Protesters Say Miami Police Overreacted

AP ^ | 11/22/03 | MIKE SCHNEIDER

[Jean S]

MIAMI (AP) -- Police were accused Friday of overreacting and using excessive force in clashes with demonstrators at this week's trade talks.

Police defended their actions, saying Miami averted the kind of widespread violence that rocked the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle in 1999. Seattle was hit with five days of rioting that caused millions in damage.

"All you have to do is look at the videotapes from Seattle and realize the potential for destruction," Lt. Bill Schwartz said.

On Thursday, as trade ministers from 34 countries drafted a blueprint for free trade in the Western Hemisphere, demonstrators threw water bottles and other objects at officers, set fires in the street and used slingshots against police. Riot police responded with tear gas, rubber bullets, batons, concussion grenades and stun guns.

Police made 146 arrests, compared with 570 during the Seattle protests. At least three officers and about 140 demonstrators were treated for injuries in Miami. Most of the injured protesters were treated by medics affiliated with protest organizers.

Another 50 people were arrested Friday outside a Miami-Dade County jail during a demonstration over the treatment of protesters arrested Thursday. Officers sprayed tear gas at the demonstrators when police said they refused orders to disperse.

Also Friday, the National Lawyers Guild asked for an independent investigation into officers' conduct. The American Civil Liberties Union also was investigating.

"Such paramilitary tactics are ill-conceived and self-defeating and have no place in a democratic society," said Michael Avery, president of the lawyers guild.

Police Chief John Timoney said officers acted with restraint, giving protesters ample warnings before using force. "If we didn't act when we did, it would have been worse," he said.

Police Friday displayed items they said were dropped by protesters arrested near the jail. The items included bricks, a plastic jug of gasoline and metal pipes.

Cory Fischer-Hoffman, 20, said she was on the front line of a standoff with police when officers advanced on the crowd. She said she was hit in the face with a club but was not seriously hurt.

"We were just standing there, totally peacefully," she said. "I was honestly looking this guy in the eye with a peace sign, and then all of a sudden, boom. There was no provocation."

[MindBender26]

National Lawyers Guild=long time communist front group.

Should have dealt must more severely with some of these punks. They went to Miami for jsut one purpose; to cause trouble. They got 1/10 of what they deserved.

[Travis McGee]

Agreed! They went their to give violence, and got a little instead. Too bad, so sad!

Good for the Miami PD!

[oyez]

Protesters Say Miami Police Overreacted

Of course they did and OJ is innocent.

[Callahan]

Thr simple fact that these punks still have teeth tells me they the cops didn't over-react enough.

[Paul Atreides]

Cory Fischer-Hoffman, 20, said she was on the front line of a standoff with police when officers advanced on the crowd. She said she was hit in the face with a club but was not seriously hurt.

"We were just standing there, totally peacefully," she said. "I was honestly looking this guy in the eye with a peace sign, and then all of a sudden, boom. There was no provocation."

Well, boo....hoo.

Dumb hippie.

[MindBender26]

The National Lawyers Guild(NLG) was organized in 1936 by a caucus of Communist Party, U.S.A.(CPUSA) lawyers assisted by the International Labor Defense, an American agency of the Comintern(Communist International). The NLG remains an active affiliate of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers(IADL), an international Communist front which operated under the control of the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The International Department took over the old Comintern that was disbanded by Stalin during World War II.

A study prepared by the Central Intelligence Agency at the direction of the House Intelligence Committee in 1978, reported that the IADL:

"has been one of the most useful Communist front organizations at the service of the Soviet Communist Party....In the 31 years of the IADL’s existence, it has so consistently demonstrated its support of Moscow’s foreign policy objectives and is so tied in with other front organizations and the Communist press that it is difficult for it to pretend that its judgments are fair or relevant to basic legal tenets."

IADL president, Pierre Cot, an official of the World Peace Council(WPC), the principal Soviet international Communist front, was even awarded the Lenin Peace Prize in 1953.

