioner Kelly that this had to happen at the same time that he was getting a fact- and context-free tongue bath on 60 Minutes. Kinda ruins the lovely glow a bit, doesn’t it?
Fuck Kelly. He’s a thug, too.
Amir Khalid
@Elie:
Concur. John Cole was originally skeptical that anything at all would come out of this protest. So were many commenters here, with good reason I think: street protests like this get little if any attention. But this unfortunate macing and the media attention it’s got have made the protest an unexpected success. Now that they’ve got some attention, as Susan Sarandon advised them, they need to figure out some kind of next step. It would be a shame not to build on this.
daveNYC
@beltane:
Up until recently, they got points if they blocked the box. I suspect some of them would have prefered the pepper spray.
Cermet
First, all Cops are utter liars when they break the law and cover their own asses (no surprise since like most people, they cover their asses.)
Second, all other Cops associated with them are liars making sure to cover everyone asses (unlike most people in the real world, we don’t do that shit.)
Third: all Cops, with nearly zero exceptions, are complete supporters of our insane drug legal system and activity support and exploit this fuc$ed up system with no remorse or with any moral reservation. This carries over into most areas of enforcement making most of these so-called keepers of the peace into thugs.
In sum, with very few exceptions – Cops are simple minded police state enforcement pigs with power trips inversely related to their physical dick size; unlike what big dicks most are – again, thanks to our insane legal system that corrupts cops more than criminals. In summery, we have gotten the police state the thugs always wanted by losers who can’t wait to get power trips on enforcing immoral laws while never being smart enough to realize they are the tools really destroying our democracy.
Aside – I grew up in an extented family of cops and prosectuctors.
Culture of Truth
@beltane: If I could pepper spray people blocking the tunnel, the Hudson would be a damm bloody mary.
Kola Noscopy
@beltane:
Absolutely right. But don’t look for affirmation of that from the authoritarian cool kids at BJ. They hate Julian Assange too, cause he has greasy hair or something…and doesn’t always wear a suit and tie.
Elie
@Amir Khalid:
Totally agree. Have been sending links around to my more oblivious friends and relatives. Its a very important juncture and I hope that we can build on it without falling into any unforced errors or booby traps. Big, peaceful, energetic and motivated crowds is what we want. Some idea on strategy would be good but still not essential yet. People are tired and they are showing their solidarity with each other and their rights as citizens for peaceful assembly and free speech. I think it will shape itself as it evolves… make its own leaders too.
Winston Smith
@beltane:
I like where this is going.
Swishalicious
Wait wait wait… the cop’s name is TONY BALONEY?!
Also too this is totally disgusting.
jwest
Have you noticed that when Tea Party people get together (even in groups of 100,000 or more), everyone is pleasant, peaceful and they leave the venue cleaner than they found it? In contrast, any small group of leftists seems to cause property damage, public disturbances and leave a cloud of filth everywhere they go.
Steven Hanks is now the poster boy for left wing civility. What a sad commentary on an entire ideology.
geg6
@Elie:
As far as I can see, it’s only been on MSNBC.
I watched all three local newscasts here and nada. Watched the CBS News last night and CBS Morning Show this morning. Not a word. Zero and zilch. Hell, TPM isn’t covering it as far as I can tell.
And, believe me, that was more torture than it was worth. I have no idea what the other networks are saying (and I’m not subjecting myself to it), but not even the students here are aware of any of this. I know because I’ve made it my business to ask.
Pliny
When cops can flat-out murder people on video and not even be charged (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnKLEOXenow), who the fuck thinks anything will come of this?
B W Smith
@Kola Noscopy: That’s complete and utter bullshit that he’s not seen full detailed information. His security project has cameras everywhere in NYC that can pull up a given street address and view what happened or that’s at least what was claimed on 60 Minutes. Kelly’s dancing, hoping this shit disappears. As I said if this makes Kelly look bad and doesn’t go away…Tony is toast. Not because it’s the right thing to do but because, as someone said upthread, he got caught.
geg6
@Cermet:
Bullshit. I know plenty of cops who think the so-called drug war is a joke. There are bad cops and good cops. In my experience, the good outweigh the bad. The problem is that the bad ones wreak havoc and the good ones have little choice but stand back and watch them do it unless they are willing to become Frank Serpico. And few cops with mortgages, wives/husbands, and children can afford to do that.
Citizen_X
@jwest:
No.
Oh, we’re talking imaginary Tea Partiers. Sorry, carry on!
Elie
@geg6:
It is making an appearance in the NYT and Huffington. Its not hogging the airwaves or anything, just starting to rise in awareness rather than going away. They have not been able to kill it with lack of coverage alone, which is good. It will have to continue to grow, of course. We will see. I think that getting that reaction from Kelly is indicative of increased attention as well, don’t you?. We will see.
Ruckus
@Elie:
There is a large difference between being outraged and wanting blood. Grand Canyon sized difference. But is seems where cops are concerned people seem to be either happy go lucky no concern at all or blood lust. That’s a very narrow brush to paint a fairly complex issue.
singfoom
@jwest: Yeah, I remember how they were peaceful and pleasant to the Democratic House members who walked through them.
Up your game, that’s a sad old tired meme that’s been debunked throughly.
kindness
Am I alone in thinking that some of NY’s finest are trying to get the picketers to over-react to their heavy handedness in hopes of being able to then quash the protest with undue force? I mean, there isn’t any other real explaination for the violence that the cops (and particularly the upper management (white shirts)) have shown?
joes527
I dunno.
Kelly’s comment sounds like boilerplate PR speak for “I don’t know how this will go down, so I’m leaving my options open.”
If they think they can ride over the whole thing, then Tony is in no danger. If this situation looks to be a bigger pain in the ass than firing him, then he will get thrown under the bus.
No one will look at how a sociopath rises to the rank of Lt, and what that says about the force as a whole.
Sociopaths are cheap. If they throw him under the bus, there will be 5 new Tony Baloneys vying to take his place.
