On the Web, Video: Tibetan Protesters Beaten in NYC
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Originally spotted at InfoWars.net. Apparently ignored by all major, "legitimate" media outlets.
NYPD beats Tibetan marchers in front of the UN
Really now, I'd love to see a mainstream news story on this, with the cops' excuse for their behavior. I didn't see a single protester do anything that could be considered violent or threatening to the police. (Granted, the video quality gets really shitty for a couple minutes, but still.)
This is… insane. And tragic.
28th March 2008 at 4:17 pm | permalink |Fucking disgusting too.
I suppose they're better off than the protesters in Tibet who got shot? But really … those officers need to be fired.
28th March 2008 at 4:27 pm | permalink |Yeah. And the whole Chinese government should get fired, too. Sadly, that won't happen anytime soon.
28th March 2008 at 4:57 pm | permalink |Err….this makes me sick. See, this is what stops me from wanting to protest. Heh. Yeah I didn't see very much, if any violence coming from the protesters. Society is fucked. Lol.
28th March 2008 at 10:50 pm | permalink |alphabitch, i really enjoyed and thoroughly agreed with your views on mccandless, but it's kind of surprising that you would see a badly edited clip of video shot by an obviously biased source and not look behind the video or think there might be a greater or balanced context. i didn't get the impression that you held much regard for ppl who did the same with respect to "into the wild." i mean, gee, if you didn't see any violence by the protesters in the video, either (1) there was no such violence or (2) (hold on kids, this is a really sophisticated and novel concept) it was conveniently not included in the video, either through editing (a point which you acknowledge but instantly dismiss) or just through pointing the camera at certain places and not others (there were almost 100 protestors, the video focuses on a few protestors for a few moments). this WAS picked up by the news, but it was not considered "fucking disgusting" b/c anyone who knew the actual situation (including the ppl in new york who saw it happen) or who bothered to find out more knew that nothing really remarkable happened.
http://ny.metro.us/metro/local/ap/NY_UN_Protest.html
http://sport.guardian.co.uk/breakingnews/feedstory/0,,-7385612,00.html
the police were sent to oversee a crowd of peaceful but vocal protesters. they tried to guide the protesters to turn up 3rd ave b/c after the 9/11 attacks, there is a federal law about which routes protesters can march (they can't go down or gather in certain parts of 1st ave, directly in front of the un building, for obvious reasons). the protesters were already informed about this federal law, and if they had complied, everything would have been fine. unfortunately, some of the protesters refused to comply and charged toward 1st and illegally gathered. the video did not show them assaulting the police with their flags or trying to actually climb over the big fence around the un building (big hint for anyone trying not to get arrested: don't scale fences around buildings like the un building, the white house, etc). most of the protesters were successfully making their point without causing any trouble at all; it was just the few who were trying to rush the un building and who were getting violent against the police that are shown in the video.
on a separate note, i thought it was ridiculous that the narrator in the video was yelling with outrage "these guys are buddhists!" or something to that effect. first of all, i don't know whether that came from first hand knowledge; i wouldn't be surprised if he just assumed that b/c they are protesting, they are tibetans, and because they are tibetans, they are buddhists. second of all, if it's true that they are buddhists, i don't see how it's relevant. ok, these guys are buddhists, those guys are catholics, those guys are jews. so what? i feel like the subtext is that it is somehow worse to use force against buddhists than ppl of another religion, and i feel like he is either saying this b/c he is assuming that all buddhists are monks (and so, it's awful to use force against a monk, which i perfectly accept, the same way it would be appalling to use force against a nun), which reflects ignorance and a tendency to exoticize buddhism, or he is just outright exoticizing buddhism, which is just unoriginal and irritating. and by the way, over the next several days, the protesters directed their efforts at the chinese consulate on 12th ave. antics included throwing bricks and rocks at the building, which broke windows and also (i'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say accidentally) hit some cops.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Tibetans_police_clash_at_Chinese_consulate_in_New_York/articleshow/2869980.cms
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/ny-stprot0316,0,1023128.story
29th March 2008 at 8:04 am | permalink |also, try a 1 minute google news search to see all the media outlets that picked up these stories and republished the same AP article. and, look, the youtube video made the news, with the level of sensationalism appropriate to the daily news (ppl in nyc know what i'm talking about).
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/03/27/2008-03-27_ill_kill_you__cops_caught_on_video_at_un.html
29th March 2008 at 8:20 am | permalink |btw, if you do a 1 minute google news search, you'll see how many media outlets picked up the story. also, this should make you happy:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/03/27/2008-03-27_ill_kill_you__cops_caught_on_video_at_un.html
in typically sensationalist daily news style. ppl in nyc know what i mean; it's a VERY well-respected news publication!
29th March 2008 at 8:44 am | permalink |@exasperated: Damn, man. (Man? Hope I'm not making the same mistake half the readers here make about me! ;-)
Thank you for all the time you took on your comments! My personal biases are showing, obviously (How embarassing!), because I generally do research shit better before I go shooting my mouth off here.
