14-09-2009, 11:18 PM
Recent efforts to reach out to others to flesh out this thread have brought suggestions that the following ought to be added to this compendium:
#1) the attack on the Branch Davidian religious cult in Waco, Texas (as this is hugely controversial and well-documented, I won’t go in to further detail here and now);
#2) there was a notation about the use of Federal air power in the 1921 Battle of Blair Mountain; noted above in Wikipedia, it deserves a tidbit of repletion and expansion:
“A recent publication by Robert Shogan, The Battle of Blair Mountain, deserves our attention. As Cecil Roberts, President of the United Mine Workers of America, says of it: “Now, the real story of America's largest labor uprising—and the largest armed insurrection on U.S. soil since the Civil War—comes alive.” But few know this story: arguably, every worker should.
In 1921, some 10,000 West Virginia coal workers, outraged over years of brutality and lawless exploitation, picked up their rifles and marched against their tormentors, the powerful mine owners who ruled their corrupt state. For ten days the miners fought a pitched battle against an opposing legion of deputies, state police, and makeshift militia.
Only the declaration of martial law and the intervention of a federal expeditionary force, spearheaded by a bomber squadron commanded by General Billy Mitchell, ended this undeclared civil war and forced the miners to throw down their arms.”
http://www.glendale.edu/chaparral/apr05/blair.htm
“… Blair Mountain was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on Monday, March 30, 2009. Nearly 20 years went into the effort to gain recognition for this site's incredible national significance as part of America's labor history. With support from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, PAWV teamed up with the Sierra Club to push the nomination forward through the many challenges brought on by the coal companies.”
#3) While the incident at Jackson State was obliquely mentioned in connection with Kent State, it deserves extended examination and mention:
“At Jackson State College in Jackson, MS, there was the added issue of historical racial intimidation and harassment by white motorists traveling Lynch Street, a major thoroughfare that divided the campus and linked West Jackson to downtown. On May 14-15, 1970, Jackson State students were protesting these issues as well as the May 4, 1970 tragedy at Kent State University in Ohio.
The riot began around 9:30 p.m., May 14, when rumors were spread that Fayette, MS Mayor Charles Evers (brother of slain Civil Rights activist Medgar Evers) and his wife had been shot and killed. Upon hearing this rumor, a small group of students rioted. That night, several white motorists had called the Jackson Police Department to complain that a group of Blacks threw rocks at them as they passed along the stretch of Lynch Street that bisected the campus. The rioting students set several fires and overturned a dump truck that had been left on campus overnight.
Jackson firefighters dispatched to the blaze met a hostile crowd that harangued them as they worked to contain the fire. Fearing for their safety, the firemen requested police backup. The police blocked off the campus. National Guardsmen, still on alert from rioting the previous night, mounted Armored Personnel Carriers, The guardsmen had been issued weapons, but no ammunition. Seventy-five city policemen and Mississippi State Police officers, all armed, responded to the call. Their combined armaments staved off the crowd long enough for the firemen to extinguish the blaze and leave.
After the firemen left, the police and state troopers marched toward a campus women's residence, weapons at the ready. At this point, the crowd numbered 75 to 100 people. Several students allegedly shouted "obscene catcalls" while others chanted and tossed bricks at the officers, who had closed to within 100 feet of the group. The officers deployed into a line facing the students. Accounts disagree as to what happened next. Some students said the police advanced in a line, warned them, and then opened fire. Others said the police abruptly opened fire on the crowd and the dormitory. Other witnesses reported that the students were under the control of a campus security officer when the police opened fire.
Police claimed they spotted a powder flare and opened fire in self-defense on the dormitory only. The students scattered, some running for the trees in front of the library, but most scrambling for the Alexander Hall west end door. There were screaming and cries of terror and pain mingled with the noise of sustained gunfire as the students struggled to get through glass double doors. A few students were trampled. Others, struck by buckshot pellets or bullets, fell only to be dragged inside or left moaning in the grass.
