A New York Giants Super Bowl victory celebration turned ugly at UMass Amherst late Sunday night. After the Patriots lost, police say about 1,500 students rioted in the southwest residential quad area, leading to 14 arrests. Police used flash bombs, horses, and some sort of non-lethal ammunition to subdue the rowdy students.
After the scene was contained, students tried to riot again; but were quickly stopped.
Father Monk (with a birthname of “Monk,” it was destiny) speaks some very powerful and truthful words at a recent City Council meeting in Pensacola FL. His demeanor is nothing but passive, yet passionate. Apparently, the words he spoke were offensive to some on the council (damn, the truth hurts sometimes), and he was asked to leave. Here is the description of the incident from the video: More…
On Saturday, a retired bishop was among more than 50 people arrested after the Occupy Wall Street movement stormed another New York City park in an attempt to find a new home.
Former Episcopal bishop George E. Packard was led away in cuffs after climbing a ladder to illegally enter Juan Pablo Duarte Square in the west SoHo neighbourhood of the city during the demo. More…
Last week Occupy Melbourne featured a “Tent Monster” event. Protesters pitched several tents in the park, then as the police approaced, someone inside popped out their arms and head, and danced around the park wearing their tent costume.
The first video shows the event, and you can even see some of the police smiling even though the joke was on them. More…
David vs Goliath #occupydc wood frame structure 04
Today, Occupy DC protesters began assembling a prefabricated wooden structure in McPherson Square. This structure was designed by professional architects and engineers with the purpose of providing warmth and shelter for the Occupiers when having the General Assemby meetings.
At 11 AM today, the Federal Park Police arrived and ordered the Occupiers to disassemble and remove the structure within the hour. More…
Written by: Naomi Wolf Nov. 16, 2011
Yesterday morning, when I learned that Zuccotti Park had been cleared overnight by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg — who justified his action in a statement that cited health and safety concerns — the first thing I did was call my lawyer. I wanted to go and show my support for the protesters’ First Amendment right “to assemble and petition government for redress of grievances” — a right that a 1925 Supreme Court decision confirmed superseded municipalities’ laws that sought to restrict its exercise. But my partner and I had already been arrested on Oct. 19 for standing peacefully on Hudson Street after informing protesters outside an event I was attending of their right to assemble. The wonderful National Lawyers Guild advised us that we would probably be O.K. — the New York police department would have to alert us before a second arrest.
Footage obtained through the Herald Sun of police in Australia, pulling, dragging and arresting ‘Occupy’ protesters in Melbourne’s City Square.
The paper reports that, on Friday, nearly 100 Occupy-protesters were arrested while 20 suffered minor injuries. A police officer and a protester were taken to the emergency room. Eight police cars were damaged during the protest, police told the newspaper.
UPDATE: Wed. Oct. 26th: If you are looking for the police raid and arrests from Tuesday night, Oct. 25th, please click here for this posting just published.
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UPDATE: Mon. Oct. 11th: 6:52 PM
Shorty after midnight, in the wee hours of the morning on Monday, October 10th, 2011, a large amount of New Mexico State Police appeared from no where in complete riot gear, paddy wagons, and K9 dogs to order the Occupy Albuquerque protesters from their camp.
As the Occupy Wall Street demonstration enters its 12thday in New York City – and as progressive activists protest in cities across the country – Bay Area residents are preparing for a mass mobilization on the streets of San Francisco tomorrow afternoon (Thurs/29), targeting financial institutions and other entities that they blame for the economic plight of the average American.
About 80 people were arrested Saturday as demonstrators who were camped out near the New York Stock Exchange marched through lower Manhattan, police said.
The “Occupy Wall Street” protest is entering its second week. Demonstrators said Saturday they were protesting against bank bailouts and the mortgage crisis; some also held signs decrying Georgia’s execution of Troy Davis, who was put to death Wednesday for the 1989 slaying of an off-duty Savannah police officer.
