Police beat corralled protesters at State and Washington NATO

NYPD loses face and first Occupy Wall Street trial

Russia Today
Katerina Azarova

This case could have been a slam dunk for the NYPD, had it not been for one thing: the video showing police claims of disorderly conduct during an OWS protest to be completely untrue.

Hundreds have been arrested during the Occupy Wall Street protests, but photographer Alexander Arbuckle’s case was the first to go to trial – and after just two days, the Manhattan Criminal Court found him not guilty.

Supporters of the OWS protest movement have already hailed the ruling as a major legal victory.

Arbuckle was arrested on New Year’s Day for allegedly blocking traffic during a protest march. He was charged with disorderly conduct, and his arresting officer testified under oath that he, along with the protesters, was standing in the street, despite frequent requests from the police to move to the sidewalk.

But things got a little embarrassing for the NYPD officer when the defense presented a video recording of the entire event, made by well-known journalist Tim Pool. 

Pool's footage clearly shows Arbuckle, along with all the other protesters, standing on the sidewalk. In fact, the only people blocking traffic were the police officers themselves

His lawyers said the video proving that testimony false is what swayed the judge, and the verdict a clear indication that the NYPD was over-policing the protests.

The irony of the case, however, is that Arbuckle was not a protester, or even a supporter of the Occupy movement. He was there to document the cops’ side of the story.

A political science and photography major at NYU, Arbuckle felt the police were not being fairly represented in the media.

“All the focus was on the conflict and the worst instances of brutality and aggression, where most of the police I met down there were really professional and restrained,” the student said.

However, his good intentions only landed him in trouble. As with all the other detained protesters, the police offered Arbuckle an Adjournment in Contemplation of Dismissal (ACD), which basically means he would be let off the hook if he agreed not to fight the charges. But to Arbuckle, that meant an admission of guilt, and he decided to take the case to trial.

Outcome of Abusive Officer Emphasizes the Importance of Videotaping and Reporting Police Activity

TechDirt

from the filming-police-is-a-good-thing dept

In the last couple years we've had a bunch of stories about people arrested for filming police. While it seems that more and more courts are recognizing that such filming is protected activity, there have been a few bizarre moments, including famed appeals court judge Richard Posner complaining about how allowing such filming would mean that it would actually happen.

But, as we've seen over and over again, filming police is one of the few ways to prove abuse of police power. Back in the summer of 2007, a police officer named Salvatore Rivieri in Baltimore decided to use his position to harass some skateboarding kids in Baltimore's Inner Harbor area. As part of his harassment, he took one kid's skateboard after throwing him to the ground and screaming at him. The whole thing was videotaped by another kid... and it was uploaded to YouTube a few months later:




At the very end, you hear the officer starting to ask if he's being filmed -- and notes "if I find myself on...." Given his earlier harangue, it sure sounds like he's about to warn the other kids about putting the video online, though we don't know exactly what was said. Either way, the video went online (eventually, months after the incident) and it got quite a lot of attention.

As a result of the massive publicity storm from the video going up online, Rivieri was suspended (with pay) a few days after the video went up in early 2008. More than two years later, a disciplinary panel cleared Rivieri of the most serious charges ("using excessive and unnecessary force" and "uttering discourtesies") but guilty of failing to file a report about the incident or provide the kid with a "contact receipt." The board recommended a short suspension. Instead, the police commissioner fired Rivieri, arguing that "his ability to interact effectively with the citizens of Baltimore has been seriously compromised."

In Lead-Up to Mass Protests in Chicago, Illinois Ban on Recording Police Challenged

Common Dreams

G8/NATO protests "that are almost certain to be countered with excessive police force will be illegal to record"

- Common Dreams staff 

As Chicago prepares for thousands of protesters and journalists for the G8 and NATO summits this May, an Illinois law declaring a felony the audio recording of police officers is coming under the microscope. One representative has filed an amendment to allow for such recordings, a move protesters, who will likely be met with heavy-handed tactics from police, would welcome.
An Illinois law declaring a felony the audio recording of police officers is coming under the microscope. (photo: Paul Stein)Under the current Illinois Eavesdropping Act from 1961, a person recording a non-consenting police officer can be charged with a felony and 15 years in prison. The Huffington Post explains:

The Eavesdropping Act makes recording officers without their permission a Class 1 felony, but has been inconsistently applied by different sectors of the justice system who disagree on its merits, particularly in cases where audio spotlights police wrongdoing. In the recent high-profile case of Tiawanda Moore, who recorded police officers trying to talk her out of filing a complaint after she claimed she was sexually harassed by an officer, a jury acquitted her and called the county's charges against her "a waste of time."

