Local TV news: Protesters roughed up at convention.

[Bonobo]

Breaking...

Looks like they left their pen and had words with police before getting stomped on...

Anyone else hear anything?

[freetobegay]

1. Which protesters?

[Bonobo]

2. Lefties. nt

[thebigidea]

24. how do you know? Lotsa LaRouchies

[meegbear]

3. I saw the police heading in ...

Traffic was stopped at a section of road before the Fleet center. We sat for about ten minutes. During that time, I saw:

3 yellow school buses filled with police in roit gear
a firetruck
4 tour buses filled with police in roit gear (the glass was tinted, but you could see the helmets and clubs
10 K-9 unit cars (approximately)

I figured somethings going on. Was heading out and cars aren't allowed in the area.

[Kagemusha]

4. Didn't someone say that the Boston police are pro-Bush?

Makes one wonder...

[jay-3d]

5. It strange

That we don't know if it's the right or left.

[Gin]

6. I am for protest but not violent protests....hope this doesnt get out of

control.

[icymist]

30. How out of control can you get in a cage topped off with razor wire?

This is free speech?

[Occulus]

32. Call it "telling"

and I'll give you the gold ring.

[PsychoDad]

35. Would it really matter?

If they were left, right, or anything else?

The right to free speech is a right given to every american by the constitution. A lot of folks on both sides seem to have forgotten that.

[starroute]

7. Try Boston IndyMedia

http://boston.indymedia.org/

4:20pm: March is now leaving the soft zone

4:13pm: What's corporate media up to? "No reports of injuries." - Boston Globe. Sorry, no. "Two small explosions" -Channel 5. Mm, not quite. Don't believe the hype!

4pm: Soft Zone no longer on lockdown

3:53pm: Police officials are stating that the cause for the current police action was the possible presence of a Molotov cocktail. Which later turned out to be an empty bottle. But they arrested the person anyways. The police officer who instigated the violent action by attacking the protester with his baton was ushered from the area by other riot police, covering his badge number on the way out.

3:51pm: Protesters with no affiliation cut parts of fence of the "Free Speech Zone" with bolt cutters. Their cutters were confiscated but no arrested made.

3:48pm: Confirmed: One female hospitalized by police responding to protesters at the Fleet Center due to a baton blow to the head

[icymist]

34. What the fuck are you afraid of Boston??

The truth?

[AnnInLa]

8. Don't go to Drudge, but.....

Drudge has pics up on his site...looks like a teenager being smashed into the concrete by a big, burly policeman. Story, which has a tremendous headline about violence at the convention, says that local group called Black Tea Society, which is a self-described anarchist group burned, in effigy, a figure with Bush's face on one side and Kerry's on the other. Police intervened when the fire erupted. Evidently the tea bags had been marching around Boston, drawing a crowd. Story also says the protestors themselves have been helping to keep down any disturbances, but that several home-grown groups have plans to gain publicity by using acts of violence on the last day of the convention. There: The Ann Report

[struggle4progress]

9. Boston Police Deal With DNC Protesters

By ADAM GORLICK
The Associated Press

BOSTON - After four days of relative calm, protests became tense outside the site of the Democratic National Convention as demonstrators burned a two-faced effigy depicting President Bush on one side and Sen. John Kerry on the other and started a shoving match with police.

About 400 protesters marched Thursday through the city before arriving outside the fenced-in demonstration area outside the FleetCenter. The throng pressed up against police officers who used clubs to keep the crowd at bay.

Several protesters were dragged from the crowd and handcuffed by police. Other screamed at the officers to let them go.

Police Superintendent Robert Dunford said two men were arrested, one because police were told he had a bottle of an unknown accelerant, the other for allegedly assaulting a police officer.
<snip>

(LEADS with 9 grafs with new details, corrects to four days of calm; will be led)
http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/32-07292004-339726.html

<edit:>

Police restore order near convention site
By Associated Press
Thursday, July 29, 2004

<snip>
As the final night of the convention gets under way, officers with shields and helmets have set up a line just beyond the fenced-in protest zone -- and they're not letting demonstrators get any closer to the arena.

