NY Police Dept union sues NY Police Dept

[adigal]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/03/nyregion/03police.html

This is from last week, don't know if anyone wrote about it. The NY Police Department's union is suing the NY Police Department:

" Now the officers, through their union, are suing the city, charging that the police procedures at their demonstrations — many of them routinely used at war protests, antipoverty marches and mass bike rides — were so heavy-handed and intimidating that their First Amendment rights were violated.

A lawyer for the city said the police union members were treated no differently than hundreds of thousands of people at other gatherings, with public safety and free speech both protected. The department observes all constitutional requirements, the city maintains."

The police find the tactics of their own department, when directed at them, to be heavy-handed and threathening.

You cannot make this stuff up.

"The demonstrators arrived angry, departed furious. The police had herded them into pens. Stopped them from handing out fliers. Threatened them with arrest for standing on public sidewalks. Made notes on which politicians they cheered and which ones they razzed. Meanwhile, officers from a special unit videotaped their faces, evoking for one demonstrator the unblinking eye of George Orwell's "1984. That's Big Brother watching you," the demonstrator, Walter Liddy, said in a deposition."

They were protesting the pace at which their contract negotiations were going.

[EFerrari]

1. No, you can't make this stuff up. n/t

[TechBear_Seattle]

2. Not much sympathy from me

Where was the union's outrage when they were using identical tactics against others?

If you lie down with dogs....