Summary: As the last prosecution concludes from the Occupy Wall Street movement, now we can draw up lessons learned from OWS. Valuable lessons that must be learned to give a reform movement any chance of success. But first we look at the instructive case of Cecily McMillan, newly found guilty of assaulting a police officer as a protest was crushed (a show trial to discourage other protestors). Tomorrow we discuss lessons.
Contents
- About the incident
- Casual police brutality
- Justice for Cecily
- Conclusions
- For More Information
(1) About the incident
It’s a pattern in America. Banks almost break America with their reckless and fraudulent actions. Only one small fry prosecuted. Massive police violence suppressing the Occupy movements; almost only the protestors prosecuted. It’s the two tiered justice system.
(a) “The Outrageous Trial of Cecily McMillan“, Michelle Goldberg, The Nation, 14 April 2014
Two years ago, a young activist named Cecily McMillan attended a protest at Zuccotti Park marking the six-month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. When police moved in to clear the demonstrators, a cop roughly grabbed her breast — photos show an ugly bruise — and she ended up being injured so badly that she had a seizure and ended up in the hospital. In a just world, she would be getting restitution from the City. Instead, in a grotesque act of prosecutorial overreach, she’s currently on trial for assault and facing up to seven years in prison.
According to prosecutors, McMillan, now 25, intentionally attacked her arresting officer, Grantley Bovel, by elbowing him in the face, and was then hurt when he tried to subdue her. She says that she instinctively struck out when she felt his hand on her breast, not knowing that he was a cop, and was then further assaulted.
Her story is more convincing for a number of reasons. McMillan, a veteran of the anti–Scott Walker protests in Wisconsin, was a dedicated pacifist; in Dissent, her masters thesis adviser Maurice Isserman writes about the “many and long discussions Cecily and I have had about nonviolence.” Her injuries, which you can see in this Democracy Now! piece, are indisputable, particularly the hand-shaped bruise on her right breast.
(b) “NYPD officer embroiled in assault trial sued by another Occupy campaigner“, The Guardian, 4 April 2014
A New York police officer whose allegation of assault against an Occupy Wall Street activist could send her to prison for seven years is being sued by another Occupy campaigner, who alleges that the officer injured him on the same day. … {he} has faced several previous allegations of wrongdoing …
(c) A charmingly naive but vivid account of the story: “The Silencing Of Cecily McMillan“, Kathryn Funkhouser, The Toast, 14 April 2014 — Also includes the videos of the incident.
(d) “Woman Found Guilty of Assaulting Officer at an Occupy Wall Street Protest“, New York Times, 5 May 2014
A trial that had become a rallying point for many Occupy Wall Street activists ended on Monday with a jury finding a protester guilty of assaulting a police officer at Zuccotti Park in Manhattan in 2012.
A jury of 8 women and 4 men took less than three hours to decide that the protester, Cecily McMillan, 25, was responsible for assaulting the officer, rejecting her contention that she had reacted instinctively when he grabbed her breast during a protest on St. Patrick’s Day. Ms. McMillan had said she could not distinctly recall what happened amid the chaos of the night.
… Mr. Vance obtained indictments against seven Occupy Wall Street protesters in 2011 and 2012 on charges of assaulting police officers. Two pleaded guilty to that charge, one woman was acquitted and three were allowed to plead guilty to misdemeanor charges.
(2) Casual police brutality, not even news in the New America
(a) “Scores Arrested as the Police Clear Zuccotti Park“, blog of the New York Times. 17 March 2012 — One special note:
Paul Moore, 25, said that he was videotaping the encounter when the captain asked him for identification and began pushing him away, telling him he was not permitted to document what was happening.
(b) Strongly recommend reading: “New Police Strategy in New York – Sexual Assault Against Peaceful Protestors“, David Graeber (Reader in Anthropology, U London), Naked Capitalism 3 May 2012
(c) “Cecily McMillan’s guilty verdict reveals our mass acceptance of police violence“, The Guardian, 5 May 2014
That hyper-selective retelling of events mirrors the popular narrative of Occupy Wall Street – and how one woman may serve seven years while the NYPD goes free.
