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<a href="http://exiledonline.com/berkeley-police-threaten-to-shoot-protesters-with-same-deadly-tear-gas-bazooka-used-against-palestinian-protesters/">
War On OWS: Berkeley Police Threaten To Shoot Protesters With Same Deadly
Tear Gas Grenade Launcher Used Against Palestinian Protesters…</a> <br>
By <a href="http://exiledonline.com/?s=Yasha%20Levine">Yasha
Levine</a><br><br>
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<a href="http://exiledonline.com/berkeley-police-threaten-to-shoot-protesters-with-same-deadly-tear-gas-bazooka-used-against-palestinian-protesters/" eudora="autourl">
http://exiledonline.com/berkeley-police-threaten-to-shoot-protesters-with-same-deadly-tear-gas-bazooka-used-against-palestinian-protesters/<br>
<br>
</a></font><font size=3><i>I’m not going make you wade through three
paragraphs of stuff to find out who won this year’s Urban Shield: it was
the Israeli team. Oakland Police Department took second place, while San
Francisco Police Department tied with FBI for third.<br><br>
– PoliceOne.com
<a href="http://www.policeone.com/training/articles/2831943-Everyone-wins-at-Urban-Shield-2010">
Senior Editor Doug Wyllie on Urban Shield 2010</a><br><br>
</i>A
<a href="http://bobplain.com/features/occutour/occupy-berkeley-raided-by-police-officer-threatens-to-shoot-videographer/">
video recorded by OccupyNewsandMedia</a> during last week’s early-morning
raid on Occupy Berkeley shows a burly Berkeley cop strutting around with
a repeat-fire tear gas grenade launcher, menacingly pointing it at
protesters without provocation. At one point the bloodlusting cop
threatens to shoot pointblank the guy with the camera, telling him “You
back up…you may not understand it til’ I use this, but you better back
up”– before charging the videographer with his grenade launcher pointed
right at the camera guy’s face.<br><br>
The weapon– sleek, with a matte black finish that reflects almost no
light–looks like it can do some serious damage. And it can. That’s
because it’s a military-grade high-velocity, repeat-fire Penn Arms
grenade launcher designed to lob flash-bang grenades, tear gas canisters,
plastic buckshot, and fat rubber and wooden pellets called “batons” at
high velocity and precision at human targets as far as a football field
away.<br><br>
This is the same weapon the Oakland Police Department
<a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/10/27/1030750/-UPDATED:-Oakland-Mayor-Quan-Prosecute-This-Cop-or-Resign:-Photo-Evidence,-Scott-Olsen-Shooting">
used to shoot 24-year-old Iraq War veteran Scott Olsen</a> in the face
with a tear gas canister at close range. The impact of the round, which
was fired by an unidentified riot trooper from no more than 10 feet away,
fractured Olsen’s skull and left him with minor brain damage, including a
speech impediment. Olsen would have died from his wound had he not
received emergency brain surgery in time.<br><br>
According to Oakland’s interim police chief, the whole thing was an
unfortunate accident: “It’s unfortunate it happened. I wish that it
didn’t happen. Our goal, obviously, isn’t to cause injury to anyone,” he
told reporters the next day.<br><br>
But the truth is that <a href="http://youtu.be/zEj_4fqDbnM?t=15s">Olsen’s
injury</a> was not an accident nor a freak occurrence.<br><br>
Even though Penn Arms launchers are supposed to be used for “riot
suppression” and “other crowd control operations,” they have already
gained a reputation for being effective as a deadly weapon, repeatedly
causing “unfortunate accidents” wherever it’s used–especially when used
against civilians at close range. This side benefit is something that
Combined Systems Inc., which owns Penn Arms, doesn’t even try hiding. The
company calls its launcher line “less lethal,” not “less <i>than</i>
lethal”–and even owns the less-lethal.com domain name, which takes you
straight to its weapons and munitions catalogue. You have to wonder:
<i>Less lethal than what?</i> An M-16? A shotgun? The .357 magnum I have
sitting in my desk drawer? If it is, then not by much–not when used at
close range, which security forces have a habit of doing.<br><br>
Penn Arms launchers have been used with deadly results by repressive,
authoritarian regimes all across the world. Most recently, the grenade
launchers were part of the state arsenal in Egypt and Bahrain, where they
were used both for launching tear gas, and as blunt force trauma weapons
that maimed and killed peaceful protesters.<br><br>
Israel in particular has a nasty record of employing Penn Arms tear gas
grenade launchers for their “off label” use against Palestinian
protesters. That is, as short range weapons that not only critically
injure and kill, but provide the added PR benefit of plausible
deniability after the unfortunate accident occurs.<br><br>
