Free Wheeling Police

In the United States, we like to think of our First Amendment right as put forth in the Bill of Rights as unwavering and irreversible.  As it stands today, however, it seems our rights our slowly being usurped from us.  Whether in the name of Homeland Security, "safety", or some other "justified" reason, our rights our diminishing.  For those of you who don't know what the First Amendment right states, it is as follows:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

With all the Occupy protests across the country, it seems that both police, local and state governments have forgotten, or wilfully ignored, the rights of citizens.  If people want to set up a peaceful encampment to protest grievances, then they have every right to do so and any effort, under any guise, by officials to disrupt or disband said protest is in direct violation of the law.  If there are rules put forth by a state about encampments on public grounds, or where and when people can convene to protest, it is a violation of our First Amendment right.  (And for those who say that states are exempt from this because of the wording of the Amendment, see the Fourteenth which invariably includes states and local governments).  If and when there are acts of violence within a protest, the police have every right to intervene and should, but there have been too many instances over the past few months where non-violent protests have led to violent acts instigated by the police. 

I will not go into a litany of grievances, or highlight every instance where police and elected official have overstepped their bounds, but I will highlight 2 recent instances which caught my attention and speak to our diminishing rights.  Both instances occurred last week; the first in New York, the second in California.  The instance in New York, while seemingly minute in comparison to other grievances, is astonishing to me.  The instance occurred when a large group of protesters sought to gather outside the house of the New York City mayor under whose orders the Occupy Movement at Zuccoti Park was disbanded last week.  When the protesters arrived at the mayor's street, a public street like any other in New York, they found it blocked by police.  Now, this may not seem like much, but anybody in the United States has every right to walk down a public street.  What allows the police to block the mayor's street when the only event occurring was a potential protest outside his house?  Is the mayor not a citizen of the United States as well?  Since when does he get special rights to block a public street?  It seems to me that the mayor of New York has excluded himself from the ranks of the public.  Whats next on his list of rights to violate?  It is one act like this, only minutely reported on, that will escalate to a full blown redaction of our First Amendment right as we know it. 

The California event, while not directly linked to the Occupy Movement, and not as innocuous as the blocking of a public street, is a grievance which should lead to the arrest of the officers involved.  The event which I am referring to occurred on the campus of University of California Davis.   Becoming a yearly tradition, students gathered to protest the increase in tuition and the inability of more and more students to afford attending a public university.  Unlike other years, campus police arrived in full riot gear, ready for battle, and found students sitting with arms linked in protest.  While I don't know the exact details of what transpired, the end result was a group of students, sitting, getting sprayed with pepper spray.  The students were not attacking the police, they weren't acting in any violent manner, they were sitting on the quad of the campus which was specifically designed as a meeting place.  As it turns out, the students apparently have fewer rights than inmates in a California prison.  Prison guards in California are specifically not allowed to use pepper spray on any inmate who is sitting as this is a sign of non-violence.  Further more, prison guards must ensure that they have medical assistance ready when using pepper spray in case there are any adverse effects.  So what gives "campus police" the right to use the spray on sitting, non-violent protesters?  Nothing.  Any officer involved should be arrested for violating the rights of the students, yet I guarantee this will not happen. 

Two instances, one minor, one not, yet indicative of a growing trend.  Police, increasingly on the alert for "terror", have forgotten that they are citizens of the United States and should be protecting the rights of protesters rather than stripping those rights away.  Especially in regards to the Occupy Movement, since when is any of these officers not a part of the "99%".  Have they forgotten what they are there for or have they simply become brainless robots following orders?  If police want to gain the respect of the the citizens they protect, they are not doing a very good job of it.  It increasingly looks like a militarized police force when you look at the news.  If we continue to allow our elected officials to dictate what the police should or should not do, we will end up suffering even more than we are now.  What we need is a concerted effort to look back at our rights as citizens of this country and stand up for them.  We need to know specifically what our rights are and be willing to stand up for them and not let the police bully us around.  While I recognize the need for police, I do not want to live in a society where the police are feared or distrusted.  Currently, I am losing my respect for the police and inherently my trust of them as well.  If we want to live in a free society, then we need to stand up for our rights and hold the police accountable for their grievances against us.