A couple protestors were violently arrested, one was beaten with batons in an effort to corral him.
I saw this all happen live on KTLA last night after the Laker game. It wasn't totally clear how it started, but I can say one thing for certain: the batons were not necessary to subdue anyone. Folks, this is only the next chapter in the long struggle for equality. Those of us who are straight and progressive need to do more to show our support, much like Jews worked and died for the black movement.
No link to video only photos...where were the batons? Saw what began as no doubt a peaceful protest...but as time went on and as night fell certain protesters began to block traffic with their bodies by both laying in streets and walking amongst cars causing an immediate safety hazard to not only the individual protesters but any member of the public who required the use of the roads (for example EMS, fire Dept so forth) once actions like this occur it the the job of the police to remove said safety hazard from the road. Now after a verbal warning given by police is issued and the usual Fu** the police chant begins, how do you suggest, my dear web site blogger who has absolutely no experience in crowd control or any manner of law enforcement, suggest the now law breaking protesters, be removed? with a "Pretty Please"? Perhaps levitation. Believe me i tried it never works. If you protest fine, it is your right, once you cross a legal line it is an entirely different matter. There are consequnces to everyones actions no matter how noble the cause.
Posted By: Just some guy (Guest) on November 06, 2008 at 06:20 PM
No link to video only photos...where were the batons? Saw what began as no doubt a peaceful protest...but as time went on and as night fell certain protesters began to block traffic with their bodies by both laying in streets and walking amongst cars causing an immediate safety hazard to not only the individual protesters but any member of the public who required the use of the roads (for example EMS, fire Dept so forth) once actions like this occur it the the job of the police to remove said safety hazard from the road. Now after a verbal warning given by police is issued and the usual Fu** the police chant begins, how do you suggest, my dear web site blogger who has absolutely no experience in crowd control or any manner of law enforcement, suggest the now law breaking protesters, be removed? with a "Pretty Please"? Perhaps levitation. Believe me i tried it never works. If you protest fine, it is your right, once you cross a legal line it is an entirely different matter. There are consequnces to everyones actions no matter how noble the cause.
Posted By: Just some guy (Guest) on November 06, 2008 at 06:20 PM
I'm an Obama supporter, but I'm siding with the cops. Sometimes people need a good baton shot to get them to pay attention and do as they are told.
Posted By: wcwchris (Guest) on November 06, 2008 at 06:31 PM
Can't tell for sure by your post, but why is it it's always the cops who are wrong? I've been a police officer for 13 years, and it's always my fault. It's never the fault of the asshole acting like an asshole.
Posted By: Guest#0329 (Guest) on November 06, 2008 at 09:07 PM
Hey "just some guy", this is seriously the first time I've ever fully agreed with anyone on 411. Bravo.
Posted By: YES (Guest) on November 06, 2008 at 10:44 PM
You guys knew what you were getting into no?? Complaining about the job career YOU chose is stupid. How come no one hears about most cops beating their wifes? or how most cops are alcoholics? Or being racist fucks? Killing black men and getting away with it?...get outta here pigs!!
Posted By: SYC (Guest) on November 06, 2008 at 11:12 PM
You guys knew what you were getting into no?? Complaining about the job career YOU chose is stupid. How come no one hears about most cops beating their wifes? or how most cops are alcoholics? Or being racist fucks? Killing black men and getting away with it?...get outta here pigs!!
Great! I guess you won't be calling the cops for help when I come to your house and make you HUMBLE!!!
Posted By: Sheiky Baby (Guest) on November 07, 2008 at 12:30 AM
SYC (Guest) - you are a sad pathetic little man. 99% of police put their lives on the line daily to protect a society that allows crybabies like you to feel safe enough to speak you mind (in your case, a SMALL one at that)
I commend them for their career choice and respect them for the sacrifices they make for us.
You? I can only feel pity.
Posted By: Mikel (Registered) on November 07, 2008 at 12:54 AM
The weekend Benoit killed himself and his family so did a cop.
Never heard, much about that though.
Maybe the cop did it with a gun so it was a good god-fearin' american killing, not an godless foreign strangling.
Posted By: Wooder (Guest) on November 07, 2008 at 01:10 AM
I ask only this one thing, please, please, please, please, stop comparing the struggles homosexuals are going through to the struggles black people went and are going through. Being gay is not a race, its a sexual orientation.Also did you even read the article Dave? Once again, a group of rowdy, belligerent people BROKE OFF from the peaceful demonstrators and began jumping on police cars, causing damage, and breaking through police lines. This is the same exact thing that happened when the Mexicans were beat by the cops during their rallies. A group of people broke off from the peaceful rally, started endangering peoples lives and the cops acted in a manner they're told to to protect people. Keep it peaceful and so will the cops, you jump on their police cars and things at them, you catch a baton. Got it? If someone started jumping up and down on your car I bet you'd whoop their ass too.
Posted By: Just One Thing (Guest) on November 07, 2008 at 02:00 AM
As someone who was there, I can tell you that the crowd was MUCH larger than anticipated. What was expected was a few hundred people, but they kept coming and coming until there were thousands including straight couples with babies in strollers. The march was spontaneous and unplanned and Sheriff’s Dept. was nothing but great all night long racing from intersection to intersection to block traffic for us. Older straight couples at all the sidewalk cafes on Sunset were stopping and applauding for us, some even getting up and leaving their meals to join the march. It was incredible.