When the order to ceasefire was given, Phillip Lafayette Gibbs, 21, a junior pre-law major and father of an 18 month-old son, lay dead. Across the street, behind the line of police and highway patrolmen, James Earl Green, 17, was sprawled dead. Green, a senior at Jim Hill High School in Jackson, was walking home from work at a local grocery store when he stopped to watch the action. Twelve other Jackson State students were struck by gunfire. The five-story dormitory was riddled by gunfire. FBI investigators estimated that more than 460 rounds struck the building, shattering every window facing the street on each floor. Investigators counted at least 160 bullet holes in the outer walls of the stairwell alone bullet holes that can still be seen today.
The injured students, many of whom lay bleeding on the ground outside the dormitory, were transported to University Hospital within 20 minutes of the shooting. But the ambulances were not called until after the officers picked up their shell casings, a U. S. Senate probe conducted by Senators Walter Mondale and Birch Bayh later revealed. The police and state troopers left the campus shortly after the shooting and were replaced by National Guardsmen. After the incident, Jackson authorities denied that city police took part.”
Reference:
The biographical dictionary of Black Americans
by Rachel Krantz and Elizabeth A.Ryan
Copyright 1992, Facts on File, New York, NY
ISBN 0-8160-2324-7
See also:
http://www.may41970.com/Jackson%20State/...y_1970.htm
and
http://www2.kenyon.edu/Khistory/60s/webpage.htm
#4) the Move bombing in Philadelphia in May 1985
“The police tried to remove two wood-and-steel rooftop structures, called bunkers by the police, by dropping a four-pound bomb made of C-4 plastic explosive and Tovex, a dynamite substitute, onto the roof.[7] The resulting explosion caused the house to catch fire, igniting a massive blaze which eventually consumed almost an entire city block.[8] Eleven people, including John Africa, five other adults and five children, died in the resulting fire.[9] Ramona Africa and one child, Birdie Africa, were the only survivors.
Mayor Wilson Goode soon appointed an investigative commission, the PSIC or MOVE commission, which issued its report on March 6, 1986. The report denounced the actions of the city government, stating that "Dropping a bomb on an occupied row house was unconscionable."[10]
[URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOVE#cite_note-titlePhiladelphia_Special_Investigation_.28MOVE.29_Commission_Manuscript_Collection-9"]
[/URL] In a 1996 civil suit in U.S. federal court, a jury ordered the City of Philadelphia and two former city officials to pay $1.5 million to a survivor and relatives of two people killed in the incident. The jury found that the city used excessive force and violated the members' constitutional protection against unreasonable search and seizure.[9]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOVE [WikiPedia entries are used herein as very generalized starting points for inquiry, not the (or even a ) defintive source for research];
#5) the Arizona copper mine strike in 1983, the subject of this book "Copper Crucible" http://www.powells.com/biblio/65-9780801485541-1;
“The subsequent negotiations with the unions failed to lead to an agreement, and on midnight of July 30 a strike began, including workers from Morenci, Ajo, Clifton, and Douglas, Arizona. Thousands of miners walked out and a picket line was formed at the Morenci Mine. The next day, Phelps Dodge increased security personnel in and around the mine. Within days miners were subject to unlawful arrests, firings, evictions, and undercover surveillance by the Arizona Criminal Intelligence Systems Agency[3] * [http://www.tucsonweekly.com/tw/06-29-95/curr4.htm ].
At the beginning of August, Phelps Dodge announced that they would be hiring permanent replacement workers for the Morenci Mine. The company took out large employment ads for new workers in the Tucson and Phoenix newspapers. Meanwhile, the local government passed injunctions limiting both picketing and demonstrations at the mine.
On Monday, August 8, approximately 1,000 strikers and their supporters gathered at the gate to the mine in response. Phelps Dodge stopped production and, later that day, Arizona Governor Bruce Babbitt flew in to meet with the company. Phelps Dodge agreed to a 10-day moratorium on hiring replacement workers, and it was decided that a federal mediator would be called in for negotiations.
On the morning of August 19, military vehicles, tanks, helicopters, 426 state troopers and 325 National Guard members arrived in Clifton and Morenci as part of "Operation Copper Nugget" to break the strike. Strikers at the gate were unable to prevent the replacement workers from entering the mine. Eight days later, 10 strikers were arrested in Ajo and charged with rioting. From this point on, the strike lost much of its momentum.
