Amy Goodman: San Francisco Bay Area’s BART Pulls a Mubarak

[marmar]

from truthdig:




San Francisco Bay Area’s BART Pulls a Mubarak

Posted on Aug 16, 2011
By Amy Goodman


What does the police killing of a homeless man in San Francisco have to do with the Arab Spring uprisings from Tunisia to Syria? The attempt to suppress the protests that followed. In our digitally networked world, the ability to communicate is increasingly viewed as a basic right. Open communication fuels revolutions—it can take down dictators. When governments fear the power of their people, they repress, intimidate and try to silence them, whether in Tahrir Square or downtown San Francisco.

Charles Blair Hill was shot and killed on the platform of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system’s Civic Center platform on July 3, by BART police officer James Crowell. BART police reportedly responded to calls about a man drinking on the underground subway platform. According to police, Hill threw a vodka bottle at the two officers and then threatened them with a knife, at which point Crowell shot him. Hill was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Hill’s killing sparked immediate and vigorous protests against the BART police, similar to those that followed the BART police killing of Oscar Grant on New Year’s Day 2009. Grant was handcuffed, facedown on a subway platform, and restrained by one officer when another shot and killed him with a point-blank shot to the back. The execution was caught on at least two cellphone videos. The shooter, BART officer Johannes Mehserle, served just over seven months in jail for the killing.

On July 11, major protests shut down the Civic Center BART station. As another planned protest neared on Aug. 11, BART officials took a measure unprecedented in U.S. history: They shut down cellphone towers in the subway system. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/san_francisco_bay_areas_bart_pulls_a_mubarak_20110816/?ln

[Cool Logic]

1. Well, San Francisco has been steadily implementing fascism...

And the trend will continue as long as they continue to segregate themselves from the free world. They have banned, everything from smoking to segways; including happy meals, plastic bags, bottled water, soda pop and pictures of guns and traveling to Arizona. Proposals for banning circumcision, birthday parties, weddings and goldfish are also being considered.

A government that doesn't recognize the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness, is surely not going to recognize the right to life.

[mulsh]

2. BART is not San Francisco. Its HQ is in Oakland and

most of the board of directors live in the greater bay area. other wise I think you have a salient point about SF's governance or lack there of.