How The Police Were Trained To Deal With Occupy - A Photo Essay

LAPD prepare to evict OccupyLA
photo: mercurynews.com

Over the past few weeks, many Occupy camps have been shut down in cities across North America and the occupiers evicted from the tent cities they've built. The most recent were Occupy DC and Occupy Boston.

Like the Occupy groups that were evicted before them, the language being used by Occupy and its supporters described the events as police-state tactics and the police action as brutality.

The language used by Occupy has more to do with its resentment at being removed from public and private property that it had usurped for its own purposes. Occupy has always confused squatting  trespassing and violation of city ordinances with the right to freedom of assembly. All democracies guarantee basic rights like freedom of speech and assembly but no democracy has enshrined the right to violate the law or the rights of others.

But put that aside for now because that is an issue we can debate in a different context another time.

The issue for today is why the police show up for these evictions and Days of Action heavily equipped, in force and often wearing protective riot gear. It's a legitimate question and the answer is based more on what they have learned from similar protests over the past forty years than on Occupy's claims of living in a police state.

Here is a brief photo essay of protest and where it too often led in the past. Readers can judge for themselves whether or not police are justified to be prepared in how they have dealt with Occupy or are simply being heavy handed.





Vancouver riots following Stanley Cup hockey game in 2011





Detroit protests in 1967 - A black day in July
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Seattle 1999

Toronto Canada - G8 riot

Native protesters burn railway bridge in Caledonia Canada

London summer 2011 riots

Greek protester clubbing police officer during Greek riot earlier this year

Umm El Efrain riot

Athens riots over austerity measures

These are only a handful of images of too many protests that turned into too many riots over the past four and half decades.

There have been hundreds of large and small riots worldwide, some resulting in serious injury, deaths and hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage. It is these riots and not governments which have trained police to be prepared for whatever might happen.

The Occupy protest has claimed it is non-violent and condemns police brutality. It didn't learn from past history.



Occupy Rome riot





Occupy Oakland protesters





Portland Police disposing of molotov cocktail left by Occupy Portland



OWS National Day of Action 



Occupy Oakland rioter



While it lays claim to non-violence, the Occupy protest has been no more successful at preventing outbreaks of vandalism and violence against people and property than similar protest groups that have gone before it. 

Like those groups, it lacked the leadership and the discipline to ensure that those within the group who were exercising their right to peaceful assembly and demonstration were not overrun by the anarchists and violent protesters these movements always attract. As a result, they have no right to expect the police or the broader public to respond differently than they have.

Regardless of how relevant or legitimate the social and political issues Occupy protests may be, when it turns to mob violence and uses the same symbols of violent demonstrations that went before, it loses the right to expect the authorities to respond in a different manner.

Those who may justifiably support the issues and remain silent about the violence that ensues are complicit and become accomplices to that violence by their silence. In the end, that refusal to not only speak out and reject violence but to actively work to expel the violent from their protest, only encourages those who do violence as acceptable to the protest.

It was not government that trained the police. It was countless protests for everything from racial equality, labour strikes, wealth distribution, environmentalist causes, tuition fees and many other issues including hockey and soccer games that turned into riots which have trained the police to expect and to be prepared for anything. It trained them that violence could erupt in even those demonstrations that started out peacefully and to be prepared for it.

In the end, it isn't government or the police that the non-violent in Occupy should be pointing fingers at, it is the people and groups they've allowed to join their ranks that have resulted in the police response. Occupy continues to defend itself as a non-violent, peaceful protest, Occupy Oakland continues to plan and call for support for it's action to once again shut down the port. Other Occupy groups have publicly stated that they stand in 'solidarity' with Occupy Oakland. Considering the violence that took place in Oakland during Occupy's strike day and the vandalism that occurred, Occupy loses the right to a claim of non-violence. as it continues its call to support Occupy Oakland.

Violent protesters have undermined the credibility of peaceful demonstrators and have allowed their violent cousins to teach the rest of society and the police to expect the worst.

It is a lesson the world could have done without. It is a corruption of the right of all of us to speak freely in voicing our dissent.

Occupy is not a non-violent protest movement, it is a protest dancing on the edge of chaos. and more people are going to get hurt as a result.

© 2011 Maggie's Bear

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