Ah, the classic techniques of clearing a city, martial-law style. Here's the cops trapping students at the University of Pittsburgh on a stairway while they fire teargas into the crowd below. But the fun doesn't stop there!
Demonstrators, well, they get what you'd expect them to get: teargas and sonic weapons. There is some impressive footwork displayed here, of demonstrators kicking teargas canisters back at the cops!
Also here is a weird video of military people hustling some dude into an unmarked car and taking off with him. Neat.
And the above is how a group of cops in riot gear decide to dispose of two annoying hippies. Clubbing helps, I find.
See, on the one hand, I feel bad for the protesters, but on the other, odds are they are from Pittsburgh.
I bet the hippie couple will hang a photo of their asses being kicked next to their Woodstock poster at home.
On the nightly news they said several windows were broken. So you can understand the beatings and disappearings were necessary.
Don't forget the girl that threw her bike at a cop and then got beaten down!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J23HNJBbpcg
Ah nothing like beating, teargassing, and abducting young unarmed twenty-somethings to protect 20 of the world's richest men.
(insert expletive here).
Our military goons abduct people in broad daylight. Freedom!
I will not be associated with 'those' goons.
Indeed. No badges, unit patches or anything else identifying these goons. I'm sure that kid tossed a rock at them or something equally stupid and got his internal organs massaged with boots in return. Very disturbing.
Doesn't all this violate Pussy-Common TaterTots?
It's the police who should be beating our hippies down!
Some people are assholes the end.
But not because also! The temporary police force is huge, and highly organized. The protest population is not huge, and not highly organized. There are lots of visiting demonstrators and officers and couch-burners, and they don't all know each other or the city, and at least half the people involved are observing with cameras so even more people get asshole-y, sooner than they would, and to a greater degree. Especially at night.
Everyone's trying hard to meeting expectations so pointless broken windows--of Mom & Pops, not just CORPORATE MONSTERS--and fires and O.C. (WTF)-spraying will, of course, happen.
Point of fact, none of these videos capture registered protests. Do you have any pictures of scared locals whose neighborhoods have been turned into war zones by non-permitted, unanticipated "demonstrations?"
There have been a lot of entirely peaceful protests, too. Marches, chants, live chalk-drawings, hula-hooping, meditations. . . Even the "unauthorized" protest was given time and space to march as an unlawful assembly before being ordered verbally (and then with O.C. and sound and force) to leave the immediate area.
Also noteworthy! While Brian Williams says there may have been some racist stuff at the 9/12 tea party (and then shows none) the media ignores the peaceful stuff at G20s and instead shows masked nuts calling for death getting maced. The "outrage" groups also latch on to this kind of antagonized footage. With the current state of civic engagement I will support almost anyone, regardless of naivete, who actually GETS OUT THERE instead of, you know, posting shit on a blog or "raising awareness" with some dumb facebook group. But I absolutely hate how the worst elements of this group get all the attention. They don;t know how much harm they are doing. I'm surprised they don;t get maced by the other protesters as well.
Yes, the "protestors" have definitely been yelled at by the protestors.
As with any such video, not knowing the circumstances males it a pointless endeavor, with either side able to add color and claim their side. But I will say, the human part of me that's left is VERY uncomfortable with the look of riot-geared and camouflaged "troops" policing the streets. It hurts me in the constitution.
The video of the young man being thrown into the back of an unmarked car is really disconcerting.
Yes, most so. Yu're ALWAYS oin to have police abuses. But our police are identified (cars/uniforms/badge numbers/etc) so that citizens, if needed, can follow up about what might be abuses of power. But when it's random guys in camo using, like, a rental car that avenue is lost. And that's important not only for that one guy, but also because it creates an atmosphere of distrust of the authorities which is cyclical.
I just hope he's heard from again...
There are some undercover officers dressed as protestors, so it's at least possible that they were grabbing one of their own to take him off-scene.
Police should never wear camo. They are not military, they have a completely different role and relationship to the citizenry.
Were there assholes off camera in the Hippie couple video yelling for the riot police to beat them? A friend was at the anarchist march being semi-radical; his students' parents have no idea who's teaching their kiddies.
I just haven't seen anything here that would make my hair stand on end, I should say I'm a Camera man and Have seen a Protest or two,in fact I have friends who've been maced by cops while covering a protest. These "protesters" seem to be rather dim and unfocused. I'm a liberal and I got to say these fools are asking for some of what they're getting and it'll only get worse once the cops start getting tired. Why are they breaking shit? How will that engender sympathy for what looks to be mostly suburban kids with their first world problems. I'm sure some real tragedy will get obscured by video of a few dumb hippies and even dumber "Anarchists" getting pushed after being told repeatedly to move back.
I get the sense that some of the more hardcore are disappointed at the low turnout of protesters in the city right now; less than 10k though officials had expected 35k. The local news feeds showed people who were obviously trying to ramp things up to get shots and videos that could be posted later.
this May be because I stare at video all day, but everything I've seen here and elsewhere has smelled pretty funny. I think it's time to change the bong water.
I used to work around Pitt so that may be affecting my opinion of the students who got gassed. I thought that they were acting pretty entitled. How does having a student ID give you immunity from having to disperse when riot polices tell people to get their asses off the street?
This G20 is so fucked up man! It's injustice man! Let's roll a dumpster at 'em! Hold on, hold on, let me put on my Rage mix on my iPod Touch first.
God forbid they should join a legitimate political protest or community outreach organization and channel that energy constructively.
As much as I think protesting is good and healthy in a society, I suspect a percentage of these kids just want to smash shit and 'fuck the man' and probably don't even really know or care what they actually are protesting.
But, assuming they are at least 18 years old and no matter what the extent of their comprehension of current events, they could still vote for political leaders with control over world-ending nuclear and/or biological weapons!
Plainly, the system works.
Yeah! And cut your hair hippie!
Hippie girl getting arrested by a Pittsburgh SWAT team =/= the guy standing in front of a line of tanks in Tiananmen Square. Nice try, honey.
Hello Blackwater!
But wait, Chocolate Bush is president now, shouldn't the protesters and the cops be holding hands and singing Cumbaya?
Chocolate Bush? I think my friends dad had that on the shelf in his "study".
ok, so you got tear-gassed on a stairwell. but then you're young and fresh and adorable and young , so that should take some of the sting away, right?