Miami Crowd Control Would Do Tyrant Proud (St.Petersburg Times)

[Stone_Spirits]

Miami Crowd Control Would Do Tyrant Proud
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1130-07.htm

Miami police Chief John Timoney must be mighty proud of the social order he maintained during the Free Trade Area of the Americas summit a couple of weeks ago in Miami - sort of the way Saddam Hussein was proud of quieting dissension in his country.

Timoney has a well-deserved reputation for using paramilitary tactics to turn any city where large protests are planned into a place where the Constitution has taken a holiday. During the FTAA meeting on Nov. 20, Timoney dispatched 2,500 police officers in full riot gear against a crowd estimated at 8,000 people, mostly union members and retirees.

The result was a show of force that would have made a Latin American dictator blush.

Slavish public officials such as Miami Mayor Manny Diaz touted Timoney's handiwork as "a model for homeland defense," and the Miami Police Department has responded to complaints by saying that officers demonstrated "a tremendous amount of restraint."

But this is hardly the way eyewitnesses described it.
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[Vitruvius]

1. This brutality suggests they're rehearsing crowd control for a COUP --

or another stolen election (same thing). Take over the gov't, round up any demonstrators, find out who their friends are, and lock them all up forever. Part of the standard VRWC/CIA playbook.

In any case, this is not normal crowd control. But -- as you say -- it's exactly what tyrants do. Especially when they've just seized power.

Note also that this is in Jeb's Florida -- home of the crooked vote count, phony felon purge, etc. Jeb's Florida is already a bananna dictatorship -- and it's natural for the Bu$h gang to use it to try out what they plan to use on the rest of us...

[G_j]

2. this is just the beginning

We ignore this at our own risk.
Why aren't our fearless Dem leaders demanding an investigation? Why has this basically been ignored by the media? They are enablers.
Looking the other way is like telling them, "It's OK, those peaceful demonstrators are the enemy, do what you will to them"

Let this slide and we will be sure to see more and worse.

[lostnfound]

3. St. Pete Times : owned by nonprofit Poynter Institute. Not mega-media.

They don't get a perfect score on every issue, but I do believe they are far better than the other top papers in the country. Consistently rated as one of the 10 best in the country, it's the only one of the "10 best" that is not owned by a big media conglomerate.

Having grown up there I get nostalgiac for the Times everytime I subject myself to reading the Houston Chronicle.

[Room101]

4. Video of police brutality at protest here.... Very disturbing

police