Amir Khalid
@Citizen_X:
In jwest’s defense, it’s undeniably true that imaginary Tea Party protesters don’t leave real trash behind.
singfoom
@kindness: No, I don’t think so. That’s a standard tactic. The police are part of the 99% as well though, and I think the protest organizers have said repeatedly that they don’t view the police as the enemy.
jwest
@singfoom:
Is that when Tea Party people yelled the “N” word and spit on black members of congress?
It’s amazing someone as naïve as you can still afford to be on the internet.
techno
This reminds me of one of my favorite sayings from the 60s, “There is no situation so desperate or dangerous that calling the cops won’t make it worse.”
beltane
@Elie: It must be getting plenty of attention in NYC because my FB feed (NYers in their early 40s) has become non-stop Occupy Wall St/We are the 99%.
Elie
@Ruckus:
It was not my comment, ruckus. I was asking Corner Stone, and maybe you as well, whether your supported dave’s entire comment. His last sentence stated that he wanted blood. go check for yourself.
Yes, there is a world of difference. We need to be, on this site and any others in the public domain, to be EXTREMELY careful and thoughtful in what we express. Hopefully, you are smart enough that I do not have to paint you a detailed picture of what is at stake and the risks. Do I?
beltane
@Amir Khalid: Imaginary TPers are also very civil, open-minded, intelligent people. I like the imaginary teabaggers, the real ones not so much.
Chris
@kindness:
Quite likely.
Civil rights protestors learned early that you couldn’t afford to respond in kind no matter what provocation was offered. It’s a disgusting double standard, but it remains the standard.
RossInDetroit
@Swishalicious:
My thought exactly.
Parents, don’t let your children taunt other kids at school. They might grow up to be pricks with a chip on their shoulder.
Suffern ACE
Hopefully justice will be done and the people who are illegally taping the police will taken to court.
singfoom
@jwest: Hey buddy, I don’t know anything about any epithets, nor did I say anything about it.
Here, here’s a tea party crowd being ‘pleasant and peaceful’: youtube
I’ll be awaiting your apology, but I won’t hold my breath. Up your troll game.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@beltane:
Look, the pepper spray is unconscionable, and Bologna should be tossed off the NYPD and prosecuted for his actions, but it isn’t as if they were kettling the protestors off of a planned, legal parade route- they were in the streets in Manhattan traffic!
Bitch all you want about free speech, but this isn’t a free speech issue. It’s a matter of obtaining a parade permit, it’s a matter of the city closing off streets and avenues so that no one gets hurt. Without a parade permit, the demonstrators were going to be redirected and/or detained. It’s a matter of civil disobedience. The organizers knew this. The cops knew this. You know this. Don’t be disingenuous about it.
Culture of Truth
The protest has been the lead story on local news, including local Fox.
Elie
@kindness:
That is one scenario of course… a type of pitfall we would like to avoid if at all possible, both for moral and strategic reasons. This was why non violence was so central to the civil rights movement under MLK. You have to stay morally above reproach and hold to the highest standards or they win.
Elie
@singfoom:
Oh just leave it alone, sing. Leave it alone.
Mack Lyons
@kindness: You’re right on the money. Get the liberal protesters to overreact so the cops can crack down on some commie/hippy skulls.
Meanwhile, it will probably take an act of terrorism from a Tea Party member for the police to even lift a finger against them, and even then the issue may end up being rationalized away.
RossInDetroit
If I was an 11D conspiracy theorist I might suspect someone of setting the Inspector up to do something outrageous and take a gentle fall into retirement.
Why? Because otherwise the protests might have eventually gotten the media attention they wanted for their own goals.
Now it’s all gonna be about a bad cop and the purpose of the protest is forgotten.
Playin’ the media like a violin…
joes527
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): People stay out of the street in Manhattan?
Look, I haven’t been there much, but the few time I have been there, things like sidewalks and stoplights seemed to be treated more as a suggestion than a rule.
Elie
@Mack Lyons:
Forget about the Tea Party. We are up on “the stage” now. Its our show. Maybe different rules or not. But we are on and what happens we have to think about in terms of what benefits us. Tea party is so yesterday. They know it too.
jaywillie
So is this protest about Wall Street or police brutality? When a story about an incident from the protest becomes bigger than the protest, control of the message has been lost and the protest has been marginalized, because guess what no one is talking about: the dirty, unscrupulous behavior of Wall Street. And that’s a victory for Wall Street.
Seriously…you can’t sustain a protest “until demands are met” when you’re still deciding what those demands are. Comments like this from a site discussing the protest’s demands are spot on: “They went from having no demands, to one demand (“occupy Wall Street”), to having almost every conceivable demand. It’s a symptom of political inexperience and the fact that there is a lot wrong in this country.” That list of demands includes everything from “end all wars” to “end capital punishment” to “ending poverty.” This is real problem for the protests and simply telling off people who keep bringing it up is not an answer to it.
That said, the story is pretty much about one cop, and he will not become the face of Wall Street oppression.
jwest
@singfoom:
All you need to do is find one person on that video (or all the other video and audio taken that day) yelling a racial epitaph and you could collect $100,000 from Andrew Breitbart.
It never happened, and yet you still believe it.
Are you still waiting for that Nigerian oil executive to wire you money?
beltane
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Any parade permit granted would grant the protesters the right to express themselves in a quarantined “free-speech zone” i.e. kettling while right-wingers can do whatever they want, wherever they want with the full support of the police and civil authorities.
But yes, life is so much easier when you accept that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.
singfoom
@jwest: Are you a fucking idiot?
Wait, no don’t answer that. I NEVER SAID ANYTHING ABOUT RACIAL EPITHETS, NOR DO I CARE. LEARN THE FUCK HOW TO READ AND OR GET THE FUCK OUT.
elmo
Once again, some damn rogue cops are giving the good, honest 1% a bad name.
eemom
dayum, this thread has SO MANY possibilites. It could go the cop-busting/defending law enforcement route…..the what-the-fuck-are-they protesting route……the are they covering this or are they not route……and that’s BEFORE the trolls get here….
