What I find particularly egregious, though, is not the fact that BSO deputies watched the depraved handiwork of their Miami colleagues and had a good chuckle about it -- though, believe me, I find that piggishness morally repugnant. No, what really pisses me off about Fantz's story is Miami police spokesman Delrish Moss, who has the
fucking chutzpah to say that only a few dozen people were injured at the FTAA protests. That is solid bullshit. No, scratch that. The better descriptor would be to say that it is runny, diarrhetic bullshit. Because for anyone who was there that day, the lie that there were only a couple of dozen injuries oozes out of Moss' mouth and slips easily to the ground, among the rest of the filth. I witnessed at leased half that many injuries myself -- with my own two eyes -- and you're going to tell me that I just happened to witness half the injuries dealt out by these thuggish police-state Gestapo in the entire City of Miami? What does Moss think? That no one who was there will read this? Does he honestly believe that this will hold up to even the slightest scrutiny?

Since that day, I have often made the argument that the police are not my friend -- and not your friend either. Think about it. How often do you speed? Jaywalk? Commit any other infraction? I'm willing to bet that you do something illegal pretty damn often. So, given the fact that you are an outlaw far more often than you are the victim of the crime, tell me how the police are your friend? Especially when they're so willing to spray you with rubber bullets and laugh about it afterward. The only reason you think the police are your friend is because, when you do need them, they're a pretty damned good friend to have. But a Colt Python in your nightstand drawer will stop that burglar a lot faster than a call to the cops.

Defenders of the status quo will point out this bit of Fantz's article:
"Commander Armando Guzman, a 25-year-old police veteran and leader of the Miami Police Swat Team during FTAA, said officers faced violence that wasn't publicized.
Protesters set fire to freight pallets they placed on the street and fired ball bearings at police using ''wrist rockets,'' sophisticated high-velocity sling-shots, he said.
Demonstrators also flung pieces of brick and rebar at cops, said Guzman."

First off, my bullshit detector goes off the minute I see that the officers faced violence that "wasn't published." How terribly convenient. But, I will say that I did see one guy throw a rock at police that day -- after he'd been shot by a rubber bullet and just before he was shot by about half a dozen more. Not once -- not one bloody time -- did I see protestors instigate violence that day. Not once.

Here's Carl Kesser, who was shot in the temple at the FTAA protest by a bean bag bullet. His offense? Filming the police beating the hell out of other protestors.

Here's Nikki Hartman, holding a rag to her head to stop the bleeding from a rubber bullet:

Think she was some sort of violent protestor? Nah. Here she is awhile earlier, meditating with prayer beads:

So, by all means, come to sunny Miami

They treat you right here, don't they? Christ, it's been almost three years and my hands are still almost shaking as I write this. If you take anything away from it, at least read Fantz's story and realize this -- the woman the police shot in the head in her story? Just another downtown Miami resident. Just like many of you. It still pains me in my gut -- seethes and quakes in the lowest, angriest parts of my heart -- that half of the damned police force wasn't tossed in jail for what they did that day. Ah well -- at least for a day I got to know what it feels like to live in a police state. I learned I didn't care for it much. So the next time you may read a blog entry here at Doomed Generation about the erosion of civil rights in America (I know I'm wont to get off on rants on this particular subject), don't roll your eyes and say, "It can't happen here." Because it can, and it has, and it will again. And goddamn it, free speech and peaceful assembly -- those are worth fighting for. Hell, they're worth dying for. And if you were in Miami on Nov. 20, 2003, you know that at the very least, they're worth bleeding for.