flamingsword | [occupy] Firecrackers and Protest Sabotage. (Reply)

I'm having to write this out of order because it's jumbled with too many emotions.

Today I triaged a kid lying on the ground who had been hit in the head by a billy club hard enough that he was nonresponsive for two minutes and disoriented and uncoordinated for several more. I put him in recovery position and stood by him checking his pupil response and trying to get him verbal until enough people yelled at the police to let the ambulance in to the blocked off streets. They brought in a police medical vehicle instead.

Today I shouted "SHAME" at a police officer who set off a firecracker behind the protest lines in an attempt to simulate unlawful protest by the Occupiers. He was ten feet from me. We hadn't been paying him any attention because we weren't expecting sabotage. After that didn't work he joined the officers out in the street. Two minutes later the police started clubbing the people closest to the banks doors. I don't know why.

Today I watched the Dallas Police Department drag a man with blood on his face into a waiting police car. He had been hit repeatedly and thrown to the ground to be cuffed for being off of the sidewalk.

Today I talked at sient police officers who avoided making eye contact about how this was not the job they signed up for. I asked them what happened to the smiling, tolerant faces that first Thursday when we gave them oranges, when they would talk to us, when they could look us in the face. I told them that the Albany PD had violated unlawful orders to harass protesters. One cop walked off to another part of the police line like he had something to say and couldn't, had to remove himself from the possibility of conversation.

We were protesting on the sidewalk outside Bank of America. There was no protester violence. There was a drummer, two people with whistles, and an old guy with a megaphone. There were people chanting and waving signs. There was a tiny hipster girl waving an American flag next to what may have been her grandparents and several Anons. The big banks are using their customer's money to commit crimes against those customers and buy off the consequences. And when you protest that, you can be beaten and arrested.

To my friends who don't know why we're protesting: do any of these things sound like the country you want to live in?

EDIT TO ADD: The shaky video footage makes me ill to sort through but Channel 8 has a report on the<a href="http://www.wfaa.com/news/City-to-probe-Occupy-Dallas-confrontation-at-bank-133334993.html">protesters arrested Saturday afternoon still being in jail Sunday night</a> some whose charges were only released a few hours ago. <a href="http://occupydallas.org/letter-police-0">Occupy Dallas has released a letter to the Dallas Police Department</a> outlining the officer's infractions and the difficulties they present to exercising First Amendment rights.

Posted via LiveJournal app for Android.