Several hundred anti-authority protesters, after a march through the city's streets, converged this afternoon near the convention site. Some of the protesters clashed with police. At least two demonstrators were placed in handcuffs, and at least one man was dragged away from the scene by officers.
<snip>

http://news.bostonherald.com/dncConvention/view.bg?articleid=37796

[progressivebydesign]

17. I don't know the whole story..

.. but you can kill a person doing what the cop is doing in that photo! Holding a leather-gloved hand over a mouth and nose at the same time will suffocate you... That is one nasty photo.. ugly. It reads like someone threw a bottle? I hope not, that is always the start of violent clashes.. If someone threw something, that is an incredibly stupid, stupid, thing to do. It can start something that will get hundreds of protesters hurt, and the police will feel justified, because "we" started it.

[lebkuchen]

10. In Europe one rarely sees police anywhere

In the US, every nook and cranny is full of cops. It's the world's police state.

[0007]

11. The world's super police state = U.S.A.

[ilovenicepeople]

29. "The world's self righteous super police state=USA"

:scared:

[DoktorGreg]

12. That because Europe believes in effective government

While US police operate on a Stalinist "Gardens of Law" principle. One of the main driving motivations to be wealthy, or at least middle class is our law enforcement system. The police indiscriminately beat down on the poor, lower middle class, and young, for minor and trivial offenses. Additionally we still have prohibition, with alcohol being mostly illegal.

Also the US legal system is a huge jobs program, Go to any medium sized city in the US and most of the infrastructure is dedicated to police and courts and jails.

It only make sense for a Stalinist Law enforcement system like we have in the US to thrive, because courts and laws written by insurance companies have made our transportation system a constitution free zone, with people using the roads with no rights, and the police have the right to kill you if you are "a threat to officer safety." In other words, shoot first, and ask questions later.

The only reason this is only observed in big cities is the police in smaller communities are notorious for seizing cameras and other recording devices that might have recorded a police action.

Doubt my words, film a police office writing a standard citation some time. You will be threatened with arrest, and your camera and film seized, even if the police office was doing nothing wrong.

Go to a jail, notice how half the people in short term holding are riddled with bruises and cuts.

Then they have the temerity to CALL US OF THE FRIGGING PHONE!!! and ask us to donate money so we can get a sticker so they can have a party.

When I confronted my landlord cop about his drinking and driving, he replied, its not illegal for me, I'm a cop.

[freetobegay]

13. Yea when their not fighting wars with each other.

[lebkuchen]

15. The EU is meant to prevent that

but Bush's is hoping to muck that up, too.

[DoktorGreg]

20. EU countries are not as warlike as US anymore

You can tell people in US, pretty much anything you want, and you can get them to go to war. Make shit up if you have to.

EU countries on the other hand, don't go along with blatant demonization and jingoism anymore.

For example, France and Germany had a chance to go to Iraq, and our glorious victory there and share in all the loot, but they turned it down.

And even if your point was on topic or relevant, it doesnt change that Stalin would admire the "efficency" of the American police of the day.

[freetobegay]

23. France & Germany

Hoad no Financial gain, lets keep it real here.

[DoktorGreg]

25. With the exception of * and company, neither has the US!!!

If we had received ~some~ financial gain, it wouldn't be the near (Saddam is gone and that something I guess) total debacle it is!

Just keeping it real.

[lebkuchen]

18. You should experience the cop situation on a military base

If you don't have your seatbelt fastened the *second* you enter the gate, you are nabbed.

We're at war. The MPs ought to have better things to do, especially considering that somebody stole a wrecker from the motor pool a few months ago.