Perfect example of how the media attempts to control the news….
Description provided in video:
“Darcus Howe, a West Indian Writer and Broadcaster with a voice about the riots. Speaking about the mistreatment of youths by police leading to an up-roar and the ignorance of both police and the governement. Intelligent black male. SEND THIS TO EVERYONE! “
Over the past several days, people have been rioting in the streets of London, looting, injuring others, and creating complete mayhem. Why? Apparently this was incited by the shooting and death of Mark Duggan, a 29-year-old resident of Tottenham. Who is Mark Duggan? In searching various news stories, blog postings, and the like on the internet, who he is depends upon which site you read. Those in defense of his shooting portray him as a thug. Those defending Mark describe him as “a good man. He was a family man.” His fiancee has, according to Guardian.co.uk website, admitted he is “known to the police and said he had spent some time on remand, but denied he was ever imprisoned.” What actually occurred to bring on this shooting? I doubt we will ever know the true, actual facts. The police will tell one story, and the witnesses will state another. Or possibly somewhere in between. This may have been a justifiable shooting, or it may not have been… I do not know. I was not there.
Many articles are portraying him as a “gangsta.” But then, I honestly do not trust a lot of the media. The images of him online do show a gangster persona, but where are other pictures of him? Surely he has not had just three or four pictures taken of him in his life. When possible I prefer to read facts from various viewpoints and usually determine that the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. A significant percentage of mainstream news sites and channels only tell you what they want you to know, not what is actual. Or tell you what they think will bring the views, the hits, the attention, and the money. More…
By NILS MYKLEBOST and KARL RITTER
Associated Press
OSLO, Norway (AP) — A Norwegian who dressed as a police officer to gun down summer campers killed at least 80 people at an island retreat, horrified police said early Saturday. It took investigators several hours to begin the realize the full scope of Friday’s massacre, which followed an explosion in nearby Oslo that killed seven and that police say was set off by the same suspect.
The mass shootings are among the worst in history. With the blast outside the prime minister’s office, they formed the deadliest day of terror in Western Europe since the 2004 Madrid train bombings killed 191.
Police initially said about 10 were killed at the forested camp on the island of Utoya, but some survivors said they thought the toll was much higher. Police director Oystein Maeland told reporters early Saturday they had discovered many more victims.
“It’s taken time to search the area. What we know now is that we can say that there are at least 80 killed at Utoya,” Maeland said. “It goes without saying that this gives dimensions to this incident that are exceptional.”
Maeland said the death toll could rise even more. He said others were severely injured, but police didn’t know how many were hurt.
A suspect in the shootings and the Oslo explosion was arrested. Though police did not release his name, Norwegian national broadcaster NRK identified him as 32-year-old Anders Behring Breivik and said police searched his Oslo apartment overnight. NRK and other Norwegian media posted pictures of the blond, blue-eyed Norwegian.
A police official said the suspect appears to have acted alone in both attacks, and that “it seems like that this is not linked to any international terrorist organizations at all.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity because that information had not been officially released by Norway’s police.
The motive was unknown, but both attacks were in areas connected to the ruling Labor Party government. The youth camp, about 20 miles (35 kilometers) northwest of Oslo, is organized by the party’s youth wing, and the prime minister had been scheduled to speak there Saturday.
A 15-year-old camper named Elise said she heard gunshots, but then saw a police officer and thought she was safe. Then he started shooting people right before her eyes.
“I saw many dead people,” said Elise, whose father, Vidar Myhre, didn’t want her to disclose her last name. “He first shot people on the island. Afterward he started shooting people in the water.”
Elise said she hid behind the same rock that the killer was standing on. “I could hear his breathing from the top of the rock,” she said.
She said it was impossible to say how many minutes passed while she was waiting for him to stop.
