Originally posted by craig732
I wonder how many of us here would push a person away from us forcefully when that person has been standing 2 feet from your face screaming into a pink megaphone after you have asked them to move back several times?

Sorry, I have known many officers who have been in that situation before. My uncle would explain to me "...you have to understand that it IS THEIR RIGHT to protest. As long as they don't use violence it is our job to ALLOW THEM THEIR RIGHTS!"

For you to take this stance tells me that this country, and the many others who seem to feel the same as you, is well on its way to a dictatorship/police state.

I just hope you don't have to watch your family get taken off to a camp somewhere to be 'treated' or 'silenced'.

Good luck to your point of view about how life in this country should be and how protestors should be treated. Obviously you think that the constitution is 'just a piece of paper' because you don't give a crap about her right to sit there with a blow horn and protest. That's what ear plugs are for as my uncle would say.

Joke.

I hate the police, and i hate how they think they have power over the law when they are the law themselves. I have witnessed a few incidents like this, and heard a few tales. This has to stop before it gets too out of hand.

If they think they can do as they please they have another thing coming!

I was at work yesterday so I couldn't watch the video. I read most of the posts and it sounded like the cop smashed the girls face in.
I watched the video today and I have to say that I don't know what the big deal is. They asked the people to move back, she didn't and said do it again, and the cop pushed her in the chest with the baton. She fell and laid there.
I guess IMO the cop was probably frustrated, but they gave her a warning to move back and she chose not to. They didn't beat her so what's the fuss about?

Originally posted by spookjr

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To bad none of the protestors had guns. It looked to me that that one at least had the right to defend herself against an illegal action by a corrupt agent of the government. More people need to stand up and return the violence that is inflicted on them by these type of police actions. Peaceful protest is a joke. Violence is the only thing they understand.

Please back up your words, I would like to see you go to a rally or "protest", instigate a confrontation with a police officer, make him hit you (should be easy, because we all know all it takes is just you being there right?) and then pull out your gun and shoot him.

That's fair right? You are within your rights to do this right?

So please, internet tough guy, please, PLEASE follow through. You'll get your day in court, your voice will be heard.

You won't though, your full of hot air.

********************

Code Pink uses decepetive and disgusting tactics to get a confrontation out of "authority" figure and they always wait until the cameras are rolling.

When the camera is not on them, they taunt, throw things, disrupt, spit, urinate and threaten bodily harm to "authority" figures. They stop traffic, impeed bystanders, interrupt legitimate businesses and destroy public property.

Once the camera is on them, they are ever so peaceful.
Don't take my word for it, go to their next "rally". See for yourself.

I have seen it first hand so you can be indignant all you want, I think code pink can suck balls and anytime I see one of those turds get knocked to the ground I stand and applaud cause I know for a FACT it was with cause.

You can argue that the police should stand there and take it, but they are just people like you and me. Code Pink are scum.

I AGREE with their stand, just not how they make it.
YOU are the sympathetic sucker they are looking for.

For the record, I do not defend police abuse of any kind.. except in this case.

Originally posted by spookjrPeaceful protest is always met with violence by police agencies.

Really? so the other 15000 protests about this or that in the USA every other day area always met with violence? Go to a protest sometime and see for yourself the thruth. But that would be too hard for you wouldn't it...much easier to whine about clips and snippets on the net.


I'd be willing to bet the majority of people on this topic have never ever been to a protest or rally of any kind, because if you had you'd know that police confrontations are RARE and usually caused by instigators.

F'in sheeple.

At WTO I had a cop run a half block just to pepper spray me in the face from about 20 feet away.....just for going off the porch of the house I lived at.
There is no justification for their behavior.....

Just more of the same idiots saying "he was provoked"....

I hope one of you blind supporters of these guys gets the crap stomped out of you for nothing. Then there is a possibility you just may see how really crooked these guys are.

Pigs.

I don't know any of the above people. But I did know some people, years ago, that believed so strongly about their cause that they did exactly as the the first person here mentioned. I was at their funerals. The familys that were left behind were saddened beyond what you could possibly imagine. When asked if it was worth it, most said no, but a few said yes and still say so today.

