Posted on 08/21/2005 9:57:41 PM PDT by pittsburgh gop guy
Monday, August 22, 2005 By Pohla Smith, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
City police used excessive force when they used stun guns and pepper spray to break up an anti-war demonstration in Oakland on Saturday, members of the protesting group charged yesterday.
"Right now we're demanding an investigation," said David Meieran, a member of the Pittsburgh Organizing Group, which protested outside an Army recruiting station Saturday morning. About 30 to 50 people marched from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History to the recruiting post near Forbes Avenue and Atwood Street.
Police moved in on protesters after one of the marchers grabbed a TV camera, police said. Two protesters were hospitalized and five people, including one juvenile, were arrested or detained.
The juvenile was cited for disorderly conduct and released.
Meieran said three of the four others who were jailed were released yesterday, but he did not know their identities.
A police spokeswoman yesterday could not confirm that information.
Police used a Taser, or stun gun, on two people and pepper spray on others, including a 4-year-old girl, and "toppled a man with multiple sclerosis in his motorized wheelchair," according to the group's statement.
Others were clubbed with retracting metal batons, and a 68-year-old grandmother was bitten in the thigh by a police dog, the statement said.
The group hopes to show a video of the police actions, perhaps as early as today.
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
They are mean to everyone....
And I am sure that the MOVEONers (the ones not in jail...) spent the past few days "cleaning up" the video to make the cops look as bad as possible.
Blocking a (closed for the day) recruiting station while we are at war. Morons....
wimps
Live Ammo next time
I think they should have been shooting DU rounds.
Anybody who drags a 4 year old to an anti-war protest should have their kids taken from them by Social Services
Chief defends protest arrests
By The Tribune-Review
Monday, August 22, 2005
Police used force when "several participants ... chose to turn the allegedly nonviolent event into something that warranted police intervention in order to ensure public safety," McNeilly said in a prepared statement.
Four people were arrested in the fracas that began when a protestor assaulted a TV cameraman, and police moved in to break up the crowd. Charges include failure to disperse and rioting.
Protestors De'Anna Caligiuri, 23, of Bloomfield and Justin Krane, 31, of Mt. Washington, were shot with electrically-charged Taser stun darts during the melee. Caligiuri kicked at police who tried to arrest her, and Krane shoved a construction fence on officers, according to police.
Protestor Carole Wiedmann, 68, of Ohio Township, was treated for a police dog bite on her thigh Saturday.
The Pittsburgh Organizing Group, which led the protest at an Army recruiting station on Forbes Avenue, also claimed yesterday that police pepper sprayed a 4-year-old girl and knocked over a man in a wheelchair.
This is from a whining wimp of a 42 y/o professional protester. He obviously cannot stand a little heat so he best get out of the kitchen.
I googled this guy the other night and discovered he has been affiliated with a lot of these leftist, anti-war movements. It is time for him to mature beyond the age of 20.
Oakland is out of control 24/7/365.
I wouldn't go there for any reason today, and some 25 years ago, there were a number of great restaurants I enjoyed. Couldn't get me there today with 6 Marines as bodyguards. It needs nuking and starting over.
IT IS TIME FOR POLICE DEPARTMENTS TO THROW AWAY THE POLITICAL CORRECTNESS OF STUN GUNS AND PEPPER SPRAY...
TIME TO GO BACK TO REAL CLUBS AND BULLETS AND BIG COPS WITH NAMES LIKE MANNY OR MEL THAT WILL SMACK THEM SILLY...
Attribute all injuries to police/authorities whether inflicted by them or the mob running off.
Spoon feed BS to willing media, and play the VICTIM.
Straight out of the Vietnam era protest handbook.
to all war protesters...Quit your b1tching PÜssies!
Calling viking kitties, calling viking kitties,
What are democrassic underground rounds? Marshmallows?
Why didn't they just shoot the dirty cowards.
What idiot parent brings their 4-year old to a protest, where there is a fairly high likelyhood that police may have to use force to quiet or disrupt an unruly crowd.