That’s exactly what happened earlier this month, when an IDF solider shot
Mustafa Tamimi in the face with a tear gas grenade at close range,
crushing Tamimi’s skull and forcing a part of his brain out of a
shattered eye socket. Tamimi was 28 and a resident of Nabi Saleh, a
Palestianian town that has had its land and water taken over by a
Jewish-only settlement. Penn Arms’ “less lethal” action was captured and
<a href="http://972mag.com/nabi-saleh-palestinian-shot-in-head-with-tear-gas-canister/29317/">
documented in gruesome detail</a> by journalists who were there on the
scene:<br><br>
Israeli officials claimed that the whole thing was an accident, that the
soldier “didn’t see” the Tamimi when he fired the shot. But people who’ve
reported on Palestinian protests insist that this was no accident, but
rather deliberate policy. According to Israeli journalist Noam Sheizaf,
who served in the IDF for four and a half years, this practice of
<a href="http://972mag.com/soldier-who-shot-unarmed-protester-to-death-i-didnt-see-him/29591/">
shooting civilians with tear gas canisters at short range is standard
IDF</a> m.o.:<br><br>
</font>
<dl>
<dd>Israel Defense Forces officials have told Haaretz that Tamimi’s death
was “an exceptional incident.” Still, as we have reported
here<a href="http://972mag.com/idf-soldiers-attack-on-photojournalists/19974/">
in the past</a>, firing tear gas canisters at protesters
<a href="http://972mag.com/in-the-west-bank-everyone-knows-theres-a-culture-of-no-accountability/8203/">
from close range</a> (in violation of army orders) is a common practice
in the West Bank. A couple of years ago, Palestinian protester Bassam
Abu-Rahmeh of Bil’in died after getting hit in the chest by a tear gas
canister
[<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yM9U2y-op4&">video</a>]. A
year later, his sister,
Jawahar,<a href="http://972mag.com/new-army-version-on-bilin-death-contradicts-previous-claims/9034/">
collapsed from the effect of a tear gas and later died in a Ramallah
hospital</a>.<br><br>
<dd>I have seen tear gas canisters shot directly at protesters (including
myself) in several demonstrations in Bil’in, in Hebron and in Nabi
Saleh.<br><br>
</dl>Max Blumenthal, who has extensively reported on Palestinian protests
and has had the IDF launch tear gas grenades at him personally, told me
that the Israeli soldiers always fire tear gas shells like bullets at
Palestinian kids. As he found out first hand, they even target American
citizens who show up to support or report on the Palestinian cause. ”An
Israeli soldier shot California resident Tristan Anderson directly in the
head with a high velocity tear gas canister in a March 2009 protest in
Nilin, leaving Tristan partially handicapped and suffering slight
cognitive damage. New York City college student Emily Henochowicz lost
her left eye when an Israeli soldier shot her directly in the face with
an aluminum tear gas canister at a May 2010 protest at the Qalandiya
checkpoint,” according to
<a href="http://electronicintifada.net/content/tell-combined-systems-inc-stop-selling-tear-gas-israel/1094#.Ts3taxysWWM">
Electronic Intifada</a>.<br><br>
Isn’t plausible deniability a wonderful thing?<br><br>
And now we see the same deadly anti-protester grenade-launcher brandished
in Berkeley, birthplace of the Free Speech Movement and much of the
Vietnam anti-war movement.<br><br>
The fact that Berkeley’s police department would even consider adopting
the same deadly weapons and tactics for “crowd control” against the
town’s own students and citizens that are being used by Israel against
stateless Palestinians in the occupied territories, and by Egyptian and
Bahraini security forces against pro-democracy demonstrators, is as
alarming as it is appalling. But it should not come as surprise to anyone
who’s read Max Blumenthal’s
<a href="http://exiledonline.com/max-blumenthal-how-israeli-occupation-forces-bahraini-monarchy-guards-trained-u-s-police-for-coordinated-crackdown-on-occupy-protests/">
jaw-dropping investigative article exposing the Isrealification of
America’s law enforcement</a>. Published (and re-posted here on The
eXiled) just a few weeks ago, it details the collaboration and close
partnerships that have been emerged over the past decade between Israeli
security forces and U.S. police departments in towns and counties all
across the country.<br><br>
To quote from
<a href="http://exiledonline.com/max-blumenthal-how-israeli-occupation-forces-bahraini-monarchy-guards-trained-u-s-police-for-coordinated-crackdown-on-occupy-protests/">
Blumenthal</a>‘s article:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>In October, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Alameda Department turned
parts of the campus of the University of California in Berkeley into an
urban battlefield. The occasion was
