Ahead of a peaceful anti-coal protest planned Sunday at Massachusetts’ Brayton Point power plant, Somerset Police Chief Joseph Ferreira has invested $30,000 of town funds in full riot gear.
Click the link so you can see the accompanying picture – the chief had his officers pose for media looking ready for war while brandishing billy clubs.
You get the feeling that if the protest turns out to be as peaceful as its planners intend, Chief Ferreira will be disappointed.
Please share widely!
The adversarial part of our culture rears its head. Negotiation, compromise, reason is dead. Replaced by confrontation and hate. The situation is further exacerbated by ‘roid crazed “security forces” with weapons gleaned from their bloated budgets eager to send their agents provocateurs to provide the spark to allow them free reign to attack peaceful men, women and children. Demonstrating by deed their status of bullying cowards.
No doubt should the brave government forces attacking the unarmed protestors succeed is murdering people, the medical examiner will determine the victim(s) died of a heart attack. Coincidence. Whatever the outcome the liars will claim, “We were following procedures.”
“Policemen so cherish their status as keepers of the peace and protectors of the public that they have occasionally been known to beat to death those citizens or groups who question that status.” –David Mamet
Do you realize most police officers, especially the younger generation, have military service, usually in Afghanistan and Iraq. How dare you say make such disparaging comments on the very people, our domestically deployed soldiers, who stand between us and the criminal elements who have no qualms killing another human being, like we would kill an annoying fly.
If these protestors obey the law, they have nothing to fear. If they plan any shenanigans, well, it appears Somerset will be ready, which is what the public expects and deserves. Protest all you want, just don’t interrupt one kilowatt of electricity produced at Brayton, I need the a/c on all day to keep my dogs cool from the heat.
I thought for a minute you didn’t know any cops. “…no qualms killing another human being, like we would kill an annoying fly.” sounds like so many murders by police.
Good one.
“Police arrested two kids yesterday, one was drinking battery acid, the other was eating fireworks. They charged one and let the other one off.” –Tommy Cooper
You bet I know cops, plenty of them. Why don’t yo go visit a prison and see all your little darlings that our police captured. Were you given a speeding ticket and carrying a grudge for the rest of your life. The only thief’s in Somerset are those who want to take more of my money and send it to the green energy sector.
Those are outrageous, disgusting comments you made about our men and women in blue. I’m sure you have 911 on speed dial though.
You do kind of jump to conclusions, though. Simply because I’ve seen many cops going through the legal system for spousal abuse, heard them talking about steroid use problems (why do you think so many have the Jose Canseco look?), or how they got “that little b*st*rd that didn’t show respect” and heard them testilying in court, doesn’t mean I hate cops. On the contrary, I wish there were more that believe in “Serve and Protect.”
I don’t think it is the police officer’s job to race into a burning building to save a life, but I do believe laws apply to police as well as other citizens. When the state declares victims of police violence die from “heart failure” respect for police drops considerably.
Since the militarization of police the citizens are now the “zombies” that are the enemy. We’ve seen too much power invested and too little responsibility in a goodly portion of the police. It matters little to me if killed by a civilian or a policeman. The result is the same.
I do believe the police should have video equipment in their cars. They should be honest. There should be a standard set that is above the level of a thug.
I have no problem with the Brayton Point plant, but do respect the rights of the people to peaceful protest. If the protesters break the law then lawful arrest may be made. Undue violence on the part of the demonstrators or police should not be allowed. Certainly not use of agents provocateur, a common police practice.
“The right to comment freely and criticize the action, opinions, and judgment of courts is of primary importance to the public generally. Not only is it good for the public; but it has a salutary effect on courts and judges as well.” –James P. Hughes
Sir, look around you. The standard our police have set is at the level of HERO! The thugs are usually those bent over a police cruiser, or goons looting and destroying private property like the WTO protests in 1999, or the bums that made up Occupy Wall Street. They are the problems, not those that put on a vest every day, not knowing what animal they will run into during their shift.
I’m not surprised cops have a higher divorce rate than most, comes with the stress of the job, I’m sure. I think most women filing for divorce will site some sort of abuse just to soak the guy for more money, nothing new there, blame the lawyers for that.