Those times, many say were different, and to an extent they were but only the actual causes are different, the systematic means of oppression have returned and are very much the same as back then. Back then the issue was mearly about which entrance to a building certain people had to use, which parking spaces, which seat on a bus, which water fountain. The methods to keep them silent are currently on display in Denver.

As far as the later claim about personally attending protests and demonstrations, I’ve been there, seen it, done it, got the t-shirt and the post cards. I can speak from experience as well as observations.

Sometimes the cops keep everything "cool", other times, the cops appear to escalate the problem by bullying the crowds, provoking them with unrealistic and unwarranted behaviors until everyone gets worked up into a frenzy and violence brakes out. Then the cops, well protected and armed, take the opportunity to fight, and maim. The results seem to follow a pattern, people are killed or seriously maimed, and a cop gets hurt, gets treated and is released back to work.

But I have never seen an occasion where the cops provoked a crowd that was too big to handle. It only happens when there is an abundant supply of police force which makes me believe that they do have some self control when they need to or want to. They do understand crowd control and rarely do the demonstrators control the crowd, very, very rarely.

It really depends on the management of the police department or agency. Proper management of a police department results in few to no eruptions of violence. A lack of management or control over the department generally results in a negative outcome whereas people get hurt.

What behaviors we see from the cops in the field, on the lines, is what is acceptable by their supervisors, their managers, their trainers.

Originally posted by craig732
I wonder how many of us here would push a person away from us forcefully when that person has been standing 2 feet from your face screaming into a pink megaphone after you have asked them to move back several times?

Good point except it doesn't prove that he was justified. If you or I got angry at someone screaming in our face and we push them to the ground like this officer did, you can guarantee we would be charged with assault. Just because it is a predictable reaction, doesn't mean it's justified.

Officers are not above the law. They are on the same level we all are. If we cannot cause this kind of physical harm on someone, they can't either.

The ONLY way this would have been justified is if she was physically attacking him. She clearly wasn't.

Someone posted a news article that stated she was later charged with interfering in an arrest. This must have happened before what we saw. but we can all clearly see that the officer stands there while she's yelling at him, then shoves her down and doesn't arrest her. If she was guilty of interfering in an arrest he should have arrested her on the spot but we can all clearly see that he didn't. It's not until she is speaking into the camera that she is violently yanked away and then arrested much later.

I would like to add that I am a bit embarrassed at a previous post in this thread. I got very emotional towards some of the people commenting in favor of the officer. I really should have kept my cool.

But I would like to further explain that I understand that we all have different perspectives of what happened. It's not so much the people that see the officers actions as justified that angered me, it's the people that took great pleasure in seeing another fellow human being being treated like that.

Some of us also saw the video another poster gave in which a lone women, doing nothing but walking in the street holding a sign was hit, not once, but twice with a rubber bullet.

Can anyone tell me what she did to deserve that? Did she lunge at them? Was she brandishing a weapon? The number of officers that were against her was excessive in itself. Then! what really gets me is that there is footage of them all BRAGGING about it! These are the men and women who are sworn to protect us and just like some of the other posters, got off on causing harm against another human being. This is what sickens me.

Both Code Pink AND bad cops suck. If I had a pink jail cell they'd all be in it starving right now.

I know it must look as if I do not like, appreciate or otherwise respect police officers, as this entire Denver thing has me on the offensive.

For the record, I have the greatest respect and admiration for the good hard working honest police officers of our country, and I have had the pleasure of knowing many fine officers over the years. Some I stay in touch with to this day. These people have earned my respect and I proudly call them “friend”.

It is that I have also met, interviewed, overheard and spoken with some of the most vile, corrupt, contemptuous, loathsome villainy to ever infest our legal system. It is these people I do not welcome and I have found them, and those like them, in various police departments and in various positions. They seem to gravitate to positions of power and enforcement and they are well aware of the need to appear honest and respectful. It is very difficult to distinguish the good from the bad until you can observe them in certain situations and witness specific behaviors or hear them in certain conversations.

The cops in Denver appear to me to be the latter of the above.