An amendment to the law submitted by Rep. Elaine Nekritz would allow for the recording or police officer on duty in public place. The Daily-Journal reports:

House Bill 3944, sponsored by Rep. Elaine Nekritz, D-Northbrook, would amend the Illinois Eavesdropping Act, under which a member of the public can be charged with a felony if he or she records the conversations of police officers, prosecutors and other law enforcement personnel without their knowledge. [...]

Nekritz said her legislation would "allow citizens to do what they think they already had the ability to do."

The amendment has an unlikely ally, Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy. The Huffington Post reports on McCarthy's stance:

"As far as the use of videotape, I certainly endorse it, for the protection of the police as well as [civilians]," he said at the panel. "There's no argument when you show videotape and can look at what happened. I actually am a person who endorses video and audio recording."

McCarthy, who came to Chicago from New York, said video and audio recordings helped prove officers acted appropriately amid allegations of brutality following a series of protest arrests. He added that this material could be equally useful as police prepare for massive crowds of protesters when Chicago hosts the NATO/G8 summits this spring. McCarthy clarified that it's not his job to advocate for policy changes, according to CBS Chicago, but called objections to covert recordings of police interactions a "foreign concept" after finding the practice helpful during previous stints in other cities.

As WLS-Chicago reported in September, the ACLU says the current law "doesn't make any sense":

The ACLU argues that the Illinois Eavesdropping Act is antiquated and overly-restrictive, and it wants the ability to record audio of police officers when they're on the public way - most specifically as a means of monitoring how police handle marches and demonstrations.

"You can video the police officer, you can photograph the police officer. They admit that you can listen to the police officer, and even write down what the police officer is saying, but you can't turn on the audio button. It simply doesn't make any sense," said Harvey Grossman, ACLU.

Press-Free NATO Summit? Filming Cops on the Street Illegal in Chicago

IntelHub

Intel Hub Note: With the passing of these anti American laws in Chicago, the end of America as we know it is HERE.

It is 100% illegal and unconstitutional to pass or enforce any of the laws and rules listed in the below article and those that do are committing open treason.

We are basically being told that Chicago cops will BEAT any protester they please and if someone tries to film their criminal actions they will be arrested.

Russia Today
February 7, 2012

Chicago, Illinois plans to host more than 7,500 international dignitaries and 3,000 journalists at the G8 Summit this spring.

But if history is any indication, those numbers will be dwarfed by tens of thousands of demonstrators descending on the Windy City this year to protest the massive gathering of world leaders.

And as police prepare to clash with protesters who picket the annual meeting of the minds, the crime scenes that are expected to be marred by messy arrests might never be made available outside of Chicago.

In the state of Illinois, an obscure eavesdropping law prohibits recordings of unknowing individuals. Even if a cop is caught clobbering a protester on the streets of Chicago, recording the incident can land both amateur photographers and seasoned journalists alike behind bars, where they could face sentencing on par with charges of rape and murder.

The law in question is an antiquated eavesdropping rule that can bring about felony charges for producing an audio recording without ones’ consent. Critics have come after the law and challenged its constitutionality — or lack thereof — but as of now the offense is on the books and is likely to stay that way come springtime. For the Chicago cops that will be tasked with controlling a swarm of protesters at the summit, it could be to their benefit. The same, sadly, can’t be said for the freedom of the press.

To say Chicago will become the scene of a mass protest might be an understatement. By comparison, the 1999 World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference in Seattle, Washington spawned 600 arrests and prompted police to use tear gas, pepper spray and physical force on protesters.

A decade later, the 2009 G-20 Summit in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania yielded 190 arrests and still more incidents of police violence. The same summit a year later in Toronto, Canada caused police to put more than 1,000 citizens in handcuffs, making it the largest mass arrest in the country’s history.

With riots rendering nearly a million dollars worth of damages as well, it was also one of the biggest uprisings that Canada has seen in recent memory.

With the Occupy Wall Street movement only heightening awareness of corrupt politics in America and across the globe, dissatisfaction with the establishment and its decisions that impact the world are more rampant than ever.

Protesters are already planning how they will respond to the summit scheduled for this May, but under current law, video cameras that capture sound are just as illegal as assault weapons.

Under the Eavesdropping Act in Illinois, catching a cop crack down on a protester is a Class 1 felony. If budding videographers think they might be the exception come this spring, think again.

Christopher Drew thought he was exercising his First Amendment when he recorded an altercation with cops in 2009, but for the Chicago, Illinois artist, he couldn’t be further from the truth. He was approached by an officer with the Chicago Police Department three years ago and questioned about the artwork he was selling on the city’s State Street.