At a hotel in the village of Sundvollen, where survivors of the shooting were taken, 21-year-old Dana Berzingi wore pants stained with blood. He said the fake police officer ordered people to come closer, then pulled weapons and ammunition from a bag and started shooting.
Several victims “had pretended as if they were dead to survive,” Berzingi said. But after shooting the victims with one gun, the gunman shot them again in the head with a shotgun, he said.
“I lost several friends,” said Berzingi, who used the cell phone of one of those friends to call police.
The blast in Oslo, Norway’s capital and the city where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded, left a square covered in twisted metal, shattered glass and documents expelled from surrounding buildings. Most of the windows in the 20-floor high-rise where Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and his administration work were shattered. Other buildings damaged house government offices and the headquarters of some of Norway’s leading newspapers.
The dust-fogged scene after the blast reminded one visitor from New York of Sept. 11.
Ian Dutton, who was in a nearby hotel, said people “just covered in rubble” were walking through “a fog of debris.”
“It wasn’t any sort of a panic,” he said, “It was really just people in disbelief and shock, especially in a such as safe and open country as Norway. You don’t even think something like that is possible.”
Police said the Oslo explosion was caused by “one or more” bombs.
The police official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the Oslo bombing occurred at 3:26 p.m. local time (1:26 p.m. GMT), and the camp shootings began one to two hours later. The official said the gunman used both automatic weapons and handguns, and that there was at least one unexploded device at the youth camp that a police bomb disposal team and military experts were working on disarming.
The suspect had only a minor criminal record, the official said.
Sponheim said seven people were killed by the blast in downtown Oslo, four of whom have been identified, and that nine or 10 people were seriously injured.
Sponheim said a man was arrested in the shooting, and the suspect had been observed in Oslo before the explosion there.
Sponheim said the camp shooter “wore a sweater with a police sign on it. I can confirm that he wasn’t a police employee and never has been.”
Aerial images broadcast by Norway’s TV2 showed members of a SWAT team dressed in black arriving at the island in boats and running up the dock. Behind them, people who stripped down to their underwear swam away from the island toward shore, some using flotation devices.
Sponheim said police were still trying to get an overview of the camp shooting and could not say whether there was more than one shooter. He would not give any details about the identity or nationality of the suspect, who was being interrogated by police.
Oslo University Hospital said 12 people were admitted for treatment following the Utoya shooting, and 11 people were taken there from the explosion in Oslo. The hospital asked people to donate blood.
Stoltenberg, who was home when the blast occurred and was not harmed, visited injured people at the hospital late Friday. Earlier he decried what he called “a cowardly attack on young innocent civilians.”
“I have message to those who attacked us,” he said. “It’s a message from all of Norway: You will not destroy our democracy and our commitment to a better world.”
According to the Wall Street Journal, the financial markets, Greece’s bedgraggled bonds are getting wacked as Eurocrats continue to bicker over how to rescue Greece once more. The cost to insure against a Greek debt default has also risen to fresh records. It now costs $1.725 million a year to insure $10 million of Greek debt, according to data provider Markit.
An estimated 20,000 protestors took to the streets in uproar over the market. Description in the Occupied London blog:
People were trampled over tents, gassed like ants, fainting all over. By the time that the Delta motorcycle police tried to come into play, people had learnt the rules of the game — and they pushed them off. Twelve hours of nearly uninterrupted beating, tear-gassing, running, fighting.
Alabama state Governor Robert Bentley just signed and passed what is considered the harshest immigration law yet. It is due to take effect in September of this year.
A few examples of what has been passed:
I will admit that our country is suffering from a horrible immigration problem. But I do not agree with these tactics imposed in Alabama to bring this under control. My first reaction when I saw the news was that Alabama was passing this law for reasons similar to why Arizona’s Governor Brewer passed SB1070. Brewer has lobbyists with direct ties to CCA (Corrections Corp of America), which is a private prison industry. In passing this law in Arizona, there are more legal reasons to arrest and to lock up more people, and in this case – illegals; sentence them to prison, with an end result in more profits for CCA. Private prisons bring in more profit per inmate housed. Thankfully, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking this bill.