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@joes527:
I know what you mean- mom used to live there. Milwaukee cops would being writing tons of jaywalking tickets.
But…Thousands of people in the middle of Fifth Avenue? There are enough planned parades that fuck with the daily lives of the residents of that island. Don’t think that an unplanned parade doesn’t piss off people who might otherwise be supportive of whatever the goals of the protest happen to be.
elmo
@singfoom:
And here I thought “Post a pic or it didn’t happen” was just an internet joke, never something to be taken seriously.
Because obviously we live in the world of Minority Report, and all events everywhere are filmed at all times.
Moar bettr trolls plz, kthxbai.
singfoom
@eemom: Every thread that has something to do with occupy wall street includes the “what are they protesting” part.
As for the trolls, my apologies to everyone, sometimes I cannot resist feeding them.
jwest
@singfoom:
So you’re complaining about a group of legally assembled citizens peacefully voicing their opinion on a piece of pending legislation?
Typical anti-democratic leftist.
Have you ever contemplated a move to Venezuela?
Yevgraf
@Corner Stone:
How about a few dozen crates of firearms? Perhaps “the heroes of 9/11” will alter their behavior when their victims can fight back?
Samara Morgan
Bravo Cole. you stepped up for once.
good coverage.
Meanwhile back at the UN.
move-countermove.
i still think the US can’t afford to veto.
Here is the gamespace.
Now the US side of the game matrix.
Payoff negative 100.
:)
CaptainFwiffo
As long as enough stink is raised for a long enough time, action CAN happen. Those Fullerton cops are on trial, as one recent example.
Corner Stone
@Yevgraf: I think I’ll stick with the silly hats.
geg6
OT, but have I mentioned yet what a national treasure Charles Pierce is? And how he has just turned me on to another national treasure, retired lumber company executive John Heroux?
If you don’t believe me, here is Charles talking about Mr. Heroux’s feelings after a town hall today in New Hampshire:
Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/mitt-romney-town-hall-new-hampshire-6498492#ixzz1ZHXEaW8l
Kola Noscopy
@Elie:
Shorter Elie: “People need to watch what they say; watch whyat they do…”
Fuck that.
Cat Lady
Observations of a jailed journalist:
Who here from BJ is in that jail representin’? This is what the next step has to be.
eemom
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
A few months ago, here in deecee, there was a HUGE Falun Gong rally which also included a parade down Pennsylvania Avenue that kept me and a bunch of other people waiting 45 minutes to get across the street to work, even though the street had NOT been officially blocked off for the parade. The cops just stood and watched, impervious to our various bitching and moaning.
Turned out they had a permit for the rally but not for the march — but as my co-worker put it, yer not gonna stop 20,000 people.
poco
@jwest: Oh, fergawdssake, just go away!
Kola Noscopy
@Elie:
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@beltane:
Really? Show me an example of a similar march by right-wingers in Manhattan, no permits.
And NYC has had a policy in place since ’08, at least from what a blogger elsewhere told me (without a direct link):
“In 2008 the New York Police Department, as part of a court settlement, has agreed to formalize several changes it has made in its crowd control procedures at political demonstrations. The department said it would ensure that protesters will not be trapped inside pens surrounded by police barricades, that people will be given “avenues of escape” when police approach on horseback and that the public is informed about access routes when sidewalks or roads are closed.”
– NY Times City Room Blog, April 15, 2008.
I highlighted that last bit because what it lets you know that it’s a policy they have in place for planned, permitted protests.
SnarkyShark
@jaywillie:
Hey, there is jaywille again with another long screed to do nothing.
If it turns into another incident of the police state in action I can live with that. Most people I know are becoming more and more concerned with the way we are going in that direction.
You think J Cole jumped from the Republican Party becasue of one well planned bullet point protest? It was a lot of things over time until there was one thing to many.
I am willing to bet this will have that same effect for a suprising number of people.
You even make the case yourself, there a lot of things wrong. This incident illustrates one of those.
And yet you stand ready to shit all over it. What is your malfunction?
Johnny Coelacanth
“So you’re complaining about a group of legally assembled citizens peacefully voicing their opinion on a piece of pending legislation?”
No, he was refuting your assertion that when Teabaggers “get together … everyone is pleasant, peaceful” et cetera. The glee with which you hold onto your nonexistent ‘gotcha’ bullshit is embarrassing.
Culture of Truth
Bologna has a first name,
It’s A-N-T-H-O-N-Y
Bologna has buddies
They’re the N-Y-P-D
We live in the land of the free
But if you turn on your tv
Or watch youtube you will see
A-B-U-S-E
Kola Noscopy
@beltane:
OMG, I just saw “Candide” here in Boston last week at the Huntington Theatre. EXCELLENT!
AndoChronic
@Suffern ACE: Hopefully they will be, and then they can show the court the police misconduct in this matter. Can you cite why you believe it to be illegal to videotape police (without interfering in their duties) in NY?
rb
@elmo: Yeah, that’s right about my take too.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@eemom:
And you could probably march 100K down almost any major surface street in Detroit with the exception of Woodward Ave., and no one would give a fuck, either. But you can fit Manhattan, San Francisco and Boston inside of Detroit and still have space left over.
That’s to say you’re comparing the Big Apple to oranges.
And now I’m going to be late for work. TA!
Elie
@Yevgraf:
I personally find your comment offensive and disgusting.
You need to take that shit elsewhere.
John Weiss
Pigs is pigs. Learned that forty-five years ago and it’s still true.
Amir Khalid
Back in 1998 there was a high-profile case of a criminal suspect being assaulted while in the custody of the Royal Malaysian Police. Given that cops here sometimes take it upon themselves to, um, chastise perps a bit as part of the process (it seems to be a cop thing everywhere, doesn’t it?) it was most unusual that there was even a case at all, let alone that it had any public profile.
This one did because the suspect was recently-fired deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim. Also because when he was taken to court to be charged, he was photographed coming out of the Black Maria (paddywagon) with a face full of bruises, and The Economist ran the photo on its cover. It was seen all over the world, and the government here was forced to investigate. Otherwise, former DPM or not, there would never have been a case.
