Police Horse charge on peaceful protesters

And at a kid on her dad's shoulders, no less. This wasn't the few anarchists; these were the parents & grandparent group who were teaching their kids something about American freedom....how they could protest without fear of a secret police or immediate harm.


I guess they were wrong.




To the parents......how many of you would be in the hospital or the morgue for pulling that policeman off his horse and beating him senseless? I know I would be.
What other purpose, except to establish a demoralizing sense of fear against legal protest, would they have for charging a "soft" target?

NATZIS

You know, I'm a father, and I've a 6 years old daugter who's very gentle and very charming.

BUT...........

Bout Time, what are you doing ?

The police officer didn't hit/touch her or her father. We can clearly see his stick under his gun. The girl is looking afraid cuz the horse was probably running too fast and to close from her.

And when you are a responsible parent, YOU DON'T GO WITH YOUR 5/6 YEARS OLD DAUGHTER TO SUCH EVENT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Because the childrens can be more easily harm or frightened than adult !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Her father is really an ass !!!!!!!!!!!

When you are a responsible parent, you don't take your children with you. They stay at home with an adult. And if you don't have anybody to keep an eye on them, YOU STAY AT HOME WITH THEM and you DON'T go the event !!!!

You know very well how to manipulate a picture, isn't it BT ??????????

Also, it very " strange ", it seem that there was a photographer who was there, at the right moment, to take the right picture..... He was waiting for " something " may be ?

[Edited on 19-2-2003 by ultra_phoenix]

I didn't get a chance to see this scuffle, but it looks very much like 2nd Avenue, in the mid 50's... near where two friends live (they also work for me).

They were overwhelmed with noise and chaos on their quiet midtown residential street all day. They saw first-hand a scuffle like this one at 2nd and 55th where "peace protestors" were baracaded from moving through 55th to get to 1st. To control crowd flow, the police required the use of 57th as a through street. People began moving into 2nd, to block traffic in protest of having to walk two blocks to get to 57th (notice they're in a crosswalk). Mounted police came in to regain control of the crowd.

I dunno... If I'm a parent with a young girl on my shoulder, I make sure she's out of harm's way. Moving against police crowd control directives in a city under high security alert is certainly placing her in harms way.

Idiots.

You've maybe never have been on one and felt it's power, but half ton horse is weapon enough, U-P.
Being a responsible parent and going to a peaceful protest is a perfectly logical matching.
That they miscalculated, and didn't know how close we are to a fascist state, is their only wrong doing.

Pictures can tell a thousand words. That one does not, BT.

Parents taking their children to a protest: Protests and especially the protesters are known to get ugly. Irresponsible in my opinion.

Originally posted by Bout Time
didn't know how close we are to a fascist state

Dude... you're over-reacting.

Anyone expecting business as usual (calm, normal, organized) protest in New York City these days is out of touch with reality.

Have you read the papers? We're still checking trucks before they enter Manhattan... people are nervous here... and there's a few thousand very good reasons to be.

It does rather look as though the poor child is simply frightened of the horse rather than some wilful attack by the New Yourk branch of the Cossacks.
I think UP has a good point about a certain air of contrivance here.
As for the responsibility of the father (presumably): I must say I wonder at the risk in taking a little girl to such an event -even if you and your friends are peacefully exercising your civil rights there's always the chance of some character from Rentamob being there intent on trouble.

Originally posted by Bout Time

1) You've maybe never have been on one and felt it's power, but half ton horse is weapon enough, U-P.

2)Being a responsible parent and going to a peaceful protest is a perfectly logical matching.

3)That they miscalculated, and didn't know how close we are to a fascist state, is their only wrong doing.

1) I know that a horse can be a weapon.

2) No BT. When you go to a "peacefull " protest, or to another protest,with your kids, you are NOT responsible, you are stupid and a real danger for your kids. Did you ever seen a frightened mass of peoples who were running ? They don't care about your kids or you.They don't care about anything, except for themselves.

3) If you want to see a fascit state, go in the middle-east. I'm wondering why we don't see (NEVER !!! ), these so-called " peacefull protesters " protesting against these fascist state ( Libya, Irak, Iran,N-Korea, Pakistan, Arabia, Algeria, China, Zimbabwe...and so on ).

It would be funny to see these so-called " peacefull protesters " trying to protest in Baghdad, Pyongyang, Beijing, Havana,Karachi or Teheran ! But they'll not do it. It much more easy and less dangerous to protest against a democratic nation, isn't it BT ?

