Mainstream media now covering undercover police infiltration of Occupy Los Angeles

Madison Ruppert, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

I am constantly surprised by what the mainstream media will cover nowadays, especially when it comes to subjects that they previously ignored, marginalized or spun to the point of absurdity.

Richard Cottrell wrote a fantastic article on how the establishment media is pushing the Bilderberg Group and Trilateral Commission into the light of day, changing these topics from what was previously relegated to so-called “conspiracy theorists” to mainstream discourse.

This same thing is occurring with the covert infiltration of protest movements by police forces across the United States and the world, including the United Kingdom, as I have previously shown.

Now the Associated Press is reporting that nearly a dozen undercover detectives with the Los Angeles Police Department infiltrated the Occupy Los Angeles encampment in the weeks leading up to the dramatic raid on Wednesday.

They reportedly were attempting to gather information on possible plans to resist the police action or to utilize weapons against the police, according to an anonymous source cited by the Los Angeles Times.

The anonymous source, who only would speak on the condition of anonymity because the case is ongoing, claimed that none of the officers spent the night in the encampment but attempted to blend in with the activists of a period of weeks.

The undercover infiltration allegedly revealed that some demonstrators were preparing potentially dangerous weapons like bamboo spears to fight off the LAPD raid.

Unsurprisingly, not a single weapon was used against the police during the course of the so-called eviction of protesters from the area near the City Hall.

For those who are familiar with police provocateuring that plagues peaceful protests the world over, the claims being made that the protesters were preparing weaponry to attack police is questionable at best.

Police departments have a disturbing track record in terms of creating violence and chaos in order to justify a brutal crackdown on an otherwise peaceful protest, as seen in great detail in the documentary Into the Fire about the Toronto G20 protests.

Based on the sordid history of police departments creating problems where there are none, I believe it would not be out of line to question the legitimacy of the claims that activists who had remained peaceful for nearly two months were suddenly planning an assault on police.

Police have been downplaying the importance of their undercover infiltration of a lawful protest citing the fact that the Occupy Los Angeles general assembly meetings were public and tracked with ease.

This is far from justification for infiltrating a group that is doing nothing other than fight back against the kleptocratic system to which we are being subjected in a peaceful manner in line with our Constitution.

One of the Occupy Los Angeles protesters named Mario Brito told City News Service that he did not find the information surprising but added that it was “tantamount to 1950s McCarthyism.”

Of the 291 people arrested during the police action, 46 have been charged with failure to disperse from an unlawful assembly, a misdemeanor, and others have been charged with resisting arrest.

58 were released from imprisonment or posted bail according to Chief of the Criminal Division Earl Thomas.

187 other protesters were released without charge or having to post bail due to their lack of a criminal history.

However, legal advisor to the protesters, Carol Sobel, told the Los Angeles Times that 183 protesters would be released without arraignment.

The bail sums were quite considerable for simply exercising the right to protest and freely assemble, ranging from $5,000 for the majority of the activists all the way up to $20,000.

This is clearly a tactic meant to intimidate other activists into not returning to protests or engaging in future actions due to the threat of having to pay massive sums to get bailed out which many people cannot cover.

The LAPD utilized an incredible 1,400 officers to break up the encampment which included almost 500 tents, which is especially ludicrous when one considers the fact that Los Angeles has a budget shortfall of some $72 billion.

In an editorial published in the Los Angeles Times, they call the city’s so-called “restraint” in breaking up a peaceful and lawful protest “laudable” while adding “no one should be allowed to sleep in the park.”

This widespread hatred of our most fundamental rights is becoming increasingly apparent in the mainstream media, especially when they act as if undercover police infiltrating a peaceful protest is a legitimate activity.

The supposedly “laudable” response was apparently far from it, when one actually looks at the reports of the protesters and not just what the establishment media was able to see during the raid.

Many activists have complained that they were ignored when asking for medical attention and were forced to sit in parked buses for hours on end with zip-tie handcuffs so tight they were cutting off circulation.

According to Tyler Lyle, a 26-year-old activist who was arrested for blocking a sidewalk, the demonstrators’ complaints were ignored along with requests to help a woman who had vomited and urinated on the bus.

The Daily News is reporting that Lyle said that when the protesters called for help the deputy simply turned up the volume of the radio and in supreme irony, Lyle said that the song “God bless America” was playing.

The Senior Media Advisor at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Steve Whitmore, claims that an inquiry would be conducted into Lyles complaint along with an incident on another bus.

Lyle’s reports do not reflect an isolated incident, in fact, Yasha Levine of the Exiled Online wrote that two different sources reported to him that a full busload of protesters, about 40 people in total, were forced to stay on a bus for seven hours.

During this time, they were reportedly denied access to food, water, and restrooms and both men and women were forced to urinate in their seats.

The horrific treatment reported by these protesters is a clear and inarguable violation of the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners as adopted by the First United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders at Geneva in 1955 and approved by the Economic and Social Council by its resolutions 663 C (XXIV) of 31 July 1957 and 2076 (LXII) of 13 May 1977.

Among the many abuses Levine reported, one of the most egregious was when a protester who was seriously injured by a shotgun beanbag round was denied medical attention for five hours.

This young man had what Levine describes as “an oozing bloody welt the size of a grapefruit just above his elbow,” and another man who believed his arm was broken did not receive any medical attention for at least five hours as well.

What is clear is that the police response to Occupy Los Angeles was not the peachy-keen “laudable” and supposedly restrained action that the mainstream media is making it out to be.

This was only the case for what they were allowed to see, and it is now evident that this was likely a very restricted picture of what actually occurred there.

Undercover police infiltration of peaceful protests should not be something we accept and take for granted.

This is supposed to be a nation where we can freely protest and speak our minds without fear of being assaulted or targeted for police action simply because we exercise our rights.

However, this is becoming increasingly commonplace and with the Senate passing the astoundingly draconian and un-American S.1867 bill with a disturbing 93% majority, I do not think we are heading in a positive direction.

This article first appeared at End the Lie  

Madison Ruppert is the Editor and Owner-Operator of the alternative news and analysis database End The Lie and has no affiliation with any NGO, political party, economic school, or other organization/cause. He is available for podcast and radio interviews. If you have questions, comments, or corrections feel free to contact him at [email protected]