Police critically man at Occupy Oakland-update;police ask youtube to remove videos

[Coys1882]

Crunch - I agree with you for the most part. I guess my post was more about why people are sympathetic to the injured man and not the Canucks fan who took one in the junk.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

TBH you don't know that, and the police can't assume that.

Every protest no matter how peaceful can turn in an instant into something worse.

I'm sure if the police would have played the we assume that the Vancouver (I don't even know what to call them) were peaceful, that things would have gotten even more out of hand.

The Riot Police are trained to bring an end to possible situations through the use of intimidation and pretty much overwhelming and decisive force.

We don't know if there were other episodes of violence elsewhere or confrontations between the police and the protestors elsewhere that would have changed the police demeaner.

We don't even know for sure if in those chaotic moments if those cops knew that there was an injured man down, for all we know they could have seen it as a group rush at the barracade.

I don't like the flashbang technique at all personally, that smacks of stupidity and bad training, it would have been just as effective to drop it somewhere besides in the middle of the group.

I don't know if the use of rubber bullets was actually proven or if we have protestors saying that hey man we saw it.

Like I said, the damage done to the man doesn't look like rubber bullet trauma to me, it could have been a teargas cannister that was misfired, or bounced off the street into his head or it could have been deliberately aimed.

We don't know if the police gave a warning to the group that went to the guys aid not to approach the police line or not.

There are still way to many questions.

I would hope that there will be an honest investigation and that it isn't handled by the Oakland Police because I don't know if I trust the statement of the chief of police, and even if true its tainted by what we see or think we see in the video.

While I appreciated an even handed approach to gauging this situation, I think the evidence makes it abundantly clear that the police in question acted recklessly and endangered the lives of numerous people in that video.

I can appreciate your reluctance to paint the police in an negative light, but it seems pretty easily identifiable that the police acted reprehensibly in this situation.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

While I appreciated an even handed approach to gauging this situation, I think the evidence makes it abundantly clear that the police in question acted recklessly and endangered the lives of numerous people in that video.

I can appreciate your reluctance to paint the police in an negative light, but it seems pretty easily identifiable that the police acted reprehensibly in this situation.

I think I said in my post in some others that I didn't like the way the flashbang was utilized.

What I don't know is why, and none of us do.

Was it bad training

Stupidity

Malicious intent

Trying to make You-tube.

I'm not sure.

The other thing that always makes me a sceptic is we always only see the portions that put people in the best or worst possible light

IE. Lets say I'm a cop, and I'm asked to rescue a kitten in a tree. Some guy films it and posts it on youtube.

So I climb the tree, get up there and get the cat, and on the climb down the cat scratches me, and I drop the cat killing it.

If the filmer is a fan of the police, it will post as cop puts life in jepardy and risks life to save the cat cop devestated.

And we'll see a video of me climbing 60 feet up the tree, scaling out on the branch, climbing back down and seeing the cat scratching, and the accidental drop and a video of me crying afterwards while apologizing to the family.

The anti cop guy will cut out everything but the drop and a slow mo of eh cat slamming into the concrete and the tearful devestated family.

But then again if the camera man works for cracked.com we'll see the whole thing in fast motion to the benny hill soundtrack and then a wah wah wah as the cat hits the ground.

In the riot, we see what I think is a confused chaotic mess, we don't even know if the cops saw the guy lying on the concrete or not, or if all they saw was a dozen people approaching the police line at high speed and then crouching down. I don't know if there were warnings shouted.

Like I said when I was in the military way back then and had to take an urban pacification course to fulfill a stupid checkmark for UN duty, we were trained not to think of tear gas cannisters or grenade simulators or arty sims or flash bangs as direct attack weapons.

Maybe this cop missed a day of training. I don't know.

[Flash Walken]

I think it's pretty obvious by his sly body language, timing and and placement off the grenade what his intentions were.

[RedJester]

The injured man in question is lying mere feed from the police barricade. A blow bad enough to fracture his skull(and lead to brain swelling,) would have caused him to drop immediately. There is no way he would have been able to move afterward.

In any case, whether it was a misfire, an accident, or intentional, it represents gross incompetence on behalf of the offending officer. You simply do not aim a projectile weapon at a civilian at that range, whether or not your intention is to fire.

[Bill Bumface]

I Oakland the TRANSIT cops kill innocent people. This seems par for the course.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by RedJester

The injured man in question is lying mere feed from the police barricade. A blow bad enough to fracture his skull(and lead to brain swelling,) would have caused him to drop immediately. There is no way he would have been able to move afterward.

In any case, whether it was a misfire, an accident, or intentional, it represents gross incompetence on behalf of the offending officer. You simply do not aim a projectile weapon at a civilian at that range, whether or not your intention is to fire.

Was the projectile fired by the cops at the baracade thats unclear to me in that video.

I'm not disagreeing with you about the stupidity.

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

This thread must just be killing Mikey_the_redneck.

He clearly hates cops and everything they do, but I'm pretty sure he also hates hippies.

Must be tough to decide who bring the hammer down on in this one.

[Shasta Beast]

Crunch I'm not sure who said it was a rubber bullet, but everything I've seen/come across says it would've been a tear gas cannister, some say it was intentionally aimed too.

Anyways, video has surfaced today of the protest before the incident, you can see the marine who gets hurt at 3:30 on the right.



Certainly looks like the cops started it, protesters didn't get violent until violence was brought to them, and even then, this is not Vancouver level violence. Article it was from: http://www.businessinsider.com/this-...by-opd-2011-10

A quote from the marine article comments that I feel that this situation is strongly about:

It should be, not just Marines who are outraged. All Americans should be infuriated. This is the land of the FREE. It is our right to redress our gov't with our grievances and their should be NO law that stops the free assembling of people to due that. These ridiculous rule, I won't even call them laws are the very opposite of what our founding father desired for our country. They realized that gov't can become corrupted and it was their desire to put enough power in the hands of ordinary people to correct that. The electoral process as we have seen with President Obama has become completely worthless. "Change" can not come in that process anymore unfortunately. History will not be kind to those who stood silent or opposed those who attempt to peacefully restore the voice of the people the our great nation. Just my opinion.

