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News :: Crime & Police |
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What The Police Are Saying On St. Louis Coptalk. |
Current rating: 0 |
by Sascha Meinrath
Email: sascha (nospam) ucimc.org (unverified!) |
16 May 2003
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This article contains the thread appearing on a public forum called St. Louis Coptalk (SLC). SLC is a forum that many St. Louis Police Officers utilize to discuss issues and topics. This thread, in particular, demonstrates a ethos of blatant disrespect and a willful interest in harming peaceful demonstrators. The entire thread is preserved along with links (in case more of it is removed from public viewing). This is incredibly scary stuff -- especially since some of the posts allude to information that has already been removed from the site and appears to have given names and addresses of various organizers and protestors. |
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http://members3.boardhost.com/stlcoptalk/msg/44710.html
Protesters
Posted by Who on May 10, 2003, 8:34 am
I missed the earlier posts about the protesters coming to St. Louis.
Who is in town (or coming) that causes the Turds to come to good old St. Lou?
Their website shows no planned action.
http://www.earthliberationfront.com/
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http://members3.boardhost.com/stlcoptalk/msg/44720.html
Re: Protesters
Posted by secret on May 10, 2003, 11:46 am, in reply to "Protesters"
The World Agricultural Forum opens May 18th. You'll have to seek further information elsewhere.
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http://members3.boardhost.com/stlcoptalk/msg/44731.html
Re: Protesters
Posted by PoPo on May 10, 2003, 4:33 pm, in reply to "Re: Protesters"
Where did the "Anarchist" posts go? Oh well, no matter. All the post with references to shooting protesters have been printed out and mailed to various media sources, Internal Affairs, the U.S. Attorney's Office, the A.C.L.U., and the Attorney General.
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http://members3.boardhost.com/stlcoptalk/msg/44736.html
Re: Protesters
Posted by Same For You on May 10, 2003, 8:31 pm, in reply to "Re: Protesters"
Same goes for your commi crap where you stated you were going to hurt us. Want to try it? Hope your health insurance is paid up.
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http://members3.boardhost.com/stlcoptalk/msg/44738.html
Re: Protesters
Posted by hardcharger on May 10, 2003, 9:00 pm, in reply to "Re: Protesters"
Nothing wrong with a peaceful protest you have that right. But, when you attempt to harm an officer or destroy property in our city you better believe we our gonna open a can of GRADE A WHOOPAZZ! You can quote that if you like.
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http://members3.boardhost.com/stlcoptalk/msg/44760.html
Re: Protesters
Posted by annie m. on May 11, 2003, 9:33 am, in reply to "Re: Protesters"
how about sending the Annie Malone crowd downtown and let them have a free for all w/ the protestors.
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http://members3.boardhost.com/stlcoptalk/msg/44767.html
Re: Protesters
Posted by one-dering on May 11, 2003, 4:33 pm, in reply to "Re: Protesters"
Is it true we're going to be issued the new tazers before next weekend? I can't wait!
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http://members3.boardhost.com/stlcoptalk/msg/44801.html
Re: Protesters
Posted by LL Cool Tazz on May 12, 2003, 9:26 am, in reply to "Re: Protesters"
Saw the boxes today, there may be a god!
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http://members3.boardhost.com/stlcoptalk/msg/44815.html
Re: Protesters
Posted by Reddy Kilowatt on May 12, 2003, 8:05 pm, in reply to "Re: Protesters"
I want that 220 Volt model that blows the teeth out of their head, just before they crap their pants.
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http://members3.boardhost.com/stlcoptalk/msg/44742.html
Re: Protesters
Posted by Watch'm on May 10, 2003, 9:43 pm, in reply to "Re: Protesters"
Now we know where some are staying:
April 30, 2003
Housing Information
Homestays: If you do not wish to arrange for your own accomodations in St. Louis during Biodevastation 7, you can request a homestay or housing recommendations from local organizers. Requests must be made by Friday, May 9 to be considered.
Please email Barbara Chicherio & Mary Holman, housing coordinators, or leave a message with your name, phone number and desired accomodations at 314-353-8176.
Hostel: Huckleberry Finn Youth Hostel, 314-241-0076. 1906 So. 12th St., (near Downtown) / $18.00 per person plus a one time $3.00 joining fee. Other costs are $2.00 for linens and a $5.00 deposit, which is returned at checkout. These are dormitory style accommodations that are modest but affordable.
Hotels:
All accommodations below are 20-30 min. from Biodevastation 7:
Motel 6 at the Airport, 314-427-1351/ 4576 Woodson $45.99/2 beds
Red Roof Inn near the Airport, 314-739-7204 / I-270 and St. Charles Rock Road 49.99/2 beds
Travelodge at the Airport, 314-890-9000 / 9645 Natural Bridge Road $69.00/2 beds
Days Inn at the Airport,314-423-6770 4545 Woodson Road $69.99/2 beds
Best Western Airport, 314-427-5955 /10232 Natural Bridge Road $75.00/2 beds
Hampton Inn at the Airport, 314-427-3400 / I-70 at Lambert Int’l. Airport $90.00/2 beds
Link: http://www.biodev.org/archives/000073.php
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http://members3.boardhost.com/stlcoptalk/msg/44776.html
Re: Protesters
Posted by S on May 11, 2003, 6:11 pm, in reply to "Re: Protesters"
I don't know why the information posted previously was removed, as it was info obtained through internet search engines. Not Regis. That is why the info did not give full date of birth, social security etc. If these folks want to mix it up with us, and want to post their name out over the net, they are fair game too. I don't know if youv'e noticed, but one of their sites has pictures of some of our officers on it. Why do we have to play fair and they don't?
