A Disturbing Video You Need to Watch
Personally, "anti-war" rallies rub me the wrong way. I tend to believe that the people at them are very misguided. I am not a pacifist. Please keep that in mind as you watch the video below.
That said, this video is powerful, and deserves 10 minutes or so of your attention. I am particularly taken by the clear, careful planning on the part of the police to move the crowd by force, when there is clearly no violent action on the part of the crowd -- the crowd is standing there, milling about, respecting the police barriers, while the police calmly discuss the use of pepper spray and billy clubs.
Yes, the spliced-in Nazi footage is gauche, but appropriate.
After watching the video, you may want to check this page.
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Video can be your friend
There are a number of issues presented in this video and I'll address them separately. None of this should imply my support or opposition of the goals of the demonstration. Also, I do not think that the references to the Nazi’s are really justified and by Godwin’s Law I consider that they have lost their argument.
-The narrator is complaining about the police videoing the event in general and zeroing in on particular people in particular.
Videoing interactions the police have with other people is a good thing and, as much as is reasonably possible, should be required. The videos should be public record unless there are real privacy issues such as a video taken inside my home during a search pursuant to a search warrant. Even in those cases the video should be available to the people directly involved. That provides a record of what happened and both acts as a deterrent to the police misbehaving and as evidence if they do. The author of this video made good use of that.
I can see the police zeroing in on some people if they think that they are breaking the law but again, this should be required to be public record.
-The narrator claims that the crowd is breaking no laws.
I don’t see any reason for the police going after the person holding the sign. There may be more context than is shown here but there should be an investigation and possible legal action against the police. It is not clear that the large crowd is not breaking the law. There are issues around demonstrations that revolve around competing rights. This is true so long as not all property is private. Under what circumstances is it OK for a group to block a public way when others might want to use it? Any time, anywhere, for any duration? Surely not. Then where are the limits set? In most cities there are requirements to get a permit for this sort of thing. That is an imperfect way of dealing with the issue but so long as the courts are good about not letting the process be used in an unreasonable way I don’t see a better solution. Did the group have a parade permit? Did they try to get one? Were they violating the conditions? I don’t have enough information to know.
-The narrator claims that the police are doing wrong.
Probably true. Even if the crowd was breaking the law by blocking the road, trying to disperse the crowd was at best unwise and possibly illegal. There is real risk in doing this. In Boston being hit in the head with a “pepper ball” killed a woman. However there are things I don’t know. Was the crowd damaging property in the area? I don’t know about this one but crowds certainly did during the Seattle anti-globalization demonstrations. Were they trying to block people from getting into or out of the hotel?
Police do need to monitor what happens when large crowds gather especially when there is some reason to believe that they might damage property or harm people. Crowds can become a danger to the community. The police have the job of preventing that sort of thing. However they need to go as far as possible to allow demonstrations to take place and to be seen by the target of them. This requires a level of planning, training and wisdom that some but certainly not all police departments have. When the police do not handle a situation properly there needs to be a real investigation that is open and possibly legal action. The records related to the police department must be public so that people can do their own investigation and initiate legal action if appropriate.