Washblog

Diamondstone noted that the settlement serves "an important lesson for police departments around the country that have looked to Seattle's WTO experience" when large numbers of protesters gather in other large cities. "The proper lesson is to avoid repetition of the fiasco in Seattle by allowing peaceful protesters to gather, as guaranteed by the Constitution," Diamondstone said.

This is all putting it mildly.  I suggest to get an idea of what really happened at the WTO protests in Seattle, you check out pics like this one:

That would be the Seattle police opening fire upon protestors at point blank range.  Rubber bullets at that range can maim and kill as well as permanently disfigure and blind.

So now all is well with the world right?  Our Constitution has been reaffirmed and this kind of stuff won't happen anymore right?

RIGHT?

Yeah, right.  This is standard operating procedure for the police force at every city the WTO meets.  At the last WTO protest, 800 protestors were locked up in Hong Kong when the police stepped in to suppress their voices.

That's pretty much the way it goes anywhere the WTO goes.  

How about here in our own state of Washington?  The jury found the protestors were unconstitutionally arrested late January.  Between then and now have we seen any signs that Washington State police officers have learned to respect the Constitution of the United States?

I think not.

Forty-six seconds after protesters begin to chant "Shame on you!" at the police in response to something that cannot be seen in the video, and just as the situation seems to be calming down, police open fire and advance into the crowd firing rapid-fire weapons.  --  One man is seen shot in the head.  --  Protesters are clubbed.  --  The firing at the unarmed, unresisting protestors goes on for almost 25 seconds.  --  Intrepid videographers stand there, filming the scene.  --  As the shooting stops, one riot police officer continues stand over a wounded young  women and prevents others from coming to her assistance for 30 seconds.

This is the way things happen in a fascist police state where corporations are protected and citizens are attacked.  That it took SEVEN YEARS to hand down todays verdict speaks volumes about how difficult it is to find justice where the police are involved.

As for the police officers who defended the WTO corporatists and deprived its own people of their fundamental rights?  Not one of them was ever reprimanded or disciplined by the city.

Like illegally arresting protestors wherever the WTO goes, not punishing police for their own crimes is standard operating procedure.  

$1 million is chump change to the WTO.  The City of Seattle should have been made to pay a LOT more because what they took was more than a few days freedom from a few protestors, they took what Americans have shed their blood for.  They took freedom from ALL of us.  And they then took seven years to face up to it.  The penalty for that should have been so harsh that no American city would ever contemplate doing this again.