Some of the police brutality that has occurred at Occupy demonstrations around the country has been appalling. It’s particularly upsetting to watch as those cops seen violating the law and the Constitutional rights of demonstrators are also part of the “99 Percent” themselves.
One of them — Officer Fred Shavies of the Oakland PD, who was revealed as an undercover infiltrator at Occupy Oakland — now concedes as much in an extraordinarily moving interview in which he condemns the violence by his fellow cops and says he sees the Occupy movement as a possible “turning point, the tipping point” for our generation.
“It looks like…police shot tear gas into it, right?” says Shavies, referencing the October 25 violence in Oakland at the intersection of 14th & Broadway that The BRAD BLOG has documented in great detail here (see here, here and here for example). “That could be the photograph or the video for our generation. That’s our Birmingham,” he explains, alluding to the police brutality that occurred during the otherwise peaceful fight for voting rights in the South during the 60s.
“So, twenty years from now this movement could be the turning point, the tipping point,” Shavies says during the interview, as he identifies with the protesters in the “99 percent” movement, adding that he is one of them. [Video and more excerpts below.]
We’re not among the anti-cop folks around here. We have, however, reported in great detail on the lawlessness demonstrated by some of the “law enforcement” officials in Oakland, referenced by Shavies, as well as the serious injuries they’ve inflicted on peaceful demonstrators and even some who weren’t demonstrating at all.
So while we don’t oppose the lawful men and women of law enforcement, some of them seem to be working awfully hard to give their brothers and sisters a very bad name. Those who have done so must be held accountable for their actions.
You’ve seen some of the videos of NYPD officers violently pepper spraying peaceful demonstrators, and the videos from Oakland as seen in the articles linked above. Here are two more recent examples of appalling police behavior as witnessed on video tape.
The first is from Occupy Berkeley on Wednesday, where the actions seen below were reported by AP as little more than police “nudging” demonstrators:
Really, AP? “Nudging”?…
UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau offered this statement to justify the above “nudging”: “It is unfortunate that some protesters chose to obstruct the police by linking arms and forming a human chain to prevent the police from gaining access to the tents. This is not non-violent civil disobedience… the police were forced to use their batons.”
So the linking of arms, as used by non-violent protesters in this nation for at least half a century, including during the Civil Rights marches and protests in the 60s led by Dr. Martin Luther King, are no longer considered “non-violent”, according to UC Berkeley’s Chancellor.
The second is this recent example, via PoliceLeak.com, of a cop at Occupy Dallas blatantly shoving a demonstrator off a 4 ft. ledge…
So the following interview by Justin Warren with Oakland’s Officer Shavies, the Oakland PD’s plain-clothed “infiltrator”, is particularly welcome and comes not a moment too soon…
One of the key quotes from the interview…
Incidents of police violence are isolated, to be sure. They ought not give the police as a whole a bad name any more than isolated incidents of violence by protesters (more often provoked by police than not during Occupy demonstrations, from our reporting) should be used to condemn the Occupy Movement as a whole.
But the police, of all citizens — many of them former members of the Armed Forces who have fought overseas to defend our Constitutional rights — ought to know better. They ought to stand in defiance of unlawful, unconstitutional orders. They ought to be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the vast, overwhelming majority of 100% peaceful demonstrators around the country. They ought to be turning around and arresting their fellow officers when they are seen violating the law and the rights of peaceful citizens.
In some of our earlier coverage of the Oakland PD’s violent confrontation with demonstrators, and the unprovoked and unlawful use of tear gas against them, we noted that we “can’t help but look at the faces of the police in gas masks…as they” stood quietly behind barricades across from peaceful demonstrators, “and wonder what they must be thinking to themselves.”
When some 15 other agencies from elsewhere joined the Oakland PD in their multi-agency task force on October 25th, it might have been easy for many of them to face the demonstrators. Not so for Shavies, as he notes in the interview above, offering a brief glimpse of what was going on in at least his mind during that moment…
So, in my mind, I’m smiling like, ya know, “Is he serious?” But, he kinda really feels that way. Which is also troubling to me, right? In the sense that I should have to choose. To me, it’s not black and white. It’s gray. Right? I’m a police officer. I’m a citizen of Oakland. I’m a part of the 99 percent. It’s gray.
And I guess that’s why it’s easier for people to go and police in a community they don’t belong to. You know, maybe in their mind it’s easier, because they’re…because it’s just a job and they can take it off. I think about that stuff when I’m at home. It’s not just a job for me. I can’t just take it off. I don’t take my uniform off, or my vest, and then…like, that stuff sticks with me. Cause I’m from Oakland.
Is it Davies or Shavies?
Whoops. Shavies. Typos fixed, Soul Rebel. Thanks!
Well Shavies will get a desk job or the pogues will fire him. Why? Because he embarrassed the brass.
City Governments Attempt to Hijack the Occupy Movement
When rank and file police officers come to understand, as Officer Shavies does, that they are part of the 99%, when they not only help out, as police did when they supplied Occupy Detroit with pies, but actively change sides, Occupy Wall Street will take a huge step from the organic democratic uprising that it now represents to a peaceful, egalitarian democratic revolution.
Exactly! Join us!