You can ridicule, call them all Jose Canseco look-a-likes, WWF steroid users, etc. Everyone can do a better job, but most don’t take the test and become a cop. Yet, they are suppose to be right 100% of the time, these robots with no emotions or fear for their own lives, as they pull over a car in the middle of the nite, or answer a distress call at some hellhole of an area.
The police in Somerset need and deserve that riot gear, hopefully the protesters won’t cross that line, they are forewarned……
Please.
I don’t doubt that there are many police officers w/ military experience, but on what do you base your assertion that “most” officers fit into this category? I really doubt it.
In any case, while I honor their service, shooting at Taliban in Afghanistan isn’t really the best training for police work. The last thing we want is police officers with the mind set that seemingly ordinary civilians will try to kill them.
Am I the only one that goes on for long walks? I run into police officers all the time, striking up a conversation, etc. without fail, those that are young and buffed, served in Iraq or Afghanistan. Today, almost all police openings are reserved for former military, without it, one is highly unlikely to be selected.
Go out for a walk, carry an extra water (unopened) and the next detail you see, offer the cop a water and chat for a minute. I have cool looking dogs, so I attract lots of attention/conversation.
I walk plenty, thank you very much, but don’t come across all that many police officers standing around in my neighborhood. But when I have, none of them have looked especially “buff” and the few times I have struck up a conversation I found that the cops did not have military experience but came from families of cops. In fact, at least in Boston, preference is given not to ex-military but to children or siblings of cops. Perhaps it is different in Waltham.
I do find it more than a bit strange that you are walking around with an extra bottle of water to give to “young and buffed” police officers. I think that your “stats” are largely the result of sampling bias.
The joinsummerheat.org site tell us
whereas the breathless article reports
Do they expect that joinsummerheat has a brigade of seasoned saboteurs (or maybe sabutais?) that will dismantle the plant unless it is given pseudo-military defense?
thinking of?
1. The protests at the G7 summits which have gotten fairly violent.
2. The increasing militarization of police departments generally.
http://www.salon.com/2013/07/10/militarized_police_overreach_oh_god_i_thought_they_were_going_to_shoot_me_next%E2%80%9D/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-van-buren/domestic-drones-spying_b_3648327.html
In 1977, New Hampshire militarized its law enforcement by activating the National Guard in response to the peaceful Seabrook demonstration. It had been just 7 years since the Ohio Guard killed four students at Kent State University.
At that time the Governor of NH primed the powder keg by publicly calling demonstrators “terrorists.”
I agree that the militarization of police under the auspices of the war on terrorists is alarming, but it is not new.
For those who exercise democracy not just at the ballot box but in the streets and on picket lines and at power-plant gates, it is a challenge to force opponents who have access to violence to engage using peaceful means.
It always has been.
Calling up the National Guard is not militarizing the police. The Guard is already a military force; the police are traditionally not. Recent years have seen a huge push to equip and train police forces as military units, in response to the War on Drugs (and as a way to spend the huge windfalls of cash generated by that “war”). The War on Terror (and whatever euphemism the Obama Administration is using for it) has sent truckloads more cash out to police departments across the country, and what they often spend it on is military hardware. This has all sorts of unfortunate consequences, from the incredibly stupid phrase “domestically deployed soldiers” (found above, in reference to police) to using SWAT teams in trivial crimes, to innocent people being terrorized or even killed. If you read those links, please pay attention to the penalties paid by the police departments responsible – if you can find any.
I don’t want every village to have a SWAT team, and I don’t want such teams to be the SOP response to more than the most extreme situations. It’s gotten way out of hand.
And in government you spend what you get. Concord NH is considering buying an armored vehicle. Note that they never add the costs of maintenance (and you don’t get spare parts at your local gas station…). Once a town gets the equipment they have to build an infrastructure around it. Costumes, training then the tough part, justifying all the expense. Soon they’re sending all this to raid some widow and her orphan children, shooting the dogs because she didn’t show up in traffic court. (And that isn’t all that far-fetched.)
