So, in a big-kid move, someone apparently tagged a Portland cop car this morning outside the Occupy Portland campsite on Madison. It’s not quite the “fuck the police” chorus that went up briefly this afternoon during the Battle over Main Street. But I’ll be damned if a small handful of Occupy Portland campers aren’t out to make the protest about the Portland cops who aren’t arresting them (unlike in other cities) for camping out in a city park instead of about the shitty state of the national economy, et cetera, et cetera.
Here’s the release the cops sent out this afternoon.
Today, Wednesday October 12, 2011 between 8:45 a.m. and 10:21 a.m. a Portland Police car was vandalized by an unknown suspect. The Police car was parked on Southwest Madison between 3rd avenue and 4th avenue. The Police car was parked directly next to Occupy Portland. Officers observed the word PIG written in blue permanent marker and it would not rub off when they returned to their car after being at Occupy Portland.
Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to contact Portland Police.
This isn’t clever. Or smart. It’s pretty much juvenile. The cops have been playing this very well, from their end, using some restraint for a change so they don’t wind up a bigger part of the Occupy story. If protesters force a confrontation with tricks like vandalism, it won’t be like New York, where the pepper spraying of innocent, peaceful protesters helped galvanize the movement. In our town, the cops—in the eyes of most 99 percenters—will probably still wind up looking good.
You know you were thinking it as you read the article:
DamosA !!!
I BET IT WAS SMIRK!
(NOT REALLY, MOST LIKELY IT WAS DAMOSA)
Anarchy means that I litter?
I don’t have any facts to back this up, but I’m pretty sure Herman Cain did this to make the protestors look bad.
It looks more like PIE to me. But maybe that’s because I really like pie.
Man the Mercury becomes more conservative every day, not just the article but its tone jesus christ. This paper is becoming an embarrassment.
Thomas Jefferson represent!
You and Mike. Todd.
Wait a minute: there’s PIE?
They have batons, hand cannons, beanbag guns, tazers, handcuffs, dogs, firehoses, pepper spray, tear gas and God knows what else, and they aren’t using any of those things. You have blue markers, and you are. Think about that for a second, “anarchists.”
And by ‘conservative,’ Ardennes means ‘sane’
I can’t say that most of the people remaining at Occupy Portland (or at least the loudest and most prominent ones) really represent anything that the movement is based on. There are a lot of alcoholic “anarchist” assholes who would happily be 1-percenters if they were that motivated or successful. Instead they’re taking a stand for their right to get drunk in a public park. It’s really a shame as they’re driving off the sane and sincere and making the rest of us look like jackasses.
Portland cops have ignored the occupy protesters, but they still harass, abuse and kill homeless folks, the mentally ill, and people of color. Are we supposed to ignore how the cops treat the more marginalized, and just focus on how nice they are to protesters?
might not have been creative, but it was pretty ballsy
@dasen: Yes, those remain deeply concerning issues. You even left a HUGE one out: questions over accountability and discipline. But petulantly spray-painting one of their squad cars? It doesn’t really get close to solving any of them.
Somehow, i KNEW frankeib would be the very FIRST one to comment here and that he would make it all about ME. Dude, you’re becoming waaay too predicable. Troll harder, please.
Tommy, your right, the police can’t be trusted because at any second they will turn dogs on people.
Next time you praise the police, thing about their job was originally suppose to be to protect not terrify.
Denis, and why does it give you the right as a journalist to condemn a whole movement because of a marker?
Are you just itching to see people beat up because of some bullshit? Why the fuck are you a “journalist”?
@17 & 18~ Everyone knows the BAD acts of the cops. Noone is defending those acts, now or in the future. However, are you wholly incapable of seeing good, when it happens? Granted, it is rather sad that NOT being beaten is congratulated as a step away from the norm.
i read a post on Slog about a Seattle Occupier who had a squirt gun. Yes, he acted like a fool. But the calls for tasering, shooting, beating & arrest were sick, to me. These were people who, for the most part, support the protest! How indoctrinated have we become, that a beating & arrest sounds like a fit punishment for a youth with a squirt gun?
It does suck that some kid marked the car. It was a juvenile act. i think that our force needs to be kept in perspective & WE need to keep ourselves in check.
Kalikill, I think the most frustrating thing is the seeming desire or at least acceptance of disproportional response to petty vandalism with a marker.
Honestly, I have faith in Portlanders that they wouldn’t sign off on beatings and raids because someone was outrageous with a felt tip. I hope my city is more intelligent than that, and can see the big picture here. Those people are trying to fight for the 99% of us who are getting absolutely screwed by the system.
Expanding and over-prioritizing very minor incidents take away from the basic lesson of this whole movement, it isn’t about a 17 year old city using spray paint or a marker. It is much much bigger than that.