… When the police moved in to the park that night, in formation and with batons, to arrest a massive number of nonviolent protesters, the chaos was terrifying. Bovell claimed that McMillan elbowed him in the face as he attempted to arrest her, and McMillan and her defense team claim that Bovell grabbed her right breast from behind, causing her to instinctively react.
But the jury didn’t hear anything about the police violence that took place in Zuccotti Park that night. They didn’t hear about what happened there on November 15, 2011, when the park was first cleared. The violence experienced by Occupy protesters throughout its entirety was excluded from the courtroom. The narrative that the jury did hear was tightly controlled by what the judge allowed – and Judge Ronald Zweibel consistently ruled that any larger context of what was happening around McMillan at the time of the arrest (let alone Bovell’s own history of violence) was irrelevant to the scope of the trial.
In the trial, physical evidence was considered suspect but the testimony of the police was cast as infallible. Despite photographs of her bruised body, including her right breast, the prosecution cast doubt upon McMillan’s allegations of being injured by the police – all while Officer Bovell repeatedly identified the wrong eye when testifying as to how McMillan injured him. And not only was Officer Bovell’s documented history of violent behavior deemed irrelevant by the judge, but so were the allegations of his violent behavior that very same night.
To the jury, the hundreds of police batons, helmets, fists, and flex cuffs out on March 17 were invisible – rendering McMillan’s elbow the most powerful weapon on display in Zuccotti that night, at least insofar as the jury was concerned.
That hyper-selective retelling of events to the jury mirrored the broader popular narrative of OWS. The breathtaking violence displayed by the NYPD throughout Occupy Wall Street has not only been normalized, but entirely justified – so much so that it doesn’t even bear mentioning.
After the police cleared the park that night, many of the remaining protesters went on a spontaneous march, during which a group of officers slammed a street medic’s head into a glass door so hard the glass splintered. It is the only instance of which I know throughout New York City’s Occupy movement where a window was broken.
Still, it is the protesters who are remembered as destructive and chaotic. It is Cecily McMillan who went on trial for assault but not Bovell or any of his colleagues – despite the thousands of photographs and videos providing irrefutable evidence that protesters, journalists and legal observers alike were shoved, punched, kicked, tackled, and beaten over the head. That mindset was on display during the jury selection process at McMillan’s trial, when juror after juror had to be dismissed because of outright bias against the Occupy movement and any of its participants.
(3) Justice for Cecily
Here is the website for her defense team, taking donations: Justice for Cecily.
(4) Conclusions
It’s a pattern, a defining one for New America. Massive numbers of heavily armed police, aggressively deployed to suppress demonstrations (preceded by extensive police infiltration, often with agents provocateur). Police brutality to discourage future protests. Followed by show trials to establish that the protestors started the violence.
Especially notice the pre-emptive nature. Police regard protestors of all kinds as potential criminals, against which they array massive forces — often with physical barriers to segregate the contagion.
These measures work because the State has the moral high ground. The public — consumers watching TV — nod while journalists repeat as gospel what officials say. A large fraction of the public grins with vicarious pleasure at videos of police cracking heads (bash those hippies).
The Occupy protests have clear lessons for reform movements. The nature of the Left makes it unlikely these will be learned (there are only embers of interest in reform on the Right).
(5) For More Information
(a) “Suppressing Protest: Human Rights Violations in the U.S. Response to Occupy Wall Street“, Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, NY School of Law, 25 August 2012 — 130 documented incidents of excessive or unnecessary physical force by the New York Police Department.
(b) All posts about Reforming America: steps to political change
(c) Posts about the Occupy Wall Street Movement:
- Occupy Wall Street, another futile peasants’ protest, 5 October 2011
- How do protests like the TP and OWS differ from effective political action?, 26 October 2011
- Occupy & Tea Party are alike, both saving America through cosplay, 18 October 2013