Eventually a police officer did fess up to beating Anwar up in his cell. His confession was corroborated by his fellow officers. His name was Norian Mai, and at the time of the incident he held the rank of Inspector-General (i.e. national chief) of Police.
There’s more. Former IGP Norian Mai pleaded guilty and did a few months for assault. His lawyer said in mitigation that Norian was a just a police offer, a dedicated and long-serving one, who beat up Anwar out of an excess of professional zeal. Given who Norian was, a lot of people here thought the judge should have treated these facts as aggravating circu=mstances.
tjproudamerican
John Cole, the last sane man in America. I come here to Balloon Juice to spend time with (mostly) sane comments flowing from writers who write directly and honestly.
That “We need to see the context” of a bully with power punishing the young girl protestors was very psychologically revealing. My guess is that Lt. Schmuck-Anthony Bologna just hates these girls because he feels these girls have money (or they couldn’t join a protest that takes days and looks bad on one’s resume for our Corporate Overlords), that these girls are beautiful and sexually active, but never with an old cop, and privileged.
Imagine what this schmuck Anthony Bologna would do to these girls if he wasn’t afraid someone had a camera? With cameras everywhere he tortured them.
Q. Q. Moar
@Culture of Truth: I want to run away with this comment and make sweet, sweet love to it.
Elie
@Kola Noscopy:
fuck off, colon sucker. Time for your daily enema.
blackfrancis
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
12th Street and Fifth Avenue is not really a major thoroughfare in NYC, FYI. It ends at a park.
rb
@blackfrancis: But it’s in MANHATTAN! And everyplace in MANHATTAN is EQUALLY FULL OF CARZ.
Keith G
@Elie:
Pow!!
Gentile and reasonable Miss Elie lowers the boom.
..and later
Miss Elie Raw
blackfrancis
@rb: Whoops! I totes forgot. I hate it when they back up in the subway tunnels.
joes527
@AndoChronic: woooooooooosh!
out of control
New videos of Out of Control NYPD cop in ANOTHER spraying attack
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/28/anthony-bologna-using-pep_n_985432.html
obviously this asshole has anger management issues coupled with abuse of power issues and he needs to be arrested, indicted and imprisoned.
what a total douchebag
Dead Duck Fucking
Does anyone remember when “The Last Sane Man In America(TM)” didn’t really give a shit, because, WOW!
Librarian
Unless I’ve missed something, Maddow has not said one single word about the protests. Not even when Michael Moore mentioned it. She must be specifically forbidden by MSNBC to cover it.
RossInDetroit
That’s because the Detroit area has a superb system of roads and highways. I was headed up Woodward at 5:45 am today and was late for work. It was closed at 15 mile by a ‘police situation’ and I had to detour. Still made it on time.
eemom
@Keith G:
my reaction too.
I do love it when a gentle, reasonable lady like Elie finally runs out of patience and kicks the motherfucker in the balls.
Johnny Coelacanth
@Elie: Really? Speaking strictly from my own mall-ninja, coffee-drinking armchair-warrior perspective, I’d have to say I’m with yevgraf. It seems to me that there might be less casual police brutality if the protesters were all carrying shotguns and rifles, as the New Black Panthers supposedly do at their public gatherings.
Of course, that’s in Texas where it’s legal for non-felons to carry such things around in public, so long as they aren’t aimed at people. New York gun laws being what they are, I doubt many of the protesters are/will be packing heat.
AndoChronic
@joes527: Did I miss sarcasm somewhere? Sorry, I’m usually good at picking it up!
Kola Noscopy
Miss Elie is an enabler of weakness and capitulation in service of the status quo.
Fuck that.
General Stuck
We are so fucked
Rescue us, dear lard!!
send drugs and money!!
trollhattan
@Citizen_X:
Freakin’ Hoverround tracks everywhere! If your notion of the Real ‘Murika represented by the baggers is the 4 o’clock seating at Denny’s set, you won’t be far off.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/skeeterbytes/4525188202/
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Tony J:
As my cynical high school history teacher taught me, if ‘the people’ are pissed about something someone in power did then the powers that be form a body to investigate their complaint(s) against that person. Once they have done that, the public is happy to see something is ‘being done’ and they back off their anger.
When the decision of the body formed to look into the complaints(s) delivers their decision a year or two later, people have forgotten about it.
Wash, rinse and repeat as necessary. It always works.
Elie
@Keith G:
Hey, nice seeing you too, Keith.
If you had really read the thread, and knew what had ocurred at each of those points, I might laugh along with you. As for Kolon person — why should I have to listen to anything he says? Just because you want me to?
Go back and read, Keith. Rather than immediately taking the position you usually take “Oh, there you go again, Elie”.. go back and read what Corner Stone inadvertantly agreed to in a comment back up by commenter with the handle dave.
FlipYrWhig
@Johnny Coelacanth: More guns, less crime? I hear Mary Rosh loves that argument.
Johnny Coelacanth
This is from the diary at KOS where the second Bologna video surfaced, and it addresses the “sidetracking” issue:
Elie
@Johnny Coelacanth:
It is extremely dangerous to advocate that people do that in a situation like this. You gonna take responsibility for the consequences?
I do not support the status quo but do not believe that guns are the way to change it. Maybe you do. Maybe your knuckels drag on the ground too. I dunno.
Loose talk without consequence is irresponsible and frequently stupid — not YOUR life being risked, is it? Not the larger things we might could achieve without your wild west show, Cro Magnon thinking, for sure.
Go wrastle your alligators or armadillos or whatever y’all do down there for intellectual stimulation.
Amir Khalid
@Johnny Coelacanth:
I don’t know about this. It seems to me that civilians carrying small arms as a matter of course is problematic for other reasons.
Keith G
@eemom: Yeah, but I was focusing on the obvious pretense.
FlipYrWhig
@Johnny Coelacanth:
As a way to link the two causes, that blows. Why not say that it’s a vivid reminder of how the law serves the interests of the financial sector, or something like that?
Svensker
@Samara Morgan:
Silly rabbit.
