This is just crazy. One of the protesters in Fort Worth has been assaulted with a US flag. Then he's charged with assault against a police officer.
Our own small occupation is apparently large enough to get attention from our police force. The protesters are occupying Burnett Plaza, which is a park right next to the Bank of America.
Wednesday morning, FWPD came in and threw away all the signs. They came in again on Thursday night, and started tossing everything that wasn't claimed in ten minutes as abandoned property. Nobody wanted to claim anything, as the whole scene was very threatening. A protester (Anthony Baker) gathered his stuff and began to move down the sidewalk, but as he was walking past the officer, his flag brushed the officer's face. The officer got very officious (it's what they do best,) grabbed the flag away from the protester, and struck him.
You can see the incident in question at 1:11. He's quite obviously not attacking the officer - looks like he's shuffling to the other side.
He was arrested on disorderly conduct.
Update; the charge was enhanced from disorderly conduct to felony assault on a peace officer. Solidarity.
ACLU, with the help of the National Lawyer's Guild, has since come down and bailed him out of jail.
Baker, who has said he is homeless, told the Star-Telegram on Wednesday after police confiscated signs that day that he vowed to maintain the demonstration.
"They could come and do this every night for all I care," Baker said. "How hard is it to find some cardboard?"
Here's the Star-Telegram story - perhaps they didn't see the video?
Here's the Facebook page for Occupy Fort Worth.
This is a great reason to hate editorials: