Police Violence Makes A Comeback In The Occupy Protest, ’90s Pleased To Be Remembered

So . . . that Occupy Wall Street Protest has been progressing nicely, huh?  I’m sure their message of . . . getting rid of injustice and corruption and greed, and, uh, stuff has been coming across well.  Alright, so maybe that part isn’t all that clear, but hey, at least they can turn a few lucky cops in Berkeley into YouTube stars.

Just kidding, I know the protest’s message is a clear one: get rid of corporate influence over the government, start prosecuting the corporate irresponsibility that helped lead us into this global economic crisis, and shorten the wealth gap between the rich and the remaining 99 percent of America.  The problem of course is that like many civil disobedience protest, the message starts to get muddled when it turns into a venue for hipsters to launch another Woodstock.

But I digress.  Back to the point in my intro paragraph, unprovoked and uncalled-for police brutality is the latest icing on the cake to plague protesters.  Other than being a “cheery” throwback to the ‘90s, this latest incident from the protests in Berkeley has got the nation talking about police violence again.  A recent video on YouTube shows student protesters making a stand on the University of California Berkeley campus against campus police (in case you missed them, they’re the ones donning the riot gear and nightsticks).  The protest is going along without a single punch or bottle thrown when all of the sudden the cops turn violent and start beating on the protesters.  And while I think it may be safe to assume that the protester were probably throwing tons of profanity laden criticism at the boys in blue, beating on someone because of mere words is never a justification.  This isn’t the Old West, we have laws.

However, the best part of the video is that it was taken in front of the campus’s law school building BY LAW STUDENTS.  I would think that if you were a cop and planning to crack some heads, the worst place to do it would be in front of a freaking law school full of overzealous law students.

So far though, there haven’t been any cries of lawsuit, but the real shocker is that the UC Berkeley administration seemed to have been aware ahead of time that such police violence would have gone down.  An email was sent out by administrators beforehand that campus police were going to be checking student IDs and possibly forcibly removing protestors from the area.  The email claims the administration has no control over the actions of campus police, so I guess the point of the email was more of a heads up, you might be getting your head smash down.

Now, while I’m not a fan of the mucky spectacle the Occupy Protest has become, no cop has a right to use violence when there is no provocation.  It’s not only wrong on both a moral and ethical level, it’s also illegal.  With that said, you would probably think that this would be a slam dunk lawsuit for any up and coming Atticus Finch to take on.  Well, you’d be surprised.

You see, in most jurisdictions, the laws detailing when police can and cannot use violent are written very broadly, almost vaguely some would say.  They generally state something along the line of police are entitled to use force whenever it is necessary to protect themselves, fellow officers, or the public from imminent harm or danger.  The definitions of what is consider “imminent” and what is “danger” are usually equally broad.  The reason being from a policy standpoint is that the government doesn’t want the police, who are tasked to protect the public, from having to second guess themselves too much in times of crisis.  I guess, this philosophy can be described as the shoot or, in UC Berkeley’s case, beat first and sort it out later rule of policing.

The bigger problem with this type of policy-making of course is that it generally gives a lot of leeway to cops to do whatever they want to control a situation that has the potential of escalating into something worst, like a riot á la 1992 Los Angeles, for instance.  Of course, that one happened, initially at least, because of outrage against an overly lenient verdict for the brutalizing cops, but you get the point.  In any case, the reality of the situation is that despite what some would describe as obvious unprovoked police violence in that YouTube video, many courts and defense attorneys could easily construe as an increasingly loud and unpredictable crowd of protestors ready to tear the school apart.