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http://members3.boardhost.com/stlcoptalk/msg/44784.html
Re: Protesters
Posted by A Moderator on May 11, 2003, 8:15 pm, in reply to "Re: Protesters"
We will not allow posting of names and addresses of private citizens, regardless of the subject matter. If you think these people are a threat to police officers, get authorization from your Watch Commander and post the names on Department Outlook, which is not accessible to the public.
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http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/index.php?function=publish
Re: Protesters
Posted by Seattle???? on May 13, 2003, 11:59 pm, in reply to "Protesters"
Will this be another Seattle? I don't know, and
from what I have heard, no one else really knows.
I would like to thank the MR sgts who have
put a helluva lot of time into preparing us for
this. I know at least two MR sgts have put in
about 12 hours a day plus to get us prepared and
will probably not get any credit (or overtime
pay).
If we make it through the storm, I am buying them
both alot of beer.
You guys know who your are.
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http://members3.boardhost.com/stlcoptalk/msg/44869.html
Re: Protesters
Posted by tom t on May 14, 2003, 9:12 am, in reply to "Re: Protesters"
Mobile Reserve will be prepared, the question would be how long can those trained people put up the good fight before they must fold? At some point, numbers become important and we may not have the numbers necessary to fulfill the task. These are groups that are trained to recognize when a department is understaffed and to take advantage of that fact. Also a good time for those who still use the drop handcuff carrier to rethink that idea. I still see a lot of those out there, they will be gone in this situation.
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http://members3.boardhost.com/stlcoptalk/msg/45056.html
Re: Protesters
Posted by Not Seattle on May 16, 2003, 7:41 pm, in reply to "Re: Protesters"
Barring major bizarreness, this is not going to be another Seattle--it's a minor protest! A bunch of politicians are trying to hype it up--don't fall for it. Relax and do your job, let the protesters say what they think peacefully, and all should be fine.
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Comments
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Re: What The Police Are Saying On St. Louis Coptalk. |
by Sascha Meinrath
sascha (nospam) ucimc.org (unverified) |
Current rating: 6
16 May 2003
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http://members3.boardhost.com/stlcoptalk/msg/44666.html
Deleted Messages
Posted by None on May 9, 2003, 12:35 pm
We were advised that some of the domestic terrorist groups that will be visiting us soon have been looking at this site and gaining information as to our numbers and plans. It was requested that we delete the messages pertaining to those groups.
We were also told that an officer has been giving information to these groups, either intentionally or without thinking. Please refrain from posting messages about these groups until after they leave. We don't want to give them any information that they may be able to use to their advantage. Please be safe out there.
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Biodev Cycle Circus Arrested For Riding Their Bikes.... |
by the flying rudabegas cycle circus
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 8
16 May 2003
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Bicycling outlawed in St. Louis.
Flying RutaBagaS Cycle Circus performers arrested on route to show and detained for seven hours for operating bicycles w/out licenses.
Bike arrests part of larger Pre- emptive crackdown on biotech protesters.
Nine members of the 25 person FlyIng RutAbagas biCycle CIrCus caravan (see bike caravan @ www.biodev.org)were arrested in Tower Grove park in St. Louis early Friday morning. The arrest was part of a larger pre-emptive strike against activists converging in St. Louis as part of the global resistance to corporate control of agriculture. The contingent of cycling rUtabagAs, 8 men and one woman were originaly cuffed hauled off to jail for operating bicycles w/out licences. The RutaBagaS then endured seven hours of bureaucratic phynagling and bad jokes, without phone calls, food and water. After signing a summons to appear in court for the crime of riding a bcycle w/out a license the rUtAbags were told their bicycles would be impounded until they could produce proof of ownership. Ultimately, they were charged with impeding the movement of traffic (in the city park???) then released. Many of the other Flying rutabAgas Circus freaks were arrested during a raid at the bolo zone collective. Most of The Circus supplies, food, video equiptment, bicycles and personal belongings remain captive within the collective house that was falsely deemed condemned following police raid. None of the rudabegas were physically hurt in these arrests, and their spirits reamained high while the police continualy harrased them about their 'god daaaaaamn smell!'. Look for the flying rudabega cycle circus on their cycle tour from st. louis to D.C. this month. They will not let this stop them. The revolution will not be motorized.
