September 12, 2007 11:31 AM
About Nicole Belle
Mom, Wife, Media Critic/Political Analyst, Blogger, Austen Fanatic, Unapologetic Liberal
NicoleBelle@crooksandliars.com
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One Year Ago
Rev. Yearwood did nothing wrong. I really, really hope those cops get busted.
I guess we can expect George Bush will use the bully pulpit for something other than bullying and pushing for oil wars for once to come forth to denounce Rev. Yearwood's treatment in this so called American "democracy".....NOT!
The police probably had an "intelligence division" that knew who the activists and potential disrupters were and they were trying to prevent these people from getting into the hearing. That's why the good reverend wasn't getting in. Shameful and stupid because the police knew cameras were running.
Rev. Lennox Yearwood? More info please.
He's exactly right.
Where is he going from here? Did he say?
Agreed with those above...I hope these cops are royally busted! Fascism must stop now!
"They hate us for our freedoms..."...apparently the solution is to remove the offending freedoms.
What, no discussion about House Judiciary and Ethics Committee Chairman Rob Briley's arrest?
Thank you; I was worried about him. I hope he sues.
Has this been covered ANYWHERE in the media? I haven't seen or heard anything.
Maybe Keith Olbermann will cover it! E-mail Keith and tell him what happened! he is our best hope.
Dr. Acula @ 11:
Democracy Now:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/13/1445202
I can't wait for the pundits like Podhoretz, Friedman, Kristol and their ilk calling for Bush to pardon the cops ... wait won't happen ... stupid f*ing pigs
Thanks hadenuf - I was hoping sources other than the blogosphere had picked up on it.
How can they justify charging him with felonious assault of a police officer?! HE was assaulted by SIX thugs in cops' uniforms!!!
Ugh! This is hard. The police are being used as tools for a society that doesn't care about them. We need many many more black cops.
Load the streets with them... train them well and give us peace.
Dr. Acula @ 15:
Are you going to believe your lying eyes? He looked like a terrorist to those cops.
So Bush is going to "start doing some redeployment"?
I wouldn't trust him to redeploy the turds in the litter box.
Rev Yearwood was ordained a minister in the Church of God in Christ in 2002.
I guess the D.C. cops enjoy picking on Christians.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_God_in_Christ
Rev. Yearwood CLEARLY lunged toward the open courtroom door, and police followed protocol and wrestled him to the ground. Had Rev. Yearwood just followed orders instead of complaining and then lunging, he wouldn't be in this mess.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lennox_Yearwood
Sgt. Kimberly Schneider, spokeswoman for the Capitol Police, claimed that Yearwood was stopped from entering the room after attempting to cut in front of people waiting to get in. “What he tried to do was jump to the front of the line. He was told he couldn’t do that,” Schneider said. “And he pretty much charged at the officers to get past them into the room, after he was told not to.”[6]
Butting in line is now a felony? That's the best they can do?
There will be much rounding up of elementary school children.
These Storm Troopers, aka the Capitol Police, work for Nancy Pelosi. Has anyone seen anything from the Speaker's office about this? I haven't. I just wrote her an email asking what she intends to do about this. Doubt I'll get a reply. Perhaps if enough of us write to ask ...
The powers that be do not want to have a black person openly protest the war. It benefits the establishment to have that subtle facade of African-American endorsement of the occupation. ie., endorsement through apparent ambivalence.
African-Americans, by and large, are sitting this fight out. They are tired of fighting for everything they need and will not protest something they have no hand in.
What American leaders fail to understand is that the rest of the world, full of other brown and black peoples, already understands who is behind this "war".
In Manhattan, there was a Black Man that helped organized the Protest March back in 02. He may be around, but I have not seen him in recent years.
andandand @ 4:
Try Google. This is EXACTLY what is wrong with this country.
Dr. Acula @ 15:
Please. Where have you been for the last 6 years? Other sources are owned by corporations that have paid for the policies of authoritarianism. They won't show anything that truly holds Authority up as bad.
hadenuf @ 21:
No. Yearwood stood in line all morning. Someone asked to interview him. He asked the officer at the door if he could step out of line for the interview. This officer told him to stand over there where it's a little quieter. When he came back, a new officer had come by. He told Yearwood he wasn't getting in. The first officer and other people in line all confirmed that Yearwood had been in line.
