Protest turns violent in Olympia (police shooting)

[Joanne98]

Source: The Olympian


OLYMPIA – About 40 people involved in a protest that ended with lit torches being thrown at a west Olympia police car and station were demonstrating against police violence and a resident's recent shooting death, participants say.

The demonstration was spurred partly by the death of Jose Ramirez-Jimenez of Olympia, who was shot and killed after a police chase in November in Lacey, participant Jeff Berryhill of Olympia said Saturday.

Some demonstrators held road flares, torches and signs; others played banjo and guitar. After gathering about 10:40 p.m. Friday and circling through downtown a couple of times, protesters made their way across the Fourth Avenue Bridge and up the Harrison Avenue hill, Berryhill said. The group was followed by Olympia police and was met by more officers at Thomas Street and Harrison Avenue, diverting them down Perry Street toward a police substation, he said.

Police say protesters then threw lit torches against the station wall and a police car, which were quickly extinguished.

No injuries or damage were reported, police said.



Read more: http://www.theolympian.com/101/story/730339.html

[pattmarty]

1. Assault ANY precinct/station that condones/practices............

............ANY kind of police brutality or violence against citizens'. If the courts and prosecutors WON'T do it, we need to do it.

[John Kerry VonErich]

10. Pick up your arms, it ain't gonna be pretty.

nt

[gratuitous]

2. I have a dollar

Anyone want to put up a hole in a doughnut? My dollar says that the person who threw the lit torch (or egged someone else into throwing it) was a police rat.

[12string]

3. police rat

highly possible

[acmavm]

4. I'd say most probably.

[ThomCat]

7. I wouldn't take that bet. I think you're probably right.

The police are always more organized than the protesters, and part of their tactics is always to frame the protesters as more violent than they really are.

We've seen it here in NYC very blatantly, that cops will impersonate protesters and instigate violence, or pretend to instigate violence just to get other people arrested on trumped up charges. The cops do shit that would get anyone else arrested, and they do it to get other people arrested, and yet they never get arrested for doing it.

[uppityperson]

5. This bit from the story gets me...

Also collected at the scene were 14 signs, some of which said "Liar liar cops on fire" and "Fire all cops, all cops are murderers."

"I would consider them threatening towards law enforcement," Johnson said about the signs

[sasquatch]

6. That douchebag would though

Don't you know they have a hard job and need our support no matter what.
:sarcasm:

[ThomCat]

8. Shit like that always pisses me off too.

Cops can pick out anything and say it's a threat.

"He was wearing blue, and we know that's a gang color in this area, so we were justified in shooting him."

"He was carrying something in his hand, and for all we know it could have been a gun, so we thought our lives were in danger so we had to defend ourselves."

"This is a high crime area, so just being here is suspicious, so we were justified in stopping him. The witness is wrong to say he cooperated. We say he resisted, so we had no choice but to beat the shit out of him."

Cops can lie through their teeth, say anything, turn anything into a justification for anything, and get away with it. If that sign is a threat, and they are violent towards any of those protesters as a result and get away with it then it's just more police brutality. :(

Our police are far too militarized, and far too belligerent and hostile to the people they're supposed to be protecting. I wish we could fire the vast majority of them and somehow rebuild our law enforcement from the ground up with new people and a new culture.

[starroute]

9. It's a little hard to take protests in Olympia seriously

My kids live out there -- it's the state capital and a college town, full of hippie wannabes and people who wish it could be 1968 all over again. And the demonstration began in downtown and then proceeded along a shopping street in a middle class neighborhood.

Not to say the cops aren't also playing stupid games -- but this is not exactly the Oakland riots.