Newsy: Was the Oakland Crackdown Too Extreme?

From the Newsy.com transcript. See http://www.newsy.com/videos/analysis-was-the-oakland-crackdown-too-extreme/


Officials say the protesters were attacking police with rocks and beer bottles, prompting the crowd control measures. But a spokesman for the National Lawyer’s Guild says those measures were excessive and broke the department’s own rules.

“The police violated just about every provision of their own Crowd Control Policy last night … Demonstrators were shot with rubber bullets and shot-filled ‘bean bags’. All of this is prohibited under the Policy that we helped write and under which all OPD officers and commanders are required to be trained.”

That policy was crafted after another incident in 2003, when police used crowd control measures to break up an Iraq War protest. A writer for Mother Jones explains, the department has a history of controversy.

“This isn't the first time the Oakland Police Department has been accused of excessive force. After demonstrators filled the streets of downtown Oakland in June to protest the death of Oscar Grant, the young black man shot and killed by a BART transit officer in 2009, the National Lawyers Guild filed a lawsuit accusing Oakland police of violating its crowd-control policy.”

Occupy Oakland has announced plans for a November 2 general city-wide strike on its website.

Sources: CBS MSNBC National Lawyer's Guild Mother Jones

Subscribe to the Rightardia feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/UFPYA    


Rightardia by Rightard Whitey of Rightardia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at rightardia@gmail.com.