… The Arizona Copper Mine Strike would later become a symbol of defeat for American unions. The Economics of Labor Markets and The Transformation of American Industrial Relations singled out the Arizona strike as the start of overt company strikebreaking in the 1980s. Journalists referred to the miners' strike as a precedent for subsequent labor failures.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_Cop...ke_of_1983
* “Recently uncovered documents and interviews reveal that during the copper strike:
• Undercover agents with the Arizona State Criminal Intelligence Systems Agency (ACISA) infiltrated every union in the Clifton-Morenci mining district early in the strike, bugging nearly one out of every two meetings and monitoring the rest with informers. "We were using about five (informants) at any given moment and as many as eight or nine others moved on and off assignments," said ACISA's former supervising undercover agent.
• A sophisticated supercomputer in Tucson enabled ACISA to compile intelligence files on hundreds of union members and supporters.
• ACISA, in tandem with the Arizona Department of Public Safety, set up an elaborate sting operation to entrap alleged arms dealers during the strike. But the Department of Public Safety botched the operation by critically wounding one of the suspects in an accidental shooting. Meanwhile Phelps Dodge was smuggling arms into the copper mine with impunity.
• ACISA shared some intelligence reports directly with the plant manager and security officers at Phelps Dodge.”
#6) Watts (August 1965):
“On Friday night, a battalion of the 160th Infantry and the 1st Reconnaissance Squadron of the 18th Armored Cavalry were sent into the riot area (about 2,000 men). Two days later, the remainder of the 40th Armored Division was sent into the riot zone. A day after that, units from northern California arrived (a total of around 15,000 troops). These National Guardsmen put a cordon around a vast region of South Central Los Angeles, and for all intents and purposes the rioting was over by Sunday. Due to the seriousness of the riots, martial law had been declared. The initial commander of National Guard troops was Colonel Bud Taylor, then a motorcycle patrolman with the Los Angeles Police Department, who in effect became superior to Chief of Police Parker. National Guard units from Northern California were also called in, including Major General Clarence H. Pease, former commanding general of the National Guard's 49th Infantry Division.”
#7) “ The Los Angeles Riots of 1992, also known as the 1992 Los Angeles Civil Unrest[1][2][3], were sparked on April 29, 1992 when a jury acquitted four Los Angeles Police Department officers accused in the videotaped beating of African-American motorist Rodney King following a high-speed pursuit. … The riots, beginning in the evening after the verdicts, peaked in intensity over the next two days, but ultimately continued for several days. A curfew and deployment of the National Guard began to control the situation; eventually U.S. Army soldiers and United States Marines were ordered to the city to quell disorder as well.”
“On May 2nd, 5,000 LAPD, 1,000 Sheriff's Deputies, 950 County Marshals and 2,300 Highway Patrol cops, accompanied by 9,975 National Guard troops, 3,500 Army troops and Marines with armoured vehicles and 1,000 Federal Marshals, FBI agents and Border Patrol SWAT teams moved in to restore order and guard the shopping malls.”
See also
The Flawed Emergency Response to the 1992 Los Angeles Riots
November 30, 2004
SEMP Biot #142 at: http://www.semp.us/biots/biot_142.html and
SEMP Biot #143 at: http://www.semp.us/biots/biot_143.html focused on the beginning and middle components of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
SEMP Biot #144 is focused on the end component (riot dispersal processes), originally a John F. Kennedy School of Government case.
http://www.semp.us/publications/biot_rea...BiotID=144
[URL="http://www.semp.us/publications/biot_reader.php?BiotID=144"]
[/URL]
As Mike Davis points out ['In L.A., Burning All Illusions', The Nation, 1 June 1992 ], most reporters, 'merely lip-synched suburban clichés as they tramped through the ruins of lives they had no desire to understand. A violent kaleidoscope of bewildering complexity was flattened into a single, categorical scenario: legitimate black anger over the King decision hijacked by hard-core street criminals and it transformed into a maddened assault on their own community.'
“The rebellion was against the constant racism on the streets and about the systematic oppression of the inner cities; it was against the everyday reality of racist American capitalism…. And [represented ] “the refusal of representation.”
"In June 1988 the police easily won Police Commission approval for the
issuing of flesh-ripping hollow-point ammunition: precisely the same
'dum-dum' bullets banned in warfare by the Geneva Conventions."
