A man in an Anonymous mask, who was sitting peacefully, was harangued by police and arrested. All caught on camera, bystanders recorded the event while a multitude of witnesses yelled out that he did nothing wrong or illegal. The incident took place in the House Gallery, during the Maricopa County hearing over the suspected election fraud.
Two officers attended the arrest of the man. Although the man in question didn’t have his face concealed by the mask—the mask had been resting on the top of his head—the first arresting officer approached from behind and kicked at him lightly until he left his chair.
Bystanders went to the man’s defense, with several phones filming the event. One bystander even said the arrest was made because the man was sporting an Anonymous mask.
In the video, another bystander accuses the police of choking the man as the officers unduly restrained him while he was quietly sitting between the chairs. Chants of “shame” and “the whole world is watching” were cried as the man was forced to his feet and escorted away.
After the removal of the man, one of the bystanders states: “you promised us if we were silent you wouldn’t remove us.” Officials then began to plead with the crowd. At the end of the video, one official agreed that the man with the mask did nothing wrong.
Janet Higgens, who uploaded one of the videos, stated: “We were at the point of chaos. All brought on by the police. For a man sitting quietly. With dreadlocks. His name is Jonathan S. McRae. He is currently in jail, charged with trespassing and resisting arrest. I disagree. He was harassed, held to the floor for over 5 minutes, and kidnapped. I don’t know if he was injured in the attack.”
“We the people of the United States are tired of this stuff,” another witness yelled as a bystander warned that this would all end up on YouTube.
Arrested for wearing an Anonymous mask…
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-11/wearing-anonymous-mask-america-can-get-you-arrested
We need to have some pigs die over this sort of behavior.
Businesses call the cops to get rid of homeless around their stores. This guy was lucky – if it was CA, he probably would have been beaten to death.
Every time I see some rally somewhere the illegal alien criminal filth and communists and anarchists are wearing masks. That is a violation of the Ku Klux Klan Act. Screw ’em. If people are getting rounded up in the night or shot at we will all wear masks but this is not the time and we are still, however tenuously living under a functioning Constitution. The mask assholes should be treated as lawbreakers when they refuse to comply with the law.
Ever notice that police unions are “fraternal”? This should tell you something. The “thin-blue-line” is a gang, little different than street gangs–at least when it comes to “covering-up” questionable behavior by police.
In today’s day and age, “officer safety” trumps de-escalation of force. This, in part, is due to the militarization of the police along with training in Israeli police tactics. This becomes a problem, with the “us vs. them” attitude that is fosters, along with the fact that Israel is a very different place, being on a constant “war footing”, and by necessity, its police tactics are very different.
There are too many instances of police being “given a pass”, even when incontrovertible video and audio evidence is presented. Grand juries, guided by police-friendly prosecutors, quite often refuse to charge those police officers who abuse their authority.
Police officers, who want to do the right thing, are quite often marginalized and put into harms way, by their own brethren…When a police officer is beating on someone that is already restrained while yelling, “stop resisting” THAT is but one reason police have a “bad name” in many instances…
Here are changes that can help reduce the police-induced violence:
1. Get rid of police unions. Police unions (fraternities) protect the guilty, and are responsible for the massive whitewashing of questionable police behavior that is presently being committed.
2. Eliminate both “absolute” and “qualified” immunity for all public officials. This includes, prosecutors and judges, police and firefighters, code enforcement and child protective services officials, and others who deal with the citizenry. The threat of being sued personally would encourage them to behave themselves. Require police officers to be “bonded” by an insurance company, with their own funds. No bond= no job.
3. Any public funds disbursed to citizens as a result of police misconduct should come out of police pension funds–NOT from the taxpayers.
4. Regular drug-testing of police officers as well as incident-based drug testing should take place whenever an officer is involved in a violent situation with a citizen–no exceptions.
5. Testing for steroid use should be a part of the drug testing program. You know damn well, many police officers “bulk up” with the “help” of steroids. Steroids also affect users mentally as well, making them more aggressive. The potential for abuse of citizens increases greatly with steroid use.
6. Internal affairs should only be used for disagreements between individual officers–NOT for investigations involving citizen abuse. State-level investigations should be mandatory for all suspected abuses involving citizens.
7. Prosecutors should be charged with malfeasance IF any evidence implicating police officer misconduct is not presented to the grand jury.
8. A national or state-by-state database of abusive individuals who should NEVER be allowed to perform police work should be established–a “blacklist” of abusive (former) police officers.
9. Most people are unaware that police have special “rules” that prohibit them from being questioned for 48 hours. This allows them to “get their stories straight” and makes it easier to “cover up” bad police behavior. Police must be subject to the same laws as civilians.
10. All police should be required to wear bodycams and utilize dashcams that cannot be turned off. Any police officers who causes a dash or body cam to be turned off should be summarily fired–no excuses. Today’s body and dash cams are reliable enough to withstand harsh treatment. Body and dashcam footage should be uploaded to a public channel “on the cloud” for public perusal.
11. All interrogations must be video and audio recorded. Police should be prohibited from lying or fabricating stories in order to get suspects to confess. False confessions ARE a problem in many departments. Unknown to most people, police can lie with impunity while civilians can be charged with lying to police…fair? I think not…
12. Any legislation passed that restricts the rights of ordinary citizens, such as firearms magazine capacity limits, types of weapons allowed, or restrictive concealed-carry laws should apply equally to police. No special exemptions to be given to police. Laws must be equally applied.
Police work is not inherently dangerous…there are many other professions that are much more dangerous.
A little “Andy Taylor” could go a long way in allaying fears that citizens have of police.
That being said, I have no problem with police officers who do their job in a fair, conscientious manner…however, it is time to call to task those police officers who only “protect and serve” themselves.
Personal lawsuits against the individual officers involved are the answer to this sort of thing.
With video evidence to support them they can be successful, and can be very scary to the officers even if not.
Abuse of power under color of law is not protected by an officers status as an officer, it is valid reason to sue without the protection of being a LEO involved (same reason an officer couldn’t legally beat up someone he found his girlfriend running around on him with and call it an arrest instead of an assault).
If the city or police department involves itself giving legitimacy to an otherwise illegitimate action, that opens them up to liability in the suit as well.
That does, of course, presuppose circumstances are actually as reported and other factors weren’t involved.
Jake, if I read the story right, the mask was not obscuring his face. It was on the top of his head.
Wearing masks for criminal purposes is usually illegal, but non criminal use of them usually isn’t (think masquerade balls or Halloween parties and such).
anarchyst, this is about the 5th time I’ve seen you post this exact thing on at least two different websites. Update it or something, at least.
LEO REALLY don’t like that Guy Fawlkes mask and what it stands for, and that’s probably why he was arrested. If it was a Ronald Raygun mask they would’ve bought the guy a beer.
Phoenix cops are assholes. Not to be confused with Sheriff Joe’s boys.
@Jake- don’t be an ignorant little bootlicker.
Have any of you participated in a protest before? I’ve never participated in one and prefer not to get involved. If that’s your schtick then more power to you, but it’s not my style. Figuratively speaking, I’d rather find a way to catch a bull by surprise than charge it head on.
lawsuits needed
Necromongers: The State is Always a Police State by Bill Buppert
4/9
Tough job being a cop these days
Left wing bullshit set up with pre programmed witnesses.
What would be the result if those assholes were not stopped by the police?