After I read up on this law and learned who the actual targets are, it became obvious that private prisons are not behind this bill. From 1998 to 2000, I lived in Birmingham AL, having moved there from a northern state. It was a much different culture than I realized, nearly feeling as though I had gone back in time to the Civil War. That having been said, my opinion here is to point out those people that will be directly affected by this law in a variety of ways.
First of all, the children. The vast majority of illegal children are here only because of their parents. By restricting their ability to attend a public college, we are only hurting ourselves. These are young adults who wish to earn a higher level of education resulting in becoming productive members of society. In doing so, their chances of applying and gaining legal citizenship would increase as well. By denying them an advanced education, then the state is only attributing to the lower level and poverty income numbers.
Hand in hand with this is the requirement for public schools to check and publish the papers of all the children. First of all, is this not some form of violation of rights of those who are legal citizens? Secondly, although this is not stating that the children will be denied an education, the parents, frightened the state may take their children away without having proper papers, will simply keep them home. This results in holding the children back from gaining an education. Again, adding numbers to the lower and poverty level income classes. What does the governor expect the of the younger children? Does he expect to see them all lined up along the highway with their thumbs out trying to hitch a ride back to their original country in order to seek an education?
Indirectly, this law is affecting the legal citizens of this country. It is forcing them to become the immigration police. Landlords must check the citizenship on possible tenants. This should not be their job – but rather left to those who actually work for immigration control. If the landlord does not check the paperwork and ends up renting to an illegal immigrant, then is there a fine and criminal charge imposed upon the landlord? This is not stated, but rather implied.
The state’s argument is that by enforcing this law as such, illegal immigrants will be unable to find work resulting in lowering the unemployment rate in Alabama as jobs will open begin to open up.
Realistically, this will simply cause more cash to flow under the table as illegals will accept lower than minimum wage pay. More cash under the table, less taxes paid. Children will grow up uneducated, also being forced to earn pay under the table as an adult. And who’s to say this will not attribute to an increase in crime in order to survive? Life in the United States, even after having passed this law, is better than life from where they came – immigrants will not return to their home country because of this law. If anything, they will move to another state, then to another, and another, forever shifting the problem rather than solving it.
In a side comment here… I do not see our unemployed fighting for some of the jobs that the immigrants have. Why should they? Many prefer sitting at home while receiving welfare checks. Those that truly lost their jobs from legitimate reasons (i.e. our economy thanks to Bush) are excluded from this category – this is directed at those who do leech off the system.
In a nutshell, this law stinks. There must be other ways to help control the illegal immigration problem. Or is it so far out of control that fighting it is now useless? I most certainly do not have the answers, but I do have many questions and concerns – which is my right as a citizen of this country.
More than 100 people were injured in Spain as riot police clashed with protesters on Friday, as authorities cleared away a makeshift camp set up as part of a Spain-wide demonstration against the country’s economic problems. The trouble started when police tried to clear the protesters from a main square in Barcelona. Many of the protesters, who are angry about high unemployment, anti-austerity measures and politicians’ handling of the economy, refused to move. Video from a local broadcaster showed officers beating the demonstrators and dragging them on the ground.
DURHAM (WTVD) — Did a member of a Durham police SWAT team go too far when he shot and killed a dog during a raid in April? Some say it was unnecessary force.
Police attacking protestors outside Israel Emba…, posted with vodpod
At least 120 people were injured after Egyptian security forces fired tear gas and rubber coated steel bullets at pro-Palestinian protesters who were trying to storm the Israeli embassy in Cairo.
Thousands of protesters had massed outside of the embassy in the capital on Sunday to commemorate the 63rd anniversary of the “Nakba” or “catastrophe” – the day Israel declared its independence and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes.
