Pittsburgh does the honors: first time use of sonnic cannon against U.S. civilians

Daily Finance is just gushing about the “rosy economic picture” for San Diego-based American Technology Corporation. Seems everyone is very cheery about the “successful” use of ATC’s sonic cannon against G-20 protesters in Pittsburgh:

Pittsburgh officials said yesterday they believe this to be the first use of a LRAD “sonic cannon” against civilians in U.S. history. . . . Given yesterday’s civilian debut, with no reported casualties, commercial and civilian uses for LRAD also seem possible. [CEO] Putnam said the company hopes law enforcement agencies everywhere come to realize what an effective crowd control weapon the LRAD can be.

Well that certainly is good news: a new weapon that can be used to clear streets of pesky protesters and also shore up the economy. A perfect combination. If, as predicted, 2009 and 2010 are the years of double digit unemployment, no doubt they will also be quite prosperous years for the folks at ATC and other entrepreneurs who have developed more effective “non-lethal” ways of keeping the population under control.

Filed under: Fighting oppression, Police brutality, Whose streets?

Report from Pittsburgh: September 25

Day 6 – Sept 25 – G20 protests
Posted by Bail Out the People Not the Banks on Saturday, September 26, 2009
Day 6—Sept. 25

The permitted People’s March on G-20 attracted an estimated 10,000 people, largely young people. The organizers, the People’s Voices coalition, held two rallies during the march.

Following the closing down of the Tent City on the Hill in the morning, the Bail Out the People Movement organized a speak-out and then a contingent at Freedom Corner, which fed into the People’s March.

BOPM’s Larry Holmes spoke at the first rally where he defended the youth who were brutally attacked by the police on Sept. 24 in downtown Pittsburgh. BOPM’s Cheryl LaBash spoke at the second rally on the crisis in Honduras. The March organizers asked the BOPM contingent and its banner, “Message to G-20 – WE NEED JOBS NOW” with photos of Dr. Martin Luther King, to lead the second leg of the march.

Eyewitness report from Dante Strobino:

On Friday night, I was near U. of Pitt around 10:00 when we saw a huge crowd of about over 1000 students, most of which were not political at all and certainly not involved in G-20 protests, gathered in Schenedy Park where there was a concert going on with acoustic and rock bands as part of G-20 protest events. The police began to occupy the park and forcefully removed everyone from the park. As students began to gather around to check it out, the riot police got more hyped up. There were no chants, no signs, no banners, no folks dressed in black and no provocation and the police threw several tear gas and smoke bombs at the crowd again and pushed them further back down commercial streets where there bars and restaurants. They also began chasing people into the huge dormitory towers and attacking students as they left. Students were hanging out the windows, taking pictures in awe.

Forbes St. was blocked off by hundreds of riot cops while surrounding contingents of cops moved in on the other areas of the campus to corral people in. Police brutality had been witnessed — folks being thrown to the ground and shot with rubber bullets, media being pepper-sprayed and gassed. There have been 48 confirmed arrests (an estimated 175 arrests total) with more reports still coming in. Protesters and students alike are being held in the dorm towers unable to leave in fear of being arrested; other students cannot cross 5th Ave. to get to their residences without being thrown to the ground.

I got a chance to talk to several students who had never seen anything like this in their lives. It was really interesting hearing people say “F_ck the Police”, people who you would never expect to hear this from! Even some more conservative students that I talked to, were really angry too and just confused.

What is most striking about being here is seeing the incredible police repression both Thursday and Friday night in Oakland, a neighborhood which houses U. of Pitt and Carnegie Mellon University, two universities with mostly white, mostly middle class students. As Larry Holmes commented during our Tent City, at any given normal day the police usually target and harass the Black community, but these two days not only are they (Black people) under normal occupation, but the police are targeting young white folks.