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Peaceful, My Ass |
by bfd
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: -3
16 May 2003
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The police are totally justified in having this attitude (though I understand they appreciate the overtime pay). I believe in the right to peaceable assembly, but it's become pretty evident that this isn't what these folks who show up at these events are all about. And don't talk to me about provocation. Hippies don't wear masks. Well, they do on occasion tackle bikers from behind and try to boost their cameras. These events have essentially become Internet-planned riots, and the IMC Websites were created to achieve that end. It's time you admit it, and just quit the posturing. |
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BF's D & A |
by pm
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 10
17 May 2003
Modified: 08:14:56 AM |
OK, so F, the "apple polishing wanker," believes that armed agents of the state should be pre-emptively arresting protesters. I suppose that's consistent with his/her foreign policy view that we should invade any country we suspect may posess weapons we think they shouldn't have.
It's a good thing the rest of the world doesn't think that way. It's also a shame to see he/she is so willing to dispense with civil liberties. Guilty until proven innocent in the right's New America.
Since 1999, state-supported paramilitary forces like police and the FBI have turned heavily to pre-emptive arrest. For example, before the Republican national convention in Philadelphia, hundreds of people were arrested, including two well-known activists who were charged with the nearly indefensible super-crime of "conspiracy" (see The Trial of Dr. Spock for an example of how conspiracy charges have been used against peaceful protest) and hit with $1 million bond. The charges failed to stick, but the message was clear--speak out in a way the state disapproves of, and you'll find yourself subject to the unchecked wrath of police like those speaking in the interchange posted here.
It's fine that F wants that kind of a country. S/he's either a shill for people who benefit from that kind of power, or he likes the thought of Spain under Franco, Chile under Pinochet, Indonesia under Suharto, etc. Some people do prefer highly restricted civil liberties. |
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Strolling Down Memory Lane... |
by pm
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 3
17 May 2003
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Philadelphia Inquirer, Sunday, January 14, 2001
City's push for peace at GOP meeting raises rights debate
Police won wide praise for quelling protests during last summer's convention. But nearly all criminal cases have been rejected. Critics say the city traded civil liberties for peace.
By Linda K. Harris and Craig R. McCoy
INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS
After police made nearly 400 arrests during the Republican National Convention over the summer, police commanders and city officials congratulated themselves on a job well done.
"We can sustain the charges, and we think we can prove it in court," Police Commissioner John F. Timoney said in the days after the arrests.
The court verdicts are now largely in, and the charges have not been sustained.
Of about 300 cases that have been resolved, prosecutors have won just 12 convictions - all misdemeanors. The reversals in court have added credibility to complaints that the rights of protesters were swept aside in the city's zeal to keep the streets open and peaceful at every corner.
The District Attorney's Office quietly dropped scores of cases. Judges, growing impatient at times, have acquitted defendants in dozens more. "You're going to have to have somebody come in here and testify that somebody did something wrong," Municipal Court Judge James M. DeLeon told prosecutors shortly before dismissing 38 cases in one shot.
The unsuccessful prosecutions have accumulated too late to negate the early seal of approval that the city achieved as convention host from July 31 to Aug. 3. The convention was a huge success for the city. Convention-goers moved about without disruption. Police kept order and guarded property without resorting to tear gas.
A more distant perspective reveals the steep price at which this success was delivered: widespread violation of civil liberties.
"What you saw here was a concerted activity by government to punish people prematurely and to keep people off the street," said David Rudovsky, a defense lawyer and civil-liberties expert.
For some, it was just good police tactics. In the days before the convention, a collective anxiety had filtered through the city, whose leaders anticipated showing off to the world a new, improved Philadelphia.
Jangling their nerves further was the specter of Seattle, where less than a year before, television broadcast to the world images of police battling in the streets with demonstrators, windows being smashed, and stores being looted as the World Trade Organization meeting turned into a shambles.
Could that happen in Philadelphia?
Activist organizations put Philadelphia on their agenda. Slogans were devised and the call went out over the Internet: "See you in Philadelphia!"
No one knew exactly what that might mean. But the police commissioner established a simple goal: "Let me give you the goal, the overall goal, the one goal that I wanted, the paramount goal for the the Philadelphia Police Department: Not to be seen on the six o'clock news beating the living daylights out of protesters. That was the number-one goal," Timoney said in a recent interview.
But there seem to have been other goals as well. Protesters were taken out of the game, their leaders were arrested, and their propaganda destroyed.
With their tactics scrambled, the protesters drew little national attention. The city was a hit with convention-goers. And Timoney was lauded: One article called him "America's No. 1 cop."
But in the city where the Bill of Rights was drafted some believe the tenets of that document were compromised.
"I think the administration made a calculation that Philadelphia is going to make X number of dollars, and we're going to keep it orderly, and if we violate some rights and have to pay some money out later, it will still be worth it," said Larry Frankel, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania.
Said Rudovsky: "They decided to use prolonged detention, high bail and overcharging as a means of punishing and preventing dissent. Given that, you can't give them too much credit for not using rubber bullets or tear gas. You have to look at the whole picture."
After being in custody for several days - until the convention had ended and the national and international media had left - the protesters were released and assigned court dates.
The 140 cases that have gone to trial so far have resulted in just 12 convictions, including that of Terrence McGuckin, 19, a protest leader who was held on misdemeanor charges and whose bail was set at $500,000 bail. He was sentenced to three months' probation.
