Whole World Watching
Police Show of Force Helps Occupy Movement
As we drove down the 101 southbound and saw the skyline of Los Angeles ahead of us the tension was palpable. We understood that this night would be another decisive moment in the global struggle for justice. On November 30, Occupy L.A., which has maintained a presence at the steps of City Hall for two months while campaigning against the incestuous relationship between government and corporate America, faced imminent eviction. Our twitter feeds and chat-rooms awash with information, we called one of the demonstrators on the ground to get one final update before we pulled into downtown. The last thing he said before promptly hanging up was, “Oh my God, there are buses full of cops just streaming in here. I can’t believe what I am seeing.”
The scene was indeed surreal. We witnessed non-stop convoys of police vehicles and buses bringing in what ultimately, according to Reuters, were 1,400 police officers in full riot gear – a force so large that they had to use Dodger Stadium to stage the whole operation. One CBS reporter watching them from the air was quoted saying, “We’ve actually never seen this many LAPD officers in one spot,” Bulldozers moved in, armored buses for detainees arrived, police climbed into hazmat suits, and the roundup of peaceful protesters had begun. In a scene out of the Hollywood play-book, the final warnings rang out over loudspeakers as a massive contingent of officers symbolically marched down the steps of City Hall.
This was not going to be another grainy cell phone video either, the “approved” media pool armed with the latest high-definition cameras and high fidelity boom microphones would be there to document the entire production. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was directing his own Hollywood epic, complete with air support and raw emotion. The only question is who would be cashing in on this production. Surely it wouldn’t be the already stretched-thin taxpayers of Los Angeles who funded it. No, it would ironically be the indignant generation, the Occupy movement, that would benefit the most.
