In recent days, abortion rights activists, journalists and legal observers have been attacked and detained by police at demonstrations against the reversal of the US Supreme Court ruling. Roe vs. Wade.
“It is clear that this excessive use of force was unnecessary and unacceptable!”
Providence, Rhode Island police officer and Republican state Senate candidate Jeann Lugo suspended his campaign after the release of a video showing him punching one of his Democratic opponents, reproductive rights organizer, in the face. Jennifer Rourke, at a protest outside the State House on Friday night. . Lugo, who was off duty at the time of the incident, was arrested, charged with assault and disorderly conduct, and booked on Saturday.
“This is what it means to be a black woman running for office,” Rourke tweeted after the attack, adding, “I will not give up.”
Speaking of Lugo in an interview with WPRIRourke said that “it’s the anger on his face that really gets to me.”
“There was a verbal altercation and I jumped to reduce the tension,” he explained. “I looked to my left and that’s when Officer Lugo punched me in the face multiple times.”
Numerous incidents of police violence, including attacks on journalists and a legal observer, were documented Friday night in Los Angeles.. Coup Reporter Tina Desiree Berg, displaying her press credentials, was assaulted by Los Angeles Police Department officers, one of whom later claimed that he was “trying to protect her”.
beverly hills messenger reporter Samuel Braslow, who was pushed to the ground by officers, tweeted video police using a baton to throw a National Lawyers Union observer into the street and firing “less-lethal” rounds at protesters at close range.
In a statement referring to the Supreme Court ruling, the president of the National Lawyers Union, Suzanne Adely, said that “both the dobbs decision and the state repression of the protest against him violate human rights.”
“Targeting legal observers, who serve as trained witnesses to police conduct, is an act of state repression that demonstrates the dangerous right of the police to power and unchecked violence,” he added. “To truly reject the Supreme Court decision, we must support the protesters.”
VPS Reports editor Vishal P. Singh recorded and tweeted multiple police attacks on Los Angeles protesters, including a man who was thrown to the ground and appeared to be having a seizure. When Singh tried to give the man water, the police took the bottle from his hand.
On Saturday, actress Jodie Sweetin was Recorded being violently pushed to the ground by police at a protest on a Los Angeles freeway.
“Our activism will continue until our voices are heard and action is taken,” said the Full house star said following the incident. “This will not deter us, we will continue to fight for our rights. We are not free until we are ALL free.”
In Phoenix, police fired tear gas at protesters outside the Arizona state capitol on Friday. state police too handcuffed and arrested a Arizona Republic photographer and people who identified themselves as legal observers from the National Lawyers Union.
Four protesters were also arrested at a Saturday protest and released later that day after a Phoenix judge found no probable cause for the charges. according to the Republic.
In Greenville, South Carolina, the police checked tackle and taser about pro-abortion protesters at a downtown rally on Saturday.
Allen Chaney, spokesman for the ACLU of South Carolina, saying The Guardian that his organization “strongly condemns the violence against peaceful protesters”.
“It should be the case that you can peacefully show up and protest in this country without fear of violence or unjust arrest,” he said.
There have also been attacks on pro-choice protesters by civilians. In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, one of many states with laws protecting motorists from hitting protesters, a pickup truck driver intentionally rammed several women at a Friday night rally. A woman, whose foot was struck by the truck, was hospitalized.
Cedar Rapids City Councilwoman Ashley Vanorney, who attended the rally, tweeted that “a truck jumped traffic and ran over peaceful protesters crossing the pedestrian walkway at the federal courthouse. I was walking alongside them, the crowd included children next to me.”
In Los Angeles, an abortion rights protester has been hospitalized after being stabbed following a rally Saturday night.
“Whoever these people are, they are coming for us,” the victim told Singh. “The stabber specifically named me and left me alongside other comrades, including but not limited to trans women and allies.”
Reference-www.commondreams.org