I am a New Yorker, born in Manhattan and have client calls most of the week, every week, in the city. Lately, you'll usually see me anywhere from the Hippodrome building down to Penn Plaza. I know the anxiety level in NY is nearly palpable.
I know a picture series can be viewed as a sensationalistic tug at the heart strings.....yeah, part of my intention!!
We all need to wake up to the fact that this is America and artificial color coded alert escalations, that turn out to be based on false intelligence, do not give carte blanc to quelling legal protest through the use of strong arm tactics or 'free speech zones' as pictured below.
This is not a thread to debated this wrong headed & ill timed war, of which some of your pro-war stances lead you to quickly dismiss brute force used against peaceful protest as 'they had it coming', but to make aware of what's going on under the Bush regime.

William, you're correct about the location. I work a few blocks away. As for some of the other points made in this thread, I have to wonder about some people here. If you hear about a planned event that is inherently chaotic (not in a negative sense, just meaning a free for all), and will most likely be overcrowded, why would you want to bring a child there? "Teaching your kids about freedom" is a lovely sentiment. What about the fact that our entire city is paranoid about something happening. You have thousands of morons duct taping their windows, and buying gas masks. If anything remotely suspicious would have happened during this protest there would have been 100,000 people clearing house real fast. Do you know what it's like to be 3 feet tall and 60 pounds during that kind of scene? These things are not the place for children. Period. I don't care what kind of message you're trying to send. Bring the kiddies to a nice quiet protest in Washington Square Park.

As a side point, to everyone complaining about PD...
You guys are #ing hysterical. Do the real people of the city a favor, the next time a disaster strikes the city and police and firefighters get hit hard... don't make commemorative coins, don't make posters with angels on them, don't bawl at the memorials. "Protestors" blocking a firetruck from proceeding through a scene of many thousands of people is not right. Claiming that they're trying to ruin your freedom fighting efforts by going through is asinine. This is New York. Sorry if the liberals were expecting andy griffith and barney to be running the city. When you have millions of people to keep an eye on you become a hard ass. Plain and simple. Do you know why that horse was rushing? It was clear to me from the picture that it wasn't rushing AT the child. Seriously speaking, it's nice to bitch at them, but you sure know how to thank them with tears in your eyes when they pull your kid out of a fire, or save your sick granny. # gets so out of hand and it really shouldn't. "Nazi" cops are the one's who'd save your stupid ass from the scum that wastes city money and time as is.

Originally posted by Bout Time

which some of your pro-war stances lead you to quickly dismiss brute force used against peaceful protest as 'they had it coming', but to make aware of what's going on under the Bush regime.

Of course. We are not with the " peacefull " anti-war protesters, so, we are all a bunch of pro-war nazis who just want to slaughter a maximum of kids and women.

Where did you learn your rethoric BT ? In Moscow or in Hano� ?

The liberals are allways thinking that only them are " pro-peace " and the others are all "pro-war". "

Do they have Crayola Crayons in Belgium? If so get the 64 count box. It would be a wonderful visual example illustrating the 'shades of gray' I keep noting that you fail to realize!!
When have I ever called you, or anyone else a Nazi because of their perspective on the war?

On topic, overt force versus peaceful protest has been going on coast to coast since Dim Son took office. That kids are present wouldn't be my first parental choice, because I have no faith in the assumed professionalism of police working against those numbers, but by the same token, it doesn't excuse their poor choices when the above happens and they should be held accountable.

i would simply submit that we have no idea what this picture represents..BT did you take this photo 1st hand..If so then i will except your side of the story....if not then you your self can not excuse the fact that this could have been any number of events..up to and including someone (out side the camera shot) hitting the horse..Pictures sometimes misslead ....

Boomslang

[Edited on 21-2-2003 by The General]

Originally posted by Bout Time

but by the same token, it doesn't excuse their poor choices when the above happens and they should be held accountable.

I agree with you. Those irresponsible parents have to be punished for what they did !

P.S : Yeah, we have Crayola Crayons in Belgium.

Originally posted by ultra_phoenix
And when you are a responsible parent, YOU DON'T GO WITH YOUR 5/6 YEARS OLD DAUGHTER TO SUCH EVENT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey this isnt about that.

This isnt europe.

Until now, things like that were thought of as reasonably safe FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY.
Until now.

Actually, in Britain it's considered fairly traditional to take your kids to protests.
The Greenham Common women, for example- an anti-nuke protest consisting entirely of women and children.
Let's face it, these days it's dangerous to take your kid to an airport or a tourist attraction for fear of a terrorist attack or even a threat that causes a stampede.

And, yeah- if a policeman saves a child from a burning building, kudos to him. If- and I say if- he rides his horse over a child, we criticize him. This strikes me as acceptable policy, and I intend to stick to it.