Wow, via Miguel
It really turns beyond the pale when the tackle the gentleman who actively cooperates when the cops tell him to turn around and put his hands behind his back.
Let’s hope these officers loose their badges, and do some jail time. Anything short of that is bad justice.
Also its too bad nobody handcuffed didn’t choose to read the inscriptions in the monument while they were handcuffed by the police.
It sickens me how many people say that the arrestees should have listened to the cops and done what they were told, claiming that the arrestees “got what they deserved.”
We truly deserve the police state that we are getting.
OK, I have to disagree here. I’m very familiar with this case. Every one of the people arrested there were agitators from Code Pink who went to the memorial as a group specifically to violate the regulations and provoke a law enforcement response. The first woman that you see there is Medea Benjamin herself, just back from Gaza, where she was arrested for protesting the Israeli military. None of them went peacefully or cooperated because they wanted force to be used against them for the purposes of a lawsuit, and the first guy who got taken to the floor was taken down because his pal ran up and tried to pull him away from the police officer. Every one of these people showed up there on this day three-four years ago with the express intent of causing trouble and getting arrested. They advertised it in advance as such and dared the Park Service to try to stop them. As it was, knowing the context behind this short video, I think that they were handled with commendable restraint. The courts felt the same way as their lawsuits against the Park Service and the officers involved were all tossed right out of one of the most liberal courts in America.
Screw Code Pink and screw Adam Kokesh. This was good and proper police work and you need to know the whole story and not just the inflammatory bits that Kokesh is peddling.
As soon as I saw the Code Pink shirt, I knew these folks were out to get arrested. The problem is, the Park Police obliged them. Code Pink called all the shots here, got their force response video, and got themselves arrested- they won. The cops here KNEW they were being recorded. They KNEW what was going on. They played to script anyway. Do I agree with what they were protesting for? Not a clue, because unlike Murphy’s Law above, I DON’T have much familiarity with this case. I can’t say I’ve seen or heard anything that would incline me to sympathy on the part of Code Pink, but this fact remains- people acting in a non-violent manner were met with a violent response, and I do not hold with that. The Police, for their part, danced out their little jig to the tune Code Pink called. I’m going to chalk this one to Bad Form, on all sides.
If someone’s determined to be arrested, there’s nothing you can do to prevent it. They would have kept escalating until there was no choice.
There’s always a choice.
Murph is right, this was a set up from the get go…
The police here took the same action that they’d have had to take with any other group that violates the law. To let these folks have their way would then mean that any other group that gets help to the law would then be able to claim that they were being treated differently. In this case, the police knew that they were being recorded (and in fact they had their own cameramen there to document the incident) and they acted with considerable restraint. They got the job done, no one got hurt, and life went on. I see no “bad form” by the police at all. The law required that those in violation either leave or be arrested. Those who chose to be arrested got arrested. It’s not like they got tased or beaten with billy clubs.
Bear in mind that the video you saw was only that shot by Kokesh’s henchman and it only shows the arrests. It doesn’t show the Code Pinkers being given several warnings, or being escorted out only to turn around and run back in as several did. These arrests came almost twenty minutes into the affray and the Pinkers had every opportunity to leave beforehand.
It’s a good thing we were protected from the scourge of people expressing their first amendment rights at the Jefferson memorial, god help us if they had been allowed to dance any longer. We should all bow down and thank our jack booted protectors for risking their lives to stop these hideous agitators.
So you think that think that people should be allowed to dance around the Honor Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, too?
Memorials are just that: Memorials. Decorum is protected so that visitors can reflect in silence. So there’s no dancing, or music playing, or picnicking within the chamber of the Memorial itself. You can still do all of that stuff fifty feet away on the steps or on the lawn–heck, you can have a wedding there if you ask in advance. But within the confines of the actual Memorial chamber, all of that stuff is prohibited. I guess in your eyes, everyone should be able to do whatever they want wherever they want, right? That’s specifically why Code Pink and Kook-esh were inside the Memorial acting stupid–they wanted to violate one of the very few, very small areas where expressive conduct is expressly prohibited, for no reason other than to spark a conflict and draw attention to themselves. But hey, if you support that, let me know the next time that you have someone close to you pass. I’ll go sit in the cemetery during the graveside service and play my tuba. First Amendment, right?