Mike Davis (1990) City of Quartz , p. 290
#8) 1967 Detroit Riots: “The National Guard and the Army were sent into the Black community. A friend of mine who lived there at the time described how the national guard arrived in tanks that went down narrow streets, flattening any cars in the way. He said that he witnessed a sniper shoot at the tanks and they turned the tank guns towards the top of that building and blew it to smithereens. This kind of thing would never make it to the 5:00 news.”
Sunday, July 23, 1967. The precipitating event was a police raid of a blind pig on the corner of 12th Street and Clairmount on the city's near westside. Police confrontations with patrons and observers on the street evolved into one of the deadliest and most destructive riots in U.S. history, lasting five days and surpassing the violence and property destruction of Detroit's 1943 race riot. To help end the disturbance, the Michigan National Guard was ordered into Detroit by Governor George Romney and President Lyndon B. Johnson sent in United States Army troops. The result was forty-three dead, 467 injured, over 7,200 arrests and more than 2,000 buildings burned down. The scale of the riot was eclipsed only by the 1992 Los Angeles riots. … there were many instances of police using unlawful physical force on civilians, police brutality included psychological harm to African-American's sense of security and safety. … Starting at 1:30 a.m. Tuesday, July 25, some 8,000 National Guardsmen were deployed to quell the disorder. Later their number would be augmented with 4,700 paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne, and 360 Michigan State Police…. Tanks[51] and machine guns[52] were used in the effort to keep the peace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Detroit_riot
[URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Detroit_riot"]
[/URL] See also http://www.67riots.rutgers.edu/d_index.htm
and this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2_VX2nymRs
What all this may be about, in the end, is the dividing line between what is “in the commons”, of the people, and what is “owned” by those who wish to exploit it and others.
One of the topical areas not yet fully explored is the forthcoming battleground for public lands “which are increasingly co-opted by privatization by corporations who are steadily charging more and more for the Public to enjoy Public lands.”
Water, ground, the resources within them, the right to use them to serve common need …
![[Image: homeland-security-fighting-terrorism-since-1492.jpg]](http://hippiechickdiaries.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/homeland-security-fighting-terrorism-since-1492.jpg)
#1) the attack on the Branch Davidian religious cult in Waco, Texas (as this is hugely controversial and well-documented, I won’t go in to further detail here and now);
#2) there was a notation about the use of Federal air power in the 1921 Battle of Blair Mountain; noted above in Wikipedia, it deserves a tidbit of repletion and expansion:
“A recent publication by Robert Shogan, The Battle of Blair Mountain, deserves our attention. As Cecil Roberts, President of the United Mine Workers of America, says of it: “Now, the real story of America's largest labor uprising—and the largest armed insurrection on U.S. soil since the Civil War—comes alive.” But few know this story: arguably, every worker should.
In 1921, some 10,000 West Virginia coal workers, outraged over years of brutality and lawless exploitation, picked up their rifles and marched against their tormentors, the powerful mine owners who ruled their corrupt state. For ten days the miners fought a pitched battle against an opposing legion of deputies, state police, and makeshift militia.
Only the declaration of martial law and the intervention of a federal expeditionary force, spearheaded by a bomber squadron commanded by General Billy Mitchell, ended this undeclared civil war and forced the miners to throw down their arms.”
http://www.glendale.edu/chaparral/apr05/blair.htm
“… Blair Mountain was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on Monday, March 30, 2009. Nearly 20 years went into the effort to gain recognition for this site's incredible national significance as part of America's labor history. With support from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, PAWV teamed up with the Sierra Club to push the nomination forward through the many challenges brought on by the coal companies.”
#3) While the incident at Jackson State was obliquely mentioned in connection with Kent State, it deserves extended examination and mention:
“At Jackson State College in Jackson, MS, there was the added issue of historical racial intimidation and harassment by white motorists traveling Lynch Street, a major thoroughfare that divided the campus and linked West Jackson to downtown. On May 14-15, 1970, Jackson State students were protesting these issues as well as the May 4, 1970 tragedy at Kent State University in Ohio.