When law enforcement realized that they were being recorded, Drew was dished felony charges under the eavesdropping law and ended up spending a few days in jail. Drew asked an Illinois judge to dismiss the hefty felony charge, but the court rejected his plea. Later this year his case is expected to go to trial, and if found guilty, Drew could serve 15 years in prison.

“In a democracy you are suppose to oversee your public servants. If they’re doing wrong you’re suppose to bring it to the attention of other citizens and to the court,” Drew explained to RT. “They have no privacy right, they are in public and they are on the public dime and doing public duty. That means that we’re their employer. We have a right to record our employees and bring that evidence to the system that they are doing wrong.”

Michael Allison has become a victim of the police state’s bizarre law, too. He was at his mom’s house in Illinois when cops showed up and questions the automobiles he had parked on the property.
When Allison began recording his conversation with the cops, he was cuffed and charged with violating the eavesdropping law. Those charges included five counts of eavesdropping, each with a maximum of 15 years in prison.

For videotaping his own conversation with a cop on his family property, Allison could have served the rest of his life behind bars.

Circuit Court Judge David Frankland would later say that the case against Allison was unconstitutional, but that decision was just a small exception. The eavesdropping law still stands today, even if it has opponents sitting on judicial benches.

“A statute intended to prevent unwarranted intrusions into a citizen’s privacy cannot be used as a shield for public officials who cannot assert a comparable right of privacy in their public duties,” the judge wrote.“Such action impedes the free flow of information concerning public officials and violates the First Amendment right to gather such information,” added Judge Frankland.

Drew, Allison and Judge Frankland are just a small sampling of many opponents of the controversial law, but unless those numbers grow before the G8, the protests that are almost certain to be countered with excessive police force will be illegal to record.

Some state lawmakers are trying to overturn the legislation before this spring, but it is a challenge that stands to be complicated with a goal only a few months into the future. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has asked the state Supreme Court for a new decision on the constitutionality of the law and others have come to her side.

Some have even proposed an exception that will allow citizens to record the police, which is allowed in most jurisdictions in America.

“I don’t believe there is an expectation of privacy for public officials on public property doing public duties,” Rep. Elaine Nekritz, a local sponsor of the re-write, tells the Associated Press.

The US Court of Appeals in Boston, Massachusetts countered a similar wiretapping law last year, with a judge ruling in August that filming the police is a “basic and well-established liberty safeguarded by the First Amendment.” 

Many outside of Boston agree, and if the law isn’t changed in Illinois before spring, Chicago’s G-8 summit is expected to still be caught on film, law notwithstanding.

But as thousands plans to flood the streets of the city to demonstrate against the meeting of leaders from the US, France, Russia, Italy and elsewhere, cops will be tasked with countering not just riled protesters, with journalists of all sorts gripping their cameras.

Come springtime, the Chicago PD will have to determine which First Amendment guarantee is more important to crush: the freedom of the press or the freedom to assemble.

Luckily America’s most well-known constitutional law professor and former Chicago resident will be in town that week. What do you think Barack Obama has to say about the law?

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A Call For Mass Action Against The Suppression of The Occupy Movement

By Emma Kaplan

SIGN THIS CALL TO ACTION
Contact: dontsuppressows@yahoo.com

These past several months have witnessed something very different in the U.S. People from many different walks of life came together to occupy public space in nearly 1,000 cities in the U.S. They stood up to vicious police violence, they broke through the confines of “protest as usual,” and in the middle of all that, they built community. Even in the face of media attempts to ridicule, distort, and demonize these protests, their basic message began to get through. People throughout the U.S.—and even the world—took notice of and took heart from these brave and creative protesters.

The political terms of discourse began to shift; the iced-over thinking of people in the U.S. began to thaw. Standing up to the unjust brutality and arrests became a badge of honor.
People began to listen to and read the stories of some of the victims of this economic crisis, and to share their own. And most of all, as the protests spread to city after city, the fact of people occupying public space forced open debate and raised big questions among millions as to what kind of society this is, and what it should be. Why does such poverty and need exist in the face of a relative handful of people amassing obscene amounts of wealth? Why do the political institutions of society seem only to serve that handful?  Why do so many youth feel they face such a bleak future? Why does the insane destruction of the environment continue to accelerate?  And what is needed to overcome all this?

