Occupy News Round-Up

By Diane Sweet — June 10, 2012

[Photograph: Jessica Rinaldi/Reuters]

Another legal victory for Occupy Wall Street protesters: A federal judge has ruled that the NYPD failed to sufficiently warn Occupy Wall Street protesters against walking on the roadway of the Brooklyn bridge in October, resulting in the arrest of roughly 700 people.

After reviewing video footage from both parties, Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the federal district court in Manhattan sided with the protesters, clearing the way for a class-action lawsuit.

The above video discusses abuses suffered by credentialed members of the media at the hands of the New York City Police Department. The number of journalists arrested has been called into question this week,
after Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and Paul Browne, deputy commissioner for public information gave an interview where they tried to rewrite Occupy Wall Street history.:

[NYPD Commissioner Ray] Kelly also said the NYPD was unfairly criticized over its removal of protesters from Zuccotti Park last year, saying the people who were arrested had defied legal orders to leave the park and were pushing through police lines after monitoring department radios to learn what officers were planning.

Paul Browne, the deputy commissioner for public information, who accompanied Kelly to the interview, added that only one journalist was arrested during the operation, despite stories to the contrary, which he called “a total myth.” Occupy Wall Street protesters were forging press credentials in an effort to get through the police lines, he added, but that doesn’t mean actual reporters were arrested.

So if you believe that the NYPD targets media persons during protest arrests or that they did so at any of the Occupy evictions, you probably believe in the tooth fairy, Big Foot, and think that the moon is made of swiss cheese.

Of the NYPD's "Stop and Frisk" policy:

“We’re saving lives,” Kelly said, “mostly young men of color.”

Is that what's going on in this video? Sure, and Santa's going to bring me a pink unicorn with glitter for Christmas this year. Time for Ray Kelly to retire, and take his fairy tales with him.

Yet another bad moment for the NYPD:

Thomas D. Raffaele, a 69-year-old justice of the New York State Supreme Court, encountered a chaotic scene while walking down a Queens street with a friend: Two uniformed police officers stood over a shirtless man lying facedown on the pavement. The man’s hands were cuffed behind his back and he was screaming. A crowd jeered at the officers.

The judge, concerned the crowd was becoming unruly, called 911 and reported that the officers needed help.

But within minutes, he said, one of the two officers became enraged — and the judge became his target. The officer screamed and cursed at the onlookers, some of whom were complaining about what they said was his violent treatment of the suspect, and then he focused on Justice Raffaele, who was wearing a T-shirt and jeans. The judge said the officer rushed forward and, using the upper edge of his hand, delivered a sharp blow to the judge’s throat that was like what he learned when he was trained in hand-to-hand combat in the Army.

I don't think this one is going to end well for the officers involved. A white guy was injured this time, and a state Supreme Court judge at that.

Desperation, anger grows for Spanish youth, with 51 percent unemployed.

#OccupyHonduras: Before Barcelona, before Tahrir, before New York, thousands of landless farmers in Honduras began to occupy vast stretches of ill-gotten plantations in the Aguan River Valley. The government has torched their settlements, evicted their encampments and allowed wealthy landowners to murder them at will. But against all odds, the resistance grows. Help get the message out!