The riot began around 9:30 p.m., May 14, when rumors were spread that Fayette, MS Mayor Charles Evers (brother of slain Civil Rights activist Medgar Evers) and his wife had been shot and killed. Upon hearing this rumor, a small group of students rioted. That night, several white motorists had called the Jackson Police Department to complain that a group of Blacks threw rocks at them as they passed along the stretch of Lynch Street that bisected the campus. The rioting students set several fires and overturned a dump truck that had been left on campus overnight.
Jackson firefighters dispatched to the blaze met a hostile crowd that harangued them as they worked to contain the fire. Fearing for their safety, the firemen requested police backup. The police blocked off the campus. National Guardsmen, still on alert from rioting the previous night, mounted Armored Personnel Carriers, The guardsmen had been issued weapons, but no ammunition. Seventy-five city policemen and Mississippi State Police officers, all armed, responded to the call. Their combined armaments staved off the crowd long enough for the firemen to extinguish the blaze and leave.
After the firemen left, the police and state troopers marched toward a campus women's residence, weapons at the ready. At this point, the crowd numbered 75 to 100 people. Several students allegedly shouted "obscene catcalls" while others chanted and tossed bricks at the officers, who had closed to within 100 feet of the group. The officers deployed into a line facing the students. Accounts disagree as to what happened next. Some students said the police advanced in a line, warned them, and then opened fire. Others said the police abruptly opened fire on the crowd and the dormitory. Other witnesses reported that the students were under the control of a campus security officer when the police opened fire.
Police claimed they spotted a powder flare and opened fire in self-defense on the dormitory only. The students scattered, some running for the trees in front of the library, but most scrambling for the Alexander Hall west end door. There were screaming and cries of terror and pain mingled with the noise of sustained gunfire as the students struggled to get through glass double doors. A few students were trampled. Others, struck by buckshot pellets or bullets, fell only to be dragged inside or left moaning in the grass.
When the order to ceasefire was given, Phillip Lafayette Gibbs, 21, a junior pre-law major and father of an 18 month-old son, lay dead. Across the street, behind the line of police and highway patrolmen, James Earl Green, 17, was sprawled dead. Green, a senior at Jim Hill High School in Jackson, was walking home from work at a local grocery store when he stopped to watch the action. Twelve other Jackson State students were struck by gunfire. The five-story dormitory was riddled by gunfire. FBI investigators estimated that more than 460 rounds struck the building, shattering every window facing the street on each floor. Investigators counted at least 160 bullet holes in the outer walls of the stairwell alone bullet holes that can still be seen today.
The injured students, many of whom lay bleeding on the ground outside the dormitory, were transported to University Hospital within 20 minutes of the shooting. But the ambulances were not called until after the officers picked up their shell casings, a U. S. Senate probe conducted by Senators Walter Mondale and Birch Bayh later revealed. The police and state troopers left the campus shortly after the shooting and were replaced by National Guardsmen. After the incident, Jackson authorities denied that city police took part.”
Reference:
The biographical dictionary of Black Americans
by Rachel Krantz and Elizabeth A.Ryan
Copyright 1992, Facts on File, New York, NY
ISBN 0-8160-2324-7
See also:
http://www.may41970.com/Jackson%20State/...y_1970.htm
and
http://www2.kenyon.edu/Khistory/60s/webpage.htm
#4) the Move bombing in Philadelphia in May 1985
“The police tried to remove two wood-and-steel rooftop structures, called bunkers by the police, by dropping a four-pound bomb made of C-4 plastic explosive and Tovex, a dynamite substitute, onto the roof.[7] The resulting explosion caused the house to catch fire, igniting a massive blaze which eventually consumed almost an entire city block.[8] Eleven people, including John Africa, five other adults and five children, died in the resulting fire.[9] Ramona Africa and one child, Birdie Africa, were the only survivors.
