Wednesday night, November 2nd, I went to the Occupy Los Angeles Protests in front of City Hall with my flip cam to take footage. At 5:30 PM approximately one thousand of the protesters gathered in the middle of the street and started marching. Mind you, this was at 5:30 PM, rush hour, in Downtown Los Angeles, where the traffic is already atrocious on a regular night. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I wondered how on earth these protesters got a permit to march in the middle of the street during rush hour, blocking traffic and making the drive home for thousands of people even worse. However, as you will see in the video I took, these protesters did not have a permit. They just marched in the street, completely breaking the law. And the most amazing part, the cops did not seem to care. In fact, they were escorting the marchers through the streets of downtown, as thousands of people sat in their cars waiting for these selfish brats to pass by. In fact, to my knowledge, not one single person was arrested. Unbelievable. This got me thinking: Would the city and the police be so accommodating if a tea party rally spontaneously started marching into the streets and obstructing traffic during rush hour? That, of course, is a rhetorical question.
- Sammy Levine (Associate Producer PJTV)
Permit? We don’t need no stinkin permit! We got us the Mayor and the Govner and the Prez backin us!
Occupy L.A. is most definitely getting a free pass. I’ve been covering OLA since day one and they openly flaunt the law on a daily basis: smoking marijuana in the park all day long, blocking traffic and sidewalks, marching through the streets without permits. The L.A.P.D does nothing.
You can see my latest report here:
http://www.ringospictures.com/index.php?page=20111028
I hope there is a backlash brewing in LA.
…”and they openly flaunt the law on a daily basis…”
“Flout,” not “flaunt.”
I know…I cringed when I saw my mistake, but once you hit the submit tab there’s no turning back.
Ringo – great job on that page. Zombie-worthy.
The L.A. City Council (all Democrats)even went so far as to unanimously pass a resolution in support of Occupy L.A.
It’s a travesty. They’ve completely destroyed the once lovely City Hall Park. Every bit of grass is now dead and the entire place smells like a Grateful Dead concert. And today it’s raining so the dirt, which used to be a lawn is now a sea of mud.
Now, can the rest of the US finally secede from New England, NYC, LA, and SF/Oakland?
It’s a matter of our own survival.
Smart cops! They ain’t stick’in up for the 1%.
Yes, yes. Very smart indeed. Knucklehead.
Look on the bright side. This’ll cost Obamalot a lot of votes, if only from the stiffed commuters.
This whole matter is orchestrated by Obama Reelection point-blank.
Obama has been using the verbatim “the 1% rhetoric for months. ACORN’s “Organization Now” is doing the recruiting for it.
In politics (and thuggery) there are no coincidences.
Why hasnt anyone in many of the “Occupy” cities sued the Mayors, City Councils, and/or Police Departments for violation of the Oaths of Office and/or violations of 14th Amendment rights?
I would be sure that all Mayors, City Councils and Police have taken oaths to uphold the laws of their city, state, and the country. After the 6+ weeks of law violation (in many cities) the fact that many of these cities have not acted shows that the elected, appointed, and/or hired officials are unwilling or incapable of upholding the laws and adhering to their oaths and should be removed from office before a greater disaster happens. Note: I do understand there being some leeway and that they dont have to enforce alls laws at all times or immediately enforced.
The 14th Amendement states “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
As the last sentence states “nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” By enforcing laws against certain individuals or organizations and not others the cities have violated the 14th Amendement. The clause generally can be defined as “when a state grants a particular class of individuals the right to engage in an activity yet denies other individuals the same right.” Allowing the “Occupiers” to violate laws that they would have enforced on others (ie force other organizations to apply for and pay for permits) should be prosecuted to the fullest extent. To allow officials to continue to pick and choose what laws to enforce and when to enforce them has begun to reduce our country to lawlessness (atleast until gun owners begin to enforce the laws themselves and then it will become the “Wild West”).
GMTA, for sure!
Too many voters pay all their attention to the presidential race, and don’t know squat about their local government. That has to change.
Who’s your mayor?
If the police are covertly supporting the Occupiers because of union sensibilities, they’re making a huge mistake. The nuisance factor (and subsequent violence) will escalate and cost them even more public respect. If they’re holding off because they’ve been told to, that probably rankles and is not good for police morale (in which case, we all lose), because they will still lose public respect and that through no fault of their own.
I wouldn’t want to be them.
Greetings:
It’s not so much the police, who,as in the old saw, are involved, as their overlords who are committed.
I live in the San Francisco Bay area, a couple of soviets south of what the locals mistakenly refer to as “The City”. It’s been obvious to me that, for at least the last decade, the leaders of the local soviets will do a little as possible to restrain the behavior of demonstrators from their end of the political spectrum. The rights of the local citizenry to travel freely and do their commerce are routinely sacrificed to the needs of the political left-enders. The elected leaders see no analogy with the folk wisdom that your right to throw a left hook stops just before the beginning of my fine nose. The few who are arrested usually are citied and released in the area of the disruption. The press seems never to provide any followup on the dispositions of those cases. And the minority of the minority who actually receive any legal penalty seem not to be discouraged by its intensity.
In essence, what has been created by the local elected officials is a kind of political Jim Crow system, one, which I am quite sure, will never be discovered while the Obama/Holder administration remains in office.
RebeccaH,
It’s not because of “union sensibilities”. The police are on orders from above, from the Mayor & the City Council, to play it cool, not intervene so long as there is no violence. So while the occupiers openly flaunt the laws and city ordinances, if they don’t get violent or destroy private property they are allowed to do pretty much what ever they like.
The Occupiers are creating a dangerous public nuisance, even when the violence remains within their own “community.” This has to stop, and it’s the job of the mayor and the city council to use police power to clean up public nuisances and to quell mob violence.
“Would the city and the police be so accommodating if a tea party rally spontaneously started marching into the streets and obstructing traffic during rush hour?”
Not even close.
I remember a report of a small Tea Party protest in an Illinois town that had a couple dozen people holding signs across the street from where the President was meeting with local officials. The local police called out their riot squad to form a line between the TP demonstration and the building.
Can’t think of a better way to spend the run up to election season than to watch these lefty controled cities go through the pangs and throws of dealing with their tragic, uber leftist children throwing poo in their general direction. Author!!!!….Red State Blue ain’t got nothin’ on this. What’s more interesting though, is watching the ultra union Po Po deal in this. On the one hand, gotta do what the Union Boss sez, on the other…you know they just want to go in there and bust heads…it’s so palpable…Quaratine the Cities!!!!…Oops!..that’s for later. Anyway, for now..Go…Take it to ‘em..Get the Bankers!!!!!…Eat the rich!!!…SOLIDARITY!!!!!!!!!
the rule of law was abandoned the day obama was sworn in