Police Brutality Against Women, and Other Stuff I’ve Been Too Busy to Notice

Posted on | November 22, 2011 | 19 Comments

Michelle Fields, NYPD and Occupy Wall Street

Trying to keep up with the news is sometimes a challenge even for the most hard-core news junkie, and I hope readers will forgive me for occasionally overlooking stories I should notice. Libertarian blogger Tom Knapp recentlly called my attention to the latest damsel-in-distress drama involving Michelle Fields of the Daily Caller.

When last we encountered Miss Fields, she was trapped with me amid the smelly hippie mob of Occupy DC protesters who were trying to storm the AFP Summit. The same commie scum had been shouting ugly things at Miss Fields, who vowed never again to cover Occupy DC, so . . .

Tucker Carlson evidently got the bright idea to send Miss Fields and her camerawoman, Direna Cousins, to cover the Occupy Wall Street mob’s “Day of Action” in New York, where they got beaten by the NYPD:

“The police officers were beating the protesters with batons, and were also beating the media,” Fields told TheDC. “They hit Direna and me with batons. They hit other members of the press in order to get them to move out of the street.” . . .
Clear indications that Fields and Cousins were members of the press didn’t stop the NYPD beating.
“Direna had a camera in her hand and I had a microphone, and we were being hit,” she said. “When I fell to the ground I said at one point, ‘I’m just covering this! I’m covering this!’ And the officer just said, ‘Come on, get up, get up,’ before pulling me up by my jacket.’”
In the crush of the crowd, Fields and Cousins were unable to get out of the street and comply with the NYPD’s orders.
“The protesters came up to me right away and asked if I needed any medical assistance. They were actually very kind and helpful. It was the police officers who were very aggressive,” Fields added.

Here is the video — blurry and confusing — where you see the incident and hear people shouting, “Help her up!”:

Hunter S. Thompson got tear-gassed while covering the riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, so Miss Fields is certainly following in excellent journalistic footsteps. However, my chivalrous instincts and paternal sensibilities are a bit ruffled by the thought of her editors sending a 5-foot-5, 115-pound girl into the middle of such a chaotic situation. But the 21st century cannot distinguish chivalry from chauvinism, and I suppose Tucker Carlson would be sued by the Justice Department or the EEOC if he refused Miss Fields the “opportunity” to get wedged between an angry mob and a squadron of baton-wielding NYPD officers.

Having exposed myself to accusations of “discrimination,” I’ll just go ahead and earn the contempt of feminists everywhere by questioning the wisdom of pregnant women participating in protests:

Jennifer Fox, 19, spoke to The Stranger at the Occupy Seattle encampment at Seattle Central Community College. Fox claimed that she was three months pregnant last Tuesday evening when she joined an Occupy Seattle march that stopped at the intersection of 5th Avenue and Pine Street.
“I was standing in the middle of the crowd when the police started moving in,” she says. “I was screaming, ‘I am pregnant, I am pregnant. Let me through. I am trying to get out.’” At that point, Fox continues, a Seattle police officer lifted his foot and it hit her in the stomach, and another officer pushed his bicycle into the crowd, again hitting Fox in the stomach. “Right before I turned, both cops lifted their pepper spray and sprayed me. My eyes puffed up and my eyes swelled shut,” she says.

Wow. The Occupy movement is suddenly pro-life?

OK, that was cruel and unfair, in addition to being sexist, so I apologize. Perhaps you see why it might sometimes be better for me to ignore these stories. Wherever there is the slightest hint of controversy — or an opportunity to create a controversy — you can always depend on me to say something that offends people. Set your watch by it. And in other recent news developments . . .

In Russia, It Means ‘Hail to the Chief’ — Russian TV anchor Tatiana Limanova flips the bird at Barack Obama?
“Sugar Falling Out of the Sky!” — If you’ve ever listened to University of Georgia football on the radio, you know that Larry Munson was the least objective play-by-play man in the history of sports broadcasting. A native of Minnesota, he became the Bulldogs’ biggest fan and never bothered to hide his emotional reactions. Larry just got called up to that Great Press Box in the Sky, no doubt because God needed somebody to do play-by-play for the Battle of Armageddon with as much drama as Larry brought to the 1980 Georgia-Florida game: “Lindsay Scott! Lindsay Scott!”
90% of a Million — Daley Gator reaches 900,000 hits. He’d already be there, but hasn’t been linking us enough lately.
Speaking of Which — Monday, we had more than 14,000 page-views and exactly one tip-jar hitter. So everybody else was reading on TK’s $20. Just sayin‘ . . .
More Proof of What You Already Knew — Global warming is a scam.
Bon Jour, Mon Amis! — Not often I find myself linked in French:

“Le mouvement des indignés compte beaucoup moins de femmes que d’hommes. Cela fait contraste avec le TEA PARTY qui compte 55% de femmes. Stacey McCain pense connaitre ce qui explique cette différence. La majorité des filles et des femmes n’ont pas envie de camper dehors avec des pouilleux qui sentent mauvais.”

