From Milwaukee Sentinel Journal:
A tussle during the usually peaceful Capitol singalong protests resulted in a felony battery charge against a protester.
The charge is the most severe since labor protests began in February of 2011.
The incident occurred about midway through the protest when Christopher J. Terrell sat down and was approached by police. While they were in the process of cuffing him his brother Damon Terrell was pinned by officers in a wrestling match that lasted about 25 seconds.
…
In the video imbedded in the article, you can see the altercation starting at approximately 35 seconds. Here’s a direct link to the video. Since we don’t have all the particulars, it might be the use of force was entirely justified. I’ll let the viewers decide.
Video from several vantage points here (h/t Capitol Times). Additional coverage at Wisconsin State Journal, and here.
Update, 8/28, 7:15PM Pacific: Apparently, you can’t even observe people singing in the Capitol without being arrested.
Police had been targeting only those who were actively singing or participating in the protests on the Capitol’s ground level. But this week they started warning observers on the upper floors that they could be arrested as well.
One of those warned was Democratic state Rep. Sondy Pope, of Middleton. She told the Madison weekly newspaper Isthmus that she was threatened with arrest by police on Tuesday. She did not immediately return a phone message from The Associated Press seeking comment on Wednesday.
“I have a duty to observe what is happening to my constituents who are expressing their discontent,” Pope told Isthmus. “How can I be arrested for that?”
Or maybe it’s just ticketed. [1] I’ll check back tomorrow to update what the Capitol police decide.
How can any student take Professor Chinn seriously as an impartial presenter of anything even vaguely relating to politics after this sort of thing?
Bearing in mind Marx’s comment about history repeating itself – first as tragedy then as farce – if we take Paul Krugman’s descent into left of center hack journalism as tragic, Professor Chinn’s deep plunge into the antics of the WN statehouse certainly rate as farce.
c thomson: I don’t teach politics or political science in my classes. If you can detect any politics in the material in the classes I teach, please feel free to identify the instances. Warning: algebra and calculus.
Economics is inherently political. Math is a tool that can be used in many ways. No economist can escape into a world of pure thought – economics is not a science.
As long as Prof. Chinn declares his obvious political bias at the beginning of each class, his teaching is a fair method of demonstrating his school of thought – that of the traditional academic leftie with added algebra and calculus to dazzle listeners with the appliance of science.
Menzie Warning: algebra and calculus.
Don’t you know that calculus is inherently left-wing? It’s all about the rate at which one variable changes with respect to some other variable. In ConservativeLand that’s just a slippery slope to moral relativism and then just a short hop to Left Coast situational ethics. Being a conservative means never having to put up with change. It’s almost the definition of conservative.
c thomson: I will attempt to remember your sage words, and keep the Marxism out, when I next derive an Euler equation. And fear not — no liberalism will make it into my solution to a difference equation!
Asslam O ALikum, i m not good at english but i m eager to learn economics. i am enjoying a lot by reading articles of Menzie Chinn. you have a great mind. i appriciate your work for the economics.plz post some articles for beginner level econmist.thanks