More to come. This was an interesting event. It’s all interesting. Brian O’Neill’s column Touching the G-20 elephant is extremely valuable. If you need to know what I think now, keep visiting the comments under this Infinonymous post. For now I will share that Elizabeth Pittinger said the Citizens Police Review Board’s report regarding Friday night’s events, due out in a week or so, will be “no holds barred”.
Other chanting during the 90-minute or so march through Oakland included, “Resist! Resist! Raise your f#$%in fist!”, “F#$%in pigs get out of our city, beatin us down and makin it sh@#$y.”, and “We love Pittsburgh, f@#$ the po-lice!”
Elizabeth Pittinger is just trying to justify all the money from the city budget that goes into her pocket.
Well as you point out, we are paying for a Citizens' Police Revue Board. I think that's because we citizens asked for it some years ago. Might as well get some use out of it.
PS – Pittinger tells me she personally wasn't there (Friday), but CPRB had staff on the ground.
Oh, and that we still do not have a City policy on police dogs annoys Pittinger. On Saturday night, some dog barking was unleashed upon the marchers from a few paces away. Expect Darlene Harris and Bruce Kraus to move that football.
Pittinger and Krause walked side-by-side throughout the 30 minute or so run-up to the start of People's March Friday outside Carlow U. I really appreciate her work, but I do have one issue with her observation that there was a contingent of “mystery police” on Craft Ave. at the start of the march. She says that their identification badges were obscured by their armor, but I have numerous pictures showing IDs clearly displayed in plastic holders on their arms. The IDs say they were City of Pgh. cops.
Anon 9:25 – “Mystery officer” was my own off-the-cuff descriptor, invented before Pittinger strolled past. Though the criticism about a lack of identification (that they “should be disciplined”) was her own.
I would like to see one of those pictures you speak of — the lack of any identification on those troops was a MAJOR issue among several protesters passing around a bullhorn 10-20 minutes before the march. One of them claimed that in response to direction questioning, the only answer they received from the officers was, “You don't need to know who we work for, we are all unified”.