Elie
@Keith G:
Keith:
did you go back up and look? Just curious. Here, let me help you out..
@dave:
SnarkyShark
Here is a recent report on the ground
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/09/28/1020588/-Witnessing-occupywallstreet:-my-2nd-day?via=siderec
It comes from the GOS so there will be haters, but there are some real nice photos.
If you go there notice the photo of the “street thug’ painting signs next to a guy in a real nice suit. Maybe now the good citizens of W Penn get now get exited?
Bullet points,
>the crowd has doubled
>the cops have been told to tone it down(that is no explicitdly stated but is my read on it.
> apparently some vets in overseas combat zones are ready to get involved as soon as they get back.
I watched the Cindy Sheehan protest blow up, and this feels just like that.
To all the organizational freaktards there is a detialed look at how its being organized and run.
Its open source.
RossInDetroit
Cops will tell you they see crimes all the time that they can’t do anything about because – they believe – the courts are tilted in favor of criminals (what we call defendants). They resent that they’re held to what they see as a high standard of conduct while bad guys go free. This makes many cops bitter and in a few cases, makes them want to take it out on someone. I’ve known several long term police officers and they were very cynical.
Corner Stone
@Elie:
Sigh. You’re too dimwitted to realize dave is a spoof and I was making fun of him.
Johnny Coelacanth
@FlipYrWhig: “More guns, less crime?” Nope. Read the comment more slowly, and concentrate on the part where I say “there might be less casual police brutality…” From what I understand, the police are very respectful and restrained at those NBPP rallies in Texas. I suppose we could just chalk that up to good, ol’ fashioned, Southern hospitality.
Elie
@Corner Stone:
Oh, I guess you thought spoof or not, that wanting blood was funny?
Well, you be the moron then. I was actually giving you a break, thinking you made a mistake.
I go back to my original judgement about your intellect and maturity — you are an idiotic, irresponsible moron. Anyone who would fool around with that kind of risk deserves nothing but contempt.
Keith G
@Elie: Greetings back at ya.
Oh Miss Elie, I have read the whole thread so please chill that world famous judgement of yours. What I find interesting is that you take Corner Stone so literally. That’s a different definition of judgement I guess.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
I thought we all agreed with Mr. Oliver Willis that the most important thing for Commissioner Kelly to investigate is the hippies’ personal attire, because that’s like kryptonite to Hope and Change for America.
.
.
Mattminus
@Elie:
I cried when they shot John Lennon
Tears ran down my spine
And I cried when I saw “JFK”
As though I’d lost a father of mine
But Malcolm X and Ice-T had it coming
They got what they asked for this time
CHORUS
So love me, love me, love me
I’m a liberal
I go to pro-choice rallies
Recycle my cans and jars
I’ll honk if you love the Dead
Hope those funny grunge bands become stars
But don’t talk about revolution
That’s going a little bit too far
CHORUS
I cheered when Clinton was chosen
My faith in the system reborn
I’ll do anything to save our schools
If my taxes ain’t too much more
And I love blacks and gays and Latinos
As long as they don’t move next door
CHORUS
Rush Limbaugh and the L.A.P.D.
Should all hang their heads in shame
I can’t understand where they’re at
Arsenio should set them straight
But if Neigborhood Watch doesn’t know you
I hope the cops take your name
CHORUS
Yeh, I read the New Republic(an)
Rolling Stone and Mother Jones too
If I vote it’s a Democrat
With a sensible economy view
But when it comes to terrorist Arabs
There’s no one more red, white and blue
CHORUS
Once I was young and had an attitude
Stickers covered the car I drove in
Even went on some direct actions
When there weren’t rent-a-cops to be seen
Ah, but now I’ve grown older and wiser
And that’s why I’m turning you in
Corner Stone
@Elie: What are you even blathering about? Do you even know?
Ruckus
@Elie:
Using your comment to enlarge on some of the comments made in prior posts as well as clarify Corner’s and my comments. I am outraged by a number of things in this country and in the world. But I don’t want to kill/maim people to try to fix them because that never works in the long term. Example, the death penalty. It does work, in the short term, the person murdered will never do whatever they were supposed to have done, ever again. However it is not justice, it is barbaric, it is beneath us, it is not a deterrent, it is retribution. I’m outraged that it is still done in our name in the 21 century.
Rafer Janders
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
It wasn’t Fifth Avenue. It was University Place, which as I mentioned above is a small, one-third mile long street that dead-ends at a park and is not a major thoroughfare.
Johnny Coelacanth
@Elie:Your rapid descent into name calling is unbecoming. I did specify that it was strictly an armchair warrior viewpoint, i.e, I have no skin in the game. I also thought I made it pretty clear that, no matter what you, yev or I think about it, the question is pointless because you can’t casually carry rifles on Wall Street.
Instead of spraying me with your refreshing tonic of righteousness and bile, you could have talked about why it works for the black guys in Texas, but why it wouldn’t work in New York, etc. I clearly made an error in expecting a calm discussion from you, Elie. I won’t make the mistake again. My apologies.
JWL
If the military draft were ever reinstated, the roof would be blown off this nation’s two party political establishment.
Disclaimer: Being decades my past cannon fodder prime, I heartedly endorse that reinstatement.
Johnny Coelacanth
@FlipYrWhig: “As a way to link the two causes, that blows. Why not say that it’s a vivid reminder of how the law serves the interests of the financial sector, or something like that?”
That would be good. I was just pointing out that the diarist had made such an argument.
Elie
@Keith G:
Yeah, silly me, I take shit like that seriously. Paranoid? Maybe. But tell me, how do you not take that seriously? How do you take someone having a funny on people getting hurt or killed? And then you have these other morons advocatting that the protesters carry guns?
Wow!
The stoopid — it burns!
SnarkyShark
One more bullet point
>apparently a union with 50,000 mebers stands ready to march with the dirty smelly drum playing hippies.
So now maybe the good citizens of Penn can now fully embrace all this.
I can not change my stance on this.
I find people who look down their nose at others who do
the hard work to be distastefull.
