You can't arrest people for just having opinions

[Lanya]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/21/AR2006112101145.html

Police Agree to Protester Reforms
Lawsuit Alleging Abuse During 2001 Inauguration Is Settled

By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 22, 2006; B02

The D.C. police department agreed yesterday to pay $685,000 and take steps to protect protesters from police abuse and ensure their rights to settle a lawsuit over the treatment of demonstrators at President Bush's inauguration in 2001.

The lawsuit uncovered evidence that the department had suspended rules limiting the use of force during the protests, had pressed undercover officers to infiltrate protest groups and had sought to provoke protesters and uninvolved bystanders by attacking them with batons and pepper spray.

Under the settlement, the department denies any guilt but agrees to change its police handbook to better protect protesters, adding a requirement that officers report the use of force during a mass demonstration and prohibit arrests without evidence of a crime. Officers assigned to civil disturbance units will be reminded of the changes in a new, mandatory 40-hour training course and annual refresher session.

The Partnership for Civil Justice, a civil liberties advocacy group, and a group of local residents brought the suit five years ago to try to force the police department under Chief Charles H. Ramsey to change what it considered an illegal pattern of treating protesters like suspected criminals. One of the suit's lead attorneys, Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, said yesterday that the group thinks that it achieved much of that goal through painstaking litigation and depositions that revealed the department's behavior and led to the D.C. Council passing legislation last year to reform police handling of protests.

A spokesperson for the D.C. attorney general's office declined to comment yesterday. Ramsey also declined to comment, saying that other lawsuits are pending.

The settlement, which comes as Ramsey is preparing to leave his post, is the latest in a series of payments the city has made stemming from police conduct at demonstrations. In January 2005, the District government agreed to pay $425,000 to seven people caught up in a mass arrest at Pershing Park in September 2002. More than 400 people were rounded up at the downtown park during demonstrations against the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Several investigations found that Assistant Chief Peter J. Newsham, after conferring with Ramsey, had ordered arrests without warning or evidence of a crime -- including of people who had nothing to do with the protests.

In that Pershing Park settlement, Ramsey was also required to send an apology letter to each of the plaintiffs.

In January 2004, the city agreed to pay $7,000 to $10,000 to each of three Corcoran College of Art students who sued. The students had said that they were photographing the Pershing Park protests and were encouraged by police to enter the park and then arrested in the roundup.

D.C. Council member Kathy Patterson, (D-Ward 3), who successfully pressed for the 2005 legislation to address abuses of protesters' rights, said yesterday that the department was guilty of repeatedly abusing protesters' rights in demonstrations.

"I regret that taxpayers are forced to pay another $685,000 for the wrongdoing by the Metropolitan Police Department," she said. "At the same time, I am glad the District has settled and agreed to the injunctive terms. I'm hopeful that the comprehensive training envisioned in the settlement . . . can prevent wrongful police action in the future."

More than 80 percent of the money will go to legal fees incurred over five years, according to Partnership for Civil Justice. Most of the remainder will go to two people sprayed by pepper spray.

Mike Shinn, a security consulting company owner who joined in the suit settled yesterday, said he was glad that the department would be forced to follow the laws of the country. Shinn, a Bush supporter who went to watch the inaugural celebration, said he felt he was in another country when police pushed him, other spectators and protesters against a wall and an officer hit him on the head from behind with a baton.

"I tried to explain what I was doing and ask him what he wanted me to do, and he hit me again," Shinn recalled. "He said, 'Do you want some more of this?' I was just shocked, just utterly shocked. I thought: What in the world are they teaching them?"

Shinn said he hopes the incoming chief, Cathy L. Lanier, and the departing Ramsey learn a lesson.

"You can't arrest people for just having opinions, as unpopular as they may be," he said. "You don't just arrest everybody on the streets because you think they might have an opinion. It flies in the face of everything that is America."

Researcher Meg Smith contributed to this article.

[BT]

"You can't arrest people for just having opinions, as unpopular as they may be," he said. "You don't just arrest everybody on the streets because you think they might have an opinion. It flies in the face of everything that is America."

But apparently you can make them apologize on Letterman and deal with Gloria Allred.

[Diane]

But apparently you can make them apologize on Letterman and deal with Gloria Allred.
[/quote]


it's called the 'liberal approach' constantly re-inventing  what is 'right.'