In September 1950, the House Committee on Un-American Activities issued a report, "The National Lawyers Guild: Legal Bulwark of the Communist Party", which stated:

"The real aim of the National Lawyers Guild, as demonstrated conclusively by its activities...are not specified in its constitution or statement of avowed purpose. In order to attract non-Communists to serve as a cover for its actual purpose as an appendage to the Communist Party, the National Lawyers Guild poses benevolently as ‘a professional organization which shall function as an effective social force in the service of the people....’ "

With the extensive revival of the NLG in the late 1960s and recruitment of a broad section of New Leftists who looked not to Moscow, but to the surrogate regimes of Havana, Hanoi, or Angola for models of revolutionary change, the NLG has had an increasingly close relationship with the Cuban regime.

The NLG’s International Committee formed numerous subcommittees that coordinate both legal action and public relations and propaganda in support of various Soviet and Cuban-backed revolutionary terrorist movements. For example, the NLG’s Middle East subcommittee supported the Palestine Liberation Organization(PLO) and issued a blatantly biased report against Israeli legal and security measures against jailed terrorists.

The NLG’s Vietnam subcommittee pressed for U.S. economic aid and “reparations” to the Hanoi government and urged recognition and support of the Vietnamese puppet state set up in Cambodia after the invasion and conquest by the North Vietnamese Army.

In 1978, a group of independent Marxists within the NLG’s membership published a document criticizing the NLG leadership for conducting "Guild affairs as though we were a committed Marxist-Leninist entity." The NLG Democratic Caucus complained that the NLG International Committee identifies the organization "with the positions of the ‘socialist’ countries on every major international issue." Bright fellows, those Democrat Congressmen!......but then, embarrassed ones, too!

Through their dual memberships in the American Civil Liberties Union and their activities in other Communist front organizations such as the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee(NECLC), leading NLG activists, including those working to defend terrorist organizations such as the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional(FALN) of Puerto Rico and the Weather Underground Organization(WUO) have played the most prominent role in the myriad of lawsuits against the CIA, FBI and local intelligence organizations.

[Sam Cree]

I have to admit, I'm proud of the Miami cops.

[Jean S]

Thanks. I've never heard of that group.

I heard a report on the radio today, I don't remember the source, that most of the protestors were retirees. I also heard that the postal workers union sent a group to protest.

[oyez]

If a croud shows up with plastic bottles and items that can be used as a vehicle for flammable liquids its time to break it up.

[eddie willers]

Such paramilitary tactics are ill-conceived and self-defeating and have no place in a democratic society,"

It worked.....didn't it?

BTW...the DUers are upset because some Democraxy Now reporters from FSTV where jailed as well.

hehe

[ETERNAL WARMING]

I firmly believe these radicals are paid to discredit the growing number of everyday people who seek to put a stop to the jobs leaving this country. It works every time. No one notices the earnest voices...many on the RIGHT who do not support this capital worldwide redistribution of our wealth.

[MindBender26]

Cory Fischer-Hoffman= Olympia, WA radical

[oyez]

This country went a lot of expense and a sacrifice of humanity to fight communism in other lands but won't fight it within its own borders. What's wrong with this picture?

[Sam Cree]

It really tells you something about AP that they decline to mention that the "accusers" are a communist front.

More and more, I am realizing what the press really is.

[dighton]

A blast from the past.

[dougherty]

Oh, they're just pissed Michael Jackson stole the limelight from them yesterday.

[eddie willers]

Why do you think you have a claim on those companies... or their jobs?

[vladog]

Let me see now. These punks were the ones causing the problem. The police just didn't happen by and start beating heads. These punks are the same ones who were in Seattle or at the least they are just like them.

IMO, high pressure water hoses should have been used to sweep this trash from the street.

[eddie willers]

Oh, they're just pissed Michael Jackson stole the limelight from them yesterday.

Oh boy didn't it
The idiots in Trafalgar Square had the lights turned off too.