Witnesses said a group of demonstrators later tried to storm the entrance of the embassy. Police used rubber coated steel bullets and tear gas to disperse the crowd. At least 20 people were arrested.
Al Jazeera’s Rob Gilles, who was at the scene, said that some protesters responded by burning tires in the middle of the road and throwing stones.
“The security forces have made a charge outside the embassy to clear the street in front of it and most of the protesters are being forced back,” he said.
‘Determined protesters’
“They’ve sealed off the main area into it but there is still a determined presence here, they are determined not to move, spurred on by the images they’ve seen of the Nakba protests in other parts of the Middle East.
“We’ve seen a few people laid out on the floor mainly suffering from gas inhalation more than anything else.”
Activists had earlier called for marches to start on Sunday to reach the Rafah border crossing between Israel and Egypt.
The incident followed the visit to Egypt by a senior Israeli defence ministry official – the first trip by a top Israeli official since a popular uprising toppled former president Hosni Mubarak in February.
Amos Gilad was to hold talks with several Egyptian officials “to discuss the latest developments in the region, in light of the Palestinian reconciliation agreement”, MENA, Egypt’s state news agency reported on Sunday.
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal ended a four-year feud at a reconciliation ceremony in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, earlier this month, which Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu termed “a tremendous blow to peace”.
The long-awaited accord, inked by the two rivals among 13 factions, aims to put a stop to the animosity which has split the Palestinian territories into opposing camps since 2007.
The agreement envisages Hamas and Fatah working to put together an interim government of candidates who are unaffiliated with either faction, who would govern until presidential and legislative elections within a year.
A prisoner who shared a cell with a British tourist allegedly beaten to death by guards in a Dubai police station has revealed how he begged him to help save his life.
The witness said Lee Brown, 39, told him: ‘Please, please help me. Call my embassy, call my family . . . They beat me badly. Please help me otherwise I will die.’
His testimony includes the claim that after being attacked by six officers, Mr Brown was left alone for four days to die in his cell and that no officers checked on him. The officers, he says, even joked: ‘He’s crazy. Let him die in there.’
Left alone to die: Lee Brown died in the notorious Bur Dubai police station after being beaten up by police officers, according to his cellmate
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Mr Brown, a handyman from Essex, had flown first class to the Gulf city and was staying at a £1,400-a-night hotel when he was arrested after a row with a maid and jailed.
Reports from inside the notorious Bur Dubai police station claimed that his police guards had beaten him and smashed his head against the concrete floor. But no credible, in-depth testimony has surfaced from anyone who was inside the prison – until now.
The Mail on Sunday tracked down the one inmate who shared a cell with him – making him one of the last people to see and speak to him before his death.
The witness – whose identity cannot be revealed because of fears for his safety – has since been released and is assisting the victim’s family to find the truth. In an interview, he describes being thrown into the same cell after arriving at the police station in the aftermath of the alleged beating.
Shocked: The witness who is willing to testify in court how he saw Lee treated appallingly in Bur Dubai
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His evidence reveals how Mr Brown was covered in blood from ‘awful’ head injuries and how the guards had apparently humiliated him by pulling down his jeans so his genitals were visible. Four days after leaving Mr Brown to die, the witness says police removed his body in a black bin bag.
Mr Brown, a man of modest means from Ilford, Essex, set off on what should have been a spectacular holiday in Dubai less than three weeks ago. Flying first-class on Emirates and staying in the seven-star Burj Al Arab, billed as the world’s most luxurious hotel, it is believed he was planning to meet a woman he had befriended on the internet.
But early on Thursday, April 7 – just hours after checking into the hotel – he was arrested after a confrontation with a chambermaid. Officers took him to the Bur Dubai police station – notorious as the most brutal in the city. Other prisoners later told the witness they had seen a gang of six guards laugh as they beat Mr Brown with kicks, punches and batons. They said they smashed his head against the ground and a wall.