Which I believe translates to “hippies stink.”

The 2011 Originality in Criminality Award — “GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — A Grand Junction man has been arrested for sexual assault on a child after using a ruse to dupe the teen’s parents into thinking he was a high school tutor. According to the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office, Adam Clayton Ross, 27, of Grand Junction, was arrested on Thursday and is being charged with sexual assault on a child. The warrant for his arrest says that Ross met the 14 year old girl on MySpace and became aware that she was attending the Grande River Virtual Academy. He then showed up at her door with fake credentials, claiming he was a tutor. Her parents allowed Ross to meet with the girl on three occasions for tutoring sessions.” I blame Al Gore for inventing the Internet.
The 2011 Stupidity in Criminality Award — Armed robber encounters armed convenience store clerk, hilarity ensues. Be sure to watch the video: The clerk had the good sense to shoot first, because a masked man who walks in brandishing a revolver has forfeited the presumption of innocence.
Lucky Number— Did you realize that tonight’s event co-sponsored by the Heritage Foundation and AEI is the 13th Republican presidential debate of the year? And did you know that there are at least a dozen more scheduled?
In Case You Didn’t Know — Amazon’s “Black Friday Deals Week” is totally awesome. And shameless capitalism is cool.
The Band Didn’t Know ‘Brick House’? — Apparently, the drummer in Jimmy Fallon’s band is a Newt Gingrich supporter.
Great Ideas Deserve to Be Stolen — This post represents a form that Jimmie Bise calls “Clearing the Browser Tabs” and, despite my notorious shamelessness in ripping off great ideas, I’d be a lowdown polecat if I didn’t suggest you go over and hit Jimmie’s tip jar for a few bucks. Ease my conscience.
“Young, Conservative and Spicy”? — One of my Twitter acquaintances scored a new gig at TheCollegeConservative.com, and her staff profile caught me by surprise:

Gabriella Hoffman (@Gabby_Hoffman) joins TheCollegeConservative as a contributor and assistant editor from the University of California at San Diego in La Jolla, California. A Political Science major and History minor, Hoffman is also the Outreach Director for The California Review. She contributes the “Being Young, Conservative and Spicy” column at The Washington Times Communities, and has also had articles published on FoxNation and The College Fix. Hoffman is a native of Coto de Caza, California. She can be reached at [email protected].

“I’m a married spud! I’m a married spud!”

Anyway, that’s enough brutality for one day. Don’t forget to check out our Amazon “Black Friday Deals Week” specials for all your holiday shopping: Low prices for you, commissions for me, a win-win.

And hitting the tip jar? Hey, it’s not like you’re losing, considering that 13,999 of you were reading for free yesterday.

Category: Blogging

Comments

19 Responses to “Police Brutality Against Women, and Other Stuff I’ve Been Too Busy to Notice”

Doug Hagin
November 22nd, 2011 @ 7:59 pm

Stacy, I HAVE been linking, but remember those links never show up, for whatever reason, but thanks for the plug! You da man!
Anonymous
November 22nd, 2011 @ 8:07 pm

OK, I don’t get it. Is that hyperlink around my name supposed to be a Google bomb to sully my reputation further than I’ve already managed to sully it on my own, or what?

As far as Ms. Fields is concerned, I admire her dedication to doing real journalism. There are plenty of burly male “reporters” who’d fear to put themselves in the places she’s going.
richard mcenroe
November 22nd, 2011 @ 8:14 pm

Wait ’til Tucker sets her up with the Tyson Hot Oil Massage segment.
Peter Ingemi
November 22nd, 2011 @ 8:18 pm

With luck I’ll get to that 900k before the end of the year. If I’m VERY lucky …..
Anonymous
November 22nd, 2011 @ 8:54 pm

WOW! I’m glad you noticed that, Tom. Fixed the link, which should now direct to your blog.

“Operator error.”
Anonymous
November 22nd, 2011 @ 9:03 pm

A likely story 😉

Thanks!
Anonymous
November 22nd, 2011 @ 9:04 pm

Did she get any film worth keeping?
JeffS
November 22nd, 2011 @ 9:44 pm

Miss Fields shows considerable courage in covering this beat. I admire that; as others have noted, not all journalists would do that.

However………

Any mob situation is dangerous, because a mob is a group of people who disorderly to begin with. The potential to go from “disorderly” to “ugly” is always present; the only question should, “How likely is the mob to get ugly?” Mob psychology (such as it is) leans towards psychotic, unless there’s disciplined and determined leadership dedicated to keep things calm — a difficult task at best, if not an oxymoron.