I hope the Mercury and Mr.Theriault in the future at least acknowledges that there is another side to this story. These are just normal people trying and fighting for their freedom of speech, with that are going to come some bumps. But if you are going to critic the occupation as a whole, don’t condemn it for the little stuff. If you have a problem with it, have the balls to fight over its message, the distribution of wealth.
Otherwise it is like condemning the Tea Party movement because someone pushed someone, when it is just covering up the real meat of the issue. The Tea Party sucks not because someone pushed someone, but because of their message.
“Petty” is an understatement.
You’d think the [supposed] vandal would’ve used a heavy-duty felt-tip permanant marker, if not spray paint. This person (assuming it wasn’t actually a cop) certainly didn’t seem very committed. Like, is that it? How does this even get anyone’s attention? Try HARDER next time, if you’re going to try anything at all.
This person is 17, at best. Juvenile crime, with a juvenile message. So? Point is, please, folks, direct the anger…K?
@20~ We are here. Are you?
As far as the “pig” tag, have you never been young? Had they tagged a cop car in Boston or NYC, cool. But, really, they, we, have every right to be pissed at them. They are part of the 99%? Says who? They have done nothing but make my life miserable.
i think that it is super awesome that they are not beating us. And i don’t think that’s enough.
I think this incident made the cops look even better in the eyes of the general public – this happened yesterday morning and yet you didn’t see a bunch of cops going bat-shit crazy about it throughout the day.
Denis supports your movement. Can’t you dumbasses see that?
And because he supports it he doesn’t want to see it fucked up because of childish antics that this most certainly was.
You guys can critisize the Tea Party all you want (and they DO deserve it) but they at least presented a unified front with specific goals in mind and affected change throughout the country.
You guys are more and more coming across as the Lefts very own ‘Tea Party Lite’, and shit like tagging cop cars does nothing to help.
This paper has embraced you and not over-reacted. It reported what you did.
Police yourselves and the cops won’t have to do it for you.
**twinkle-down** on tagging cop cars.
(Man, this twinkle shit is fucking HILARIOUS – this shit is ripe for a mockumentary)
@KALIKILL: SO NOW YOU’RE ARBITRARILY DECIDING WHO IS AND WHO IS NOT PART YOUR 99%? I THOUGHT THE WHOLE POINT WAS THAT YOUR GROUP WAS PROTESTING FOR THE RIGHTS OF EVERYONE WHO EARNED LESS THAN $250,000 ANNUALY. SO NOW IT’S PEOPLE WHO EARN LESS THAN $250,000 ANNUALLY AND AREN’T THE POLICE? WHO’S NEXT? ARE SOME PEOPLE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS?
@Ardennes: I’m not sure I criticized the entire occupation as a whole. In fact, I’m pretty sure I went out of my not to do that: “I’ll be damned if *a small handful of Occupy Portland campers* aren’t out to…”
Also, the point is I *don’t* want to see anyone beaten up or (more likely) arrested peacefully and heartbreakingly in camp sweeps. Whether I or the TV stations or the Oregonian write about petty incidents or not, the city is still keeping a tally. And the equation could change for them whenever they decide it’s changed. Damosa is actually kind of right: If someone’s going to do something to change that equation, then make it count. Be smart about it.
Ardennes, did you not see the articles coaching you how to NOT get arrested, how to talk to cops?
The article coaching you on talking to the press that Steve put in?
Etc Etc Etc
These guys are on your side, perhaps too much for journalists.
You come across as a whiny child whose toy was taken away.
I think it was Humpy trying to write “PUG”.
+1 Abusive
It looks like a set up to me.
What the fuck are you people there for? I support the Occupy movement but the people going around tagging cop cars and making a stink about clearing the street do not support the movement, they do not speak for the 99% when they pull shit like that.
I realize that I’m sitting behind a monitor and keyboard from my corporate desk and not in the parks with you, (but hey, I’m wasting corporate resources!) but you need to realize that most people naturally averse to protests. Most of the 99% that you are trying to speak for, they are not sympathetic toward you. Some of them even hate you. You need to earn their sympathy! This is supposed to be a solidarity movement, earn their support.
Crap like this turns the 99% against you.
Just remember, you are not the 99%, you are one person. Are you on the side of the 99%, are you speaking for them? Or just yourself?
@Gaspasho – I know I’ll be plagiarizing your last paragraph, from now on. If they claim to be representing me, they’ve got to listen to what I’m telling them I want.
@Ardennes: Not exactly sure what, in my advice to the Pig-tagger and ilk, you’re responding to. Did I say the police can’t be trusted? No. Did I praise the police? No. (Did I spell everything correctly? Yes.) Reach behind, grab stick, remove from ass…