NYPD, FBI Make Preemptive Raids on Occupy Protesters
Man, if this story doesn’t make your blood boil I don’t know what would. In the days leading up to the May 1st protests by the Occupy Wall Street movement, the NYPD and the FBI launched raids on the homes of some of the protesters in a clear attempt to intimidate them:
Federal and New York City authorities paid surprise house calls to people related to the Occupy Wall Street movement this morning in advance of tomorrow’s May Day protests. At least three residences were visited by police, two by officers from the New York City police department, one by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents, according to Occupy organizers and a representative of the National Lawyers Guild.
The names of the demonstrators visited have not been released. Gideon Oliver, a lawyer with the National Lawyers Guild, which often deals with occupiers’ legal issues and provides legal observers for protests, said that he “certainly wouldn’t describe them as key organizers.” According to a top organizer, it was three members of the Occupy communications team.
“There were a number of visits between 6:00 and 7:30 in the morning and at other points in the day that appeared to target people that primarily the NYPD, but in one instance the FBI, wanted to ask certain questions to,” said Oliver. “Questions included things like ‘what are your May Day plans?’ ‘Do you know who the protest leaders are?’ ‘What do you know about the May Day protests?’ and such.”
Oliver said that in some cases, police officers “came to residences saying that they were from the warrant squad looking for someone who it turned wasn’t there and took identification from other people who were present and ran them for warrants.” He would not confirm whether or not any of the involved parties were taken into custody during any point in the day.
“I’m aware of one person arrested by our warrant squad this morning on a bench warrant for failing to show in court earlier this month stemming from his discon [sic] arrest at a March OWS-related demonstration,” said NYPD spokesman Paul Browne in an email. “There was another individual present who, as it turned out, was wanted on a warrant for not showing for an unrelated court appearance for an arrest for public urination.”
Balko’s response is spot on:
Think about what just happened, here. On a day strongly associated with the old Soviet bloc, armed government agents staged early morning raids on the homes of suspected political dissidents, detained them, then interrogated them about their plans and political affiliations. And of course this isn’t the first time this has happened. There were similar preemptive raids ahead of the 2008 RNC convention in Minneapolis. Almost none of the charges resulting from those raids stuck, and the city has since been handing out settlement checks like parade candy.
This is simply about intimidation. It’s about the government letting the protesters know that they can come after them at any time, for any offense, no matter how trivial or trumped up.
tmscott:
May 3rd, 2012 at 3:01 pm
Sound’s like PreCrime Inc. Ask to see the minority report.
eric:
May 3rd, 2012 at 3:13 pm
Were I a lawyer, representing these guys in civil suits agaist the various agencies, I think I’d collect data on all these other payouts. I’d make the case that the USG’s willingness to keep doing them in the face of these numbers means that future awards need to be at least an order of magnitude higher. Because at current dollar value, the USG is simply treating them as part of the cost of doing business.
If the FBI (et al.) can live with each unconstitutional raid costing $X in legal settlement fees, then X is not high enough.
unbound:
May 3rd, 2012 at 3:27 pm
Despite what is becoming increasingly obvious to some, people still get upset when comparing the US to the old USSR.
How are these raids any different than what the KGB did back in the 70s or 80s?
How is Faux News any different than Pravda in the 70s or 80s? Other than Faux News doing a much better job with propaganda than Pravda ever did.
Is our prison system truly any better than the Gulag prisons were?
Is our wiretapping somehow less insidious than what happened in the soviet union?
Is the NSA really behaving any better than the KGB?
These are troubling questions that have answers that don’t speak well the US anymore…
busterggi:
May 3rd, 2012 at 4:01 pm
AmeriKa the beautiful.
Michael Heath:
May 3rd, 2012 at 4:13 pm
It’d be interesting knowing how high up this request came from. Is Mayor Bloomberg ordering or knowingly and preemptively enabling such behavior?
lofgren:
May 3rd, 2012 at 4:47 pm
It’s possible, but I would guess not necessary. If you hire authoritarian dicks and promote them for authoritarian dickishness, they will act like authoritarian dicks without any prompting. Since the discipline for such activities is most likely entirely internal, it will inevitable be lax since a police force that promotes authoritarian dickishness is not likely to enact or enforce strict penalties for dickish authoritarian behavior. Bloomberg has only to choose to say that he is trusting the police hierarchy to deal with any “bad seeds” and the reputation of the police as strict law and order advocates who keep us safe from nasty criminals and troublemakers will allow him to skate freely. Any payouts for violating the rights of individuals will be buried as best as possible. If they do garner publicity they will be carefully framed as the fault of the protesters. “Dirty hippy saps tax dollars due to technicality!” the reports will say, and everybody will groan that these criminal scum get off scott free for something so minor as an infringement of their basic rights enshrined in the most important document in our history. Meanwhile having escaped all personal responsibility, Bloomberg can continue treating any problem that bubbles into the public consciousness as a one-off case with no basis in hiring or institutional practices and the cops will continue to act like authoritarian dicks.