Maybe we do need them, but that doesnt mean they dont swim in the shallow end.
I am NOT talking about YOU geg6, but I am refering to all those idoits in Penn who can’t get over themselves.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
@Corner Stone:
I can field this one if I may, Corner. Elie doesn’t want blood, she wants something that’s thicker.
.
.
Corner Stone
@Uncle Clarence Thomas: Sizzurp?
From the way she’s blathering about it sounds like she’s already had more than enough.
Elie
@Johnny Coelacanth:
I am sorry for the name calling. I seriously do not understand why someone would advocate that people participating in peaceful marches should need them. You obviously differ. I don’t think its much of an argument that you made for it frankly and the down sides are many.
Tell me how your vision of this plays out?
Perhaps you recall the President making speeches in front of armed tea party crowds. I found that extremely revolting and scary. Now you describe a desired state of having peaceful protesters, rationally expressing their freedoms and rights to gather, but requiring guns somehow.
That is just past lame. Sad. Also.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Amir Khalid: Yanno, here we are getting our indignance fired up over this pansy assed Kelly and you gotta waltz in here from another hemisphere and offer the voice of reason. You have issues with our rising blood pressure, or what? :)
The points you make are, of course, astute and correct. Were I representing Bologna I’d certainly make much of anything negative Kelly said as tainting any subsequent investigation. I’m certain his NY licensed counsel will have the same idea.
eemom
Fuck all you bullies.
Unlike most of your sorry asses — and mine, for that matter — Elie actually does try to keep things civil around here. So shut the fuck up and stop piling on.
Assholes.
Elie
@Ruckus:
I completely agree with you.
So I have your support in advocating against bloodshed or violence in these Wall Street sit ins/marches?
If so, there is no problem that I can see.
Any apologies if I offended you in any way.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
@Mattminus:
Ice-T had stardom on NBC coming?
.
.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Corner Stone: I actually was thinking I’d missed a decade or so in acceptable law enforcement techniques, because I was horrified at the sight of people rounded up in fucking snow fencing yet no one seemed as bothered by it as I was. The First Amendment guarantees the right of free assembly, which I’ll argue loudly does not exist when one is contained by a fence, however flexible or netlike it may be. I’m outraged.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@geg6:
In other words, it’s the bad cops who determine how things happen in police departments. Doesn’t that mean that the bad is outweighing the good?
I keep reading this bullshit about good cops being the vast, vast majority, but apparently there’s not enough of them to band together to fight corruption. Nope, that corruption is too pervasive and the poor good cops just can’t dare to fight it. But we’re still supposed to presume that the good ones are in charge? Give me a break.
When you see a cop, you need to assume that he has it in for you. To think that he is your friend is just foolish. Rest assured, if one of the “bad” cops puts five bullets in your back because he had a bad day, there will be plenty of “good” cops on the scene to help cover it up. That is the reality of the situation. That some significant number of the cops involved are not pure evil doesn’t change the plain reality.
(BTW, if you think I’m being hyperbolic, please look in the mirror. Are you a normal looking white person? Congrats on being the one kind of person that cops might defer to. It won’t stop any cops from participating in covering up your murder should a cop “accidentally” pop you, but you at least get to avoid most of the worst harassment.)
SnarkyShark
Ease up on ellie people. She has a good heart, but doesnt really get sarcasm or irony.
Elie honey, there may come a time when guns ARE neccessary so buck up. That time is not now, but it may come.
Here is a good rule to know. If it is worth dying for, then it’s worth killing for. If the Tea-tards win through hook or crook, you will be among the first they will put up against the wall.
Fire arms can be scary, but sometimes they can save your and others of like minds life.
None of those guys were advocating for blood, they were riffing off of all the idoits who open carried at tea party rallies in Arizona.
Keith G
@Elie:
Oh my
Slight hint: http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/war/War_on_Terrorism_War_Humor.htm
It’s what normal humans do.
Elie
@eemom:
Thanks eemom but never you mind about the polyps on this thread. They irritate and swell up sometimes but they always show themselves for what they are.
People like Corner and his fellow polyps don’t bother me a bit. That troll Uncle whatsisname apparently hearts Corner though. Good match.
Keith G
@eemom: Choking
Johnny Coelacanth
“@Elie: “Now you describe a desired state of having peaceful protesters, rationally expressing their freedoms and rights to gather, but requiring guns somehow.
That is just past lame. Sad. Also.”
Yes, it is quite sad when peaceful protesters need to be visibly armed before they won’t be casually brutalized by the police. I do recall the president making speeches before armed tea party crowds. I do not recall seeing video of policemen gleefully squirting those protesters with pepper spray.
Did the guns have anything to do with it?
dave
@Elie: Kill a cop for Christ, Elie.
OK, fine, I’ll dial it back: I want blood, but I won’t demand blood. Would it break my heart if Anthony Bologna were, in the course of spraying kettled women, run over by a bus? No. Would I swerve to hit him? No.
I don’t need blood. I also don’t need smashed cop cars, broken bank windows, terrorized bankers, bat-smashed BMWs, a giant fart cloud hanging over the middle class and timid liberals, looted local bank branches, burned piles of cash stolen from bank vaults, or Jamie Dimon’s severed head on a platter. But it would be a good start.
Johnny Coelacanth
@eemom: “Fuck all you bullies.” One at a time or en masse?
Elie
@SnarkyShark:
Hey there — you ever watch someone actually die from multiple gun shots?
I have.
This is not something you make fun of — unless you are sick.
That a bunch of you make light of it in the name of some sort of “satire” is I guess, not surprising.
Hope you never have to experience that – (standing on blankets to avoid slipping on floors covered with blood). Running codes on young people and dealing with their families.
Fuck YOU
Ruckus
@Elie:
Apologies not necessary. This is a blog. I try to not take too much too personally.
Sometimes engines overheat. Sometimes they over rev. Sometimes they blow up. Some brains seem to work the same way.
dave
No, but seriously, thanks to Corner Stone for raising the issue of kettling.
Neither Elie’s pouting nor my violent fantasies should distract anyone from the horrific problem of police brutality.