Those who actually wield power in this country regarded these protests, and these questions, as dangerous, and reacted accordingly. Time and again those who wield power violated their own laws and ordered police to pepper spray, beat with clubs, and shoot tear gas canisters at the heads of people who were doing nothing more than non-violently expressing their dissent and seeking community. This reached a peak in the recent coordinated and systematic attacks of the past few weeks against all the major occupations. In fact, the mayor of Oakland admitted on BBC to being part of conference calls that coordinated national strategy against the occupiers. On top of all that, and in another blatant show of illegitimate force and power, they attempted to prevent journalists and photographers from covering these acts of repression—unless they were “embedded” with the police.

To put the matter bluntly, but truly: the state planned and unleashed naked and systematic violence and repression against people attempting to exercise rights that are supposed to be legally guaranteed. This response by those who wield power in this society is utterly shameful from a moral standpoint, and thoroughly illegitimate from a legal and political one.

Now this movement faces a true crossroads. Will it be dispersed, driven into the margins, or co-opted? Or will it come back stronger? This question now poses itself, extremely sharply.

One thing is clear already: if this illegitimate wave of repression is allowed to stand… if the powers-that-be succeed in suppressing or marginalizing this new movement… if people are once again “penned in”—both literally and symbolically—things will be much worse. THIS SUPPRESSION MUST BE MASSIVELY OPPOSED, AND DEFEATED.

On the other hand, this too is true: movements grow, and can only grow, by answering repression with even greater and more powerful mobilization.
The need to act is urgent.

As a first step in the necessary response, there must be a massive political mobilization on a day, or days, very soon to say NO! to this attempt to suppress thought and expression with brutality and violence. This mobilization should most of all be in New York, where this movement started… but it should at the same time be powerfully echoed all around the country and yes, around the world.  This is a call for massive demonstrations—soon—carried out in public spaces where they can have maximum impact and exposure and where the authorities cannot pen in, suppress, and otherwise attempt to marginalize these demonstrations.

These demonstrations must be large enough to show clearly that people will not tolerate that which is intolerable… that people will not adjust to that which is so manifestly unjust. Such demonstrations, along with the efforts to reach out and build them, can draw many more people from passive sympathy into active support and can awaken and inspire even millions more who have not yet been reached. Such demonstrations can powerfully answer the attempt by “the 1%” to crush and/or derail this broad movement. Thousands and thousands in the streets, acting together, can seize new initiative and change the whole political equation. The urgent questions raised by Occupy—and other urgent questions that have yet to be raised in this movement—can once more reverberate, and more powerfully than before.

The repression of the Occupy movement must not stand. Act.
Contact: dontsuppressows@yahoo.com
Signers of this Call include:
Prof. Cornel West
Gbenga Akinnagbe, actor on the HBO series “The Wire”
Carole Ashley
Fr.  Luis Barrios
Renate Bridenthal, Professor of History, Brooklyn College, CUNY, retired
Elaine Brower, World Can’t Wait & Military Families Speak Out
Craig Phipps, Ombudsman, Casa Esperanza
Cynthia Carlson, artist
Nina Felshin, independent curator
Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition, NYC
Harmony Hammond
Barry Holden
Camille Hankins, Founder and Director: Win Animal Rights and No Kill New York
Ray Hill, producer/host of Ray on the Raydio Internet radio show, Houston, TX
Lee Siu Hin, National Coordinator, National Immigrant Solidarity Network
Judith Henry
Rev. Dr. James Karpen, Church of St Paul and St Andrew, New York City
Chuck Kaufman, Executive Director, Alliance for Global Justice
Rev. Earl Kooperkamp, St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Harlem
Jim Long, artist
Waqas Malik, artist
Lydia Matthews, Dean of Academic Programs, Associate Dean of Parsons/ Professor
Ann Messner, artist
Travis Morales
Dorinda Moreno, Fuerza Mundial / FM Global / Hitec Aztec, U.S. Liaison Secretariat, International Tribunal of Conscience of Peoples in Movement/TICPM
Nick Mottern, ConsumersforPeace.org & kNOwdrones.org
National Immigrant Solidarity Network
Bradley Olson, Psychologist, Activist
Rosemary O’Neill
Lindsay O’Neill-Caffrey
The Rt. Rev. George E. Packard, Retired Bishop of the Episcopal Church for the Armed Services and Federal Ministries
Ana Ratner 
Suzanne Ross, PH.D., Clinical Psychologist
David E. Rousline, Ph.D. Berkeley CA
Rev. Juan Carlos Ruiz, New Sanctuary Movement
Jayce Salloum, artist, Vancouver
Irving Sandler 
Donna Schaper, Senior Minister, Judson Memorial Church
Stephen Soldz, Director, Center for Research, Evaluation, and Program Development, Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis,* Past President, Psychologists for Social Responsibility*
Bob Stein
Rev. Max Surjadinata, Area Coordinator of Friends of Sabeel North America
David Swanson, warisacrime.org
Matthew Swaye
Debra Sweet, Director, World Can’t Wait
Athena Tacha
Dennis Trainor, Jr, Writer, Producer & Host of Acronym TV
Marina Urbach, independent curator, other projects,  New York
Nancy Vining Van Ness, Director, American Creative Dance
Jim Vrettos, Adjunct Professor, John Jay College of Criminal Justice*
Jen Waller
Vince Warren, Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights*
Andy Zee, Spokesperson, Revolution Books
David Zeiger, Displaced Films