<a href="http://www.urbanshield.org/index.php/about/swat">Urban Shield
2011,</a> an annual SWAT team exposition organized to promote “mutual
response,” collaboration and competition between heavily militarized
police strike forces representing law enforcement departments across the
United States and foreign nations.<br><br>
<dd>At the time, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department [Berkeley and
Oakland are part of Alameda County --YL</i>] was preparing for an
imminent confrontation with the nascent “Occupy” movement that had set up
camp in downtown Oakland, and would demonstrate the brunt of its
repressive capacity against the demonstrators a month later when it
<a href="http://english.al-akhbar.com/blogs/gadfly/arms-firm-behind-suppression-occupyoakland-and-palestines-popular-struggle">
attacked</a> the encampment with teargas and rubber bullet rounds,
leaving an Iraq war veteran in
<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/30/scott-olsen-ed-schultz-occupy-oakland-msnbc_n_1120302.html">
critical condition</a> and dozens injured. According to
<a href="http://www.policemag.com/Blog/SWAT/Story/2011/11/Urban-Shield-2011-Behind-the-Scenes.aspx">
Police Magazine</a></i>, a law enforcement trade publication, “Law
enforcement agencies responding to…Occupy protesters in northern
California credit Urban Shield for their effective teamwork.”<br><br>
<dd>Training alongside the American police departments at Urban Shield
was the
<a href="http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=1676">
Yamam</a></i>
<a href="http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=1676">
,</a> an Israeli Border Police unit that claims to specialize in
“counter-terror” operations but is better known for its
<a href="http://www.imemc.org/article/6644">extra-judicial
assassinations</a> of Palestinian militant leaders and long record of
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRPPN7Kmi1c">repression</a> and
<a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2004/sep/29/world/fg-mideast29">
abuses</a> in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Urban Shield also
featured a unit from the military of Bahrain, which had just crushed a
largely non-violent democratic uprising by
<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/bahrain/8329930/Bahrain-riot-police-fire-on-protest-camp.html">
opening fire</a> on protest camps and
<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2692740.html">arresting</a>
wounded demonstrators when they attempted to enter hospitals. While the
involvement of Bahraini soldiers in the drills was a novel phenomenon,
the presence of quasi-military Israeli police – whose participation in
Urban Shield was not reported anywhere in US media – reflected a
disturbing but all-too-common feature of the post-9/11 American security
landscape.<br><br>
<dd>The Israelification of America’s security apparatus, recently
unleashed in full force against the Occupy Wall Street Movement, has
taken place at every level of law enforcement, and in areas that have yet
to be exposed. The phenomenon has been documented in bits and pieces,
through occasional news reports that typically highlight Israel’s
national security prowess without examining the problematic nature of
working with a country accused of grave human rights abuses. But it has
never been the subject of a national discussion. And collaboration
between American and Israeli cops is just the tip of the
iceberg.<br><br>
</dl>To repeat: Berkeley cops were training alongside security forces
from Israel, Bahrain, Jordan, Singapore, Qatar and the United Arab
Emirates right
<a href="http://exiledonline.com/max-blumenthal-how-israeli-occupation-forces-bahraini-monarchy-guards-trained-u-s-police-for-coordinated-crackdown-on-occupy-protests/">
on the UC Berkeley campus</a>, where I went to school, and just a few
blocks away from the same Occupy Berkeley encampment that they would
later test their new brutal skills on–all of it with support from
corporations like AT&T, Sisco Systems, Chevron, FedEx, Marriott,
Oracle and Prison Health Services, among others.<br><br>
This is blowback of the worst kind. All that military-monetary support
that went into propping up friendly totalitarian/apartheid countries by
way of keeping their restive populations under control is now coming back
home, with all the valuable lessons tested out in countries across the
world now just starting to be applied here against the first rumblings of
post-financial crisis dissent and discontent.<br><br>
Berkeley and Oakland are not the only police departments that have
benefitted from Urban Shield’s recent apartheid/authoritarian crowd
control training. Below is a full list of participants from last year’s
Urban Shield. Check to see if your local cops have been trained up, too.
