Can you imagine what the individual cop must feel as he follows orders first, to confront, then to attack, then to back away? How his adrenals, activated, urge him to not just beat them but kill them, anything to get them to stop, STOP! And how his mind, when backing off, feels furious at the “defeat,” even “humiliated.” And yet these kids are this cop’s kid brothers or sisters, cousins, playmates, sons and daughters. He meets them on the street when not in uniform and the connection is there. One of them opens the door for the other, or smiles, picks up something the other inadvertently dropped and hands it back to him . . . two humans, two hearts, beating as one, a living continuum.
What kind of deadening internal divisions within him would allow such brutal behavior against young people who raise their arms only to ward off blows, not to strike.
Can you imagine what the individual student must feel as he/she stands there, “taking it,” while over and over again, cops thrust thick hard batons into his or her chest and face. And all the while the students, moving and standing as one, are yelling, screaming, outraged, and awed. That it has come to this in America.
That it has come to this in America, the home of the brave, land of the free.
Well, these students are certainly brave, and in their willingness to stand up for all of us as we move forward into an unknown and untrammeled future, utterly and finally free.
0 thoughts on “Berkeley students to cops: “Stop beating students! Stop beating students!””
It may not matter in the larger context of the Occupy Movement but I believe we are not watching “cops,” meaning City of Berkeley uniform police officers, but rather we appear to be watching University of California-Berkeley Campus Police. The two are administered under separate political entities and would probably each have unique response tactics to crowd control. Amazingly, I would guess UC-Berkeley Campus Police have a higher threshold for crackdown and a more tolerant awareness of the Occupy Movement than perhaps the City only because they deal with on-campus events nearly every few years that escalate into protest level events and they prefer not to be seen as taking sides.
I think it may turn out to be very important to clarify if the Berkeley City Police are being viewed or if the UC-Berkeley CAMPUS POLICE are being viewed. I’n not sure what we are looking at but it would make a considerable difference to the police officers. This morning 11-11-11, it was reported by the Bay Area News Group staff reporters: http://www.insidebayarea.com/oakland-tribune/ci_19314945 a killing in downtown Oakland near the Occupy Oakland City Hall location. …”The violence occurred on the same day that US Berkeley police defended their crackdown on Occupy Cal.”
Oakland has a lot of baggage to deal with all around the Occupy Movement which is at most only indirectly related to the Occupy Oakland Movement.