I did find the narrator/videographer more than a bit annoying … I'd've much rather it were higher quality audio, without the hysterical voice over.
That said, I can't imagine there's any call to be thwacking people with clubs when you've already got them down on the ground.
29th March 2008 at 11:52 am | permalink |actually, *woman*, ha! agreed, in almost all circumstances, it is better NOT to react to either violence or non-violence with violence, and in a perfect world, ppl with power would never use a newton more of force than necessary to exercise that power. anyway, the screeching narrator was irritating, and i thought this clip was manipulating the common knee-jerk reaction that ppl have about cops (eff them! uh, except when you are mugged/raped/robbed and then who do you turn to). just another day in this world, meh.
29th March 2008 at 12:58 pm | permalink |Having undergone crowd/riot control training during my stint in the military (albeit in Finland), I'd say that the officers in question have either received poor training or just slept through the lessons. It's unprofessional as hell to lose your temper and/or antagonize the civilians. It's one of those things you're supposed to know and put to practise, keep calm.. negotiate negotiate and negotiate again. Never be the one who escalates the level of confrontation.
Then again, it seems universal that the average person who walks the beat and patrols, probably is all about the gung-ho us vs them bullshit. The smart one's become criminal investigators.. detectives what have you.
31st March 2008 at 6:41 am | permalink |Our government is really showing that they are no better than China's government. The governing elite of this country are really paying attention to the Chinese template of governance because for them China is a Utopian society.
31st March 2008 at 9:30 am | permalink |Had to take another look at the video today when I got home. As much as I understand that people equate this with government suppression, from what I can tell the cops had no readiness to handle the situation. If they were supposed to keep people from protesting on certain streets to comply with the legislature mentioned above, they were grossly unprepared to see to it. It appears as if they just arrived at the scene, otherwise they'd probably have had time to erect some form of proper barricade. As for the "I'm going to kill you"-reaction, obviously the officers had lost control of the situation which unfortunately leads to escalation on their part. It probably doesn't help that the persons they're facing look foreign and are incomprehensible to them. (People tend to show their true colors while under stress.) Being prepared and briefed is the key.
This appears to me to just be a poorly organized (clusterfuck) handling of a crowd by the NYPD. Not a sign of some endemic crack down on civil liberties.
That said, I must say that it's shameful how quiet the rest of the world has become when it comes to China's infringement upon human rights, even though that also has rational economical motives in the background.
1st April 2008 at 9:58 am | permalink |@exasperated: *woman* … figures. hehe
@mcfinnish: Appreciate hearing from someone with crowd control training. But as for whether or not it's a sign of an endemic crackdown on civil liberties … I think it would be hard to saw the police are completely removed from the government's policies, and there certainly has been a pattern of increasing intolerance of public political protest in the US as of late.
Is this intentionally a part of a larger conspiracy? I strongly doubt it. Is it a symptom of a gradual degradation of society's tolerance for dissent? That may be an entirely different story ….
1st April 2008 at 8:02 pm | permalink |The land of the free what a joke (but we knew that all along).
5th April 2008 at 4:05 am | permalink |@boldee: Makes me sad, but true.
5th April 2008 at 9:40 pm | permalink |The ones trying to climb the fence are lucky they did not get shot. These situations are never so cut and dry.
To bad the video is so obviously edited to tell a story. I'd love to see the whole thing. The cameraman was also trying to goad police into attacking him I think. It's good to note they only went after the protestors who tried to move on the fence and asked him to move back.
From what I understand these protestors ignored the requests to move where everyone else was and tried to get into the UN itself through a side entrance.
10th April 2008 at 4:01 am | permalink |Too bad I can't edit. If this is the worst violence the cameraman has ever seen in NYC then they are pretty damn sheltered.
10th April 2008 at 4:03 am | permalink |@larry: The cameraman is an unmitigated dipshit, who probably would have been thrilled to have the cops turn their batons on him … and yes, climbing fences around secure buildings is not such a bright idea. But the cops were resorting to violence before that happened.
Seems to me, they could have just grabbed the protesters one by one, handcuffed them, and loaded them into a police van. If the other protesters chose to try physically attacking the cops while they did so, they they would have been asking for rough treatment.
10th April 2008 at 3:19 pm | permalink |From what I read they did fight back, that is why they pulled out the clubs.
Also the bit with the "i'll kill you" threat. I can't make out the cop saying that. I wonder if that is what was really said.
10th April 2008 at 7:45 pm | permalink |@larry: Well, if some of them *did* fight back, that would change things a bit. But the cameraman on the video still found plenty of footage of cops beating on people when there was no retaliation in sight from any of the protesters.
11th April 2008 at 4:38 pm | permalink |We have the same shit going on in the uk.
http://www.noliberties.com/synopsis.htm
It's fucking outrageous.
23rd June 2008 at 1:22 pm | permalink |