[Lanya]

"You can't arrest people for just having opinions, as unpopular as they may be," he said. "You don't just arrest everybody on the streets because you think they might have an opinion. It flies in the face of everything that is America."

But apparently you can make them apologize on Letterman and deal with Gloria Allred.

Was that court-ordered, that televised apology? If so, I missed it. 
He chose to do that. 
Rule of law, you all, rule of freaking LAW. God I love this country.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Apparently, the police CAN clobber people just for the Hell of it. For protesting, not protesting or no reason at all.

I say they CAN do it because they DID do it.

The idea here is to beat the Hell out of any people the cops deem to be a threat, and then apologize years later, paying damages out of the taxes paid by the same taxpayers. Observe that the damages are not paid by the Republican Party, the police commissioners or the police doing the clobbering. If this were done, then it would be a serious deterrent.

The fact is that here in Miami, when a few people simply gathered in the street to observe some of the World Trade types at a meeting early in the Juniorbush administration, the cops ordered them off the streets, and when they tried to leave, other cops came at them from their only avenue of escape and clobbered and maced them. Bicycles belonging to some protesters and others who were just riding downtown were stolen and destroyed by the local cops.

A number of people were arrested and held without charges overnight.

It took years for the courts to recognize the injustices that had been done. The cops bragged about how clever they were to corner the protesters and everyone else downtown, beat them up, gas them and throw them in jail.

If the cops do this sort of crap, the fact that they find it illegal years later and fine the city or state governments really doesn't matter much, does it? They have gassed, clobbered and detained the citizens, and this serves to silence all opposition to the actions of the government, doesn't it?

[BT]

Rule of law, you all, rule of freaking LAW. God I love this country.

Right. What venue did you expect Gloria Allred to use. Methinks the courts.

[Lanya]

It took years for the courts to recognize the injustices that had been done. The cops bragged about how clever they were to corner the protesters and everyone else downtown, beat them up, gas them and throw them in jail.

If the cops do this sort of crap, the fact that they find it illegal years later and fine the city or state governments really doesn't matter much, does it? They have gassed, clobbered and detained the citizens, and this serves to silence all opposition to the actions of the government, doesn't it?

...........
It matters that justice is done.  But it doesnt' matter at the same time, because it was not done swiftly and it left a silenced citizenry for all those years. 

I love the cell phone cameras people have now, and the small video cams.    Who watches the watchers?  Sony does. 

[BT]

Who watches the watchers?  Sony does. 

Film can be edited , cut and spliced. What you see just might be what people want you to see.

[Diane]

That is true, BT... but the truth is that often people (with lazy brains) will believe it all until, of course, something ugly pops up on them.

[Xavier_Onassis]

A film like the Rodney King beating COULD be edited, but it would be quite difficult to edit it to make it look like the cops were not seriously guilty of unnecessary brutality.

And we must also acknowledge that the government would certainly be more likely to hire better people to do their editing.

I agree with Lanya that the presence of many cellphone cameras and videocams is a good thing and will certainly serve to discourage police brutality. Perhaps even more than the justice system, and certainly in a faster way.

[BT]

And we must also acknowledge that the government would certainly be more likely to hire better people to do their editing.

Certainly, but that would only be on films that present their side of things.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Certainly, but that would only be on films that present their side of things.
----------------------
No, not really. Think about it.

[Diane]

and what about infringement of my privacy?  Now that should be a huge concern for all the liberals.  hummmn.... lets go a bit further shall we....

What about locker rooms, public bathrooms.  Hell is it your business where I eat, drink, shop, pray?  Let alone my little Scotty or Buffy at baseball or cheerleading camp.

Why next thing you know they are on the internet being sold as kiddy porn or with the caption below saying, "......blah blah blah, Priceless."

Oh but wait, we can have it both ways, 1. to bring down the man
or 2. invade my privacy.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Diane, I find your post rather confusing.

What do you mean?

[Diane]

sorry, I know that I can be cryptic...

but here goes...

you cannot have it both ways.  If you are saying that people taking pictures and video on their cell phones is ok... then it is ok... even if it is some asshole at the urinal snapping a picture of your willy and putting it on the internet.

More succinctly, I think that liberals are all for blaming the government, police, the 'man' in general  but would have a problem with the same cell phone invading their privacy.

I don't like camera phones period.