TuiMel
I contacted both Mayor Bloomberg and Commissioner Kelly to let them know that I was aware of and appalled by Bologna’s actions in the videos. I also let them know that I thought others officers failed by not sanctioning Bologna’s behavior at the time it occurred.
TuiMel
@Citizen_X:
There’s a tee shirt and a bumper sticker in there…
Mattminus
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
It does need another updating doesn’t it? Also, too, fuck Ice-T, what a sell out.
eemom
@Elie:
Yep. Just like a hand hearts a dick.
wasabi gasp
That orange netting doesn’t offer much protection at all.
SnarkyShark
ellie-
Yes I have. I am ex military. Violence is for last resort.
AndoChronic
@RossInDetroit: Cops are held to a higher standard because of the authority society gives them. The only remedy for the problems they have, that you mention, is ongoing psychological help and therapy.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
@Elie:
For next time, may I remind you that it is not polite to stare?
.
.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
@eemom:
I defer to your long experience and authority in this matter, Madame Happy Hour.
.
.
Johnny Coelacanth
I once saw a person killed by an automobile. It was horrific. Now please acknowledge the superiority of my moral stance when I insist that automobiles have no place in a safe society.
Omnes Omnibus
@eemom: Thanks for that image. I doubt I will ever sleep again.
Robert
Mace was not the answer. That’s clear. If they did something that wrong and weren’t posing an immediate threat to anyone, they should have been cuffed and removed from the crowd.
I’m still not willing to say “OMG NYPD are DEVILS!” because some protesters are putting up video footage that only shows police response. Some of the videos that have been getting MSM play actually show people who are slapped in cuffs punching police officers in the middle of a crowded street before the officer touches them. We don’t know who these people are, what they did, what the police saw them do, and why they were actually being arrested. And yet, the immediate response “OMG NYPD are DEVILS! Police Brutality!” when we don’t know the whole story. It’s the equivalent of saying anyone who steps into a courtroom is guilty until proven innocent. It’s not how criminal justice works in America.
There is no backpedaling from Kelly when no one except for the officers and the people who were maced know what actually happened to cause that. You don’t know if that officer wasn’t back and forth on the scene for a long time dealing with who knows what criminal activity before the attack happened. Do you know for sure they didn’t threaten to kill the police? Kill protesters? Do you know they didn’t say they had a gun on them or a knife? Do you know that they didn’t start punching and kicking officers before they were corralled into the gate? You don’t because all you see is the two women get maced and fall to the ground while the officer walks away. Kelly can’t comment on a case unless he knows all of the details. He doesn’t.
Then there’s the matter that the NYPD has a surveillance team for all protests that films every conceivable angle of the crowd to show full context at trial. The truth is going to come out eventually. It’s not going to come out until those who were arrested are formally charged and tried.
And one more note while I think about it. Did you know there was another large protest yesterday a few blocks from the Occupy Wall Street crowd? It’s true. 700 airline pilots gathered peacefully at their designated starting place, marched the route they informed the city they would be taking, and then stood in choreographed formations until the protest was over. They were protesting low wages and bad business practices, just like the Occupy Wall Street crowd. The difference was that the airline pilots assembled peacefully, did not wear masks, did not start screaming and hurling obscenities, did not start shoving police officers and demanding an explanation of why they were stationed there, did not try to break into police headquarters, and did not walk around with open containers of alcohol, exposed nudity, and illegal drugs. No one was arrested at the pilot protest. There was also ZERO media coverage of the pilot protest because the young people down the street were still demanding badge numbers. The young people down the street did break off and attempt to stir the airline pilots into more radical action and were shocked that the police weren’t lining up to attack anyone protesting in NYC. The NYPD don’t just blindly assault people for kicks or conspiracy reason.
Johnny Coelacanth
“The NYPD don’t just blindly assault people for kicks or conspiracy reason.”
So what DO they blindly assault people for? Besides being black, I mean.
MattR
@Robert:
So the truth is not going to come out eventually because the protestors are not going to be tried and the officer is not even going to be charged.
Buck Turgidson
I hate to judge before all the facts are in, but it looks like Officer Bologna has exceeded his authority.
wasabi gasp
Then what would I do for a klondike bar was not the question. Maybe Bologna likes them too.
wrb
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
The images are too intense tonight. I don’t doubt that the hand hearts the dick while staring at people dying of multiple gunshot woulds, but I bought a nice dinner.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
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@Robert:
You are clearly insane. Fortunately, you may be brought back to your senses by a handjob from eemom, who is currently providing them to anyone who buys her a Whiskey Sour, if I understand her latest post correctly.
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AndoChronic
@Robert: You need those young people to start shit. It’s great that uniformed pilots showed up to do their own thing. Would that have happened regardless of the “Wall Street protest”? It’s like the uniformed police marching with the folks in Madison WI., good for them, they’re a part of the affected community too. Would have a bunch of uniformed cops playing bagpipes march on their own separate a larger context in Madison? We’re a bitter and jaded society and sometimes an event like this (Wall Street) is the only way to predicate some sort of change and garner attention.
Omnes Omnibus
@AndoChronic: The airline pilots probably would have done it anyway. My best friend from undergrad is an airline pilot, and he spends a shitload of his spare time traveling to locations and picketing. He has been doing it for a couple of years now. One thing they have going for them is free space available flights.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@Robert: Yeah, and who can say that the maced women weren’t witches chanting curses at the officer? And who can say that they didn’t stink really bad? Or maybe they insulted that poor officer’s mama?
Shorter Robert: Those dirty fucking hippies must have had it coming.
But, you know, if there was actually any real threat from these women, why did the white-shirt just casually stroll away after he maced them? They were so dangerous that they had to be painfully subdued right at that moment, but not so dangerous that they couldn’t just be left in the street to continue their reign of terror when they could see again in a half hour or so?
So, um, that’s why I don’t think they had a fucking gun or knife. The police obviously didn’t act like they did.
