Early Wednesday morning Breitbart News posted a video of an Occupy protester in LA smashing a drum into the head of a female LAPD officer. At the time the video had fewer than 25 views. Within hours the video began to spread around the web on blogs and social media sites. Just over 24 hours later it has been viewed more than 200,000 times.
Yesterday afternoon, KTLA reported that a suspect in the attack had been detained and was being questioned. This morning, the LAPD announced the arrest of Brian Mendoza age 23. Sources say Mendoza is “6 feet tall and weighs 280 pounds.” By contrast, the officer he attacked is said to be 5’1″ and just over 100 pounds.
The LAPD says a fellow protester called and turned Mendoza in. Credit to him or her for doing so. Credit also goes to the Occupier who shot the video and uploaded it. As he says in his revised description “hitting someone, especially a small woman, in the back of the head with something like a snare drum is an especially needless act of violence. I repudiate it.”
This is something left and right should really be able to agree on. It’s unfortunate that so many in the Occupy movement tacitly or explicitly condone “a diversity of tactics” including vandalism and violence.
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