Darren Wilson in Portland
December 01, 2014
Exchanging Hugs for Flash-Bangs
Darren Wilson in Portland
by ALEXANDER REID ROSS
Exposition of Brutality
Riddled with missteps and disappointments, the Portland Police Department’s lackluster performance throughout Saturday’s protest in solidarity with Ferguson displayed not only laziness and unprofessionalism, but a kind of ill will towards the masses reflected also in their statement of the night’s events.
Their entire post-event statement reeked of misinformation and condescending euphemisms, but one illustrative quotation gleaned by the major daily newspaper, The Oregonian, will suffice as an example: “Officers ordered the crowd to move but they instead approached officers, who used two ‘flash bangs’ (no projectiles) to stun the senses, then officers performed a deliberate approach to the crowd, which turned and ran away.” Coming about halfway through the protest, this incident was predicated by a protester mounting a police Jeep to varying cheers and jeers of a divided crowd, before the van’s driver threw the vehicle in reverse, nearly toppling its quixotic passenger. Angered by the disregard for a protester’s life, the crowd formed a line to face the police, who began licking their chops at the prospect of using their long, sleek nightsticks to trounce an unarmed and diverse gathering. The police moved back several paces, protesters moved forward to maintain the same distance, and police threw concussion grenades into the crowd.
The PPD riot squad followed the fireworks with a direct and full charge against the protest, which was, as usual, accompanied by a guttural, storm-trooper cry that resonates in one’s bowels and makes one feel like vomiting. Many fleeing from the grenade’s impact and fulguration panicked at the charge, tumbled over one another and created a scene not unlike a stampede. Some may not have anticipated such bellicosity from the Portland Police, who only earlier that morning became the subject of a nationally-disseminated social media meme of an officer hugging a 12-year-old African American child who appeared old beyond his years—particularly not at a voyage christened by Reverend Jessie Jackson’s peaceable rhetoric. But the same officer pictured hugging a child was seen later that evening ramming protesters with a police motorcycle, and Reverend Jackson’s words seemed put to the test in the haze of flares and grenades as the police charged the crowd.
Those not fleeing immediately were clubbed mercilessly to the streets and pushed onto the sidewalks by the nightsticks of the black-clad riot squad. According to several reports, police fired beanbag rounds from their shotguns, striking two demonstrators. In fact, the tactical purpose of the concussion grenades appeared to be the concealment of the sound of gunfire from onlookers. One protester ended the night’s violence in the hospital, while others remain bruised from the bludgeons and instruments of repression.
More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/12/01/darren-wilson-in-portland/
= new reply since forum marked as read
