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Headlines : Civil LibertiesPolice taser Katrina survivors in New Orleans
Police state tactics being used to clear poor neighborhoods and dispossessed people to make room for the wealthy in their new toy city does not surprise me. For those fortunate enough to have survived Katrina, New Orleans has become an experiment in a new kind of ethnic cleansing to make the poor and unwanted disappear.
[Posted By alexander]Republished from Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Police used chemical spray and stun guns Thursday on protesters who tried to force their way into a City Council meeting, the latest strife over plans to demolish some 4,500 public housing units in a redevelopment project that council members ended up unanimously supporting.
The vote to permit the federal government to tear down four public housing developments was a critical moment in a protracted fight between the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and residents, activists and preservationists.
Police said 15 people were arrested on charges ranging from battery to disorderly conduct. Four people were taken to hospitals – two of them women who had been stunned with Tasers – and five others were injured and treated on the scene, police said. All four in the hospital were stable, police said.
Protesters said they pushed against the iron gates that kept them out of the building because the Housing Authority of New Orleans had disproportionately allowed supporters of the demolition to pack the chambers. Dozens tried to force their way in.
At the peak of the confusion, some 70 protesters were facing about a dozen mounted police and 40 more law enforcement officers on foot.
Posted by alexander
I have visited the slums of San Paulo, and I have seen the northern lights from the Lapland's, rather than exploring the world between CNN and FOX, as many of my countrymen do. The reference to Alexander has much to do with the quest for knowledge...
it has become too easy to treat people like cattle. People have become totally de-sensitized to police brutality, or any for that matter. The sheep have become scared to death because the shepherds have been revealed as wolves. To those even looking.
These people had a valid complaint, and deserved to be addressed peacefully by the city council outside. They knew this was coming, and instead of being civic-minded in the wake of 2 disasters, katrina and the response to it by an entire nation, and offerring speeches, they chose the high road of “break out the police”. Too often now this is the response of of our “leaders”.
This whole thing is just plain awkward. It is creating a whole new paradigm of racism and classism, and not just restricting it to the south… This was a litmus test for the USA, and slip came back blood red. Failure on all counts.
Here’s video coverage on Liveleak.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ll_4bd_1198196282
Amy Goodman did an interview with the guy who got tazed.