This is how the US police treat professors who ask what they are doing on the campus where that professor teaches:
It is worth watching this CNN video from the moment Emory Econ Professor @CarolineFohlin came across the violent arrest of a protester on campus and asked the police, with shock, "What are you doing?" That's all that prompted an officer to hurl her to the ground and handcuff her. https://t.co/QKNRqOoIiS pic.twitter.com/3wzSIOcD6U
— Robert Mackey (@RobertMackey) April 26, 2024
I have little doubt such behaviour will be copied here in due course.
Labour has supported Tory laws on protest. They give me no hope that anything will change.
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As I understand it the first amendment of the US Constitution is still in existence so the right to free speech and peaceful protest is still protected. However, watching this and other videos, apparently its effect is rather more selective now. With this government’s facist approach to dissent, as you say, I also expect to see similar scenes here soon.
Bloody hell. We’ve had bad policing incidents, but when you think USA police can escalate to lethal force if facing justified resistance…. One of the political disagreement with my ex forces estranged eldest was arming UK police (the others were Brexit, Johnson and Trump).
it used to happen here – Vietnam demos, miners strikes – etc where police used to arrow right into the thick of a march or demo to haul someone out – there were riot shields and cavalry charges.
The recent London ceasefire Gava demos have been emotional, noisy and overwhelminly peaceful. The few visible police are very relaxed – and stewards handling all very well.
The Met have been good so far not being intimidated by Sunack and Bravermans attempts to turn the police into stormtroopers.
But again – there are already poitical prisoners charged under recent laws banning being ‘annoying’ etc.
There were a lot of bleeps in the video, suggesting she was swearing. Unfortunately today, police view that as aggressive behaviour towards them and react.
Sadly we are a long way from “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me”.
With the correct training, the police officer who tackled her, should have tried to calm the situation and explain to the Professor why the other person was being restrained.
The British police officer who calmly explained to Mr Falter a few days ago, is a much better approach.
Whilst I have a tendency to agree, I feel that the right wing media & Mr Falter himself would have preferred the police to baton charge the protest so he could merely cross the road!
Labour under Starmer? Expect worse. The man is utterly untrustworthy, and progressives must do all they can to prevent him from becoming PM.
Try this https://www.doubledown.news/watch/2024/february/28/threat-to-british-democracy-peter-oborne
The Yanks have a proud history of sending the police into campuses to beat the crap out of student protestors. You can’t help but think that the majority of the Tory establishment looks on wistfully at this wishing they could do the same.
We’re not quite that degenerate yet.
Machievelli: “there is no equality between the armed and the unarmed”.
The US “police” knew the protestors were unarmed, yet a police thug was filmed with an automatic weapon. From what I have seen, the US police in this matter (campus demos) are little better than bullies and thugs. At some point they will kill somebody.
It begs the question what would have happened if all the demonstrators asserted their 2nd amendment rights & were armed to the teeth. I suspect the police would have – backed off, or some idiot would have called out the national guard.
In the case of the UK, LINO has all the tools, kindly provided by the Tories, to stifle any & all dissent. Anybody that votes for LINO or tories in the next election is a moron.
I’m not sure if it’s true, but some of the comments underneath the video seem to indicate that it was the campus police doing this which makes it even more egregious. Being employed to keep order (in theory, ‘Serve and protect’), yet clobbering students and faculty staff at a protest makes me wonder what sort of people they employ in these jobs.
I know there will be some bad eggs in the UK police forces, but I can’t imagine seeing this sort of thing at a student protest in this country. I don’t think most in the country would accept it, in spite of the narrative we see pushed by the right-wing media on a daily basis.
Miner’s strike?
Very scary. Similar action is taken routinely by the Police in the UK and in other countries with “the right of free speech”