But if you have a mob leadership that is looking for confrontation, and people who really don’t care, things will get ugly really quickly. And out of control of anyone. Which perfectly describes the people comprising OWS and similar operations around the world.

The only effective countermeasure for a mob, short of shooting to kill, is dispersal. Once the mob is broken up, you will have violence by individuals too hopped up on adrenaline (or drugs) to stop, but most of the mob is running for cover. There’s power in numbers, and can be sufficient to overwhelm a smaller police force, even if they are armed. It’s happened.

Police know this, and use any number of tactics in response. The simplest is the most direct: beat the living crap out of the mob to get their attention. Use pain as a teaching point: “If you get out of here, you won’t hurt!” “Pain” can be pepper spray, rubber bullets, truncheons. or other means.

The problem is that of “Identification, friend or foe”. The cops have an easy solution for that: if you aren’t wearing the uniform of a law enforcement agency, you are a foe. No other explanations are accepted. Or possible; who’s to say that someone screaming “Press! Press!” isn’t faking it, just so they can sucker punch a cop? The police are going to cover their own six first, you betcha.

Which is a point Miss Fields, and other journalists need to keep firmly in mind. Not to mention bystanders gawking at the mob. Unless you’re wearing a police uniform, you are going to be classed as a Foe. And get your ass whupped if you don’t move sprightly.

Oh, and Miss Fox, the pregnant woman at the Occupy march in Seattle? She ought to be arrested for child endangerment. Because what she did was weapons grade stupid.

Excuse the rant, but I thought it needful; if we accept the word of the #OccupyCretins at face value, we can expect more of this crap. So it’s a good thing to understand the dynamics of the situation.
Dianna Deeley
November 22nd, 2011 @ 10:20 pm

“However, my chivalrous instincts and paternal sensibilities are a bit
ruffled by the thought of her editors sending a 5-foot-5, 115-pound girl
into the middle of such a chaotic situation.”

Well, I’m 5-foot-4 and 160 pounds (thank you, martial arts – I miss size four, but not that much). I’m also nearly twice her age, and I’ve been caught in riots before. So I note several items: She had her hair down, and was wearing a loose outfit. When in an unruly crowd, you never, ever do that. She simply was not prepared for a situation that could turn ugly fast, and should have covered it from a distance. Her editors may have sent her to cover it, but she chose to get into a position where she couldn’t retreat. The crowd was so dense she couldn’t comply with police instructions? Then she was in the wrong place, and not paying attention.

My sympathies, but I’d take it as a lesson, and not complain.
Dianna Deeley
November 22nd, 2011 @ 10:23 pm

In my early youth, I was used as a missile and tossed over a barricade.

I never blamed the cop who saw me flying toward him, screaming, and batted me down. No, I did not want to be thrown at the cops, but how were they to know that?

The police were quite reasonable, afterwards.
JeffS
November 22nd, 2011 @ 10:27 pm

My sympathies, but I’d take it as a lesson, and not complain.

Spot on!
Anonymous
November 22nd, 2011 @ 10:29 pm

Getting between the Police and protesters appeared to be a poor vantage point.
Miss Fox’s story appears to suffer from a low consistency coefficient.
Dianna Deeley
November 22nd, 2011 @ 10:53 pm

I’ll give her this: There’s nothing worse than getting whacked because you can’t get out of the way, and it’s very, very difficult to blame people who yell to let you get up when those who whacked you are right there in front of you.

From the (very blurry) video, she was caught in front of Occupests with linked arms, who were probably perfectly happy to let her take a few whacks – but she couldn’t see that.
Jim Addison
November 23rd, 2011 @ 12:33 am

NOW you’ve done it – expect to see Treacher any minute with his “Leave Tucker alone!” hysterics.
Anonymous
November 23rd, 2011 @ 1:00 am

We usually refer to those as PEBCAK errors: Problem Exists Between Chair and Keyboard.
Mr. Luigi
November 23rd, 2011 @ 2:03 am

Turns out Miss Fox of Seattle made the whole thing up.
She refused to turn over medical records, and her own family calls her a liar.
Bob Belvedere
November 23rd, 2011 @ 8:02 am

Be patient, Pete, your plan to take over all media is proceeding apace. Never forget: God is Catholic.
Dave C
November 23rd, 2011 @ 11:17 am

I was in East Lansing, MI in 1998 during the time of the MSU riots (over booze, mind you) where the police used tear gas to disperse the crowds.

The downside was countless student op-eds saying they just so happened to be ‘downtown amidst the crowds’ and got gassed as well. To them, it was brutality. To the outnumbered police trying to keep the crowd progressing from just ‘unruly’ to ‘rioting’, I thought the tear gassing was justly used.
Dave C
November 23rd, 2011 @ 11:17 am

That about wraps it up.