Max Blumenthal writes: With the rise of the Occupy Wall Street, a new generation of mostly middle class Americans is learning for the first time about the militarization of their local police forces. And they are learning the hard way, through confrontations with phalanxes of riot cops armed with the latest in “non-lethal” crowd control weaponry. Yesterday’s protests in Oakland, California were the site of perhaps the harshest police violence leveled against the Occupy movement so far. Members of the Oakland Police Department and the California Sheriff’s Department attacked unarmed protesters with teargas canisters, beanbag rounds, percussion grenades, and allegedly with rubber bullets, leaving a number of demonstrators with deep contusions and bloody head wounds. It is not difficult to imagine such scenes becoming commonplace as the Occupy protests intensify across the country.
The police repression on display in Oakland reminded me of tactics I witnessed the Israeli army employ against Palestinian popular struggle demonstrations in occupied West Bank villages like Nabi Saleh, Ni’lin and Bilin. So I was not surprised when I learned that the same company that supplies the Israeli army with teargas rounds and other weapons of mass suppression is selling its dangerous wares to the Oakland police. The company is Defense Technology, a Casper, Wyoming based arms firm that claims to “specialize in less lethal technology” and other “crowd management products.” Defense Tech sells everything from rubber-coated teargas rounds that bounce in order to maximize gas dispersal to 40 millimeter “direct impact” sponge rounds to “specialty impact” 12 gauge rubber bullets.
Defense Tech’s literature concedes that “information is somewhat difficult to obtain” on the damage its weapons can do to the human body. However, company researchers were able to determine that a beanbag round fired from a 12 gauge shotgun exerts the same kinetic impact as a .22 caliber bullet. “The result is blunt trauma with no penetration,” Defense Tech researchers wrote. Wounds suffered yesterday by protesters in Oakland provided vivid confirmation of the conclusion.
I’m sure that there were those who remember back in 1960’s during the Peace marches in Berkeley, California, when it was the Oakland Police as well as the Alameda County Sheriffs Department, which spawned the term “PIG”, which of course, the County Sheriffs took pride in wearing, as well as later law enforcement personnel. That’s the time they used their clubs and tear gas too. The interesting point here, is that the police, like the Israelis, have arms in which to inflict pain & suffering, as well as being lethal too. The mindset today, is just as wrong as it was back then, when the police turn on their own fellow citizens, many who just might be their next door neighbors, shows how much the country has fallen. There is no honor is hurting innocent people, just cowardice, plain & simple.
I believe that “blunt trauma with no penetration” describes TBI or traumatic brain injury, the source of many long lasting problems for both veterans and civilians.
Of course Ni’lin was the town where American activist Tristan Anderson was shot in the head with a “high velocity tear gas canister” (made in USA of course).
http://www.awalls.org/tristan1
Add that to the 4 other Palestinian activists injured in Ni’lin in the preceding 6 months after Tristans injury including 17 year old Yousef Amira who was left brain dead by a rubber bullet 4 months after Tristan and you see the track record of these “non-lethal” weapons.
The good news is that Tristan (himself a Oakland resident ironically) seems to be recovering from his 2009 wounds and released this statement over a year ago. Wondering what he thinks of these same tactics being used where he lives now against Occupy Oakland protesters.
http://justicefortristan.org/?p=102