Sept. 25 quotes from students on police violence:

“People have been saying mostly that the violence and any disruption by the protest were small fraction, most protesters were peaceful. It was the police who started the violence and ended up finishing the violence. … It felt like a war zone. The police became more and violent, taking over more and more of the street. I couldn’t get to my house even until 3am on Thursday. I saw there multiple people that needed to have pepper spray washed out of their eyes. The police wouldn’t let students cross the street or enter their dorm rooms. I saw violent use of police dogs that were used to intimidate.”
- Sean O’Sullivan, senior at University of Pittsburgh

“The night before in the same location there was a mass arrest of people walking by who were thrown to the ground, maced and arrested. We were gathering there because kids in a march earlier were there. We didn’t want to march tonight; we wanted to chill and have a nice night. As we did that, more cops surrounded area…We hopped the fence to get out over the hill… as we were doing that, that police officer was beating down a fence with his nightstick to get over it; a reporter got maced in face and we brought him to steps of chapel and we were distracted. They swarmed around us and arrested the guy who was injured; he could barely breathe, trying to get him away from crowd. As kids tried to run away they picked us off one by one. [The police told a woman] to shut the fuck up and get off the goddamn phone. As she was trying to say goodbye, he grabbed her by head and slammed her head into the ground. They were being way forceful and too aggressive. They put on handcuffs way too tight. They had us sit down for awhile and wouldn’t tell us what was going on. They put us in two lines for males and females. From that point they took our photos, held out papers in front of our face with another cop. They searched us, put us in vans and wouldn’t tell us what was going on. They wouldn’t read us our rights; they only had snarky comments to say to us. We were in transportation vans for about three hours; then we got to the State Correctional Facility where we were in the van for another five hours still with plastic handcuffs on. They turned up the air conditioning to 55 degrees to make us feel as uncomfortable as possible. There were girls on periods that they would not let go to bathroom; there were girls in tears because of how bad they had to pee. You can get urinary tract infection or Toxic Shock Syndrome. We were there until 6:30 in the morning. Then they searched us, had us take off all our jewelry but our hands were swollen from cuffs and they were being real aggressive taking off rings. As soon as we stepped off the bus, a guy was holding my arm and a cop said “Say G-20″ and snapped my picture. They didn’t tell us where we were going or how long that we would be there. They didn’t answer any questions we had.”

–Jillian Dowis, sophomore at Ohio University

VIDEOS OF POLICE REPRESSION:

college students trapped in stairwell and gassed, attacked

police assault couple in street

Police pose while taking picture of arrested student

front line of resistance on Thursday afternoon, youth hurl dumpster at cops

Filed under: Economic crisis, Fighting oppression, Police brutality, Whose streets?

Report from Pittsburgh: Sept. 24

Bail Out the People Movement

www.BailOutPeople.org

Bail Out the People Home | Bail Out the People Movement Blog | Donate

Day 5-Sept. 24

The following special report was written by Dante Strobino from Raleigh Fight Imperialism, Stand Together (FIST) youth group who attending this protest:

Over a thousand people gathered in Arsenal Park in Pittsburgh to resist the G-20 countries meeting in the David L. Lawrence Convention Center downtown. Young activists representing struggles against racism, gentrification, imperialist wars, gender oppression and environmental destruction gathered together in an effort coordinated by the Pittsburgh G-20 Resistance Project. Protesters began their march through a working class neighborhood of Lawrenceville towards a bridge to get into downtown. The march continued down Liberty Avenue in an unpermitted demonstration taking over the streets with banners that read “No Hope in Capitalism”, “No Bailout, No Capitalism” and “No borders, No banks”.

Protesters were eventually stopped at the bottom of the street by police who confronted them with high frequency sound blasts and orders to disperse. Protesters then redoubled back and confronted cops again in the middle of a residential community. As resistance continued to mount up, anarchists grabbed a dumpster on wheels and hauled it down the hill directly into the police barricade, not harming anyone. The police reacted with more violence by attacking the entire neighborhood with several canisters of OC gas, Oleoresin Capsicum, a new police weapon meant to cause temporary blindness and breathing pain. From then on many different groups broke away in different directions and some marched together back towards Oakland, the neighborhood which houses University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University.

