New York City Cops Seek Federal Court Approval to Mass Arrest Protesters Without Warning

[ellenrr]

“This is the most significant and most defining legal case on protesters’ rights in the last 40 years, since the mass arrests of May Day 1970,” said Carl Messineo, Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJ) legal director, which represented the protesters. “Mayor De Blasio seeks the authority to arrest today’s protesters in the same manner Mayor Bloomberg falsely arrested Occupy Wall Street protesters by the hundreds.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has agreed to meet in full to reconsider an August ruling that sided with protesters and chastized the New York Police Department for the way it herded and arrested 700 Occupy protesters on the Brooklyn Bridge in fall 2011. It concluded that the cops violated the protesters' constitutional rights and the police did not have “cause” to arrest them.

Attorneys representing the protesters say the NYPD seeks renewed power to make mass arrests after entrapping protesters, as was the case in October 2011, when police walked calmly beside Occupy marchers from lower Manhattan onto the bridge. As a majority on the lower Appeals Court panel noted, most protesters did not hear any arrest warning from police and felt they were led by cops onto the Brooklyn Bridge to continue their march.

http://www.justiceonline.org/new_york_city_cops_seek_federal_court_approval_to_mass_arrest_protesters_without_warning

[Fumesucker]

1. K&R

[SamKnause]

2. Insanity, blatant insanity.

The problem;

The police have too much power and they are abusing it.

The answer;

Give the police more power.

[newfie11]

3. Be a good little citizen

Don't rock the boat sheeple!!!
If this passes, watch it spread nationwide.
1984!!!

[sakabatou]

4. This would give them a free pass to arrest anyone, anytime without a warrant.

[TheKentuckian]

5. And yet there are plenty tripping over each other to defend these anti American thugs

Purity my ass how can one be represented by people that are antithetical to a wide swath of their positions?

They can't it is phony baloney to maintain power, a dishonest appeal.

[LiberalElite]

6. Oh, this is "war" all right

war on us.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

7. I came running in here to know how the cops had the right to seek authority outside the proper

civil authority. Then I read this passage --

"Mayor De Blasio seeks the authority to arrest today’s protesters...

ah -- I see, now.

[Festivito]

14. Still, judge should detain the lawyers for a day or two just for asking...

If they can deprive someone else of their rights who are themselves asking their rights to be upheld.

[Katashi_itto]

8. And we are supposed to care when they get shot.

[termroffor]

9. That's authoritarian

I don't know what's wrong with these police departments.

[ellenrr]

10. It's not really the police departments. It's all of society is going toward

authoritarianism,
blocking the right to protest,
or even dissent.

consider the law against videotaping horrendous torture in factory farms. The law now gives stiff penalties - NOT for hurting people or property -
but for filming.

I share the opinion of many that- we are on the way to economic collapse.
And that all these laws are to give the powers that be the authority to prevent protest before it happens,
to protest even people talking or writing about it.

I think they are trying to catch up with Spain's "muzzle" law.
http://www.euronews.com/2014/12/20/new-muzzle-law-sparks-protests-across-spain/

Altho Spain's laws provide for fines, and in the US, people get long prison terms.

Unfortunately in the US, unlike many European countries, few people notice, less care, and even less take to the street.
"A Nation of Sheep"

[newfie11]

17. Well said^^^^^^^^^^^

I so agree with you.

[Javaman]

11. same as it ever was...

fascism.

[Savannahmann]

12. To Summarize

We need more authority to punish those malcontents and force them to do what we want.

[stillwaiting]

13. Hideous and god-damned Un-American. Fascist too. nt

[Hotler]

15. One more reason to dislike cops. n/t

[Thespian2]

16. See if I have this correct.

The police carry out the policies of the administration which hires them. The politicians who run the administration carry out the policies of the Oligarchs who own them. The citizens are allowed to vote periodically in rigged elections.

Hmmm. Great system. Unless. You. Happen to be. a Citizen.

[me b zola]

18. Down the rabbit hole and into the abyss. n/t

[niyad]

19. k and r

[lonestarnot]

20. If everyone gets into the street, where are they going to hold them?

[lpbk2713]

21. We keep getting closer all the time.

Some times it looks like it's just a matter of time.

[daredtowork]

22. Kettling is Stupid

Oakland and Berkeley keep taking this tactic, too. Perhaps this is an appropriate tactic if the civil unrest is against something besides police misconduct and abuse of authority. However, when the protest is directed AT the police, then it behooves the police not to overstep their authority. In this case, the police should focus on arresting only those who are perpetrating criminal acts such as looting.

When people are protesting, they are exercising their civil rights. Even when protesters inconvenience others, they are exercising their civil rights. It is no excuse for the police to arrest a thousand people just so they can say they caught the one looter - and then label them all, sweepingly, as "looters" because looting occurred.

No, the duty of the police in this circumstance is to focus on arresting the looters only, while stepping back and LISTENING to what the protesters have to say to them.