Police aren’t soldiers. Nor should they be. Police are older, more mature. Their focus should be on preserving the people’s safety through law. Not using whatever available force is necessary to accomplish a mission given by a point higher in the command structure. Police shouldn’t be looking at the citizenry as the enemy. Too many do.
If we look objectively at the events of the Boston Bombing, we can see that police work would have worked as well or better than military work. Fortunate for the police that they have spin doctors to justify removing innocent people from their homes at gunpoint or having a firefight with an unarmed suspect. (Do both sided have to be armed for a firefight?)
Reminds me of burning villages in Viet-Nam. Is this what we want?
“having a firefight with an unarmed suspect”? You mean the one of the brothers that killed the MIT Police Officer? And then had a shootout with MBTA and Watertown? Is that who you are referring to as the “unarmed suspect”?
How about the individual found, unarmed and nearly dead, hiding in the boat? The individual who an army of tired and trigger-happy police unleashed a fusillade of shots at (all apparently missing him), until they were brought under control?
That would be the same wounded and bleeding individual who caused the
occupying armymassed police forces, SWAT teams, and anybody else who showed up to shut down the entire city for a day, while they fruitlessly searched for this guy.I suggest that a small squad of ten to twenty highly-trained police officers would have been far, far more effective at apprehending the remaining fugitive, without disrupting the entire region.
That would have avoided the entire Kibuki Theater staged by Governor Patrick and the police — and I further suggest that that is precisely why it wasn’t done that way.
Our liberties and freedom are very much at risk — from our hysteria, and from the over-armed, over-juiced, and over-militarized “police” produced by that hysteria.
Taken in the context of the explosion in government spying and staggering volume of personal data being compiled about each and every citizen, such militarization is, in my view, far and away the most immediate threat to my own freedom and liberty I face — far more than any threat I face from foreign terrorists.
It’s more than just cops getting dressed in costumes that look remarkably SS-like. It’s more than their possession of war gadgets. It’s the use of force with little or no responsibility for the action. “I was only following procedure.” isn’t that much different than “I was only following orders.” It’s being able to destroy a person, place without inhibition. Until public outcry stopped it, the security forces were getting targets to desensitize them. Our military is known to kill en masse in order to try and get an enemy. How soon before that philosophy comes to our shore?
“A recent police study found that you’re much more likely to get shot by a fat cop if you run.” –Dennis Miller
The philosophy is here. Mount Carmel Massacre.
“the individual hiding in the boat” who is alleged to have shot (that with be with a gun) an MIT police officer and then had a shootout (again that would mean he was armed) with MBTA and Watertown Police. Bottom line, he was armed. What exactly should the police have concluded from two shootings? It is not at all unreasonable to decide that the individual hiding in the boat was still armed.
I can respect the concerns about civil liberties in this situation. What I do not respect is the statement that the police had a shootout with an unarmed individual (hiding in a boat). That ignores two shooting incidents. He was armed. He shot at police officers. The police made a valid decision to treat a suspect in two shootings as being armed. Hindsight is 20/20.
I was highly criticized here on BMG for doing so.
The police knew, when the suspect escaped the insane firefight that Thursday night, that the suspect was on foot and wounded. I heard from multiple sources that morning that the suspect was also unarmed (I don’t remember the sources now).
The police — and, for that matter, ALL the authorities from Governor Patrick on down (and probably higher) — grossly overreacted. I reject your attempt to rationalize and excuse this flagrant abuse of authority.
The police should have absolutely expected that he be armed, based on all that you list. However, at best, he is “believed to be armed and dangerous”, yadda yadda. Because, in fact, he was not armed when hiding under that boat, at least according to the media reports I’ve read.
They should have been prepared for him to be armed, you bet. But, he wasn’t. It’s a good idea for the police to determine if the person is actually armed before shooting. Not only does it help prevent the injustice of a suspect being killed instead of having his day in court, but it reduces the chance that one officer shoots another officer if no shots are fired.