Many cases folded because police could not identify those arrested and link them to a crime. In addition, 120 people accepted an offer from the district attorney for short probation and a clean record at the end. And 40 people were charged with summary offenses - akin to traffic tickets - that were resolved with fines.
Of 40 felony cases, 17 remain, and there have been no convictions.
Timoney expressed frustration that so many cases had fallen apart.
"Why the difficulty of matching up prisoners with cops is beyond me," he said. "I don't have time to go over there and figure out every single case of everybody here. I assume certain things happen or should be happening. Clearly, they are not."
The collapse of the case against John Sellers, head of the Ruckus Society, proved especially embarrassing.
Sellers, 34, of California, was plucked off city streets on Aug. 2, a day after intense street blockades. Police had tailed him as part of a far-reaching intelligence operation that included compiling dossiers, jotting down license-plate numbers, and snapping surveillance photos, court testimony and documents revealed.
After Sellers' arrest, prosecutors maintained that he had sown "violence and mayhem," and they persuaded a bail commissioner to set bail at $1 million - an unprecedented amount for misdemeanor charges. He stayed in jail for six days, until his bail was lowered to $100,000.
On the day of his trial in November, prosecutors withdrew the case, saying there was no evidence against him.
Timoney denies that police rounded up people without cause.
"I don't see how that's possible," he said. "I'm not saying it couldn't have happened. I can speak for the locations where I was at, where we made the arrests."
District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham turned down requests for interviews but said through her spokeswoman: "There was no advance plan to get tough. The plan was to charge people with the appropriate crimes. And that is what we do."
The stakes were high. Police set out to decipher the new anti-globalism movement, viewed as a threat to a reconstituted Philadelphia making its international debut.
Philadelphia police forged links with the Secret Service, the FBI, the state police, and other law enforcement agencies across the nation.
In May, the FBI convened a meeting in Philadelphia for local and state police to coordinate plans. A central communications center was set up at an Army facility in South Philadelphia.
As the summer wore on, city undercover officers began photographing activists in Philadelphia as they prepared for the convention. Police initially denied taking the pictures, only to confirm having done so later.
Other intelligence was gathered. An investigative file was kept on Kate Sorensen, a longtime AIDS activist from West Philadelphia. Authorities gathered Sorensen's water and real estate records, bought private data to track her whereabouts as she moved across the country, and examined the voter registrations of her friends, according to documents given to her lawyers.
Sorensen, 38, was held in jail for 10 days, also on $1 million bail. She is awaiting a March trial date on felony charges of riot and risking a catastrophe. She has been arrested 10 times during 20 years of civil disobedience, but never charged with a felony or crime of violence.
Timoney says he did not know that one tactic of the state police was to infiltrate the activists.
About a week before the convention, four men with short hair and goatees showed up at an old brick warehouse in West Philadelphia that became known as "the puppet warehouse." They said they were union stagehands from Wilkes-Barre, handy with carpentry.
In fact, they were state troopers, but the demonstrators believed their story.
The infiltration took place while city police were restricted by a policy that permitted such undercover work only with the approval of the managing director.
"I knew they had informants," Timoney said. "Everybody's got informants. The issue is the Philadelphia Police Department. The only way you can infiltrate is if I sign off on it.
"First of all, I don't believe in this horses-. Number 2, I didn't sign off on anything. Now other people said, 'You used the state police.' That's bulls-."
One mass arrest that ended in a complete failure for the prosecution began Aug. 1, when police surrounded the "puppet warehouse," which was used for making props, floats and other propaganda.
Relying on information from the four undercover troopers, Philadelphia police moved in. They found bags of concrete and sand, gas masks, a roll of metal fence mesh, pipe and other materials, and arrested everyone in the building, including the owner and office manager.
That night, the District Attorney's Office charged all 75 people with nine misdemeanors each, including conspiracy to block a highway. The 75 spent the next several days behind bars.
In DeLeon's court, the four agents testified that the warehouse was a beehive of planning for illegal street blockades. But they could not identify a single person who engaged in the planning and had to acknowledge that the owner and office manager were never involved.
DeLeon said that although there appeared to be illegal activity in the warehouse, he could not convict anyone the police could not identify after the indiscriminate roundup.
"When they swooped down, they got everybody," the judge said. "Those who might have been doing something peaceful and those allegedly doing something illegal."
The District Attorney's Office withdrew the charges last month.
Another raid at the warehouse conducted by the Department of Licenses and Inspections made any colorful street demonstrations impossible. The agency arrived with empty trucks the day after the mass arrests. It loaded, and later destroyed, material left behind - signs, banners, satirical puppets of Uncle Sam and the like, as well as more than 100 mock skeletons symbolizing those executed in Texas on death warrants that Gov. George W. Bush signed.
"The reason we didn't see extraordinarily nuanced and sharp, crisp actions," the Ruckus Society's Sellers said, "was because the banners, the props, the puppets, the costumes, all the regalia, all the political message, was stolen, was silenced, was seized in that puppet space before the activists could get it out into the streets."
Rudovsky said that police were right to worry about keeping the peace but that they went too far.
