Occupy movement sees needless violence, cruelty

By: Gabriel Arrarás / FIUSM.com Editor 

Smoke from tear gas canisters filled the streets, footsteps became heavier and hurried and the shrieks of women could be heard in the distance. This scene is reminiscent of Tahrir Square during the height of the Arab Spring, but it is not Egypt I am describing—it is America.

The treatment of protesters from the Occupy Movements by police officers across the nation is disgraceful. Free speech and the right to protest are a part of America’s identity; peaceful protesters being met with violence from authorities is appalling and should be decried accordingly.

On Oct. 25, 500 officers from the Oakland Police Department stormed Occupy Oakland’s encampment in full riot gear to remove all protesters. What followed is some of the most atrocious and cowardly behavior committed by police that my generation has seen.

Protesters were met by the full “non-lethal” force of the law. While behind the protection of barricades, gas masks and full riot gear, officers launched a full-scale assault using tear gas, flash bang grenades and rubber bullets, successfully turning a peaceful protest on an American street into a war zone.  This is not the way that peaceful protesters observing their constitutional rights should be treated.

While the majority of the crowd began to disperse to avoid the ill effects of the tear gas being used against them, members of Veterans for Peace stood their ground to do something that they are very much accustomed to doing: protecting Americans.

Scott Olsen, a 24-year-old veteran of the United States Marine Corps who served two tours in Iraq, was one of the veterans on hand to help protect the protesters.

Olsen suffered from a fractured skull and brain swelling after being hit directly on the forehead by a tear gas canister.  After being hit, he was immediately surrounded by protesters trying to help him; however, police officers took this opportunity to throw yet another tear gas canister right next to where Olsen fell, followed by a flash bang grenade. Olsen ended up hospitalized in serious, but stable condition.

Police departments across the nation should take a good look at themselves and ask: “Who are we protecting?”  A poignant point about the abuse the protesters are experiencing is that the very people brutalizing them are encompassed in the movement; police officers, based on their average annual salaries, are indeed part of the 99 percent.

It should be recognized that cops have the most difficult line to balance on: between their beliefs and their paychecks. However, behavior like what occurred in Oakland should not be tolerated from America’s police force.  Oakland should take a lesson from the New York state troopers who, according to The Albany Times Union, refused to follow Governor Andrew Cuomo and Albany Mayor Gerald Jennings’ orders to arrest protesters violating curfew.

The Occupy Movement has spread from New York to Oakland, and various cities in between. Thousands of citizens have been wrongly arrested for observing their constitutional rights. Whether you agree with the protesters or not, what has happened to them cannot be ignored. Americans peacefully expressing their anger at a system that they believe has failed them should not be exposed to such gratuitous brutality from police; it is simply not what this nation stands for.