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While the behavior of the NYPD has been heavy-handed and disproportionate since the Occupy movement’s very start, the violence and lawlessness that characterized the actions of the police yesterday was extraordinary. Thankfully, the countless photos and videos of peaceful protestors \u2014 and journalists!<\/a> \u2014 in New York and elsewhere being clubbed<\/a>, punched<\/a>, kicked<\/a>, maced<\/a>, and slammed against pavement<\/a> have led to widespread disgust. More importantly, that disgust has inspired a broader conversation about the relationship between cop and citizen in America today, and whether or not our police have become overly militarized and out of control.<\/p>\n If we focus specifically on the NYPD, however, it’s hardly a question worth debating \u2014 at least no more than it’s worth debating whether or not sadness is fun or puppies are cute. Philip Gourevitch of The New Yorker<\/em> description of the Zuccotti eviction is indicative of how the NYPD has been handling Occupiers this week; and the war zone atmosphere he describes below was even more<\/em> harrowing and distinct yesterday than it was during the initial clearing of the park:<\/a><\/p>\n The N.Y.P.D. descended on the park with deafening military-grade LRAD noise canons and several stadiums\u2019 worth of blinding Klieg lights, and while they worked, they drove journalists steadily back further and further from their area of operations. (Even the airspace over southern Manhattan was closed during the raid to prevent news helicopters from filming, making a mockery of claims, by the mayor and the police, that they were keeping reporters at bay for their own safety.) A number of journalists who attempted to stand their ground, identifying themselves to the police and insisting on their long-established legal right to work, were treated like protesters\u2014roughed up, shoved, put in choke holds, pepper-sprayed, and otherwise manhandled, and at least seven reporters (including four who\u2019d sought refuge in a church, and one from the New York Post<\/em>, which has been calling for such a police operation against O.W.S. for weeks) were among the nearly two hundred and fifty people arrested during the crackdown. So was a City Councilman, Ydanis Rodriguez, who was taken into custody blocks from the park, and bloodied in the process.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Yesterday was a “Day of Action,”<\/a> according to protestors, that began with an attempt to shut down the New York Stock Exchange, continued into a truly ugly and downright scary melee between some protestors who tried to “reclaim” Zuccotti and a police force determined to stop them, and concluded with marches on Foley Square, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the illumination of the movement’s “bat signal”<\/a> (which is pretty cool, really).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \n\n
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