The cops are suppose to protect and serve the people, but the actions of a few of them show they clearly forget this.

Oh jeez, here we go.

How do we know it was a tear gas canister? How do we know anything really? It could have been a rock from a protestor for all we know.

How do you guys get so caught up in one video, some interviews from the protestors and one marine that's pissed off?

Seriously, none of us have a friggin clue what happened there. Im not siding one way or the other until I have enough information to form a rational opinion.

Everyone seems so appalled by the flashbang. We have no idea what perspective the cop had- what he saw and when he saw it. Maybe he just saw a mob of people and thought it needed to be dispersed. Or maybe, he knew the guy was in critically injured due to a tear gas canister and decided to throw a flashbang in there to finish the guy off. Seriously, what sounds more rational?

[Yasa]

Originally Posted by Bent Wookie

Everyone seems so appalled by the flashbang. We have no idea what perspective the cop had- what he saw and when he saw it. Maybe he just saw a mob of people and thought it needed to be dispersed. Or maybe, he knew the guy was in critically injured due to a tear gas canister and decided to throw a flashbang in there to finish the guy off. Seriously, what sounds more rational?

Do you seriously think that it would be a good idea to throw a flashbang at an unconcious person? I'm not saying the cop did it to hurt the guy. It's just a stupid thing to do.

[Shasta Beast]

Originally Posted by Bent Wookie

Oh jeez, here we go.

How do we know it was a tear gas canister? How do we know anything really? It could have been a rock from a protestor for all we know.

How do you guys get so caught up in one video, some interviews from the protestors and one marine that's pissed off?

Seriously, none of us have a friggin clue what happened there. Im not siding one way or the other until I have enough information to form a rational opinion.

Everyone seems so appalled by the flashbang. We have no idea what perspective the cop had- what he saw and when he saw it. Maybe he just saw a mob of people and thought it needed to be dispersed. Or maybe, he knew the guy was in critically injured due to a tear gas canister and decided to throw a flashbang in there to finish the guy off. Seriously, what sounds more rational?

There are other videos. Why was the tear gas needed at all? And the rubber bullets? And the flashbangs?

Maybe he just saw a mob of people, maybe if he was blind. The grenade came from a cop standing right by the downed marine. If you can't see a single lone body, in no-man's land, cops on one side, protesters the other, you're blind, it stands out pretty starkly.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Yasa

Do you seriously think that it would be a good idea to throw a flashbang at an unconcious person? I'm not saying the cop did it to hurt the guy. It's just a stupid thing to do.

Thats what I was trying to get at, however I go back to the point of did the cop really see the body lying there, the video shows that it was uttely chaotic there, and how did they interpret the mob rushing towards the police line where the guy was lying.

Usually with flash bangs, you only need to get it in the general area for it to be effective, you don't have to or don't want to hit anyone with a exploding pyrotechnic device.

So it was either an honest to god mistake in an incredibly chaotic, frightening situation.

Or it was a

"Hey fellows, watch this" stupidity moment.

None of us know that.

[Flash Walken]

You're seriously searching if you think the intent was anything else than the result.

[CaptainCrunch]

No, I think that if there is a burden of proof in a court of law for anything to stand up and to decide what charges to pursue for example, wouldn't the same thing occur here, or are we willing to merely state police bad?

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

You're seriously searching if you think the intent was anything else than the result.

While I think it was a totally idiotic action, concluding definitively that the intention of the police officer was to put this person in a medically induced coma is pretty much the same.

I understand (hope?) that you didn't actually mean it like that, but that is what you are saying.

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

You're seriously searching if you think the intent was anything else than the result.

Are you implying the intent was to critically injure someone and then throw a flashbang at him to finish him off? Who's searching?

Originally Posted by Shasta Beast

There are other videos. Why was the tear gas needed at all? And the rubber bullets? And the flashbangs?

Maybe he just saw a mob of people, maybe if he was blind. The grenade came from a cop standing right by the downed marine. If you can't see a single lone body, in no-man's land, cops on one side, protesters the other, you're blind, it stands out pretty starkly.

So you are basing your observations from the video. I am trying to illustrate that that view was not the cops view. We have no idea what he saw or what he didn't.

Seriously, this is not a difficult concept.

[mikey_the_redneck]

Originally Posted by Bring_Back_Shantz

This thread must just be killing Mikey_the_redneck.

He clearly hates cops and everything they do, but I'm pretty sure he also hates hippies.

Must be tough to decide who bring the hammer down on in this one.

Nah ........it's not killing me at all.

I'm just sitting back and chuckling at the expense of all the apologists denying that the police did something that is so obviously stupid and wrong.

This is just the beginning however, as the derivatives bubble pops and more economic austerity comes America's way, the violence will increase ten-fold from both the police and the protesters. This is going to get ugly, as Americans slowly rise from their slumber and realize that republicans/democrats Obama/Bush/Clinton work for "the man" or Goldman Sachs....not the people.

Also, I would appreciate it if you would quit with the ignorant comments like "he clearly hates cops and everything they do". There is not an ounce of truth in that.
If hippies are people who don't like to work and expect free handouts from the government well then yes, I do hate them. But I also know that despite what the media claims, the protesters are not all hippies. It looks like quite mixed bag actually.

[RedJester]

Although it's being narrated by one of the protesters, it elaborates on the incident at about the 0:45 second mark.