By John Grant
At the end of this chaotic YouTube video , made at the end of a huge victory by the activists occupying Wall Street, and their thousands of supporters, one of many outraged demonstrators is heard hollering: "He ran over his fuckin' leg!"
Well, I've looked at the video three times and that seems a pretty accurate description of what this cop did.
At first, the scooter's front wheel seems to be in front of the young man's leg. The guy, by the way, is a clearly legal observer wearing an official National Lawyers Guild yellow observer hat. He seems to be in serious agony at this point. So it seems likely he has already been run over once.
Then, for some reason (confusion? sadism?) the scooter cop runs the scooter forward over the man's leg -- again.
Now it gets really twisted and disturbing.
The cop seems to park the scooter with its rear wheel on top of the man's leg. The shot above was taken at this point, as he is re-running over the man's leg, before he parks it on the leg.
More cops arrive and seem to be whacking the injured man with clubs--according to police because he "kicked over the motorscooter" while lying under it!
I worked for years as a trained and certified urban ambulance attendant, and I assure you that this is not the correct way to deal with someone with a broken leg.
Finally, the injured man is arrested and, while in the emergency room with a fractured leg, is put under police guard.
As we hear a lot these days, photos and video can lie. But it's hard to see how all these cameras are lying. The fact is, photos generally tell the truth. It's people who lie about them.
I can't wait for the official NYPD report. Hey, maybe the young legal observer is an Iranian who has a cousin in the Quds Force and was talking with a Mexican on his cellphone about how to assassinate a Saudi diplomat. Or maybe they thought that legal pad in his pocket was actually a bomb in his underwear. We'll just have to wait for the explanation as to why a cop runs over a man's leg, then runs over it a second time and then parks it on top of his broken leg as he dismounts to strong-arm people concerned about his injuring of this man.
JOHN GRANT is a founding member of ThisCantBeHappening!, the award-winning new independent online alternative newspaper. His work, and that of colleagues DAVE LINDORFF, LINN WASHINGTON, JR. and CHARLES M. YOUNG, can be found at www.thiscantbehappening.net
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