Mayor Wilson Goode soon appointed an investigative commission, the PSIC or MOVE commission, which issued its report on March 6, 1986. The report denounced the actions of the city government, stating that "Dropping a bomb on an occupied row house was unconscionable."[10]
[URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOVE#cite_note-titlePhiladelphia_Special_Investigation_.28MOVE.29_Commission_Manuscript_Collection-9"]
[/URL] In a 1996 civil suit in U.S. federal court, a jury ordered the City of Philadelphia and two former city officials to pay $1.5 million to a survivor and relatives of two people killed in the incident. The jury found that the city used excessive force and violated the members' constitutional protection against unreasonable search and seizure.[9]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOVE [WikiPedia entries are used herein as very generalized starting points for inquiry, not the (or even a ) defintive source for research];
#5) the Arizona copper mine strike in 1983, the subject of this book "Copper Crucible" http://www.powells.com/biblio/65-9780801485541-1;
“The subsequent negotiations with the unions failed to lead to an agreement, and on midnight of July 30 a strike began, including workers from Morenci, Ajo, Clifton, and Douglas, Arizona. Thousands of miners walked out and a picket line was formed at the Morenci Mine. The next day, Phelps Dodge increased security personnel in and around the mine. Within days miners were subject to unlawful arrests, firings, evictions, and undercover surveillance by the Arizona Criminal Intelligence Systems Agency[3] * [http://www.tucsonweekly.com/tw/06-29-95/curr4.htm ].
At the beginning of August, Phelps Dodge announced that they would be hiring permanent replacement workers for the Morenci Mine. The company took out large employment ads for new workers in the Tucson and Phoenix newspapers. Meanwhile, the local government passed injunctions limiting both picketing and demonstrations at the mine.
On Monday, August 8, approximately 1,000 strikers and their supporters gathered at the gate to the mine in response. Phelps Dodge stopped production and, later that day, Arizona Governor Bruce Babbitt flew in to meet with the company. Phelps Dodge agreed to a 10-day moratorium on hiring replacement workers, and it was decided that a federal mediator would be called in for negotiations.
On the morning of August 19, military vehicles, tanks, helicopters, 426 state troopers and 325 National Guard members arrived in Clifton and Morenci as part of "Operation Copper Nugget" to break the strike. Strikers at the gate were unable to prevent the replacement workers from entering the mine. Eight days later, 10 strikers were arrested in Ajo and charged with rioting. From this point on, the strike lost much of its momentum.
… The Arizona Copper Mine Strike would later become a symbol of defeat for American unions. The Economics of Labor Markets and The Transformation of American Industrial Relations singled out the Arizona strike as the start of overt company strikebreaking in the 1980s. Journalists referred to the miners' strike as a precedent for subsequent labor failures.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_Cop...ke_of_1983
* “Recently uncovered documents and interviews reveal that during the copper strike:
• Undercover agents with the Arizona State Criminal Intelligence Systems Agency (ACISA) infiltrated every union in the Clifton-Morenci mining district early in the strike, bugging nearly one out of every two meetings and monitoring the rest with informers. "We were using about five (informants) at any given moment and as many as eight or nine others moved on and off assignments," said ACISA's former supervising undercover agent.
• A sophisticated supercomputer in Tucson enabled ACISA to compile intelligence files on hundreds of union members and supporters.
• ACISA, in tandem with the Arizona Department of Public Safety, set up an elaborate sting operation to entrap alleged arms dealers during the strike. But the Department of Public Safety botched the operation by critically wounding one of the suspects in an accidental shooting. Meanwhile Phelps Dodge was smuggling arms into the copper mine with impunity.
• ACISA shared some intelligence reports directly with the plant manager and security officers at Phelps Dodge.”
#6) Watts (August 1965):
“On Friday night, a battalion of the 160th Infantry and the 1st Reconnaissance Squadron of the 18th Armored Cavalry were sent into the riot area (about 2,000 men). Two days later, the remainder of the 40th Armored Division was sent into the riot zone. A day after that, units from northern California arrived (a total of around 15,000 troops). These National Guardsmen put a cordon around a vast region of South Central Los Angeles, and for all intents and purposes the rioting was over by Sunday. Due to the seriousness of the riots, martial law had been declared. The initial commander of National Guard troops was Colonel Bud Taylor, then a motorcycle patrolman with the Los Angeles Police Department, who in effect became superior to Chief of Police Parker. National Guard units from Northern California were also called in, including Major General Clarence H. Pease, former commanding general of the National Guard's 49th Infantry Division.”
