People don't realize it, but officers may have been justified shooting people in order to prevent them from overtaking the patrol car.

With the equipment available to officers, I would gladly take that one a jury of my peers (as an officer) if I felt there was justified concern that a weapon could be removed from the vehicle.

Since it was a stupid hip-hop concert I'm waiting for certain people to play the race card and blame it all on the police.

Something tells me I'm going to be reading The "following commentary doesn't necessarily reflect the views of KAOS, its underwriters, or the Evergreen State College" disclaimer when I start my show Sunday Morning.

“I said it in Hebrew—I said it in Dutch—I said it in German and Greek: But I wholly forgot (and it vexes me much) That English is what you speak!”
The Hunting of the Snark

“I said it in Hebrew—I said it in Dutch—I said it in German and Greek: But I wholly forgot (and it vexes me much) That English is what you speak!”
The Hunting of the Snark

if you want to flame and rant, the Olympian comments page is the place for you, not OlyBlog.

However, if you have something substantive to add to this tread, please do.

Blood was found on the patrol car from people who apparently cut themselves on broken glass, Kessler said. It will be tested in an attempt to identify suspects, she said.

Some things make my smile brighter. Even if it's just blown smoke.

“I said it in Hebrew—I said it in Dutch—I said it in German and Greek: But I wholly forgot (and it vexes me much) That English is what you speak!”
The Hunting of the Snark

An early statement from a top dog at Evergreen was put forth on the TESC listserv yesterday and reads as follows:

<<You may have heard about an incident at the Dead Prez concert on campus last night. This is a serious and disturbing incident for our campus and we want to ensure that the people responsible are held accountable for their actions. These are the basic facts as we understand them at this time:

• Several individuals were involved in a fight at the concert Thursday night.
• As the concert was ending, one of the people involved in the fight – not an Evergreen student – was arrested and escorted out of the building by an Evergreen police officer and placed in the officer’s car.
• To accommodate additional statements from members of the crowd regarding the incident – while she planned to take the detained person to Police Services for further questioning – the officer called for assistance from Thurston County Sheriffs.
• Thurston County officers responded to the scene.
• A crowd of people had surrounded the Evergreen officer’s car as she tried to leave the scene. They demanded that the person arrested be released and started striking the car.
• The car and the officers outside were being pelted with rocks and bottles.
• The Thurston County officers called for further back-up and other officers began to arrive at the scene.
• The Evergreen officer got out of her car, obtained basic identification information from the person she’d detained and released him from the scene.
• The crowd still did not disperse and continued to throw things at the officers and push them.
• The officers used pepper spray to disperse the crowd and allow the car and the Evergreen officer to leave safely.
• A Thurston County police vehicle still at the scene was overturned and seriously damaged. An Evergreen police vehicle was less seriously damaged.
• While there was a large crowd gathered, not all of the people on the scene were involved in damaging the police vehicles. It’s unclear at this point just how many people were directly involved in causing the damage.
• The initial indication is that there were no serious injuries.
• By the time an additional contingent of officers arrived, the crowd had largely dispersed.
• It appears at this point that the officers involved in responding to this incident acted appropriately in managing the situation.

Evergreen Police Services is leading an investigation of the incident with support from the Thurston County Sheriff’s Department. If you have information that would help in the investigation of this incident, please contact Police Services at 867-6832.>>

I personally note that Friday night's tv news coverage was disturbing in yet another way... that is, every inference seemed to point to Evergreen students as the perpetrators. Although I've been whipping through information on the rioting at a great pace, I have yet to see that any Greeners have been directly implicated. It is possible that every crime committed Thurs. night was by outsiders. I consider this news reporting ridiculous and irresponsible and it only serves to polarize the usual groups further.

It's also a bit disturbing personally because, had I not been on maternity leave, chances are fair I would have been working late and walking alone to my car. My office is in the same building as the police services and I hate the thought that one of our lovely women officers, with whom I often speak, was endangered by such violence. I've not led a protected life and yet such things still chill me to the bone.

So which is it- did the outrage ensue because police dared to detain someone from the crowd who was acting violently? Or because they were black? Does the maybe-a-little-too-pc-sensitive mob expect me to believe that there is never a good reason to arrest a black person no matter what? Does the mob expect me to believe that they as concertgoers shall altogether be the judge of what person started which fight? Does the mob believe the police are evil fascist bastards when they detain violent people from a crowd of people trying to have a good time? If you expect me to believe any of this, GIVE ME A BREAK already!!

I'm guessing that there's a lot of pent up violent anger at the OPD on the part of a minority of Evergreen students who like to think they're in the majority of people who hate all cops, want all cops fired, want them dead, think that revolution will come when the magical day comes that they're gone from Evergreen and Olympia, etc. This pent-up anger is looking for excuses to raise hell with the police, even if it's sparked by a cop keeping someone involved in a fight away from a crowd of people, of all things (someone who was targetted because they also defied security volunteers and went back into the show, by the way, correct?)

Many years ago I used to join in take back the streets/may day actions and that sort of thing, also I'm an Evergreen grad. I'm still pretty far "left" but I stopped participating in these events because I got disgusted with the irrational cop haters and those who went after their opponents by shouting them out and intentionally drowning out their words as a crowd, physically messing with them, tagging them, all sorts of stupid shit like this. The anarchist mob mentality started doing everything it could to polarize ITSELF from everyone else. And didn't seem to care that this was happening because fuck the opinion of the other %99.8, right?. So, how effective can a "revolution" like this be anyway? It's a wet dream for the power elite, that the most passionate, on-fire radical leftists are marginalizing themselves so that feds, police and spook agencies don't have to.

Don't get me wrong, I believe there are special instances where rioting is appropriate, necessary and revolutionary under the right set of dire circumstances. But THIS?? PLEASE. The OPD is not exactly the Bush administration, a genocidal military power, the WTO, the IMF, the World Bank, the IDF or the top guns of an evil multinational corporate empire. But I'm sure they're all happy--if they would even notice-- that radicals in Olympia who otherwise have subversive potential in their futures are waring themselves out on a small-town police force like the OPD. In the meantime our politicians are getting away with legitimizing torture and legitimizing both the government and telecom companies' ability to go Big Brother on all our asses. And that's just in one week. And I'm supposed to be concerned about some pesky misdemeanor arrest at a concert, whether this individual was at fault or not. This "revolution" is going nowhere

And in response to the "first hand account" poster's thread that has blocked any further comments- wow, way ta show your appreciation for others' freedom of speech. How anarchist of you.

I seem to remember some dandy photos of burning dumpsters rolling down the hillside at police officers in a little Eastern-Washington town called Pullman.  Apparently WSU students were particularly unhappy about a new rule banning beer on campus...

So Greeners aren't the only ones who can riot over BS.  Besides, I've heard a good deal about the DedPrez audience being primarily made up of high school students.  It might not have been TESC students involved in the rioting.

Of course, if that is found to be the truth, that still won't stop all the ridiculous banter about the terrors of the gay-commie-pinko-treehugging-hippie-anarchists, and how TESC ought to be turned into a jail.

In fact, as I was driving through the intersection of Black Lake/Cooper Pt Rd yesterday, I spotted a fellow holding a cardboard sign on the corner.  The sign read, "Save on Taxes, Nuke Evergreen."  Charming.

The Canaanite's Call