LAPD Lies and Then Offers Anonymous Reports And No Evidence To Support Their Actions.

Live Blog for #Occupy Movement: Undercover LAPD Infiltrated Occupy LA

By: Kevin Gosztola Saturday December 3, 2011 8:45 am

(photo: Occupy LA)

At least a dozen Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers went undercover to infiltrate Occupy LA, AP reports. A “police source” says they wanted to uncover information on the protester’s “intentions,” like what they were planning to do to “resist the eviction” or what plans they had to “use weapons against police.”

The source, who asked to remain anonymous, told AP “some protesters were preparing bamboo spears and other potentially dangerous weapons in advance of an expected eviction, none of which were used.” The AP report further notes “police downplayed the significance of the undercover work since Occupy meetings were public and easily tracked.”

Let’s put this all together: LAPD, in a city with at least a $72 million budget shortfall, paid for undercover police officers, who were unnecessary because Occupy meetings are open to the public. An anonymous police officer, who cannot be held accountable for his or her outlandish claim, says “bamboo spears and other potentially dangerous weapons” were being prepared to use against police but were not because Occupy LA probably never prepared any such weapons for attacking police. And if they were going to do use weapons, they would have mentioned them in their General Assembly so meeting notes would show whether protesters had planned to do anything in self-defense that police would construe as “resistance” or “violent.”

This is no different from Phoenix police alleging Occupy ALEC protesters assaulted them with “nail-filled sticks.” Such nonsense is police speak for when we were doing “crowd control” we were touched by the sticks holding up protesters’ signs. So, something in the camp can be in some alternative reality made to seem like a bamboo spear and some other objects are in a parallel universe possibly similar to weapons one would use to hurt people and that is what this “police source” is citing.

Additionally, nearly 200 of the remaining Occupy LA protesters, who had been arrested and were in jail, were released yesterday. Some of them had endured what can be only characterized as sadistic abuse while in police custody. In fact, Yasha Levine of eXiled Online was arrested and wrote a post about being in jail that included horrifying examples of abuse. Levine also noted:

292 people arrested at Occupy LA. About 75 of them have been released or have gotten out on bail, according the National Lawyers Guild. Most are still inside, slapped with $5,000 to $10,000 bail. According to a bail bondsman I know, this is unprecedented. Misdemeanors are almost always released on their own recognizance, which means that they don’t pay any bail at all. Or at most it’s a $100.

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