Yesterday, along with their “prepared statement” – which their spokesbeing read word for word from the exact same handout that’d been given to all the “press” and any other onlookers that asked – the Anarkids handed out this statement about last week’s riot in Minneapolis, produced here word-for-word from the “release”.
While fisking it is probably not going to be as interesting as finding out who the writer’s English Teachers were over the years, it’s probably worth a look:
On Friday, August 31, nineteen people were arrested after police brutally attacked cyclists with Tasers, pepper spray, and excessive physical force. The cyclists were part of the monthly Critical Mass bike ride.
This month’s Critical Mass was a kick-off for the pReNC, a weekend of organizing against the Republican National Convention to be held in St. Paul in 2008.
Interesting. On some of the local discussion forums, lefties are claiming that there is no, was no, never has been any connection between the two.
The RNC Welcoming Committe (RNC-WC), a group hosting the pReNC, gave a public speech before the ride exhorting riders to avoid confrontation throughout the weekend.
Well, bully for them!
But of course, in the months before the ride, they were busy talking about all the mayhem they were going to carry out. Wonder if that “speech” managed to counteract all of that braggadocio?
While the police as a whole use excessive and brutal force in our communities on a daily basis, we feel that yesterday’s police response was highly inconsistent with their usual behavior.
Um – hello? So which is it? If they’re a bunch of jackbooted fascists “on a daily basis”, what’s “inconsistent”?
The bikers did not provoke this incident, as they committed no violent or destructive acts.
It’s perhaps not surprising that this contradicts the Strib’s account of the incident.
Unmarked cars filmed and targeted specific people. A State Patrol helicopter accompanied the entire event.
And is it any wonder? Given all the threats that these jackbooted little wannabee fascists have been making, if I were a cop I’d make sure that there were plenty of cameras aimed at the scene, too.
Three police cars followed throughout the ride, attempting to intimidate the riders by sounding their sirens regularly and driving into the crowd, but issued no official dispersal orders.
Wow. Cops driving into a crowd of bicyclists?
I’m a bicyclist. I know if a cop ran into my bike, I’d have some damage to show for it. Right away!
Two cruisers – #993 and #998 – drove into the back of the Mass at the corner of La Salle and Grand. Witnesses report that at least one bicyclist was hit by a squad car. At this point, the police began to arrest and pepper spray those who had gathered at the site of the accident. They pointed Tasers at a nonviolent crowd, as if to create a sense of panic.
Again – and naturally, and not unexpectedly (“HONEST, officer, someone put that crack pipe IN my purse! Really”), this contradicts everything I’ve seen in the media on the subject, which reported the cops tried to arrest someone who was playing “chicken” in traffic, and were in turn attacked by a crowd of anarkids.
Now – take careful note of this next part (emphasis added):
Nearly twenty squad cars arrived on the scene. Over forty police created a line formation in which they advanced on bikers, arresting, and brutalizing those who fell behind.
Huh-whah?
Anarkids on bikes couldn’t escape a bunch of cops, loaded down with gear, advancing deliberately in a line (per normal riot training)?
Am I the only one who suspects that they must not have been trying to “get away” all that hard?
One cyclist was pepper sprayed when she attempted to obey dispersal orders.
“I swear to God, officer – I have no idea where that TV came from! Stolen, you say? Someone must have stuffed it into my backseat!”
She was then handcuffed and held to the ground as a third officer Tasered her in the neck. Witnesses were also pepper sprayed and one bystander was among those arrested.
I’ll be interested in seeing the video.
Most of the nineteen arrestees were held on “Probable Cause” for Riot charges and their bail was set at $3,000 each.
Let me take a step back here.
I know that it is entirely possible that the police might have overreacted. Nothing about being a conservative involves blindly accepting government’s view of things – indeed, since every actual systemic government infringement of free speech in our society today attacks conservatives rather than liberals, we are right to be vigilant.
But what do you suppose the odds are that the Minneapolis Police Department – one of the most intensely-politicized police departments in the business, which works for among the farthest-left-leaning city governments in the nation – being fully aware of both the Anarkids’ proclamations and intentions and the sympathies so many of their civilian bosses have for the “protesters“, would allow their officers to go all unhinged? Indeed, I’m going to make a very fearless prediction here; the officers covering and responding to the “protest” knew that they were going to be on dozens of videocameras, both official eyes in the sky and a thousand points of cell-cam. I’d be amazed, under those political and technological circumstances, if there were more than the thinnest film of police misconduct. Just a hunch – but like most of my predictions, I’m pretty comfortable with it.
We believe that the police aggression experienced Friday night was a pre-meditated attempt to intimidate the anti-RNC organizers. Although members of the RNC-WC were the intended recipients of police violence, the officers present exercised no discretion in their brutality. All Critical Mass riders were subject to the police’s use of unrestrained force. This was, with no question, a police practice run for next year’s RNC.
Well, they were half right.
I’ll bet anything that this was an intentional provocation, intended to inflame a sense of righteous victimhood on the part of the “protesters” – to create a sense of “we have nothing to lose, so anything goes. Our ends now justify our means!”.
Indeed, their next passage indicates almost exactly that (emphases added):
When the RNC-WC says that the State brings violence to the streets and leaves poeple, pacifist or otherwise, with no peaceful option for resistance, these acts of brutal force are what we speak of. We do not expect the police to be held accoutnable by a system that necessitates their violence; however, we remain committed to confronting this repression wherever it exists and with whatever means available.
We will not be intimidated.
No, I don’t suspect “being intimidated” has ever been on the agenda.
UPDATE: A commenter noted that, while I DO try to avoid using “nazi” references, I did let one slip through.
I’ll cop to it. The thought of these jagoffs polluting my city, my adopted hometown, with their puerile/violent little fantasies, is noxious to me. So I slipped.
Good catch.
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