The parents of the 4 year old should be charged with endangering a child.
Also, it sounds like things were fine until one 'peaceful' protestor attacked the cameraman and his like $100,000+ camera.
Not a wise idea. That is an act of aggression, and the police are justified to use force at that point.
Besides, since when did being RIGHT have diddley-shit to do with being POPULAR?
I'd bet if you pulled your head outta there, you could get a better survey of opinions.
The cameraman was 'assaulted' what does that mean? Someone shook a fist at him? Pointed a gun? The proper term would be 'struck' or 'battery' if he were hit.
I went to college at pit 1993-1998. I know what you mean, Oakland is a war zone.
'Police moved in on protesters after one of the marchers grabbed a TV camera, police said.'
Call it theft, call it assault. When a protestor engages an onlooker (or reporter or cameraman) in a physical manner, the police are rightfully expected to intervene.
Robbery
It was a FOX cameraman! AAAAAH! Now it makes sense!
Pittsburgh police arrested five anti-military protesters Saturday after they disrupted traffic in Oakland and clashed with police.
The Pittsburgh Organizing Group, an organization opposed to military recruitment in high schools, sponsored the march from the Carnegie Library down Forbes Avenue to the Armed Forces Recruiting Center in the 3700 block of Forbes. Organizers had hoped to shut down the center, but it had already closed.
Pittsburgh police said the melee started when protesters tried to stop a freelance photographer for Fox 53 television from filming.
Police said they used a Taser, which shoots a 50,000-volt dart, and pepper spray to subdue one of the protesters.
Police spokeswoman Tammy Ewin said the demonstrator subdued by the Taser and another bitten by a police dog were treated at UPMC Presbyterian hospital, Oakland.
Zone 4 police said protesters will face charges of failing to disperse, obstructing public sidewalks, highways and passages, obstructing an arrest, criminal mischief, disorderly conduct, simple assault, harassment and resisting arrest.
Police declined to identify those arrested.
"When you're fighting with police officers, we're allowed to use the force necessary to effect an arrest, up to and including Taser," said city police Sgt. Clinton Winkler of Zone 4.
About 20 police officers had tried to quell the fracas and disperse the crowd with a German shepherd. Carole Wiedmann, 68, of Ohio Township, pointed to a blood-stained rip in the thigh of her peach slacks and said she was turning to leave when the dog bit her.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/pittsburgh/s_365979.html
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20050821211311961
Winkler said campus police tried to quell the march, and at one point protesters grabbed the camera of a freelance media photographer and broke it. City police tried to help and said some protesters fought the effort to break up the march.
"That's when they were told, due to the violence, that this was no longer a lawful protest," Winkler said. "They were told to disperse, peacefully disperse, and failed to do so we started down the sidewalk _ officers in front, K-9's behind us, and started pushing the crowd down the sidewalk."
In addition to the injured women, a man was also arrested on charges of disorderly conduct and failure to disperse.
Gosh, what a HUGE protest march. And even at that small size, they could not control themselves and went into mob behavior. I wonder, what is the critical mass size when a bunch of leftist loonies get together?
THAT'LL GIVE'M SOMETHING TO BITCH ABOUT!
Depleted Uranium.
Too bad she still has a leg.
ditto
sounds like deliberate child-endangerment to me
These cops should not be using pepperspray,tasers and batons on anti-war protesters........Sidearms will do just nicely !
That was the USMA recruiting center where I went to get information on joining the Marines a few years ago.
Should read USMC - not USMA - I am MUCH TOO OLD for West Point....
Pepper spray doesn't just hang there, it drifts in the air, the answer, my friend is blowin' in the wind....
You signed up today to call me names, It was sarcasm you ass, now go back to DU where you belong
God, these liberals have a whine per minute. What next, the police officers go in unarmed and they complain because police officers are "Human weapons" due to their martial arts training?
Is it just my imagination or does every anti-war rally feature a 68-yar-old grandmother who is brutalized by the police?
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