Excerpt from Law & Disorder. Listen to the full interview here.
During the Occupy Wall Street protests of late 2011 and early 2012, the FBI treated the Occupy movement as a domestic terrorist threat. That was even though the Bureau acknowledged that organizers were calling for peaceful protests. Massive resources were deployed to track the movement, and FBI and counter-terrorism agents around the nation coordinated with local and federal law enforcement to track and gather intelligence, effectively serving as an arm for private business.
More than a decade later, college administrators are calling local armed police—some in riot gear—to arrest and in many instances brutalize hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters in actions and encampments sweeping the nation. More than 1,000 protesters have been arrested over the last two weeks on campuses in states including Texas, Utah, Virginia, North Carolina, New Mexico, Connecticut, Louisiana, California and New Jersey. At UCLA, last week, after pro-Israel supporters carrying symbols of radical Jewish groups, not of student age, allegedly threw fireworks into a solidarity encampment, students defending the camp were attacked with stones and sticks. Yet, after an hour of violence, police standing nearby failed to intervene.
Guest – attorney Mara Verheyden-Hilliard from the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund and the Center for Protest Law and Litigation in Washington, DC. Mara is one of the nation’s leading litigators defending protesters and winning numerous reforms in police practices at mass assemblies and demonstrations.