*For identification purposes only

Police confirm over 400 arrests at Occupy Oakland rally

PressTV

Riot police fired tear gas and arrested more than 400 Oaklanders, as hordes of anti-Wall Street protesters tried to take over downtown buildings including City Hall, police said.

The clashes began just before 3 p.m. on Saturday when protesters marched toward the vacant Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center and began to tear down construction barricades. The Oakland police said in a statement that the crowd was ordered to disperse when protesters “began destroying construction equipment and fencing.”

Several hours later, some protesters broke into City Hall, the police said. On Sunday, Jean Quan, the mayor of Oakland toured City Hall to survey the damage to the building. Glass display cases had been smashed and graffiti was splashed on the walls, The Associated Press reported. At one point during the protest, The AP quoted Mayor Quan as saying that demonstrators, who broke into the hall burned flags they found inside, broke an electrical box and damaged art displays, including an exhibit of recycled art that had been made by children.

“I do understand that people were enraged by the brutality that they had already seen,” said Omar Yassin, 42, a member of the group's media committee.

Yassin echoed comments made by other group members that protesters found the door to City Hall ajar on Saturday evening.

The Occupy Oakland Media Committee group issued a statement on Sunday charging that officers had violated the police department's code of conduct for dealing with protesters, calling the mass arrests “illegal.”

Most of the arrests occurred late Saturday, when large groups were corralled in front of the Downtown Oakland Y.M.C.A. on Broadway.

On a livestream broadcast on the Web site oakfosho.com, dozens of protesters could be seen sitting cross-legged in the darkness in front of the Y.M.C.A. Their hands appeared to be bound behind them while officers stood watch. The protesters occasionally sang or cheered. In a statement on Sunday afternoon, the police said the marchers “invaded” the Y.M.C.A.

Caitlin Maning, 55, a film professor who is a member of the Occupy Oakland media team, said protesters had been invited into the Y.M.C.A. to escape being kettled on Broadway, but ended up being prevented from exiting through a rear door by police.

The events were part of a demonstration dubbed “Move-In Day,” a plan by protesters to take over the vacant convention center and use it as a communelike command center, according to the Web site occupyoaklandmoveinday.org.

“We were going to set up a community center,” said Benjamin Phillips, 32, a member of the Occupy Oakland media team. “It would be a place where we could house people, feed people, do all the things that we have been doing.”

In an open letter to Mayor Quan on the Move-In Day site, the group also said it was considering “blockading the airport indefinitely, occupying City Hall indefinitely” and “shutting down the Oakland ports.” Occupy protesters did briefly shut down the city's port in November.

In a statement issued before the march, Ms. Quan said that “the residents of Oakland are wearying of the constant focus and cost to our city.” On Saturday night, she added: “Once again, a violent splinter group of the Occupy movement is engaging in violent actions against Oakland. The Bay Area Occupy movement has got to stop using Oakland as their playground.”

Ms. Quan has spent her first term embattled by Occupy protesters who set up camp at the Frank H. Ogawa Plaza in October. After initially embracing the protest, she ordered the camp removed.

After a series of violent episodes, including a clash in which a Marine veteran who served in the Iraq war suffered a fractured skull when struck by a projectile in a confrontation with the police, Ms. Quan relented and permitted the protesters to return. But two weeks later, in response to fears of renewed violence, she ordered the plaza to be cleared again. NY Times

IM/

Mr. Phillips, the Occupy media team member, who said he was an Air Force veteran, spoke Saturday night from his home on Grand Avenue, where he had stopped to rinse tear-gas residue from his contact lenses. He described the scene in front of the Y.M.C.A. as “terrifying.”

“This is disgusting, because this is not the way that America is supposed to work,” he said. “You're supposed to be able to have something like freedom to assemble and air your grievances.”

“It's bizarre,” he said of the police reaction. “It's not something you expect to see in the United States, and we've seen it over and over in Oakland.”