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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
CONTACT: National Lawyers Guild Paige
Cram, Communications Coordinator, communications@nlg.org, 609-668-0645 |
NLG Observes Improper Use of Force by Law Enforcement at the G-20
Police deployed chemical irritants, including CS gas, and long-range acoustic devices (LRAD) in residential neighborhoods on narrow streets where families and small children were exposed. Scores of riot police formed barricades at many intersections throughout neighborhoods miles away from the downtown area and the David Lawrence Convention Center. Outside the Courtyard Marriott in Shadyside, police deployed smoke bombs in the absence of protest activity, forcing bystanders and hotel residents to flee the area.
Later, while some protests were ending, riot-clad officers surrounded an area at the University of Pittsburgh, creating an ominous spectacle that some described as akin to Kent State. Guild legal observers witnessed police chasing and arresting many uninvolved students.
Among other questionable tactics, officers from dozens of law enforcement agencies lacked easily-identifiable badges, impeding citizens’ ability to register complaints.
Heidi Boghosian, executive director of the National Lawyers Guild, said: “Accountability and chain of command is virtually impossible to establish given the lack of visible individual identifying badges on officers. The small, paper armband badges that law enforcement are wearing are difficult to read, and many wore black chest coverings with absolutely no identifying information. We’ve seen many law enforcement personnel, including Pittsburgh Police Department officers, deliberately covering up the arm IDs by rolling their shirt sleeves up over them.”
8 Comments so far
Show Allthis is the true test of a democracy and the govt. failed
terribly!
this is the true test of a democracy and the govt. failed
terribly!
Ray Berthiaume
Who declared martial law?
And so what? The National Lawyers Guild will file a protest, get people to file a class action suit, settle for lots of money for the lawyers and diddly-squat for those actually were wronged and declare victory.
The discription of how the terrorists, ooops, back up, erase that, police are dressed is MEANT to deny identification so that no action can be taken after the fact. Back in the USSA....
The NLG and ACLU and CCR and every left and right group in the country need to converge on one of the hundreds of FEMA camps staffed and waiting for martial law to be declared here and demand from there that OBushma revoke all the fascist orders left by Bush and Cheney and extended detention and torture and get rid of Blackwater.
Here is the reality here.
“We are on the verge of global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the new world order.”
Obama and the G-20 are getting ready to set that up, by combining crashing the economy world wide (to force everyone onto a single currency) with an artificially created pandemic to generate a "catastrophic emergency" as a pretext to undo democracies worldwide. Maybe they'll add a strike against us, too, by Iran and Venezuela so they can attack them.
Look at all the things Obama is saying about sharing responsibilities and about the US no longer controlling things and put it in that context. Things were arranged for this starting with rigging Bush's election and then deconstructing democracy after 9/11 via the Patriot Act and - with no one watching - via the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act and many more such "medical emergency" powers to remove the rest of the rights. Kissinger and Rockefeller have been salivating for this and the left has ignored a "flu" that comes with combat troops, and hundreds of FEMA camps and millions of coffins Bush provided.
Sarkozy just planned a fascist take over of his own country but no one at the G-20 is saying a word, not even protestors.
http://coto2.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/judges-report-france-to-use-swine-flu-to-commit-liberticide/
Obama is planning the same here. Why do you think he has keep extended detention, torture, Blackwater, and all Bush's orders that set that up?
http://coto2.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/judges-report-france-to-use-swine-flu-to-commit-liberticide/
“Today America would be outraged if UN troops entered Los Angeles to restore order. Tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told that there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all people of the world will plead to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well being granted to them by the World Government.”
- Henry Kissinger, 1991 Bilderberg Conference.
You are weeks from disaster but have done nothing to expose this.
http://www.examiner.com/x-10438-Peace-Studies-Examiner~y2009m9d9-Ca-conference-experts-to-expose-H1N1-...
"The stage is set for our country to devolve into a military dictatorship, and few seem to care."
- Ron Paul
Go to http://www.theflucase.com to see what the G-20 is really doing.
Every leftist group in the country should be scrambling as hard and fast as humanly possible to expose that pandemic for what it is - a fascist plan to take over of the US and other countries.
I think what you are looking for in the legal system is justice. However, you don't get that. All you get is monetary rewards and legal precedent to discourage certain forms of institutional behavior, such as police violence and violation of Constitutional rights - if you win in court.
The fact is, you have little other means of protection. So go ahead and hate lawyers, but the NLG is not the place to pick that kind of fight.
Quite frankly, I'm glad NLG lawyers get paid. No one else is doing the work. And it's not true that they don't win much money for their clients - it's just that money is poor compensation for having your rights violated.
-TIA
By the time the WTO protests occurred, 90% of police had been militarized. Corporations run the show and Obama has always been in their hands or he would not be where he is.
On Democracy Now! i heard him say he disapproved the G20 protests cause they are anti profit. How simplistic!
What is of utmost concern to me is that those of us opposing the corporate fascism are not carefully aligning ourselves with the dreamers of true peace, the simple livers and those who strive for authentic solution. Too many remain ignorant about the scope of violent racism, sexism, classism, elitism in this country. Consequently too many support Ron Paul and his white supremacist, anti immigrant, anti choice, pro gun ilk. Trading one well funded jack boot for another is NOT solution.
I also am sick to death of the drive of some to break windows as if that has gotten us anywhere. Each who hears the call of all life must heed their hearts and act with utmost courage. Millions can and will for it is all we have.....
Principled, inclusive nonviolence really is all we have. Time is short and our dreams of a healthy children's future threatens to dissolve for all time.
No solution can be had if the Indigenous peoples continue to be excluded and silenced. They live on the frontlines of resource extraction and yet where is the alternative media attention?
Hear the traditional Dine of Black Mesa/Big Mountain and Desert Rock who oppose further coal strip mining. This is just one example. www.bmindigenoussupport.org We need to align ourselves with those who have continued resisting since Columbus got lost rather than right wing hate mongers dressed in anti government clothing.
It appears to me that the cops (are they cops or military or secret service?) keep practising and practising on how 'best" to enforce martial law. Why else would they be so far from the venue and in areas where there's no political activity (related to the event du jour)? It is ominous at the very least.