From my latest on HuffPost:
Linda Lye, an attorney with the ACLU of Northern California, told HuffPost that the emails reveal it wasn’t just a couple of “bad apples” on the police force.
“What this shows is [Birgeneau] was also responsible, in the additional sense of creating the environment,” Lye said. “He set the tone, gave the directive … This is a larger systemic problem.”
On Nov. 28, 2011, Birgeneau told faculty at a meeting that he explicitly prohibited police from using tear gas or pepper spray, but that “unfortunately, we did not at the same time discuss the use of the baton.”
UC Berkeley campus spokesperson Dan Mogulof said the emails didn’t indicate what was authorized, but did tell HuffPost that “any authorization comes beforehand.”
“His comments [in the emails] were neither an authorization for or a prohibition against future use,” Mogulof said. “The policy itself [of no encampments] still stood without any entry into discussion of tactics.”
i know i’m a little delayed, better late than sorry… wait, no.. organizing.overload.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted any writing and I recently came up with this piece for an Occupy SFSU collection of artwork and literature. It is written from the perspective of a police officer, in case it wasn’t apparent.
Policing The Sky For A Living
I don’t want you to be my reflection.
I have an addiction to breaking mirrors with my hands naked because they’re the only part of me where the blood can still wash off.
It is 2:53 PM and my back is turned to the sun so my face can remain as cold as the iron that has formed around my fist from holding my hopes hostage, and these blue eyes reflect a sky marked by a bullet that made its way through without asking for a bargain.
I stopped looking at the face of my clock six years ago, when the blood of my victims made its way back to my conscience, forming deltas under my brows and bringing my smile down to ground zero.
To be completely honest, all I’ve ever wanted to be was somebody’s hero, but love is as foreign to me as an Israeli Prime Minister admitting that borders only exist to keep birds from flying away.
My faith runs deep.
Within my bloodstreams, Jesus fish declare these rivers a spawning ground.
It is the white blood cells that keep me alive,
But it is always the dove that descends from flight when I walk under their wings.
And I want you to feel the grace of shattered glass re-born into Mace so you know
what it’s like to have a bullet interrupt your sky.
I have an addiction to breaking mirrors, because God told me to do it.
Video Proof of Unjust Mass Arrest and Media Spin at Occupy Oakland 1/28/12
YOU NEED TO WATCH THIS
(Source: facebook.com)
“Police Violence at UC Riverside Regents’ Meeting” - This is how our government treats the leaders of tomorrow.
Occupy realness
