Just after 3 p.m. in Anaheim, law enforcement officers knocked down an unarmed
male protester in the street for an as yet known reason and police–some
oddly wearing military combat equipment and camouflage–reacted with hostility to citizens
who tried to film the event.
While two officers handcuffed the suspect, other cops rushed up, formed a perimeter, pointed rifles directly at the faces of photographers, snarled and screamed, “Back up!”
In response, some protesters shouted at horseback police and repeatedly chanted, “Get the animals off the horses!”
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Tensions seemed to rise and fall rhythmically. There were moments
when protesters and police merely stare at each other and then there were times when it looked like either side might initiate violence. As a
backdrop, protesters beat makeshift drums and chanted while a police
helicopter circled low and passing drivers honked their horns.
Citizens
are protesting what they believe is a pattern of police brutality–especially a rash of unnecessary, suspicious police killings of unarmed Latinos.
The Weekly's Brandon Ferguson, Amber Stephens, Dave Lieberman and Gustavo Arellano are filing Twitter reports from the scene.
Ferguson overheard protesters chanting:
“Kill yourself; Save a life!” (to cops on horses).
“No justice; no peace; no racist police!”
“Fuck you, pigs!”
“Hey, hey, ho, ho. These fucking cops have got to go!”
Arellano, who has recorded several arrests in his posts, saw riot police stuffing their faces earlier at a food truck called Baconmania.
Stephens
watched “Occupy” forces from Los Angeles, San Diego and Oakland join with
local protesters in front of the police department.
And poor
Lieberman.
Protesters continually think the veteran Weekly food contributor
is a police plant. Perhaps to gain what has been evasive street cred, he labeled horseback cops the “Mr. Ed Brigade.”
All's not humorous though. There are dead serious SWAT sharpshooter perched atop the Anaheim Police Department headquarters. Police and their sympathizers maintain that heavily armed troops of cops must be aggressive and even lethal when they become frightened for their own safety.
The big, lingering question in the crowd: Will hostilities get worse before this day is over? According to some reporters at the scene, the answer is: most likely.
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CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.
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