"On one level, the city and police were concerned about possible violence. Can they put that on the table and be concerned? Sure. But I think what happened is they started to equate any kind of protest that involved any kind of possible illegal activity with the kind of violent actions that they saw in Seattle."
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Re: What The Police Are Saying On St. Louis Coptalk. |
by Dear BFD
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 13
17 May 2003
Modified: 05:51:55 PM |
The issue of masks troubles you apparently. Well, look at it this way...when protest organizers (peaceful, mind you. A lot of loonies on this board linking everything to Seattle but there's not much basis for that.) have their homes raided, are arrested, are paid visits by the FBI or worse yet face COINTELPRO style tactics of the past... well, it's only common sense to try and hide your identity at these events. Know why? Because people are keeping files. What they DO with the information they collect ISN'T always legal and it ISN'T always in the best interest of the American people. In fact, it's obvious that your police force has been keeping a few files of it's own given their actions today.
Cops, Feds and the like all have power. Power can very easily corrupt. It has continually throughout history. If you don't know what I mean do a Google search for COINTELPRO or the Palmer Raids. |
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Re: What The Police Are Saying On St. Louis Coptalk. |
by Officer Friendly
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: -3
18 May 2003
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Now the cops are encouraging each other to post all over St. Louis Indymedia all while the moderators delete any dissent that pops up on their site. Typical cops behavior - only cops get freedom, everybody else gets pepperspray.
Give them a taste of their own medicine:
http://members3.boardhost.com/stlcoptalk/msg/45210.html
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What About MY Civil Liberties? |
by bfd
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: -4
19 May 2003
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The people you're so quick to defend have absolutely no regard for MY right to peaceable assembly and freedom of movement when they barricade the streets. They have no respect for my right to be secure in my property. But oddly, that's not a problem for you. What goes around comes around, and thankfully, the police finally have your number and are shutting this nonsense down. Calling the FBI a "state supported paramilitary force" is pretty absurd, but if that's really how you feel, maybe this country just doesn't suit you very well anymore. We'd both be better off if you would just leave. But, you won't. You'll stay, and sponge off of the rest of us. |
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Re: What The Police Are Saying On St. Louis Coptalk. |
by T. Jefferson
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 4
19 May 2003
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Hey bfd, check your stats. The Cops barricade streets and destroy property far more often than any protestors. They just don't get much press when they do it, because it's all in a day's work. Just this weekend the NYC cops scared a woman to death (she had a heart condition) because they raided her home looking for drug dealers -- problem was, it was the wrong home. Ooops! Whose civil liberties?
Oh, yeah, but it wasn't YOUR home, so I guess you don't care.
The day you get targeted -- whether or not you've broken the law -- and get hassled, detained, or even have your house raided, you'll change your mind.
The US was born of revolution, by men unwilling to just love it or leave it. It was born of change, and if you can remember your history books, some of that change was violent.
But I'm guessing that when the Boston Tea Party was dumping tea into the harbor, you've have stood there and clucked your tongue. You'd have cheered on the redcoats in their battle against the revolutionaries who dared to spite the King.
When the cops beat and arrested bus riders and black folks conducting sit-ins in Mississippi you've have cried out that they were violating your civil liberties to ride the bus and eat lunch without having to deal with a sit in.
That's what I love about trolls like you, history begins in 1980 and everything you can remember from before that comes from watching reruns on TV. |
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The Most Offensive Thing On This Web Site Yet |
by bfd
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 2
19 May 2003
Modified: 09:41:45 AM |
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Comparing the Boston Tea Party or the freedom riders to the inane flunk-out suburban white kids wearing black hooded sweatshirs and hurling rocks is an affront to everything you just professed to admire. These ridiculous, nonsensical "protests" are nothing more than thril crimes; it's like burning rubber in front of the Dairy Queen, but wrapped in pseudo-politics so that it tries to achieve the protection of the first amendment. It's a bunch of malarkey, and it's finally being treated as such. |
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Fascism Is Simply "Tidy" Democracy |
by *
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 3
19 May 2003
Modified: 10:53:47 AM |
Wasn't it Donald Rumsfeld who said "It's untidy..." in regards to democracy? Although Rummy was simply making excuses for why the US was far more worried about protecting the Iraqi oil ministry than it was about protecting civilization's legacy in Iraq and the remark had nothing at all to do with real democracy, I wonder what's up with bfd's dismissal of the right of people to exercise their freedoms, instead of simply superficially prattling on about them, like he does?
It should be noted that in nearly all the arrests connected with the Biodev conference in the last few days, there was no evidence of any actual crime being committed, simply concocted and ridiculous fabrications on the part of the police to arreest those whose views they don't like.
