See Video at Sidebar
It was five minutes after midnight this morning (Dec 22) when five six San Diego Police officers walked into Freedom Plaza and began making arrests of peaceful Occupy San Diego protesters keeping vigil.
They walked up on Alan who was laying down – not sleeping as he had a cigarette going – yanked the cig out of his mouth and threw it on the ground, placed handcuffs on him as he sat there, then pulled the tall peaceful protester out of his sleeping bag and took him.
Other protesters asked the officers what the charges were – repeatedly – and no officer answered.
Then as occupier Chris was videotaping Alan’s arrest, police moved up to Chris, grabbed him, pulled him off his feet while choking him, and then altogether three of them wrestled him to the ground.
The sergeant mentioned that Chris was arrested because they had warned him to stay back – although no one else heard that warning. Daniel – who was also in his sleeping bag – was also arrested.
Eugene was filming all of this and then he was threatened several times with arrest if he didn’t move back far enough. As the three were moved out of the Plaza, someone shouted out: “Thanks for making a mockery of the criminal justice system!”
No rights were given, no charges announced – at least not to observers.
It is all right here – at the sidebar. See for yourself what your San Diego tax dollars are doing.
Despite this latest example of blatant harassment, the Occupy San Diego vigil goes on. As it has since October 7th.
We heard reports from later this morning that another four were arrested, but we don’t have details.
There will some kind of response – some kind of direct action – people are meeting at Freedom Plaza (the name that protesters have labeled Civic Center Plaza) at 5:30 pm, today, Thursday Dec. 22nd.
See Matt Hall of the U-T’s very decent version of the reaction by protesters and response by police to these arrests.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Dude can’t smoke on city property.
Signs are everywhere. Duh.
Here’s a very decent article by Matt Hall of the U-T about these arrests and reactions by other occupiers and by police: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/dec/22/tension-over-new-occupy-san-diego-arrests/