A man was found dead in a tent at 10 o’clock this morning in the Occupy Salt Lake camp. They think it was due to a drug overdose or fumes from a tent heater – or both.
Officials are using this as an excuse to shut down the Occupy movement here by sunset tomorrow night, saying protests will be allowed during the day, but no overnight camps will be allowed anywhere in the city.
I went down there tonight and everybody is sort of in shock. They are trying to stay in good spirits, but there is a foreboding atmosphere.
Wow. This brought tears to my eyes. Wish I could project this video onto the walls of city hall LA. Will try.
and Larry – lots of intra-occupy oddness happening like the incident you are describing. Oakland has a homocide (still unconfirmed to me, fwiw) that the authorities are blaming on occupy OAKLAND.
Oakland occupiers deny this happened at the occupy encampment – say it was a random incident. Trying to get to the bottom of that as we struggle with some unhinged folks camping at occupyLA…
…we ARE just blocks from SKID ROW at city hall (no, not the MOVIE version of Skid Row, but ACTUAL SKID ROW) as such, we are also very concerned about occupy safety, how to vet ourselves, how to enforce codes of conduct without police interference – and how to avoid the media pounce that COULD be the tipping point for eviction.
Very sticky wicket…when the 99% are, in fact, the actual 99%.
(Brad / Ernest – this is another Pulitzer worthy series. Thank you for the amazing work you’re doing with occupy Oakland, keeping me informed from the sky while I run *myself* into the ground here, on the ground here.
Excellent job. Huge thanks. – jd)
The AP story and matching YouTube video encapsulate what is wrong with almost all journalism today. Stop going to J school, people. Just get an iPhone 4 or 4S and its $5 iMovie app and start reporting.
I might add, that the Berkley video provides a picture perfect example of the moral superiority of non-violence. As you will note, even as officers viciously slam the small end of their night sticks at the demonstrators, not one of them retaliated with force. They both utilized defensive postures to minimize the damage while refusing to back away.
Slightly OT: re – the decision of the Arab League to suspend Syria due to violence against anti-govt protestors.
Reading the comments following the article on msn.com, one witty person aptly wrote:
Brilliant.
If he visits the gathering in an official capacity as a police officer, ESPECIALLY if his “job” is to identify troublemakers – then he is an infiltrator.
If he visits it as an individual citizen in support of the movement then he is a supporter.
Unfortunately, this fellow – who seems equitable enough by temperament – doesn’t have the moral capacity to understand that one can not do both.
imo
Actually, Argy F @12, Shavies could identify trouble makers and ask them to leave, as would anyone else committed to non-violent, civil disobedience, and that action would not be inconsistent with his role as a police officer or a supporter.
The real test would come if Shavies identified someone as a police-affiliated provocateur. Would he have the integrity to expose them?
Hamranhansenhansen at #9 said, “Just get an iPhone 4 or 4S and its $5 iMovie app and start reporting.”
Or better yet, don’t give your money the 1% for sweatshop-made, toxic-chemical-loaded, consumerist crap.
{Ed Note: Deleted as commercial spam — EAC}
This is the same cop who assaulted a KGO cameraman a couple of years ago and subsequently cost his city hundreds of thousands of dollars in a case settlement. He says that he loves his town, but then he beats up its journalists, propagates this weird notion that Oakland cops still regularly commit police brutality, and effectively takes away tons of money that could have gone to help improve his own community. SF Chronicle article about it: http://blog.sfgate.com/crime/2010/06/02/roughed-up-cameraman-sues-oakland-police/
We often say that we are at the height of human civilization here in the U.S.A., the greatest nation on the face of the Earth.
Yet we seem to lead the world in a lot of bad stuff, like greed and violence, even though the 99% of us say we do not want that.
We think and we say that the 1% are the ones who want that.
Our scientific discoveries must come into the equation, and a more sophisticated solution to problems that should have left our civilization long ago must be competently addressed and applied.
Otherwise we may stumble into even greater darkness and danger.
Jon in Iowa said:
Hate to say it, but this time I’m gonna side against my friend Jon in Iowa. Citizen reportage right now is much more important than the fight against the “consumerist crap” mentioned above. Desperate times call for triage and picking ones battles.
We know what we know about the police brutality and violence against peaceful Occupiers almost solely thanks to citizen media and their “consumerist crap” at this point. Without it, we’d have to take the word, for example, of AP, that the police at UC Berkeley were “nudging” protesters with batons; that Oakland Police Chief Jordan was telling the truth when he said tear gas was “necessary” to defend cops against “bottles and rocks” they were being “pelted” with; and of the cop in Dallas seen pushing someone off a ledge that he did so because he was being “assaulted”.
No thanks.
Brad #18,
“No thanks.”
Right on, spot on, and we wichu!
RE Shavies, don’t know anything about him other that what I’ve read here. Given that cops infiltrate, what better way to establish credibility and infilitrate than to say he supports 99%? He could still be on the payroll.
In response to Brad at #18: sure, by all means, pick your battles. But the underlying truth is that Apple is one of the least ethical corporations in the marketplace–in terms of workers’ rights, in terms of environmental schemes, and in terms of tax dodges. If you will forgive me indulging my poetic tendencies (and referencing Norse mythology) . . .
Are you merely putting your hand in his mouth,
or do you really have a ribbon to bind the wolf?