#7) “ The Los Angeles Riots of 1992, also known as the 1992 Los Angeles Civil Unrest[1][2][3], were sparked on April 29, 1992 when a jury acquitted four Los Angeles Police Department officers accused in the videotaped beating of African-American motorist Rodney King following a high-speed pursuit. … The riots, beginning in the evening after the verdicts, peaked in intensity over the next two days, but ultimately continued for several days. A curfew and deployment of the National Guard began to control the situation; eventually U.S. Army soldiers and United States Marines were ordered to the city to quell disorder as well.”
“On May 2nd, 5,000 LAPD, 1,000 Sheriff's Deputies, 950 County Marshals and 2,300 Highway Patrol cops, accompanied by 9,975 National Guard troops, 3,500 Army troops and Marines with armoured vehicles and 1,000 Federal Marshals, FBI agents and Border Patrol SWAT teams moved in to restore order and guard the shopping malls.”
See also
The Flawed Emergency Response to the 1992 Los Angeles Riots
November 30, 2004
SEMP Biot #142 at: http://www.semp.us/biots/biot_142.html and
SEMP Biot #143 at: http://www.semp.us/biots/biot_143.html focused on the beginning and middle components of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
SEMP Biot #144 is focused on the end component (riot dispersal processes), originally a John F. Kennedy School of Government case.
http://www.semp.us/publications/biot_rea...BiotID=144
[URL="http://www.semp.us/publications/biot_reader.php?BiotID=144"]
[/URL]
As Mike Davis points out ['In L.A., Burning All Illusions', The Nation, 1 June 1992 ], most reporters, 'merely lip-synched suburban clichés as they tramped through the ruins of lives they had no desire to understand. A violent kaleidoscope of bewildering complexity was flattened into a single, categorical scenario: legitimate black anger over the King decision hijacked by hard-core street criminals and it transformed into a maddened assault on their own community.'
“The rebellion was against the constant racism on the streets and about the systematic oppression of the inner cities; it was against the everyday reality of racist American capitalism…. And [represented ] “the refusal of representation.”
"In June 1988 the police easily won Police Commission approval for the
issuing of flesh-ripping hollow-point ammunition: precisely the same
'dum-dum' bullets banned in warfare by the Geneva Conventions."
Mike Davis (1990) City of Quartz , p. 290
#8) 1967 Detroit Riots: “The National Guard and the Army were sent into the Black community. A friend of mine who lived there at the time described how the national guard arrived in tanks that went down narrow streets, flattening any cars in the way. He said that he witnessed a sniper shoot at the tanks and they turned the tank guns towards the top of that building and blew it to smithereens. This kind of thing would never make it to the 5:00 news.”
Sunday, July 23, 1967. The precipitating event was a police raid of a blind pig on the corner of 12th Street and Clairmount on the city's near westside. Police confrontations with patrons and observers on the street evolved into one of the deadliest and most destructive riots in U.S. history, lasting five days and surpassing the violence and property destruction of Detroit's 1943 race riot. To help end the disturbance, the Michigan National Guard was ordered into Detroit by Governor George Romney and President Lyndon B. Johnson sent in United States Army troops. The result was forty-three dead, 467 injured, over 7,200 arrests and more than 2,000 buildings burned down. The scale of the riot was eclipsed only by the 1992 Los Angeles riots. … there were many instances of police using unlawful physical force on civilians, police brutality included psychological harm to African-American's sense of security and safety. … Starting at 1:30 a.m. Tuesday, July 25, some 8,000 National Guardsmen were deployed to quell the disorder. Later their number would be augmented with 4,700 paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne, and 360 Michigan State Police…. Tanks[51] and machine guns[52] were used in the effort to keep the peace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Detroit_riot
[URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Detroit_riot"]
[/URL] See also http://www.67riots.rutgers.edu/d_index.htm
and this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2_VX2nymRs
What all this may be about, in the end, is the dividing line between what is “in the commons”, of the people, and what is “owned” by those who wish to exploit it and others.
One of the topical areas not yet fully explored is the forthcoming battleground for public lands “which are increasingly co-opted by privatization by corporations who are steadily charging more and more for the Public to enjoy Public lands.”
Water, ground, the resources within them, the right to use them to serve common need …
"Where is the intersection between the world's deep hunger and your deep gladness?"