We always went away from the city to have a beer after work, because there is no way they would survive if we went to my neighborhood bar.

And then, finally, it’s the free market in operation. California decided, in 1978, to gut its tax base and starve its government of the funds to operate. The free market says that if you don’t pay market wages for good people, the good people will go elsewhere. That’s happened to policing in California — the good people go elsewhere, where they’ll get paid probably the same as in California but the cost of living is *much* less — meaning that the cops they *do* get are either a) not too bright, or b) join for reasons other than making a living, reasons that might have more to do with, say, enjoying beating people up, than with making a living. And while there’s supposedly psych tests and such to screen those folks out, you know as well as I how that kind of thing gets watered down when police forces are desperate for warm bodies to fill the ranks.

So anyhow, usually all of that doesn’t make much difference because we just don’t have much crime here and thus the fact that our police forces are full of poorly-trained short-timers and burnout cases doesn’t really matter too much. Until said police forces are called upon to exercise professionalism beyond the minimum required for a routine traffic stop. At that point… well. You see.

– Badtux the Bay Penguin

You don’t close in on people, invading their personal space. unless you are actually going to do something, because you are increasing your risk of injury for no purpose.

If this had been a violent demonstration, that was just *one* of the cops that would have gone to the hospital, because the UCB PD was completely outmanned. For some reason the surrounding cities aren’t doing mutual aid with them anymore. Something to do with them having a habit of beating up non-violent students at demonstrations. Funny how that works, eh?

– Badtux the Observant Penguin

There is an old ‘investigative technique’ that involved putting someone on a slab and then putting a board atop of their body. The ‘detectives’ then added stones on top of the board to convince the ‘defendant’ of the necessity of telling the ‘truth’ by confessing. The OED would certainly be a suitable replacement for the stones.

This is called ‘escalation’. A certain number of people are of the mind that if they list traditional non-violent protest methods as ‘violent offenses’, they will ‘show the cops what violence is’, a type of ‘show and tell’ to educate the police.

If the Berkeley police had lined up and began pushing the crowd back, there might have been some sense to what they were doing. That thrusting with the baton is part of that tactic. What they actually did was assault individuals with no purpose other than inflicting pain. There was no planned and coordinated action, it was individual officers attacking people. The attorneys who sue over this are going to shred the department on that fact.

Seriously this woman is a bloody idiot, Perhaps if you wish t use a good sized dictionary to pulp her, try the full OED and supplements!

[/sarcasm]

So, we were right, the student didn’t do anything, so they had to create a ‘crime’ – felonious arm-linking with intent to annoy.

They aren’t familiar with the concept of ‘ex post facto’ being unConstitutional, any more than with the concepts of the First Amendment.

This is how you make law enforcement impossible. No one will talk to you; no one will trust you; and no one will believe you.