Welcome to the police state

l told you not to use my damn name. Can't you even try to keep from forgettin' that?

Not even your code name?

Oh, yeah, yeah. My code name.

Y'all hear that? We're usin' code names.

-- from the film "Raising Arizona"

Nashville Scene reporter, Jonathan Meador, tells the full story of his unjustifiable arrest during Bill Haslam's red-state crackdown on Occupy Nashville's constitutional rights. The section on Tennessee Highway Patrol officers not identifying themselves or wearing their badges (to show their badge numbers) is particularly troubling for those of us concerned about police abuse and transparency:

No one offered to look at my credentials, no one gave me an opportunity to put them in contact with my editor. Nor did they listen to a colleague, who kept shouting I was a member of the press. He later said a trooper told him, “You want to be next?”

The combined weight of heavily equipped Tennessee Highway Patrol troopers was too much. My knees buckled, and I was slowly, firmly introduced face-first to the freezing marble of the plaza. They dug their knees into my back and tightly affixed a pair of zip-tie handcuffs, the plastic gouging my wrists. From all directions, I could hear screaming.

“Remember to charge this one with resisting arrest,” said a trooper.

“Yessir,” said another.

“Go ahead and take him, Mo,” said one of the officers as I was pulled to my feet and marched forward in plastic handcuffs.

Ahead stood a line of detainees gathering before a massive Tennessee Department of Correction bus. While waiting in line, I asked the trooper his name, hoping friendliness would make things easier. I even added an unironic “sir.” His only reply was, “I can’t tell you that.”

“Is your name ‘Mo,’ by any chance? I overheard one of the troopers calling you by that name.”

No response. There were no badges visible on the trooper, nor even the name tag they’re required to wear. He only looked ahead.

I find the lack of faith in people within Bill Haslam's administration to be troubling, to say the least.

Aftermath of today's 3 AM red-state Tennessee raid on Occupy Nashville: judge finds "no probable cause" for arrests

As expected Republican Governor Bill Haslam gave the orders for what one reporter described as "a large force" of Tennessee state troopers to make a daring pre-dawn raid on maybe 2 dozen nonviolent Occupy Nashville dissenters asleep in their tents. The Tennessee Highway Patrol commandos descended upon the camp and cuffed and carried away the occupiers who brazenly sat down and sang, "We Shall Overcome." According to the Occupy Nashville Twitter feed: there were around 100 THP troopers with dogs and SWAT teams.

THP put on a rather sad display of early-morning detention and attempted arrest and further detention of the protesters in what looked like an attempt to snake-charm Commissioner Tom Nelson, who seemed to be having none of it. Commissioner Nelson found no probable cause for the arrests, likely because there was none. Governor Haslam intends to expend taxpayer dollars now posting sentries at Legislative Plaza overnight to keep any nonviolent protests from staying at the plaza past his bedtime.

As if these events were not troubling enough to those of us who value our fundamental civil rights in a free society, there is another bothersome coda. In the Associated Press follow up to the story, the Occupy Wall Street group in Oakland is falsely smeared:

Protester Albert Rankin said Thursday that the group intended to face arrests with "no hostility whatsoever" to avoid a repeat of violent shutdowns of protests in other cities this week.

"There were some shouts here and there, but for the most part, it was very peaceful," Rankin said of Friday's arrests in Nashville.

There is at least the veiled suggestion here that Oakland occupiers had something to do with the militaristic crackdown by the Oakland police department. But an earlier AP story on Occupy Nashville provides even more context for the west-coast victim-blaming:

Protester Albert Rankin said earlier Thursday that the group would face arrests with "no hostility whatsoever," wanting to avoid a repeat of Oakland, Calif., where an Iraq war veteran suffered a fractured skull in a scuffle with police, and in Atlanta where SWAT teams arrested protesters.

"We always remain peaceful here," said Rankin, 25, who has been unemployed for a little more than a year. "If we can get enough flower donations, we're going to give flowers to the police as they come to arrest us."

While the Tennessee Governor may appreciate it, the insinuation in this report is despicable. I followed the Oakland protests for hours before and after the police assault on Twitter, Livestream, YouTube, and in the local TV media. The Iraq War veteran, Scott Olsen (whom the Associated Press cannot even bring itself to name) was not involved with a scuffle with police when he was hit in the forehead by some form of large cop ammunition (widely reported as a tear gas canister). He was standing several yards away. And when other protesters rushed to his aid, Oakland cops lobbed a grenade at Mr. Olsen's prone body to make them disperse. The AP failed to verify their perspective with YouTube video evidence. Do you see a "scuffle"?





I don't know if Occupy Nashville rep Albert Rankin's words were twisted by the AP to fit their slant on Oakland, but I hope that Nashville occupiers are more conscientious and discreet with the media in the future so as not to discredit protesters in other cities when they defend their own goals. Oakland cops have a legacy of brutally cracking down on protest movements, including a 2003 protest against the Iraq War. I doubt very seriously that passing out flowers to the militant Oakland PD thugs would have made a difference for Scott Olsen who seemed nonviolent to me.

As for Occupy Atlanta, protesters there sat down and then were cuffed and hauled away. How is that so different than Occupy Nashville's experience? These unfortunate comparisons serve to justify rights-violating officials like Bill Haslam, Kasim Reed, and Jean Quan more than they defend Occupy Nashville.



UPDATE: News media video from this morning's raid on and removal of Occupy Nashville looks remarkably like coverage of Occupy Atlanta's experience (h/t Justin Mundie).





I also saw some occupiers here resisting and not going along "peacefully", although they did remain nonviolent.



UPDATE:  New video on Occupy Oakland in the wake of the police brutality that counters these assumptions of it being a violent movement:

Racial Profiling Over at the THP

Is anyone really surprised in the current anti-immigration climate that Hispanics in Tennessee are the most likely ethnic group to be pulled over by the Tennessee Highway Patrol and the least likely to have evidence seized from their cars?