[Longhorn79]

27. As far as the legal system being a jobs program,

the money is in defense, so the motivation is not towards your implied "oppressive" justice system. As to your use of "Stalinist law enforcement system", you're kidding, right? I have studied Russian history for years and contrasted it to our current system of government, and your statement is hilarious to put it mildly. If anything, our justice system leans too heavily in favor of the defendant in order to assure a just trial! Have you forgotten OJ? Look at Scott Peterson about to get off.

[DoktorGreg]

33. I take issue with your fast and loose use of the word "Justice"

What we have is a legal system.

As for your other contentions, maybe if Mark Fuhrman had spent less time practicing racism, and brutalizing suspects, he could have spent more time being an good investigator. Maybe OJ would have been found guilty then. Think?

As for Scott Peterson... I have totally ignored that case on purpose. But let me guess, there is a uniformed cop involved with the bungling of the evidence?

While we are at it, lets just ignore all the library books, and the contelinpro type activities, and of course John Ashcroft.

How is that rooting out the systemic corruption is just about EVERY major cities police force thing going? I heard about one case where a lady complained about police brutality, and less than 24 hours later the cop she complained about murdered her.

Trial??? The only people who get a trial past the arraignment are the elite!

One third of people on Illinois death row were wrongly convicted?!?!

Don't even get me started on Texas and Florida.

Finally, why is it that the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world? Is it because we are more free than China or Soviet Russia?

I think you are still stuck in the fantasy world of your high school civics text book. The reality seems to be corruption and graft on every level of law enforcement. It runs so deep, that the CIA (fundamentally all cops) cant even properly determine if the WMD's existed at all. I can tell you what happened, they invented it when they were eating donuts rather than doing their jobs. This threat was invented in much the same way that "Seat belts as a primary crime" law were invented. They didn't have anything better to do.

Or how about that cop that lied in the Martha Stewart trial?

I could go on and on. There is not a single area of US government that is not being affected by police corruption.

Remember those two troopers that lied and later recanted about Clinton and Paula Jones?

You are wrong, it is your statement that is misguided and humorous. It doesn't even pass the smell test. Oh wait, that another name for when a cop decides he want to just shake someone down for no reason.

[fr3]

28. Yep -- the cops are the problem

They are sooo full of themselves.

Maybe someday we can have real law enforcment not what we have now.

I imagine these people woke up one morning and wanted to be a fascst but then they saw they couldnt so they became cops instead.

[donco6]

14. That's not my experience

I found more cops in Munich and Frankfurt than I EVER see here in Denver.

[lebkuchen]

16. Frankfurt, perhaps. I never go there.

But Munich? I saw several hundred cops there once for the Defense Minister's meeting. A couple of thousand were there in protest.

Otherwise, nah, I rarely see the German cops. French either while I traveled for six weeks there this summer.

Come to think of it, I rarely saw Japanese police either.

In the US they'll pull you over for going 65 on a 55 MPH road! The Germans and French can babysit themselves in that regard.

[opineoaks]

26. Japanese police officers (omawari-san)

Actually, Japan has a lot of police officers literally out on the streets (dunno if they are actually a large percentage of the population or not), since they sit in those little streetside koban that are everywhere instead of the U.S. system of congregating in large station houses with occasional forays.

[Kellanved]

21. I believe the numbers are about equal

On a federal level the US has about 23 officers per 10,000 population.

AFAIK Germany has about 27, France 36 (and Italy 60).

The statistics are somewhat difficult to compare, as I don't have a breakdown on the regions. In addition, the US statistics exclude officers not sworn in.

[colonel odis]

19. probably started by freeper plants to detract from kerry's speech

[The_Casual_Observer]

22. From the way the Kerry campaign is soft peddling the Iraq war

I can see why the protesters might be pissed off.

[flaminbats]

31. at least the police didn't lose control

In Chicago it was the police who let lose on the protesters. First they fired the tear gas bombs behind the protesters, and then the wind began driving the tear gas with the protesters toward the police..and we all know what happened after that! :spank:

This time the police just rounded up one or two hotheads, but merely stood their ground against the demonstrators.