The second officer insisted that Yearwood wasn't getting in, and when Yearwood wanted to know why, he was told he was being arrested. When he asked why he was being arrested he wasn't told why. He said he was going to see his representative and 6 guys jumped him and broke his leg.
It's ridiculous. While they were jumping him, they shouted "Stop resisting!" Yearwood replied "I'm not resisting. I AM NOT RESISTING."
They charged him with assaulting an officer.
It's ridiculous. They overreacted big time to his decision to try to go in. More than that, they had no right to keep him out. It doesn't matter if their higher ups told them not to let in Peaceniks. American citizens have the right to assemble peaceably and to petition the federal gov't for redress.
If you are going to violate those 1st Amendment rights, you better have a much more compelling reason than "cutting in line", especially when one of your fellow officers and other people in line are caught ON TAPE explaining that Yearwood WAS in line.
Yeah, I was curious for an update the other day and googled him, and went to the 'news' tab...
Except for one outlet (forgot the name), all of the listings pertaining to THIS occurrence was titled "Reverend charged for assault at protest" (or words to like effect). No description in the article about how he was ATTACKED by 6 goons.
Hey, Michael Ryle - they are NOT Pelosi's crew. That was covered the other day.
Blessings and a peaceful end to this bullsh*t war SOON!
Elspeth
Come on! @ 20:
Had an American citizen "just followed orders instead of complaining" that his Constitutionally protected rights were being violated...
Wow.
Keep your head down and obey orders.
We are the Soviet Union now, aren't we?
Nerac @ 28:
I think (hope) that the original poster was just being sarcastic....
Come on! @ 20:
Be that as it may, that's NOT assault.
Rev. Yearwood rocks
Nerac @ 28:
That film on Brave New Films is nauseating. Five gorillas posing as police gang up on a nonviolent man and stomp him to the floor like Bush has stomped our Constitutional rights. It's fascism, people. We are in deep shit!
this is what they did to the gay population during the beginning of the aids crisis. we were beaten, arrested, stampeded by mounted horses, riot gear. and of course the whole world now knows fred phelps and his inbred breed of monsters, whom the whole gay population has known for over 20 years. the gay population, after seven years as being the gop's "new n*gger" has finally ended. we are all "n*ggers" now. BUSH = DEATH BUSH = DEATH BUSH = DEATH.
This is propaganda. The police did nothing wrong. Had Rev. Yearwood not physically lunged at the police, they wouldn't have tackled him. Watch the video.
come on...i did watch the video. six minutes of it on youtube. he is taken down about have way through. you might try watching it.
"come on" must be an authoritarian minded individual.
Are you such a cow that sticks with the herd that you can't understand basic thoughts?
you think because someone has a badge, they have the right to do whatever they want? Then why are American kids dying in Iraq? For what "freedom?" Stupid cow.
Read the post again...watch the video. You think it's ok that the cops instigated the whole thing unnecessarily, then required huge cops tackle a minister to make him obey when he did NOTHING wrong to begin with? You support the Gestapo?
Oh wait, you're living in state of constant fear, which coupled with your perceived self-righteousness says everything an authority figures says or does is in your best interest...Daddy issues? If you'd been alive during the Boston tea harbor, you'd have denounced their radical ways...and still be living under a monarchy. People like you are so simple minded it's truly amazing.
you disgust me...enough with justification of WRONGness!
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/
Wow, what an incredible man. Rev Yearwood is the kind of leader America needs, the kind of leader Americans want, the kind of leader who would stand behind the poor and stand up to the corporations...Rev Yearwood is the kind of leader that makes America great and the kind of leader that makes the Bushies quake.
At the end of the interview he says "I hope they realize that they're not helping our democracy." The problem is the last things that these cops, and for that matter, this administration care about is democracy. Power is the name of the game.
When they say no cuts in DC they really mean it.
Come on! @ 34:
And if the police didn't falsely accusation of him of "jumping" the line perhaps the Reverend wouldn't feel the need to defend himself verbally. The only lunge I saw was him jerking away from the officer that grabbed his shoulders from behind.
Patthemokey @ 39:
There, fixed it for ya.
Dr. Acula @ 11:
On the thread to the original C & L post yesterday someone said that it was covered in the LA Times, but it sounded as if the LA Times took the police side. You might want to check their archives.
Link to LA Times article -- http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-iraqcolor11sep11...
They started queuing up before 8 a.m.: two opposing factions standing in line for five hours, with nothing to do.