It was soon after this alleged attack that the witness was taken to the jail on April 8, after being arrested for a minor offence.
He said: ‘When I got there the officers were immediately aggressive. One shouted: “Go, go, go. Get inside! Stupid boy. I will slap you. I hope you die in here.” ’
He was taken, by accident he believes, to a tiny, windowless cell where Mr Brown had been dumped and was alone with him for a crucial ten minutes before he was moved.
‘The door opened,’ he said. ‘I saw Lee leaning against the far wall of the cell with handcuffs on his wrists and ankles. He was naked apart from his dark green jeans which had been pulled down. It looked like they had done that to humiliate him. He was half-conscious but he noticed me when I came in.
‘He was in a very bad way and clearly needed emergency treatment. He was bleeding from many wounds on his head and face. It was mainly coming from his right forehead and was running all the way down his chest. The blood was fresh so I would have said he was injured one hour before. There were streaks and pools of blood across the concrete floor.
‘His skin had been ripped off his arms and shoulders and there were large scratches down his chest.
‘The shackles were fastened so tightly they cut into his skin and so his hands and feet were white. And, despite it being at least 86F in there, his body was shaking and his lips and face were blue.’
He recalls how the Briton told him in a low voice: ‘Please, please help me. Call my embassy, call my family.’ Asked what happened, he said: ‘They beat me. They beat me badly. Please help me otherwise I will die.’ After this, the witness says, he closed his eyes and did not respond again.
After ten minutes, the guards moved the witness into the main cockroach-infested room, where 600 prisoners sleep crammed in on ‘disgusting’ mattresses.
Over the next four days, he says he was stunned by the actions of the police officers as they left Mr Brown to rot in his cell, not once checking on him, tending to his injuries or feeding him. The inmates could not see him through the flap as the bed was to one side, but they could see a plate of food on the floor.
The witness said: ‘Through the flap I couldn’t see him, but I could see a plate of disgusting chicken and rice that had been there on Friday. Over all those days, it was never eaten and the plate was never changed.’
The inmates went through Lee’s belongings and found a phone number for his family, which they called on April 11 on a smuggled mobile. His family contacted the Foreign Office early the next day. Later on that morning – at least four days after the alleged beating – the British Embassy contacted Dubai police, to be told that Mr Brown was in a good condition and was declining consular assistance.
According to the witness, at about 8pm that evening six officers finally arrived in the cell.
He said: ‘One was very senior-looking. From the way their faces looked and they talked, they were very scared. They went in and took pictures of the cell. Then we saw them carrying his body out in a black rubbish bag. You could see one of his naked legs sticking out.
‘An hour later they opened the cell again. Once the officers had gone we went in. There was blood on the bed and the floor. And that same food was there untouched.’
Notorious: The Bur Dubai police station where Lee Bradley Brown was put after being arrested for assault and swearing, along with allegedly trying to throw a woman over an internal balcony at the £1,000-a-night Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai
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The witness also revealed the bizarre hierarchy that was enforced among prisoners in the jail. He said: ‘Locals had a clean area with proper beds, air-conditioning, mineral water, television and could order restaurant-style food such as spaghetti bolognese from the canteen.
‘The other prisoners are woken at 5am to be fed a breakfast of five haricot beans in a horrible salty sauce with tough Arabic bread. It is disgusting, not even food. I would not give it my dog.’
The witness was released from the police station days later.
Last week Mr Brown’s brother Steve and sister-in-law Su flew to Dubai to speak to the authorities and the British Embassy.
Last night Steven said: ‘Lee was dearly loved by his family and friends. He was a caring son and a wonderful brother and his loss will leave a gaping hole in our lives. We will not rest until the truth about Lee’s death comes to light.’
Steven and Su also met the witness featured in this article, who has promised he will testify to a court.
He said: ‘The police made a big mistake with Lee and hopefully they will now have to pay for it.’
