Can’t We All Just Get Along? LAPD Strikes
Again, Jennifer Bleyer, AlterNet
At a joint press conference on Tuesday, representatives from the
Shadow Convention, the ACLU, Global Exchange, D2KLA and the Green
Party denounced the LAPD’s use of force against protesters as
unwarranted and brutal, and called for an independent investigation
of the Police Department’s actions, writes Jennifer Bleyer on the
AlterNet news service. The press conference was
called after police broke up a largely peaceful concert on Monday
night outside the Staples Center, site of the Democratic National
Convention, firing rubber bullets and pepper gas, shortly before
the convention was scheduled to wrap up for the evening. According
to Bleyer, California Green Party Senate candidate Medea Benjamin
suggested that the police deliberately provoked demonstraters in
order to clear the crowd before hordes of Democratic delegates
emerged from the Staples Center. ‘I am appalled by the excesses of
the LAPD and other law enforcement that I witnessed and heard about
last night, apparently just to clear a path for the delegates of a
political party that claims to be protectors of liberty and human
rights,’ said Benjamin. — Leif UtneGo there>>
