FREE SPEECH ZONE | Provocateurs, police and rocks-in-a-box at OccupyMN
Hennepin County has started a PR campaign against Occupy MN. Attached is a defamatory press release sent out today at 4:30 pm by the Sheriff’s office. It emphasized the cost of the police and detailed a list of incidents at the camp over the past 2 weeks.
Tonight the TV news reported on a box of bricks labeled “riot equipment” left at the Plaza without saying that the person who left it was a provocateur that the protesters had been watching. The protesters told the police who left the box and even pointed him out on the light rail platform. They watched in despair as the police briefly questioned him and then released him. In the attached picture you can see the box of bricks with the very childish and provocative note: “Riot Equipment: NEEDS: bricks, large but throwable stones, and gasoline.” For the media to imply that the box might have been left by a protester was a travesty.
Provocateurs are expected in this movement, but such biased media reporting needs to be exposed.
Earlier in the day (2pm) county police had told the organizers that they had to remove tarps, which are essential to keeping materials dry. After the organizers contacted County Commissioner Peter McLaughlin, within half an hour they were told it was a miscommunication.
We need to call the Hennepin County Commissioners to tell them to take provocateurs seriously and to let the protesters have tents for sleeping in the cold. Privately the police admit that they had way too many police on duty the first two weeks of the camp; they should own up to this publicly when stating the cost.
Chair of Hennepin County Commissioners is Mike Opat, 612-348-7881.
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Polly Kellogg lives in Minneapolis, after retiring from St. Cloud State University.
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Comments
losing credibility
The police are playing a losing game because they are there to stop the challenge to the wealthy, to protect and serve them. This challenge is not going away and the 99 will not be placated by scraps tossed from elite balconies. The police are being shown to those previously paying a lot less attention to be brutal and unconcerned with Constitutional rights. The rich/powerful and their servants on the police force and in City Hall and in our legislature and other positions of power have overplayed their greedy hand. Electoral politics obviously will not be a recourse for the 99. Nor will the corrupt judicial system. So there we are, occupying in virtually every state in the US, with sympathetic occupations all over the world!! Hear us roar!!!!
ANOTHER OBVIOUS TARGET
I WANT TO SUGGEST PICKETING UNITED HEALTHCARE, WHICH WAS LISTED AS HAVING THE HIGHEST PAID CEO IN MINNESOTA, AND ONE OF THE HIGHEST INCOMES IN THE STATE YEAR AFTER YEAR BY THE PIONEER PRESS.
AT A TIME WHEN ESCALATING HEALTHCARE COSTS ARE SUCH A BIG ISSUE, AND HURTING EMPLYMENT RATES BECAUSE EMPLOYERS CAN NOT AFFORD THEM EITHER, I THINK IT IS AN OUTRAGE FOR THEM TO BE TAKING SUCH HUGE PROFITS. THE HEALTHCARE SYSTEM RUNS THE DOCTORS, RUN THE HOSPITALS AND ARE BIG, BIG BUSINESS. WITH LOTS OF LOBBIESTS AND OUT OF CONTROL GREED. OCCUPY UNITED HEALTHCARE 5901 Lincoln Drive , Edina , MN 55436.
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