Occupy Protests Put Spotlight On Police Tactics - LATimes

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Occupy protests put spotlight on police tactics
A post-9/11 climate has led some departments to respond more forcefully to Occupy protests in Northern California than they might have before, observers say.
By Maria L. La Ganga, Larry Gordon and Geraldine Baum, Los Angeles Times
November 24, 2011


Occupy Oakland protesters stand atop a railroad scaffold at the Port of Oakland. (Noah Berger / Associated Press / November 2, 2011)

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Reporting from San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York -- Police efforts to break up Occupy encampments in Northern California and elsewhere have led to investigations, apologies and lawsuits. And now the soul-searching: Why did some officers use what is being described as excessive force, wielding batons and pepper spray, against apparently peaceful protesters?

The tough response to the 2-month-old movement of civil disobedience — particularly in Oakland and on campuses in Berkeley and Davis — is an outgrowth, some say, of factors that include the spontaneous nature of the Occupy protests and two post-9/11 trends: a heightened police sensitivity to threats and a more militaristic approach to police work.

"I think we're talking about a long-term trend accelerated in the post-9/11 era," said George Ciccariello-Maher, a political scientist at Drexel University in Philadelphia. After the attacks, "the federal government began to provide military technology to police agencies, a very clear upping of the stakes."

Former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper, who presided over the chaotic and violent response to the World Trade Organization protests in his city in 1999, faults what he calls the militarization of police forces across America in the last 10 years for the heavy-handed crackdowns on Occupy protesters. "Everyday policing is characterized by a SWAT mentality, every other 911 call a military mission," Stamper wrote recently in The Nation. "What emerges is a picture of a vital public-safety institution perpetually at war with its own people."

Much more: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-police-civil-disobedience-20111124,0,4839484,full.story

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