Houston Police on horses ran over Janitors on strike!

[thatsrightimirish]

It's posted over at Mydd

and here is the story:http://www.houstonjanitors.org/

The horses came all of a sudden. They started jumping on top of people. I heard the women screaming. A horse stomped on top of me. I fell to the ground and hurt my arm. The horses just kept coming at us. I was terrified. I never thought the police would do something so aggressive, so violent.”

-- Mateo Portillo, 33
Houston Janitor

More police brutality

[pretzel4gore]

1. demonocracy in action....

they're trying to force a confrontation with liberalism, progress.....remember, fish rot from the head

[bobbie]

2. I totally believe that; I've had the exact same thing happen...

In Portland. No warning, just stampede. They were dragging one guy by the hair. If there hadn't been lots of video cameras in the crowd it would have turned out very badly.

Strange that they'd do that with SEIU employees; the police are in a union too...most places. Not sure about the thugs in Houston. But TX has a bad rep for a reason. Hope the janitors win. Andrew Stern should raise hell.

[AX10]

5. And that is one union I oppose!

The police union.

[bobbie]

6. Why is that?

...

[AX10]

7. The police have more than enough power. They do not...

need a union in addition to the huge amount of power they already have. Maybe Arnold will bust em' up in Cali....

[bobbie]

8. Oh, I think everyone needs a union

To balance out the unlimited power of corporations and gov't. Of course globalization makes unions increasingly obsolete, so they have a problem.

[1932]

11. everyone who works for a living needs a union. the police deserve a lot

more than what they get paid, and they should have a union to fight for better wages and working conditions.

I agree a lot of police officers get brainwashed into having allegiances to people that don't care about a safe, law-abiding, fair and equal society where there aren't conditions that make people turn to violence. But depriving the police of unions isn't exactly the scenario in which they're likely to develop a social conscience.

[AX10]

13. Abuse by police (aka the government) is nothing new.

Time and time again we have tried to repair the system but not much good comes of it.
Why is it that a cop can do something outright illegal and/or damaging to the public yet time after time there is no meaningful punishment for them? :wtf:

It's more than enough for me, plus 6 years of Bush and all of the shit he's been pulling.

[texanwitch]

3. The Houston cops did the same thing at the Halliburton protest

2005, I was there.

The cops used their horses as weapons, running over us.

Two women had horses run over their feet.

One cop tried to smash me into a wall with his horse because I had a video camera.

Yes watching the video brought back some mental pictures of that day.

[kenny blankenship]

4. Horses in the street...you know who's going to have to clean that up don't you?

That's going to really suck. Wake up in jail then get out only to have to scoop up the crap left by the cops who nearly trampled you to death.

[grilled onions]

9. Reminds Me Of Dr. Zhivago

Different era,different climate but the attempt to silence those who wish to protest conditions by hoof or club is much the same.

[dmosh42]

10. Shows who is in control

As a member of the CWA,(Telephone workers) we had a seven month strike in NY in 1971-2. We staged a demonstration in lower NYC at the NY Tel headquarters. The police brought in the horse cops, and the same thing happened. I don't know how many were injured, and we had several thousand pickets there. But there was hardly a ripple in the newspapers, only that there was a large demonstration, and there were some unruly strikers causing problems. A little lesson in humility for me, a Viet era vet, who thought I was a wheel in the system and had some constitutional protections!

[rhett o rick]

12. They were lucky. Under the Patriot Act civil disobedience can be

considered acts of terrorism. And we all know what can now be done to terrorist suspects. Has Haliburton started construction on the "interment camps" yet?

[LoZoccolo]

14. More video and pictures.

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/11/17/224946/56

[Catherine Vincent]

15. How horrible!

I wish they would give the janitors what they want. I'm pulling for them. They have been protesting for a few weeks now. I work downtown and the people in my department pretty much supported them. Now, their patience are running thin because of all the noise and traffic the protestors are causing. I can't wait to hear what they say about this incident Monday morning. I wouldn't be surprised if they thought it was funny!

[Manifestor_of_Light]

16. Excessive bail? What's that???

44 people were arrested at a non violent protest thursday night.

The total bond demanded of them was $39.1 MILLION DOLLARS.

That comes to $888,888.00 per person bond for a Class B Misdemeanor (next to the lowest misdemeanor in TX)

However, in Houston you can murder some one and only have to post $30K bond.

[Cascadian]

17. This is outrageous!

I hope the janitors and the other people involved raise a huge stink about this. This is just evil and unjustified. Contact the Mayor and other city officials. This story must not go away!


John