The brutal tactics employed by the Oakland Police Department are coming under intense criticism in the MSM. This comes from a new report by CBS News:
Experts: "Occupy" video shows excessive force
(CBS/AP) OAKLAND, Calif. - The mayor renewed her appeal to Occupy Oakland representatives to meet with city officials as dueling video evidence was released by Oakland authorities and by a man who experts say appears to be the victim of excessive police force.
In an interview with the Oakland Tribune, University of South Carolina criminal justice professor Geoffrey Alpert said that unless something occurred off-camera to provoke the officer, the shooting was "one of the most outrageous uses of a firearm" he'd ever seen.
"Unless there's a threat that you can't see in the video, that just looks like absolute punishment, which is the worst type of excessive force," Alpert said to the newspaper.
We we see more incidents of excessive force being used by police departments around the country like the ones we've seen recently in Oakland? Another report in the MSM looks at the increasing militarization of police in the U.S.
From CNN:
Are police becoming militarized?
Editor's note: Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a CNN.com contributor and a nationally syndicated columnist.
(CNN) --
Even compared to the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations and other protests around the country, what's happening in Oakland shocks the senses. Judging from video and firsthand accounts, the police in that city have been especially brutal in dealing with the protesters.
Now, in some cases, instead of the police serving the community, it's more like the police are at war with the community.
The siege in Oakland, where police have repeatedly clashed with protesters, reminds us that there's one other thing that police officers shouldn't do: impersonate soldiers.
These are miniature armies, stocked with every weapon imaginable -- all at the officer's disposal.
Navarrette writes about an acquainted who's in middle management of a mid size city's police department, who thinks many police who are veterans are blurring their roles as police officers and their former roles as soldiers in occupied the countries of Iraq and Afghanistan.
"There's a sense among new recruits that police work is about soldiering," my friend lamented. "And we don't discourage it. In fact, we encourage it -- when (in reality) about 90% of what we do is community relations."
Navarrette concludes with this chilling observation of this common military orientation among police officers in this country.
Meanwhile, these mini-armies are always on the lookout for the next battle. And, as events in Oakland and around the country suggest, they usually find it.
So not only are police department hierarchies are patterned after those in the military but the cultures inside these departments have more than a little of the us vs them mentality that is a necessary feature of military culture.
As Police Departments across the country continue to take actions to shut down occupations, a new poll shows a majority of Americans agree with the Occupy Wall Street protesters about the necessity of addressing the growing inequality of income and wealth in the U.S.
Six in 10 Support Policies Addressing Income Inequality
Six in 10 Americans say the federal government should pursue policies to reduce the gap between the wealthy and less-well-off Americans, although fewer express support for the Occupy Wall Street movement that’s been protesting U.S. income inequality.
Sixty-one percent in this ABC News/Washington Post poll think the wealth gap is larger than it’s been historically. And despite longstanding public concerns about activist government, six in 10 also say the federal government should seek to reduce that differential.
Additionally, while 60 percent support polices to address wealth distribution, substantially fewer, 44 percent, identify themselves as supporters of the Occupy Wall Street movement, and just 18 percent strongly so. About as many, 41 percent, say they oppose the movement.
Our challenge is to translate this popular awareness of ballooning inequalities, and the widespread desire to reverse that trend into policy changes. At the top of that list is to reform and drastically limit the role big money plays in our political system. No easy task.