Squawk against police brutality at 5:30 p.m. September 30th at One Police Plaza.
For the last 10 days on our way home from work, we’ve been passing by so-called Zuccotti Park (a big granite slab with some plantings) where the Wall Street protesters are camping out. They looked so young and serious and intelligent, gathered in little circles quietly discussing the global economy, we felt somehow in awe of them. Of course we squawked against the Vietnam War when we were in college, especially after the shootings at Kent State, but “Peace, Now!” and “Hell, no, we won’t go!” was about as sophisticated as we got.
And here’s New York’s Finest, punching, stomping, clubbing and gassing these kids, dragging them by the hair and throwing them in jail. It’s all over You Tube, if you can bear to watch.
The Mayor – he can go stuff his bike lanes up his City Hall – condones this, while the politicians are silent.
Now that even mainstream news commentary has noticed that cops punch, stomp, choke, handcuff, and mace people whose looks they don’t like, can the courts please pay attention? Now that it might have been your daughter who got maced in the face by a high-ranking uniformed thug, would you like to reconsider routinely finding cops credible as a matter of law? Maybe some of those defendants from “crime-prone neighborhoods” were telling the truth when they said they were beat up and arrested for no reason. When they said, no, they didn’t invite the cops in to search their homes. Maybe it’s time to start upholding the Fourth Amendment.
Appellate Squawk 