Hey Oakland PD! Got Proof of Protesters Throwing Skillets at Cops?

Photo by Reginald James/TheBlackHour.com Flickr

Is there footage of the alleged skillet throwing? Are the throwers undercover cops? How do you know they aren't? Photo by Reginald James/TheBlackHour.com

This morning there was a raid on the Occupy Oakland encampment.

I’ve read the accounts in the Oakland Tribune, The San Francisco Chronicle and a live account from an independent citizen journalist in Salon.

As I wrote just this weekend, the authorities will use alleged examples of protester on cop violence to convince the media and public that these encampments need to be shut down. Public officials will repeat even unconfirmed reports of protester on cop violence in order to create the impression that the protesters are a bunch of rock-throwing thugs that justify police wearing full riot gear to disperse the crowd.

The suggestion of protester violence gets picked up and used by the city officials.

“We’ve been trying (to talk) with the Occupy Oakland people for the last two weeks,” Quan said. “Last week it was pretty clear that there was escalating violence. (SF Chronicle Demian Bulwa,Henry K. Lee,)

Here is an example from the Oakland Tribune above where the Oakland Police Department makes a statement to the media and is accepted at face value.

One police officer said that during the plaza camp shutdown, protesters threw several objects at police, including bottles, skillets, other kitchen utensils and rocks. They also “threw plates at us like Frisbees,” the officer said. Police confirmed that protesters had set off a fire extinguisher — mistaken at first for a smoke bomb — and several M-180 and M-1000 firecrackers, low-level explosives they used to try to confuse or deter oncoming police. (Kristin J. Bender and Sean Maher, Oakland Tribune)

I wasn’t at the dispersal. If I was I would ask the unnamed police officer a few questions: Read the rest of this entry →

What to Do When the Media Says a Protester Attacked a Cop

11:15 am in Uncategorized by spocko

If it bleeds it leads.

- Old TV news saying

Say this weekend you turn on the TV and there is a teaser headline. “Occupy Wall Street Protests Turn Violent!” You tune in to hear the details. An anchorman says something like, “As with the protests in Greece and Egypt, it was only a matter of time before the protests in America turned violent. Today Occupy Wall Street protesters began throwing rocks and bottles at police. ”

Now what do you do?

Do you drop to your knees, like Charlton Heston in Planet of the Apes and scream at the TV? “You Maniacs! You blew it up! Damn you!”

Do you cynically shake your head and think, “That’s it, the movement has been discredited with violence just like back in the old days. Now the police will have an excuse to shut down all the Occupy protests with this as an excuse.”

I’m going to suggest another approach when you hear of reports of violence at an Occupy Wall Street protests.

Photo by DavidyDave, Flickr Creative Commons

1) Challenge the assumption that the violent protester(s) are actually Occupy Wall Street protesters.

The media move fast, they don’t believe it is their job to know who started the violence, just that it started. If someone looks like an Occupy Wall Street protester, they are an OWS protester, even if they are an editor from the Right Wing publication American Spectator who is at the protest specifically to discredit the movement.

2) Scour all the footage and photos you can find of the instigators of the violence at the protest.

3) Crowd-source the images and ask for help identifying them.

4) Write a post about it on a blog with info on the person(s) and their background.

5) Contact the media and point out who that protest was started by. It could be people like:

An agent provocateur (Such as Patrick Howley, Assistant Editor of The American Spectator who bragged about his role starting the actions that led to pepper spraying at the D.C. Air and Space Museum) Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: media activism, media analysis, Occupy Seattle, Occupy Wall Street, police, protests, violence
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