Things only got sticky when the crowd crossed over in to Hollywood which is LAPD territory and they were met with police in formation with riot gear on blocking the marchers. There was no need for riot gear and intimidation. It was very peaceful and everyone was cooperative and thousands were able to march miles without problems, but hey, I don’t blame the actual policemen. They have a job to do and someone ordered them to do it. Still, I think if handled it like the Sheriff’s Dept. there wouldn’t have been a problem, but there are always a few idiots in a crowd that large who spoil it for everyone. I think there were 7 arrests in all, a few for being drunk and disorderly, one that decided to make the news by jumping on a police car and others taunting what they felt was police intimidation instead of just turning around and heading back to the “friendly” territory within the Sheriff’s Dept.
All in all, a great night following a night where we saw a product of an interracial relationship win the keys to the White House just 40 years after the last laws against interracial marriage were struck down. We know our day will come, maybe not in time for everyone marching last night, but for future generations. One of the speakers at the rally talked about attending a marriage a couple of days ago where an elderly woman walked up and spit on the couple. I have a dream . . . . that someday everyone can marry the person they love, preferably without being spit on. Then we can stay home with our families and there will be no need for police to meet us on the street in riot gear. Until then, we'll march.
Posted By: Guest#8766 (Guest) on November 07, 2008 at 03:49 AM
ummm, JOT: being black is not a race either. The concept of race was disproved early last century and we have known for quite sometime that there is no such thing as different races of humanity.
So know that youve been updated to what we learned in the 20th century, would you like to explain how its ok to oppress gays for how they were born when its not ok to oppress people because of where their anscestors where born?
Or are you so blinded by your devotion to an ancient text that claims offerig your underaged daughters to be gang-raped makes you worthy of salvation that you actually think gays should be legislatively oppressed for being the way they were born (or for those who believe in fairy stories, how your god made them)?
Posted By: Wooder (Guest) on November 07, 2008 at 08:20 AM
Wooder (Guest) - typical liberal self-righteous hypocritical bullshit.
In one breath, you purport that it is not right to attack a group of people, gays, but in the next breath, you attack a group of people, Christians.
If its ok for you to attack Christians for their choices, then it must be ok to attack gays for their choices.
Make up your mind
Posted By: Mikel (Registered) on November 07, 2008 at 02:18 PM
No need to slam religion here, Wooder. Religions can do as they please in a free society such as ours. I just don't think they should get involved in secular politics.
Religious groups should be free to approach the question of marriage as they see fit. I am thoroughly convinced though, that they should not expect the state to force all people and all other religions to abide by their decisions. That's not freedom, folks.
Posted By: Dave Schilling (Registered) on November 07, 2008 at 03:42 PM
the difference numbnuts, is that christianity is a choice and being black or gay is how you are born.
Posted By: Wooder (Guest) on November 07, 2008 at 07:08 PM
DS: this is the perfect place to slam christians. If it wasnt for their interpretation of their religion, these people would not be voting to take away other people's rights.
I say this because I have never heard anyone who does not describe themselves as religious say they want to ban gay marriages. Also, i have never heard anyone who is against gay marriage give any reasons for it other than their religion (and that it will lead to marrying horses, but we can all agree that is less an arguement and more of a right-wing fantasy).
So, yeah if people want to legislate laws based on the morality of an ancient text, I will be there to remind that that same text has God saving a man because he offered his daughters to a bunch of strangers to be gang-raped.
Posted By: Wooder (Guest) on November 07, 2008 at 07:12 PM
Also, I am not, and at no time have ever been a Liberal. I just dont believe in Theocracies like christian conservatives do.
Posted By: Wooder (Guest) on November 07, 2008 at 07:14 PM
Wooder (Guest) - I get it. Like I said, liberal self-righteous hypocritical bullshit.
The very thing left-wing whiners have been complaining about conservatives doing.
Oh, and by the way, Obama is a committed Christian - so according to you, he's an idiot for making that choice as well.
Posted By: Mikel (Registered) on November 08, 2008 at 01:38 AM
I insulted christians, I didnt attack them. There is a huge difference between having the personal opinion that someone's beliefs are wrong and acting to legislate those beliefs on other people.
Evn though I think that christanity is a dangerous cult that negatively affects out society by trying to keep in the middle and pre-middle ages, I would never do anything to make the practice of it illegal. That is only supposed to happen Theocraies run by religious fundamentalists, so you and the people who voted to enact Jim Crowe laws on gays are helping to the USA into the very thing you are spending billions of dollars and killing and maining thousands of your soldiers (not to mention the tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis and Afganis) to supposedly fight.
Insulting the intellegence of someone who chooses to bases their lives (and tries to base other people's lives) around an outdated text who's morailty is as faulty as its science is not remotely the same thing as taking away rights from people who are just behaving in a way that their naturally (or for those who believe an old man created our ancestors out of dust, God) given biology tells them to.
And if you dont see the difference then you are even less intellegent then your comments make you seem.
Which would be somewhere between Sarah Palin and J Danforth Quayle.
And again, never have and never will be a Liberal.
Posted By: Wooder (Guest) on November 08, 2008 at 12:54 PM
'I insulted christians, I didnt attack them.'
Ok, now I see. I certainly can't compete with that nugget of inane logic. I guess I'll take my degree in Astrophysics and my journeyman's ticket in roofing and go home. You are way too intelligent for me.
Posted By: Mikel (Registered) on November 08, 2008 at 08:43 PM
Insulting the intellegence of someone who chooses to bases their lives (and tries to base other people's lives) around an outdated text who's morailty is as faulty as its science is not remotely the same thing as taking away rights from people who are just behaving in a way that their naturally (or for those who believe an old man created our ancestors out of dust, God) given biology tells them to.
First off you basicly just insulted all Christians, Jews, and possibly Muslims (don't know if you consider their text as "outdated"
You can't just blatantly insult a group of people and then clain that you never insulted them because you don't consider your own snide remarks within your frai explanations as an insult
Posted By: J.J.T. (Guest) on November 10, 2008 at 12:40 AM
STAY CURRENT