But hey, what if what if what if. Of course, there’s no what if when it comes to the video you saw of protesters shoving and throwing punches. In those cases we can be certain that it’s all the protesters’ faults. No need for any more context there!
Hey Robert. You’re a tool.
eemom
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
I suspect that you in fact ARE Cornered Stone’s dick. It would explain a lot, including your lack of, shall we say, substance.
AndoChronic
@Omnes Omnibus: See, I bet they weren’t drunk, high, and nude (or maybe they were). But, you don’t see much of their protests in the media.
Omnes Omnibus
@AndoChronic: I’m not getting drawn into that spat. No sirree.
burnspbesq
@Jerome:
Really? Explain what just happened in Orange County, smartypants.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
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@eemom:
Isn’t there some sort of local dramshop law which applies to that seedy bar you’re giving handjobs in? I think you have exceeded your limit of Whiskey Sours for the evening, because what you suggest is impossible.
Yes, if something impossible were actually possible, then it could serve as an explanation to a sticky liquid-soaked harpy. And yet, what you suggest is still impossible, no matter how many Whiskey Sours and handjobs you gulp down. Therefore, I rest my case, and award you the title of Whiskey Sour-Fueled Queen of Handjobs for your efforts. Please let me know immediately if you switch back to SUPER COKE!.
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Omnes Omnibus
@burnspbesq:
A guidance counselor mistakenly sends out the wrong transcripts to Stanford University under the name of an over-achieving high schooler. At least that is what IMDb says.
AndoChronic
@Omnes Omnibus: My point is, maybe this is better directed toward Robert, as Dave Pirner so eloquently put it, “Nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd”. Perpetual “frustration” manifestation? It’s a big tent!
Omnes Omnibus
@AndoChronic: Hey, I’m not against these guys and any points I had over the last couple of days about how they might reach a larger audience seem to have been overtaken by events.
elftx
A link to live stream of protest and chat:
http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution
also too, although I appreciate Anon figuring out the name of the cop, I did not think it appropriate they sink to Malkin level and post all his private info
singfoom
Everybody play nice, no need for all the insults. (I expect several fuck yous in response :P ) Except for JWest, the goalpost moving troll.
THere’s a great blog post from a PBS journalist who got arrested in the Wall Street protests:
http://www.thirteen.org/metrofocus/news/2011/09/observations-of-a-jailed-journalist/
AndoChronic
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m with ‘ya, and I don’t think anyone can articulate the answer you’re/ we’re looking for, it’s a gut thing, everyone knows it instinctively already. It’s unfortunate that the negative events themselves are the primary cause for the current attention, but here it is. Now what?
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Robert:
According to NYPD rules, mace is only to be used to effect an arrest by helping officers subdue an individual so they can be taken into custody. Tony Baloney maced the women and walked away, there was no arrest(s), he fucked up and broke the rules.
IMO he did this in an attempt to incite the crowd into doing something stupid so NYPD could then beat the shit out of them, spray them, taze them, cuff them and stuff them, just to discredit the protesters and make them look bad.
He’s a bad cop. Full stop. Defend that.
jeff
@Robert:
Oh good god, dude. You’re so full of shit I shouldn’t even ask, but have you ever lived here? I love most NYPD, but I have been beaten, and (almost) sent to jail because I was with the 2004 Republican Convention protest in Manhattan. (I was actually with a member of the press when this happened.)
John X.
Odie Hugh Manatee,
And if the second video is him, he literally walked up to a group of people who were neither behind barricades or directly involved in a confrontation with a cop and sprayed them. Hell, both videos show that he caught one of his fellow cops each time.
Dude is not just a bad cop. Dude is a fucking nut.
cynn
This thread reminds me of Thanksgiving dinner without a football game…
Corner Stone
I continue to enjoy the fact that Elie is too stupid to actually parse comments here.
For those giving her the benny, she’s less than bright.
Corner Stone
@eemom:
She’s a hyper judgmental moron who hasn’t distinguished between ass and hole in the ground for some time.
She ain’t fucking civil. Stop trying to adopt her.
Corner Stone
@wasabi gasp:
For whom?
Corner Stone
@John X.: Looking at his face while he thumbs off a mace canister it’s pretty clear he’s a menace and a really hateful person. He opened up yards behind his targets and clearly hates them, not caring who he hurts.
Tehanu
@jwest:
Yeah, if I believed Andrew Breitbart would pay a hundred thousand bucks to Jesus Himself if He came down and showed him the video, I’d be as dumb as you are. Absence of video evidence is not evidence, you moron. And stop clutching your pearls about the filthy, filthy hippies. They’ve been right about everything for the last 45 years while you and your rightard buddies were turning this country into a Third World hellhole.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Rafer Janders:
That’s where it eventually ended. From the NYTimes story:
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@RossInDetroit:
That’s why I chose Detroit as my example- both The D and Washington D.C. are built on the old French “Wheel and Spokes” design which allows for easier rerouting of traffic. Also, the area of DC that eemmom was talking about isn’t a densely packed residential area- none of Detroit is densely packed any longer- so a march, whether scheduled through the city offices or not- doesn’t have nearly the same effect as has a similar march through Manhattan.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@beltane:
You know, this is just silly. Really, really silly.
Aren’t we talking about civil DISobedience here? Did anyone think that the NYPD was going to wait at Union Square and help the Snapple Lady pass out complimentary beverages? For chrissakes, the first week of protesting was gaining no real traction. Protestors march, the city gives them a gift by kettling and arresting people, Bologna puts a bow on the gift by pepper spraying some of the protestors…The only thing left is for Adbusters to bring the attention back to the reason this all happened in the first place.
RGuy
I’m probably way too late to add anything to this but in the off chance people are still paying attention to the comments apparently this guy pepper sprayed people again.
http://gothamist.com/2011/09/28/video_same_nypd_official_reportedly.php
Also, while not exactly related, there is a pattern in the NYPD of cops basically abusing their position. Here’s a cop harassing a tourist who was at the 9/11 memorial. Her crime? Taking pictures.
http://gothamist.com/2011/09/27/cop_accosts_visitor_to_911_memorial.php