Police had been bused in from dozens of states including states as far away as Arizona and Florida, along with National Guard and SWAT units. Armed guards with camouflage humvees were stationed at every exit of the beltline around the city, blocking off entry. Most all businesses downtown including cell phone stores, apparel store, banks and restaurants were completely boarded up following Mayor Luke Ravenstahl’s suggestions, putting many workers out of work for the two days while the G-20 meets. At the universities and museums all monuments were also boarded up or covered with bags to continue to promote an atmosphere of fear. Police had to be hauled around town in several city and school buses to head off protesters. Department of Homeland Security and police helicopters have been roaring overhead the city since Wednesday night.

On their way back to Oakland through the Birchwood neighborhood a few windows were broken by protesters including a cop car window, a window at a PNC bank, BNY Mellon bank and at a BMW dealership, all of which symbolically represent institutions that are responsible for the economic crisis. A few hundred protesters continued to take the streets and make their voices heard throughout the evening. At one point, the protesters stopped the police with a stream of projectiles. Police responded with brutal blows of bean bags, causing injuries. Protesters defended themselves by blockading the street with a large chain link fence obstructing the road.

At 10 p.m. BASH BACK! organized a protest for LGBTQ liberation in Oakland near Carnegie Mellon University. Nearby at University of Pittsburgh students were gathered close to the bridge to Schenley Park, where Obama had earlier visited Phipps conservatory.

Heavy-handed police repression ensued, including the usual electronic dispersal order and tear gas, but this only attracted more and more protesters and onlookers, and soon the crowd numbered up to 1000. Reports described students with t-shirts wrapped around their faces chanting “beer pong!” and “LET’S GO PITT!”

Through the next couple hours cops were chasing students into their dorms, attacking people leaving the bars and arresting folks who were not earlier participating in protests. By the end of the night more than 60 were arrested.

Help BOPM continue to mobilize to fight for jobs, housing, and health care for all – the week-long mobilization, including the national March for Jobs and the Tent City, was a enormous success, but we need your help to continue on to the next phase of the struggle. Please consider making an urgent donation at http://bailoutpeople.org/donate.shtml.

Filed under: Economic crisis, Fighting oppression, Whose streets?

Tisane owner calls the cops on Ned Coll

I’ll admit it.  Private person that I am, I don’t particularly like being panhandled at a restaurant’s outdoor seating area . . . on the other hand, the streets belong to everyone and I really don’t like businesses owners that act like the sidewalk is their private property…or like the cops are their personal bouncers.  So I’m with Ned Coll on this one:

Activist Ned Coll Arrested After Tiff At Tisane

By DAVID OWENS

The Hartford Courant

July 16, 2009

HARTFORD —

Ned Coll, the activist and sometime presidential candidate, was arrested about 11 p.m. Tuesday after getting into a dispute with the manager of Tisane, a Farmington Avenue restaurant. Police said Coll was a patron at Tisane when a panhandler who frequents the area walked by. Coll gave the woman some money, then began to speak with her. The manager of Tisane asked the woman to move along, police said. Coll became upset with the manager, and the situation escalated to the point that restaurant staff called police. Coll, 69, who lives in Hartford’s West End and has a home in Barkhamsted, was charged with second-degree breach of peace and first-degree criminal trespass. He was released on a written promise to appear in court today in Hartford. Coll said Tuesday afternoon that the woman approached him. “This lady came up to me, and she was poor, and I helped her,” Coll said. “This guy cuts in and says ‘don’t give her any money.’ That’s where I got ticked. It’s not his business if I’m helping somebody.” Coll, who founded an anti-poverty agency called the Revitalization Corps, said restaurant staff then attacked him and dragged him out. Jack Terry, the general manager at Tisane Euro Asian Cafe, said the panhandler has been an ongoing problem at the restaurant and has been arrested before. He said the restaurant’s assistant manager was escorting the panhandler off the restaurant’s property when “Mr. Coll began screaming at him, calling him a Nazi and eventually spit on him.” So restaurant staff decided to call police. Coll was arrested after he refused to leave the restaurant, police and. “I called the guy a Nazi,” Coll said. “I didn’t spit on that guy. That’s an outrageous lie.” Coll said he scraped his elbow while being removed from the restaurant.

Copyright © 2009, The Hartford Courant //

Filed under: Fighting oppression, Whose streets?