I can pretty much tell that bfd has no regard for those who actually peacefully exercie their civila rights. But I wonder, considering he is a member of the "property rights uber alles" crowd, why isn't bfd complaining about the violation of the property rights of many of those arrested. See: http://www.stlimc.org/front.php3?article_id=9320&group=webcast and other stories on St. Louis IMC, http://www.stlimc.org/
In all these cases, bicycles were seized by the police until proof of ownership can be produced. Isn't it a fact that accusations of criminal behavior are unsustainable if there is no actual proof of a crime being committed? In none of these cases has there actually been any evidence presented that any of the bicycles seized was actually reported as stolen. Isn't being asked to prove one's innocence about as un-American a thing as possible? It doesn't bother bfd in the least bit. His views on civil and human rights are strictly based on what's good for him and he could care less about what happens to others.
Unfortunately, it is the tiny minority of Americans who hold such views who have seized power in our government. And unfortunately, most Americans are fooled into believing the rhetoric of this disreputable bunch of desperados, instead of judging their oppressive actions critically. |
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Re: What The Police Are Saying On St. Louis Coptalk. |
by T. Jefferson
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 5
19 May 2003
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bfd -- Dismissal is the tactic of the uniformed. It's easy to dismiss the protestors in St. Louis, Seattle, or even Prague as "inane flunk-out suburban white kids wearing black hooded sweatshirs," except for the fact that you're wrong and clearly have made no effort to look at facts and understand.
Freedom riders were also dismissed during their time in a similar fashion, born of misunderstanding and disinformation. Believe what you want to believe bfd, it doesn't change the facts.
And even if a few protestors are "suburban white kids," their freedoms are your freedoms. Nobody gets to pick and choose their liberties when they're on the business end of a pepper spray can or a billy club. When they come for you, there'll be noone left to lend you a hand.
Confronting facts would mean questioning your preconceived world-view, and you're obviously not interested in rocking your own boat that way. Which is fine, since all you amount to is an annoying troll on a message board. |
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The Difference That You Don't Get |
by bfd
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: -2
19 May 2003
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Their freedoms are NOT my freedoms. I don't break the law. They do, in the course of trying to deny my freedoms. That's why the get their heads cracked, why I support and participate in a government that ensures my freedoms and why I'm glad that they get their heads cracked. These idiots have been allowed to conspire to commit criminal acts ever since the riots in Seattle became a cultural (not political) phenomenon and it's high time that they're addressed adequately. |
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The Face Of "peaceful Protesters" |
by bfd
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
19 May 2003
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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/030519/168/43vm9.html
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The Face Of A "Peaceful Cop"? |
by zits
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 6
19 May 2003
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or perhaps that people are simply trying to protect themselves against abuse by the police?
remember that it is only the police who throw teargas. |
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Bless 'em |
by bfd
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: -2
19 May 2003
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If the "peaceful protesters" didn't act like idiots, they wouldn't get tear gassed. Did the pro-contraception people at the state senator's office get gassed? No. It's a pattern of behavior on the part of these meatheads, one deserving of a nightstick upside the head. |
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Re: What The Police Are Saying On St. Louis Coptalk. |
by T. Jefferson
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 8
19 May 2003
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bfd - the paradoxes you hold together are amazing. On the one hand you pick on protestor and because he wears a gas mask for protection you call him violent, all in an effort to portray that one protestor as representative of all. Then you say if he breaks the law he gets what he deserves.
But yet you don't criticize lawbreakers like the freedom riders and the Boston Tea Party.
It seems to me that the lawbreakers are OK with you if their crimes are in the past and history now deems them OK. But I bet if you were in Jackson, MI in 1962 you'd be chastising the lawbreakers that are now looked upon as heroes.
Bringing this back to the St. Louis topic -- none of the protestors in St. Louis made one violent act. Not one. Sure, you'll claim that they planned to and the police pre-empted that. But that's not a fact, just spectulation at best.
By that reasoning the police should be rounding up anyone who *might* commit a crime. Oh, wait, that's what they are doing. Gee, bfd, better hope nobody ever suspects that *you* might commit a crime one day.
Never mind self-defense. So if a cop is wrongly beating you, you should just sit there and take it?
You live in a simple world that will be broken by simple means. |
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Boo Fucking Hoo |
by hypocrisy detector
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: -4
19 May 2003
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wow, police were on an internet chatroom saying nasty things about protestors?
GOSH I CANT IMAGINE ANY PROTESTORS DOING THE SAME THING RE COPS |
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What Hypocrisy Is |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 11
19 May 2003
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Exercising one's right of free speech is hardly what I call hypocrisy. Hypocrisy would be the cops silencing the other side on the CopTalk board, while the cops (like you?) are given space here on Indymedia to have your say, such as enumerated in this article:
http://www.stlimc.org/front.php3?article_id=9373&group=webcast
You better get a new hypocrisy detector, because it doesn't seem to be working here. It also appears your constitutional violations detector needs servicing. |
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Re: What The Police Are Saying On St. Louis Coptalk. |
by Mr. Blah
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 11
19 May 2003
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Don't lump all "protesters" together. Anyway, the Seattle mayhem began when the police wished to expand the perimeter around the building in order to have more control over the situation. The method was teargas, rubber bullets, etc. two hours later, roughly 150 people (not the 30,000 who showed up) engaged in property destruction. |
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Re: What The Police Are Saying On St. Louis Coptalk. |
by Mr. Blah
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 8
19 May 2003
Modified: 08:32:18 PM |
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How many of these "meatheads" were engaging in acts that deserved a severe police response? You lump an entire class of people into one person. You assume they are guilty until proven innocent, simply for standing in a particular region. That, my friend, is simply unamerican. Would you advocate busting into a ghetto, cracking random skulls, because there are some crack dealers among them somewhere in the neighborhood? Should the police assume they're all gangsters and make them prove their innocence? |
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Re: What The Police Are Saying On St. Louis Coptalk. |
by nickstein
NICKSTEIN (nospam) hotmail.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 6
20 May 2003
Modified: 03:49:13 AM |
Sadly a few bad police make others look bad and are trying to justify their baddness by inciting others. My uncle's a cop and he reckons their kind should be sorted out by their peers and soon. It happens at all levels in all professions and integrity and reputation of the entire group suffer when solidarity with these goons dominates.
