Police find chalk to be a weapon
Last night, Friday, July 14, 2012, members of Occupy Los Angeles, during their monthly “art walk” in the city’s downtown area put on a colorful display of their creativity, chalking up sidewalks with art and messages. It was raining, and the chalk marks were being washed away almost as quickly as they appeared, but 140 LAPD officers, decked out in full riot gear, broke up the performance with a violent attack.
The press release
Occupy L. A. issued a press release on July 10th: “The Occupiers plan to chalk up downtown, in front of City Hall, Police Headquarters, and other spots around downtown, in exercise and enjoyment of their rights…Occupy L. A. plans to widely disseminate chalk at this Thursday’s Downtown Art Walk…” The Occupy movement wanted to employ chalk messaging and drawing to spread their message and make their presence known, but L. A.’s city government had other ideas.
The cops get violent
The police, at around 8:05 pm, started getting rough, pushing people off of the sidewalks and into the streets, then herding them back to the sidewalks and ordering them to disperse. According to the post-event release issued by Occupy L.A.’s media team: “The police provoked us,” said an unnamed protester, “I was pushed by cops into a garbage can, a parked car, and eventually into the street, where I was ordered back onto the crowded sidewalk I had just been pushed from.”
At least two people were shot with ‘stinger balls’. One man was shot in the face and another in the chest. Another witness said “The LAPD shot indiscriminately into the crowd at close range. I was trying to talk to the media and as we were talking a projectile was shot in between us.”
Police arrested 19 people, charging nine with vandalism, three for assault with a deadly weapon (chalk?), two for resisting arrest, two for blocking traffic, and one for attempted assault with a deadly weapon. The protesters insist, however, that they were all completely non-violent at all times
The powers that be have tipped their hand during this early summer of 2012, and they are signaling that there will be zero tolerance for even peaceful, non-violent, constitutionally protected assembly in the streets of this country. It is the last stand of a corrupt and dying empire.
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