Suddenly, there was scuffling. A clot of Capitol police coagulated in the hallway. In the middle was the Rev. Lennox Yearwood, an antiwar activist who had apparently attempted to push his way into the hearing room and was wrestled to the floor.
Bolding mine. LA Times qualifies the statement like how Fox adds a question mark to the end of libelous statements.
I've said this elsewhere immediately upon Rev. Yearwood's arrest. The Capitol Police have a well-documented history of denying entrance to public government events for any citizens perceived to be wearing anti-Bush administration slogans. Most famously this occurred at that SOTU when Cindy Sheehan was arrested before Bush spoke for her "2245 Dead. How Many More?" T-shirt and that same night Republican Rep. C.W. “Bill” Young's wife Beverly was removed (but not arrested) for sporting her "Support the Troops — Defending Our Freedom" T-shirt. This made me very curious about the button Rev. Yearwood was clearly wearing on his left lapel as he was standing in line. Was the Reverend singled out because of any slogan on this button? Indeed. It turns out that the button this man of God was wearing said "I love the people of Iraq."
Under the Bush Administration our Freedom of Speech clearly has been beaten down. Nowhere more brazenly so as it has been on Capitol Hill when our fellow citizens seek to bear witness to our democratic process.
AF
The reverend should file a complaint with the supervisors and take it as far up the chain of command as possible. He should also sue the Capitol Police for use of excessive force, false imprisonment, violation of civil rights, harassment and aggravated assault and battery.
I, too, hope Keith Olberman will pick this up.
The Reverend deserves a large settlement for what happened there.
It was blatant injustice.
The law has an obligation to justice; without that obligation, it is merely force.
Come on! @ 20:
You remind me of Chris Cooper's character in American Beauty.
This guy is such a douche.
First off playing the race card? Umm hello, the cop that stopped you was black idiot. This is why it's so hard to take accusations of racism seriously. If anything goes wrong for you, and you happen to be black, you automatically cry racism.
But as for the main point this guy managed to take a simple misunderstanding and elevated it the point where he had to be arrested. Lets hope he learned something from all this and maybe next time he won't act like an ass to the cops.
Reyals @ 48:
Yearwood did not give me the impression that he was acting like an ass toward the cops. Whatever your problem is with him is not the issue. We can't know all the facts until they are brought out. Maybe the black cop was acting on orders or maybe there was something that we didn't see prior to what we saw in the video. The point is that from what we did see, a man who was not causing a disturbance was apparently taken out of line possibly because of his political beliefs. That is what needs to be investigated and reported. If racism plays a part in that outcome, then that should be dealt with as a separate issue.
I didn't get that impression that he was playing the race card of why he was attack, but that he is representing his race that are ending up going to war on the poor man draft. He knows that a majority of people signing up for the military comprise mostly the poor minority.
I hate it when a person sees a black man, automatically assume that he is playing the race card. And you think that his constant plea for all people come together on this issue would help those type of people to understand that this war is not about race.
Seems like my comment was lost, even though it says I have posted it already, I cannot see it.
If it should reappear, sorry for the double post.
This is total BS.
Yearwood is NOT lurching for the door he is pulling away from the guy trying to hold him.
He is first moving towards someone in the line, is grabbed from behind and tries to pull away.
You can see he is not rushing to the door because if he were he would not move upwards while pulling away.
A person would try to evade the grasp by lowering himself out of the grasp and then actually sprint away from the bulk.
Mr Yearwood tries to shrug off the hold and is facing and moving into the bulk. He is not moving fast enough to indicate he is trying to run away or rush anything.
That is when they jump him.
He was not being hostile or doing anything else.
Actually, during the film he is constantly but politely questioning the police and trying to explain his situation.
Not the actions of a person who intends to become hostile.
Any other claim is simply a lie in order to make Yearwood look like the perpetrator.
I find it quite disturbing how the people in the US willingly accept this crap.
When someone gets jumped or frightened, the brain stops working and reflexes take hold.
That is what causes our ancestors to survive this long.
If you are jumped, you might cower, fight back or just run.
Those that choose b) or c) survived.
Just look on youtube for videos of people getting scared and you will find the few that instinctively fight.
Not to mention this being the US where assault from police seems to be common.
Being a black guy getting hassled by the police is a hostile situation for the black guy.
The police are the ones initiating the hostile situation and should be the ones making sure the situation does not escalate.
Seeing the events in the film I can only see the police as the faulty party here.
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