Their actions are tolerated in this fear environment. It's a sad day for the USA when our war criminals are supoened in other countries before we have the balls to do it. If Kissinger was a black hispanic profile he would be barbqd now on his multiple murder charges. Time to sort out the crime at the top, by legal means of course, that hurts their kind the most. Truth and accountablity are what all should combine to demand and the rest of justice agendas will follow. Imagine the world if no holocaust had happened.Let's stop the survivors creating another one out of paranoia : no-one hates anyone!no-one is anti-anygroup. Relax and enjoy our wonderful prosperity and friends and respect all views. Holy crap I think sometimes the world power brokers have gone mad. Have a nice day,bye. |
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The Events Speak For Themselves |
by bfd
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
20 May 2003
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The city and the police department made it clear that the weren't going to put up with any crap, and yesterday, seeing that the party was cancelled, no more than four people showed up to voice the message that you're saying is on the same level with the civil rights movement and the Boston Tea Party. Obviously, they don't think so. For them, it's just a fun time to have at everyone else's expense, and when it looked like it wasn't going to happen, they scurried back to their parent's basements. This should be a model for how to deal with these morons in the future. |
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More Free Speech, BFD-style |
by pm
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 8
20 May 2003
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* PASADENA CITY COLLEGE has suspended its police chief and a lieutenant as officials investigate whether the officers used excessive force against two students during a clash that began as one of the students was attempting to publicize a peace rally.
http://chronicle.com/daily/2003/05/2003051906n.htm
And, thank you, Nickstein, for a pointing out that not all cops are bad. It seems that bad cops' peers face an up-hill battle sorting them out, though; and that's where community review boards for police forces become important--to support the good cops. (No community review boards exist for the Urbana, Champaign, Champaign County, the U of I, or Parkland College police forces. Not for the state police, either.) |
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More Free Speech, BFD-style |
by pm
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 3
20 May 2003
Modified: 09:28:26 PM |
* PASADENA CITY COLLEGE has suspended its police chief and a lieutenant as officials investigate whether the officers used excessive force against two students during a clash that began as one of the students was attempting to publicize a peace rally.
http://chronicle.com/daily/2003/05/2003051906n.htm
And, thank you, Nickstein, for a pointing out that not all cops are bad. It seems that bad cops' peers face an up-hill battle sorting them out, though; and that's where community review boards for police forces become important--to support the good cops. (No community review boards exist for the Urbana, Champaign, Champaign County, the U of I, or Parkland College police forces. Not for the state police, either.) |
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Re: What The Police Are Saying On St. Louis Coptalk. |
by Jack Ryan
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: -3
21 May 2003
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Dear Sascha,
You Said:. Please refrain from posting messages about these groups until after they leave. We don't want to give them any information that they may be able to use to their advantage. Please be safe out there.
If I read this correctly, you are stating that you do wish to give the police any information regarding potential terrorists. Please tell me you are mistaken, stupid or whatever. If you have information that could prevent an incident, does this mean that you and your comrades would not contact the proper authorities.
I know I disagree with you folks and I do not like anyone of you, but this cannot be the case. If it is, then I will do my utmost to notify to the right people and have them take you in. I have always said that what you people do is un-American and now I think you have crossed a line.
Jack
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Re: What The Police Are Saying On St. Louis Coptalk. |
by T. Jefferson
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 5
21 May 2003
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Jack, are you the same guy who just announced his candidacy for the republican nomination for Peter Fitzgerald's Senate Seat?
Anyway, a second question -- can you read? Do you know the difference between something that is reposted and something which someone actually wrote? Gosh, I hope you are the same Jack Ryan running for Senate, because with brains like yours, defeat will be guaranteed, no matter what moron the Dems choose to run against you.
By the way, explain to us again why you waste your time posting here when you clearly like nobody and disagree with everyone? Is your life so unfulfilled and lonely that you have to spend it lobbing proverbial spitballs?
Nevermind, I think we already know the answers. |
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Read Carefully Jack, |
by 5
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 3
22 May 2003
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Sascha's post is from Coptalk---a cop wrote it.
Please do inform the "authorities" of these actions by the police.
Thanks.