The Cat From Outer Space:
May 3rd, 2012 at 7:24 pm
From Balko’s article:
So just as I was good and ready to agree wholeheartedly with Radly Balko, he goes and atributes a date associated with the Labour Movement well and truly before the Soviet Uniton even existed (I believe it was originally meant to commemorate the Haymarket affair in Chicago in 1886) with murderous dictatorships and makes me lose a good portion of my respect for him.
Chiroptera:
May 3rd, 2012 at 8:18 pm
Balko, #7:
I noticed that too. I just figured that maybe Balko doesn’t travel much.
sathyalacey:
May 3rd, 2012 at 8:44 pm
Conducting Soviet-style intimidation tactics on May 1st?
The NYPD clearly has no sense of irony.
…or maybe a too well developed one? I can’t tell. Maybe this is actually a very postmodern performance piece, a sort of live commentary on the nature of our society.
timberwoof:
May 3rd, 2012 at 9:45 pm
Under what pretense can the cops just knock on someone’s front door and demand to see identification for everyone inside? DId they have search warrants? IN the absence of one, what happens if you say, “I do not wish to speak with you, Officer.”?
F:
May 3rd, 2012 at 9:46 pm
Yep, “Loyalty Day” it is. Time to harass people we don’t think are loyal enough to capitalism as perverted by the US. Or maybe that should be “Capitalism” with a capital C. and its own flag and church.
Francisco Bacopa:
May 3rd, 2012 at 10:05 pm
What would it take to intimidate the cops back?
Occupy needs a radical wing that works. One rubber bullet, one burned police cruiser, pepper spray, five cruisers. One death, one burned police station.
But can we put together a coalition that can fight the law and win?
kraut:
May 3rd, 2012 at 10:08 pm
Equating Labour Day with the Soviet Union is about as logical as saying because the population of the ex USSR used toiler paper to clean their arses makes toilet paper somehow evil and connected with the deaths of several million Gulag victims.
Befor making idiotic connections, Balko should have googled the history of labour day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Workers%27_Day
International Workers’ Day (also known as May Day) is a celebration of the international labour movement. May 1 is a national holiday in more than 80 countries and celebrated unofficially in many other countries.
Modusoperandi:
May 3rd, 2012 at 10:38 pm
Francisco Bacopa “Occupy needs a radical wing that works. One rubber bullet, one burned police cruiser, pepper spray, five cruisers. One death, one burned police station.”
What? OWS has gone out of its way to marginalize groups like the Black Bloc. They’ve got enough trouble, being marked by the media as dirty unemployed hippies (even when the pilots joined the protest) and union thugs (even when military veterans joined the protest) and homeless-slash-crapping-on-police-cars-slash-violent-rapists (even when padres joined the protest) and you want to add vandalism and arson to their yoke?
“But can we put together a coalition that can fight the law and win?”
Win on TV, in the hearts of the citizenry and, when it comes to it, in court. Lose by forgeting or unnecessarily antagonizing same.
uzza:
May 3rd, 2012 at 11:15 pm
@5; “Will no one rid me of these troublesome occupiers?”
–Bloomberg
Draken:
May 4th, 2012 at 5:53 am
Hmm, Bloomberg, isn’t that a Jewish name? Would the word Schutzhaft mean anything to him?
Chris from Europe:
May 4th, 2012 at 11:15 am
No, Balko isn’t ignorant on May Day and International Labor Day, he just let his inner looneytarian slip out.
In the comments someone makes the ridiculous claim that marxism virtually always leads to bad state communist governments. That’s actually ignorant, because ignoring the existance and history of European left-wing parties is pretty ignorant. The Social Democrats of Germany arrived at the conclusion to reject revoluation in favor of theory through marxist theory.
It reminds me of the attempts of American wingnuts attempt to discredit critical theory (and anything based on it) because it’s neo-Marxist. *gasp*