To many, this may seem like justice for the people brutalized and abused by the blue militia operating the New York City. But how is this justice? The miscreants who committed those criminal acts did so in full view of many people and knowing full well that they were likely being video-recorded. It did not stop them from committing the acts for which the tax-paying residents of the city are now on the hook.
Why do they commit criminal acts against their bosses, the people who employ them to keep them safe?
They act with impunity because they know they will not personally face criminal or civil liability.
Freedom is what the Government says it is. Freedom is never free but is watered and nourished by every generation. Therefore, each generation must understand and commit to the fundamentals of maintaining a just and equitable society, not a police state.
‘In Search of Liberty’, a right-wing website, has the following on its page. (Had the American Revolution failed, each of them, (the founders) would have faced execution – and the loss of all their property, which would have condemned their wives and children to a life of poverty. It was a remarkable gamble, because most of the Founding Fathers were already wealthy, successful men. They didn’t rebel against England for personal enrichment; they rebelled because they truly believed that the loss of freedom was worse than death.
How ironic that even though these men sacrificed everything for their freedom, as articulated by this site, they all believed in the total enslavement and disenfranchisement of Black Americans.
“You will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make a good use of it.”
-John Adams
“Remember democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet, that did not commit suicide.”
-John Adams
“The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending against all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks.”
-Samuel Adams
“A general Dissolution of Principles & Manners will more surely overthrow the Liberties of America than the whole Force of the Common Enemy.”
-Samuel Adams
“They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security.”
-Benjamin Franklin
“Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature.”
-Benjamin Franklin
“I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”
-Nathan Hale
“There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty that makes human nature rise above itself, in acts of bravery and heroism.”
-Alexander Hamilton
“If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government.”
-Alexander Hamilton
“We have all one common cause; let it, therefore, be our only contest, who shall most contribute to the security of the liberties of America.”
-John Hancock
“I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”
-Patrick Henry
“The policy of American government is to leave its citizens free, neither restraining them nor aiding them in their pursuits.”
-Thomas Jefferson
“A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government.”
-Thomas Jefferson
“Educate and inform the whole mass of the people… They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.”
-Thomas Jefferson
“To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them…”
-Richard Henry Lee
“It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man who knows what the law is today can guess what it will be tomorrow.”
-James Madison
“Democracy is the most vile form of government. … democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property: and have in general been as short in their lives as the have been violent in their deaths.”
-James Madison
“Nothing so strongly impels a man to regard the interests of his constituents, as the certainty of returning to the general mass of the people, from whence he was taken, where he must participate in their burdens.”
-George Mason
“The end of the government being the good of mankind points out its great duties: it is above all things to provide for the security, the quiet, the happy enjoyment of life, liberty, and property.”
-James Otis Jr.
“It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government.”
-Thomas Paine
“Those people who will not be ruled by God will be ruled by tyrants.”
-William Penn
“If the freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”
-George Washington
“The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.”
-George Washington
“The Constitution is the guide which I will never abandon.”
-George Washington
“Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster, and what has happened once in 6,000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, because if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world.”
-Daniel Webster
“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States.”
-Noah Webster
I wonder how these men would have responded to whats happening today.(mb)
NEW YORK CITY reached a historic settlement this week on behalf of more than 1,300 people who were attacked by police while protesting the police killing of George Floyd in 2020.
The plaintiffs claimed that the New York Police Department violated protesters’ civil and constitutional rights by making mass arrests, using excessive force, misusing pepper spray, and using a tactic called kettling to trap and arrest protesters ahead of an imposed curfew.
The proposed settlement will pay out $13 million to 1,380 protesters — about $10,000 per person — the largest total payout to protesters in a class action suit in the United States, according to the plaintiffs. The settlement did not impose any reforms on the NYPD.
Of course not. Taxpayers foot the bill, and the thugs continue as if nothing happened.
What the suit means for policing will depend on how New Yorkers and the city respond, said Gideon Oliver, an attorney for the plaintiffs. “Judged by that yardstick, this is a huge victory,” Oliver said. “But whether or not it changes police practices is another story, and depends on how New Yorkers — and the city government — react. “We can’t let the police count this win for protesters as just another cost of doing business,” he said, “as they have so many times in the past.”
The settlement comes four months after another major settlement between the city and Floyd protesters in March that paid a record $7 million to more than 300 people. In both cases, forensic reconstructionof the events played a key role in winning the settlements. Several other major cities have paid out large settlements to protesters in recent lawsuits aided by forensic reconstruction. Between late May and early June 2020, at the height of the movement for racial justice sparked by Floyd’s killing, protesters advocating against police misconduct were met with extreme forms of police abuse. “Thousands exercised their constitutional rights to protest and were met with violence and indiscriminate arrests by the NYPD,” the plaintiffs said in a Thursday press release.
“We can see repeatedly, city after city, situation after situation, that the police are strategically, systematically violating our civil rights.”
“It’s great when we can use technology to our benefit because we know it’s been used against us so often,” Savitri Durkee, a plaintiff in the suit, told The Intercept. “Unfortunately, we can’t just rely on sunshine and the public interest to see what’s going on.” She added, “We can see repeatedly, city after city, situation after situation, that the police are strategically, systematically violating our civil rights.” Plaintiffs in the case noted that police had responded to other protests, including “Blue Lives Matter” and pro-police demonstrations, without using the force displayed against racial justice protesters. “In other words, it is the message of the protest that determines whether Defendants will respond with violent tactics and indiscriminate mass arrests,” the plaintiffs wrote in their suit.
SHORTLY AFTER THE suit was filed in 2021, the city moved to dismiss the case, arguing that the protests had passed and that the city had already made changes at the NYPD and implemented other reforms recommended in the wake of the protests. In July 2021, a judge dismissed parts of the complaint that singled out city officials but granted others, allowing the case to move forward. The suit relied on thousands of videos from more than 80 locations, including footage from police body cameras and helicopter surveillance. The deluge of video was sorted, analyzed, and reconstructed by SITU Research, a group that does visual investigations related to injustices and civil liberties. SITU Research has worked on a handful of recent cases that relied on forensic reconstruction and resulted in major settlements for protesters. While settlements for class action plaintiffs in cases of police brutality have been common throughout recent history, more recent settlements paid to protesters have broken state and national records. The growing size and frequency of settlements has drawn attention to the financial burden that police misconduct places on public coffers.
The shift, however, is unlikely to have a major impact on police conduct without broader institutional changes to policing, said Brad Samuels, director at SITU Research. “While this settlement and the amounts paid to protesters does represent an important form of redress, our larger goal remains enduring change in policing — not just in New York City but across the United States,” Samuels said. “One thing I am certain of is that surveillance alone, whether in the hands of the state or its citizenry, will not be the agent of meaningful change. While it was clearly impactful to have ample video documentation in this case, we need to continually and critically assess how we are using these tools and to what ends. I am convinced there is much more that can be done.”
“While this settlement and the amounts paid to protesters does represent an important form of redress, our larger goal remains enduring change in policing.”
For the protesters behind the suit, the payout was a welcome first step but left much work to be done to address police misconduct and shore up the right to protest. “This doesn’t begin to address the injustice. It just gives us a little bit more leeway to address the injustice,” said Durkee, the plaintiff. “The problem we are protesting stands. It is exactly how it was three years ago. All this settlement does is thaw a little bit the chill that has lain over the protest movement since.(Credit the Intercept)