Zig is right though in that the police are just carrying out their orders from higher up. It's the people ordering the cops who should be arrested. Starting with the federal government.

Again, I agree. Walking in someone else's shoes is a practice we can all gain from. My problem is that these brutal episodes seem to be increasing lately, as well as support for them. Folks seem fine with defending folks like Westboro Baptist when they spread their poison but don't allow young or poor folks to express their frustrations. Yes, I know there are legal issues as well as public safety to consider but we didn't hear those concerns when the Tea Party demonstrated.

Again I agree...but as I said before, there is a limit to how far "following orders" works for me.

i think the problems involved aren't just from one part of the whole equation.

you have protesters ( and yeah, the hippy description is FAR from accurate) who admittedly are pushing the limits; even to the point of trespassing, etc. they absolutely will push as far as they can. perhaps even too far
they are told to move on, they don't. they're told to break camp, they don't.
you have the police, in some cases several different forces working together such as in oakland or on the campus a few days ago which causes a whole new set off issues (not everyone has the same training, guidelines, etc), with administrators saying the kids have to go, and go now.
then you have the chiefs of police, mayors, city councils, etc.
the police are given a job to do, the protestors have their own agenda, and of course city govt has theirs, property owners have theirs. a mix right for an explosion, or several.
and with this society as litigious as it is, i'd have to think the owners of the properties being squatted on are having a collective heart attack...how would you like all that liability hanging over your head?

yeah right.....are you freakin kiddin me.....like the Nazis were just following orders too. You have to be a real piece of shet to do that to a bunch of kids just sitting there. What kind of man does that to a woman ? Cops should be fired as well as the Chancellor

Well, if you're thinking of me, I certainly haven't said all cops are bad, either. In fact, I've said the opposite on here. The bad cops I've posted here, that are brutal? You bet, they are bad. They are not just "following orders" - they are not even following their training.

You really have your finger on the pulse of what's happening :D

So in this case, the cops went in, destroyed and removed their tents. The Chancellor said demonstrations on the quad are perfectly fine, it was the tents that had to go.

Then the cops told the chief they were "scared" and trapped by the kids still sitting there peacefully demonstrating.

So the one cop just stepped over those scary, threatening kids (exposing his crotch to them), turned around, showed off his pepper spray, then walked up and down spraying those kids.

And they didn't even arrest anyone. The cops then left. There is no way to paint these two cops as anything other than disgusting.

Berkeley was where "campus free speech" started in the 1960s. It used to be not allowed on any college campus to even talk about politics, if you believe that. Students are citizens, and they have rights, and yes, they have the right, as written in the California public university code, to peacefully demonstrate on college public property - their quad.

Do the cops have a right to tell them to move? Not really. Not any more than cops have a right to tell you that you cannot be on a public street. There are tens of Occupy locations, where they've been for 2 months, no problems at all between the cops and the protesters. It depends upon how far screwed up management is in those towns - or not.

The kids that broke down the fence and invaded private property? Of course they should all be arrested for damage to property, trespass, etc.

I didn't realize that this wasn't an "Occupy UC Davis" thing. The kids were protesting a doubling of their tuition.

No, they "are" Occupy UC Davis. All the Occupy's are protesting financial abuses. Davis raised tuition 9%, in private, with zero public feedback or input.

http://www.occupytogether.org/actions/

Nightly news reported tonight that two officers identified in the video along with chief of police have been placed on administrative leave, faculty at school are united in demanding resignation of school president/chancelor(sp).

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/1...wn?via=siderec

Here is a page of what happened today at UC Davis, including multiple videos:

Katehi speaking to Occupy UC Davis General Assembly, apologizing

General Assembly meeting afterwards where faculty and students called for Katehi's resignation, and the disbanding of a campus police department.

It looks staged to me. Why aren't the cops worried about the people surrounding them? Why didn't it set everyone off? The guy at :14 is great! Officer "not so" friendly at :25 is even better. Why didn't the cops just drag them to the paddy wagon? Why does anyone want Obama's "more cops" bill? I wasn't going to comment. Good friend of mine stopped by last night, his Dad was an Investigator for the N.Y. State Police. This guy is almost as Liberal as I used to be. One of my few friends that follows racing. He said he wanted to go down to join OWS! I said they should all be in Washington. That was where all of our problems start. Lot's of Hippies where I live!

I cant resist! Thank GPK!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2ZwJ...eature=related

i see 3 policemen in that picture, along with how many others? they're outnumbered how many times over? yep, i dare folks who are pontificating to try it some time.

Oh come on....I'm outnumbered everytime I go to the track, lots of strangers rooting for other horses but I still root for mine without going for my pepper spray (lol). If the crowd was openly hostile you'd perhaps have a point but even then...been there done that without resorting to abuse. You are trained to ignore verbal abuse in those situations, remain calm and display authority without forcing the crowd's hand. If this was an angry, violent crowd, those officers would have been assaulted for what they did!

Protesters should decide what paths, streets, bridges and subways the public should use and when. However if their lawns should ever have weeds, 10 inches or taller, fine them the max, $1,200/day.

I'm starting to catch on to this whole occupy thing.

If you look at all the other videos (and there are many on the internet, covering the entire incident, not just excerpts like above), there are about 50 policemen there. There are about 30 within the "circle of kids" to the right of the picture, that were "trapped" by the kids sitting with their backs to them, and were "scared" of those "volatile" kids (the cops, btw, had just destroyed the tents, with the kids doing nothing but sit there with their backs to them in a circle while the cops destroyed their tents and property)

So they had to step over the kids, to get to their faces, so they could pepper spray them.

There was no threat. There was only ego-bruising on the part of the two idiots who sprayed the kids.

Kudos to those young people, for being the acme of peaceful protesting in the face of police abuse. MLK would be proud.

Yes he would! Except 40 some years later we still have criminals in uniform!

yep, they make the ones doing things right look bad. a few bad apples....

i think police depts need to take a long look at their training, and how often veteran cops go back for re-training. all other professions require that, i wonder if pd's do? my dad has been retired for years, so i don't know how that goes these days.

i also wonder if a lot of people just aren't taking these protests that seriously-they pale in comparison with others, and a lot of people just don't seem to even get what they're protesting. then of course these big city govts are no doubt beholden to the big businesses, just like congress is beholden to wall street.

Re-training should be mandatory at all levels of law enforcement, and psychological exams should be more than a formality....those looking to join law enforcement for power and those who project an overly macho mindset should be excluded.