That way, you won’t be surprised if you suddenly find yourself looking
down the barrel of a grenade launcher at your local Occupy
protest.<br><br>
<br>
Alameda County Alameda County Deputy Sheriff’s Association (DSA) Alameda
County Emergency Medical Services Alameda County Fire Department Alameda
County General Services Agency Alameda County Health Care Services Agency
Alameda County Sheriff’s Office Alameda County Sheriff’s Office Air
Squadron Alameda County Sheriff’s Office Dive Team Alameda County
Sheriff’s Office Communications Alameda County Sheriff’s Office Search
and Rescue-Unit Alameda Reuse and Redevelopment Authority Alameda-Contra
Costa Transit District Bay Area Urban Area Security Initiative Belmont –
San Carlos Fire Department Berkeley Fire Department Berkeley Police
Department Brisbane Police Department Central County Fire Department City
of Alameda Fire Department City and County of San Francisco Cobalt East
Bay Regional Parks Police Department Emeryville Fire Department
Emeryville Police Department Fremont Fire Department Fremont Police
Department Fort Bragg Fire & Emergency Services Foster City Fire
Department Hayward Fire Department Hayward Police Department
Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department Livermore Police Department Marin
County Sheriff’s Office Martinez Police Department Mendocino Fire
Protection District Menlo Park Fire Protection District Millbrae Fire
Department Newark Police Department Northern California Regional
Intelligence Center Oakland Housing Authority Oakland International
Airport Oakland Fire Department Oakland Police Department Oakland Unified
School District Palo Alto Fire Department Pleasanton Police Department
Port Board of Commissioners Port of Oakland Presidio Fire Department
Redwood City Fire Department Redwood City Police Department Richmond
Police Department Rohnert Park Department of Public Safety Sacramento
Police Department San Bruno Fire Department San Francisco County
Sheriff’s Department San Francisco Department of Emergency Management San
Francisco Fire Department San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency
San Francisco Police Department San Jose Fire Department San Jose Police
Department San Leandro Police Department San Mateo County San Mateo
County Sheriff’s Office San Mateo Emergency Services Detail San Mateo
Fire Department Santa Clara County Santa Clara County Fire Department
Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office South
San Francisco Fire Department Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety Union
City Police Department Woodland Fire Department Woodside Fire Protection
District Cal-Explorer Search and Rescue California Army National Guard,
95th Civil -Support Team (WMD) California Disaster Medical Services
Association California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation
California Emergency Management Agency (Cal-EMA) California Highway
Patrol California Rescue Dog Association California State Sheriff’s
Association (CSSA) California National Guard Commission on Peace Officer
Standards and -Training (P.O.S.T.) Disaster Medical Assistance Team
(DMAT) Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office Los Angeles Police Department
NORCAL Ambulance Pacific Gas and Electric Company Pulgas Water Temple
Sacramento Police Department University of California-Berkeley University
of California-Berkeley Police Department 95th Civil Support Team, Weapons
of Mass Destruction <br><br>
***<br><br>
Want to know more?</b> Read Yasha Levine’s
<a href="http://exiledonline.com/yasha-levine-released-from-jail-exposes-lapds-appalling-treatment-of-detained-occupy-la-protesters/">
account of LAPD’s appalling treatment of detained Occupy LA
protesters</a>…His
<a href="http://exiledonline.com/cat/occupy-wall-street-2/">other Occupy
LA coverage</a>…And
<a href="http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2011/12/yasha_levine_occupy_la_arrest_koch_brothers_tea_party.php">
LA Weekly’s writeup of his arrest.</a><br><br>
Yasha Levine is an <a href="http://exiledonline.com/yasha-levine/">editor
of The eXiled</a>. You can reach him at levine [at]
exiledonline.com.<br><br>
<br><br>
<br>
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