(By the way, your @ss is showing.) |
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Re: What The Police Are Saying On St. Louis Coptalk. |
by Jack Ryan
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: -1
23 May 2003
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Dear T. Jefferson,
First, How's Sally? My bad, I did read it incorrectly. No, I am not currently running for the Senate. Interesting that you think the Dem's will put up a Moron again. I thought Ambassador Braun was running for President.
With this criteria in mind, why don't you consider a run?
Jack |
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Re: What The Police Are Saying On St. Louis Coptalk. |
by Jack Ryan
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
24 May 2003
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Dear 5,
You said: (By the way, your @ss is showing.) Thanks for saying I have a nice ass. You're not the first. I have noticed that you always accuse me of running and yet I always have the last post. Why is that? |
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Latest On Police Property Destruction |
by RENé SPENCER SALLER
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
29 May 2003
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SLPD Raid Band Practice Space Looking for anti-WAF activists
by RENé SPENCER SALLER
For whatever reason, cops suspected the practice space next to Off Broadway as a "movement house" and raided it the same morning as Bolozone and CAMP.
Grand Funk: Police tactics are called into question as Grand Ulena is rendered homeless
Grand Ulena, St. Louis' enigmatic ambassadors of artcore, so loved the building where they practiced that they commissioned a painting of it, which adorns their debut CD, Gateway to Dignity (Family Vineyard). The beautiful turn-of-the-century brick three-story is adjacent to one of St. Louis' best live-music clubs, Off Broadway (3511 Lemp). It's also on the city's demolition list.
Two years ago, when Connie Garcia and partner Joe Telle bought Off Broadway, they also assumed ownership of the adjoining building, which was already in considerable disrepair. For the past decade-plus, scores of bands have used the property to practice, and Garcia and Telle continued the tradition, more as a public service than anything else. As any local musician can tell you, affordable practice space is hard to come by in St. Louis -- a cruel irony, given the abundance of vacant buildings. (See Jason Toon's feature "Debt Rehearsal" in our March 13, 2002, issue.) The Lemp building was perfect for this purpose: cheap, spacious and isolated enough to keep neighbors from complaining about the noise. Unfortunately, it wasn't meant to be.
On the afternoon of Friday, May 16, Grand Ulena guitarist Chris Trull got a frantic call from Garcia, who informed him that he and his bandmates (bassist Darin Gray and drummer Danny McClain) needed to move their equipment immediately. A team consisting of several police officers and city building inspectors had kicked in all the doors, ransacked the stored gear in the hopes of finding squatters (read: "eco-terrorists") and then left without securing the building. When Trull arrived to collect his stuff, he was shocked to find the practice room trashed and McClain's drum heads slashed. "I don't know why," Trull says. "The drum heads were clear, so it's not like you couldn't see into them. It was definitely done spitefully. We had a pile of T-shirts that were left nicely folded, and they were thrown all over the room -- and, mysteriously, some bottles of bleach just showed up. We were, like, 'What is this? Are they trying to plant evidence that we're making meth or something? Do they want it to look like we're cleaning needles with it, or what?'" Trull estimates that replacing the drum heads will cost about $100. "For people in our financial situation, that's a lot," he adds. But mostly he's bummed about losing Grand Ulena's beloved practice space of two years, a source of creative inspiration as well as physical shelter.
Also bummed are the members of Bibowats. According to guitarist/singer Zac Friederich, the room they rented wasn't disturbed because its door was one of the few in the building that held up to the jackbooted investigators. But Friederich and his bandmates are still outraged -- not only because they've lost their practice space but also because they feel Garcia was treated unfairly. Friederich says Garcia told him she told the team of police officers and building inspectors that she'd let them inside the building. She ran next door to get her keys, but by the time she'd returned, they'd already kicked down the front door, as well as many of the interior doors. "Something Connie told me," Friederich recalls, "is that the police were, like, 'You didn't see this.' And when she asked them how the doors got broken down, they just looked down and didn't say anything."
Garcia, who has contacted an attorney, fears retaliation from the city and does not wish to comment.
Friederich isn't sure why the raid went down the way it did. "Maybe they thought it was a crackhouse because people are always coming in and out of it," he speculates. "Or they're probably afraid of another Seattle."
It hardly seems coincidental that police and building inspectors organized similar raids on two other buildings in the neighborhood -- the Bolozone arts collective at 3309 Illinois Avenue and the Community Arts and Media Project building at 3022 Cherokee Street -- that same day. With the controversial World Agricultural Forum scheduled for that weekend, police seemed to be taking a pre-emptive strike against potential trouble, presumably in the interest of homeland security. (Radar Station certainly feels safer, knowing that Big Brother's protecting us from grad students, unlicensed bicyclists, pacifist puppeteers and punk-rockers.)
According to Police Chief Joe Mokwa, no police report was filed in the Lemp practice-space raid because no arrests were made. The investigation was, he claims, routine. "If you get information about a condemned building that people are occupying, it goes on the problem-property list," he explains. "The house was not occupied by residents, although the first floor did have some musical instruments stored there." When asked why the inspection team kicked down the doors and damaged the bands' property, he replies, "That's not what I was told, and I wasn't there."
http://www.stlimc.org/front.php3?article_id=9677&group=webcast |
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