National Lawyers Guild: Cops Run Wild in Pittsburgh

[Joanne98]

For OpEdNews: Posted by Joan Brunwasser - Writer

For Immediate Release-September 25, 2009


Contact: Paige Cram, Communications Coordinator, communications@ nlg.org, 609-668-0645


Pittsburgh--National Lawyers Guild members witnessed first-hand yesterday the unwarranted display and use of force by police in residential neighborhoods, often far from any protest activity.


Police deployed chemical irritants, including CS gas, and long-range acoustic devices (LRAD) in residential neighborhoods on narrow streets where families and small children were exposed. Scores of riot police formed barricades at many intersections throughout neighborhoods miles away from the downtown area and the David Lawrence Convention Center. Outside the Courtyard Marriott in Shadyside, police deployed smoke bombs in the absence of protest activity, forcing bystanders and hotel residents to flee the area.


Later, while some protests were ending, riot-clad officers surrounded an area at the University of Pittsburgh, creating an ominous spectacle that some described as akin to Kent State. Guild legal observers witnessed police chasing and arresting many uninvolved students.


Among other questionable tactics, officers from dozens of law enforcement agencies lacked easily-identifiable badges, impeding citizens' ability to register complaints.


Heidi Boghosian, executive director of the National Lawyers Guild, said: "Accountability and chain of command is virtually impossible to establish given the lack of visible individual identifying badges on officers. The small, paper armband badges that law enforcement are wearing are difficult to read, and many wore black chest coverings with absolutely no identifying information. We've seen many law enforcement personnel, including Pittsburgh Police Department officers, deliberately covering up the arm IDs by rolling their shirt sleeves up over them."


The National Lawyers Guild is a progressive bar association, founded in 1937, with chapters in every state. Its national mass defense program includes education about laws and practices that affect individuals engaging in dissent, criminal defense of protesters and civil litigation to curb unconstitutional police practices, and its legal observing program. Resources detailing police tactics are available on the Guild's website, www.nlg.org, including Punishing Protest and The Assault on Free Speech, Public Assembly, and Dissent.


You can log onto http://www.radioreference.com/apps/audio/?ctid=2242 and listen to the live police and EMS scanners as they confront the marchers.
NATIONAL SECURITY STATE OUT OF CONTROL
In Pittsburgh yesterday, "By midnight, hundreds of police in riot gear moved down Forbes Avenue. With no obvious protesters in sight, they sprayed pepper gas on passersby and even students looking down from the balconies of their residences above the avenue.


"'We were just looking, then there were loud sirens and then it was hard to breathe and I was coughing up a lung,' said student Dustin DeMeglio, 19, who was watching as police moved by his apartment building."


The above is from British news this morning.



"Justin Hershkovitz, 26, a student from Michigan, complained about the police tactics as he ran from the officers. 'This kind of force has been used as an option of first resort by cops (at summits) in Italy, London and now Pittsburgh,' he said."


"'We're here to put pressure on the G20 to ultimately abolish global capitalism,' said a 24-year-old man from Delaware, who declined to give his name." The young man should know that you will be tear gassed, beaten and arrested in the Land of the Free for this kind of talk, which is not allowed by the ruling banksters.


NPR sees nothing wrong with the treatment of protesters in Pittsburgh, concentrating this morning on protests in Iran. Steve Inskeep interviewed Iranian President Ahmadinejad this morning, rudely raking him over the coals for his treatment of protesters in Iran, pointing out that people have died in Iranian prisons.


Ahmadinejad replied that people die every day in American prisons, but of course, this does not make the corporate media news, although human rights abuses in American prisons are condemned by international human rights groups.


French news reports onyesterday's G20 demonstration,"About half-an-hour into the march, the police began broadcasting a pre-recorded announcement in English and Spanish, declaring the protest was an 'unlawful assembly' and ordering the crowd to disperse." What is lawful, in fact the highest law of the land, is defined in the First Amendment, and says nothing about police having the right to demand a permit as justification to harass those peaceably assembling.


"'They pushed us into a side street in a residential area and then shot tear gas at us. They shot like three canisters,' demonstrator Ross McCoy told AFP."


"The main message the mass march wanted to convey to the world leaders at the G20 was that human rights and dignity were more important than capitalism and profit margins, several of the demonstrators told AFP," but of course, such a message is not allowed.

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http://www.opednews.com/articles/National-Lawyers-Guild-Co-by-Press-Release-090925-596.html

[jwirr]

1. Once again local police are using Homeland Security procedures

on citizens of the USA just like they did in Minneapolis. Training is coming from the top down and they are teaching the local police forces to see everyone including local citizens as the enemy.

[OregonBlue]

4. Is this the multi-agency task force the Pittsburgh officials referred to? From FBI website:

In Pittsburgh, our major partnerships include:

* Formed in 1999, the Western Pennsylvania/West Virginia Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) is a cooperative effort of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies that work to prevent acts of international and domestic terrorism through disruption, dismantlement, and prosecution; to maintain an effective intelligence network to identify terrorism subjects and activities; to foster interagency relations to protect the community; and to train JTTF members to identify and investigate global and domestic terrorism. Federal agency representatives include Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE); the Internal Revenue Service (IRS); the U.S. Secret Service; Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF); Federal Air Marshals; the U.S. Postal Inspection Service; and the FBI. State and local representatives include the Pennsylvania State Police, the West Virginia State Police, the West Virginia Fire Marshall, the Allegheny County Police Department, the Erie Police Department, the Allegheny County Sheriff's Office, the Pittsburgh Police Department, the Cory Police Department, the Wheeling Police Department, the Harrison County Sheriff's Department, the Vienna Police Department, and the Parkersburg Police Department. Close coordination with the U.S. Attorney's Office for Western Pennsylvania along with the U.S. Attorney Offices in the Northern and Southern Districts of West Virginia continues. In 2003, an annex of the Pittsburgh JTTF was formed in West Virginia. The following year, a second annex located in Erie, Pennsylvania was established to address border and waterway incidents involving terrorism.

This is what came up when I googled Pittsburgh multi-agency task force. Scary stuff.

[IndianaGreen]

2. Looks like the Gestapo was running wild (Video)

Private contractors dressed in camis abduct a protester:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8CNa_viKg0&feature=player_embedded

[bertman]

3. This should be front-page headlines all over America. The excesses of the police must be

prosecuted and the responsible individuals and their collaborating superiors, including Fatherland Security types, must be held accountable.

Write to your reps, Senators and the President and tell them that we do not like Police State Amerika. It's time to stop it before it is too big to stop.

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