Yes, it is an extremely difficult situation. Any time the cops are apprehending somebody who they believe to be armed, they’ve got to not shoot until the moment, the instant that the perp acts in some threshold of threatening the use of dangerous force… and then, the cop has to move faster than the perp and neutralize that threat lest the officer himself be injured or killed. I don’t envy them. I’d never volunteer to put myself in their shoes. That doesn’t give them a pass any more than a surgeon or a pilot or any number of professionals get a pass when they deviate from training and protocol.
Maybe he did make an aggressive movement, like pretending to pull something from a pocket or pointing something or whatever. I haven’t read anything reporting that, but then, I’ve read remarkably little about what exactly happened in the hours and minutes before the arrest, and nothing which could possibly suggest that any LEO, a single one, deviated from perfect policing.
Should the police have been prepared for him to be armed? Of course. They had every reason in the world to *expect* the suspect to be armed.
But if, in fact, he wasn’t armed… why were shots fired when he was finally arrested after his time under the boat?
I think that is howlandlewnatick’s point about the suspect being unarmed. how… should correct me if I’m off-base.
I haven’t seen any info as to his actions while in the boat. If he made movements that felt threatening after two shootouts, a dead MIT police officer and a wounded MBTA police officer then a decision to fire on the boat may have been valid. I do know this – when it was clear he was unarmed exiting the boat no shots were fired. Apparently it’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation according to some.
You are ignoring what was reported in multiple live news feeds.
The homeowner found the evidence that he was there and called 911. The police arrived, saw he was there — and immediately set of a fusillade of at least thirty rounds (according the reports I heard). All of them, apparently, missed.
I find it striking that NO investigation of any of this has been reported, and I doubt that any was done. The Globe and Herald are too busy cheerleading for Boston Strong and repeating their happy-talk about “Boston’s finest” to actually LOOK at what happened that evening.
One report said he started to emerge from under the tarp and a cop thought he had a bomb (also not found), and opened fire.
As to what he did besides that while in the boat, he apparently wrote some kind of manifesto on a wall in blood.
I’ve never said anything about “Damned if they do”.
I’ve said:
1. There were far too many police involved.
2. Those police were far too heavily armed.
3. Those police fired all too many shots (over 300 rounds the first night, it was pure luck that no residents were killed or wounded).
4. The whole exercise was a display intended to show the public how “prepared” authorities are.
Let’s not forget that there is strong evidence that the Richard Donohue, the wounded MBTA police officer was a victim of friendly fire — he was shot by one of the more than 300 rounds fired by police in the initial confrontation. From this piece:
More evidence of “the fog of war”:
Too many police, too many guns, too much adrenalin.
The reaction to the Marathon Bombing has been, in my opinion, greatly exaggerated — just as the reaction to 911 was greatly exaggerated.
We should be de-militarizing our police. We should be reducing, not increasing, their weaponry. We should be restraining, not expanding, the ability of authorities to violate our privacy.
We should be reasserting the importance of individual liberty, privacy, the pursuit of happiness, the freedom to assembly, and the freedom to express ourselves.
The actions of the Somerset Police Chief, the reaction of authorities to the Marathon Bombing, and the reaction of too many federal and local officials to the NSA spying and PRISM programs all go dramatically in the WRONG direction.
In the 70s the federal government transferred military technology to local police forces under the auspices of the Law Enforcement Assistance Program.
Have things been ratcheted up today? Sure, it’s 40 years later! but the fundamental dynamics of nonviolent protest versus the threat of police violence have not changed all that much.
Believe me, I deplore the things you do in this respect, and for the same reasons.
Disassembling a working power plant in this heat? Uncivilized. Time enough to fight the man once the heat index dips.
… the Koch Brothers interests.
and ask themselves if there was anything better it could have been spent on.
Then take it to Town Meeting.
How many of the demonstrators will be at the State House tomorrow for this event:
Mass DEP regulatory hearings on GHG regs (RGGI and SF6)
Monday, 29 July, 2013
10:00 AM
Mass DEP Headquarters, One Winter Street, Boston
The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) is proposing two regulatory actions:
First, MassDEP is proposing amendments to the CO2 Budget Trading Program regulations (310 CMR 7.70). 310 CMR 7.70 implements the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) in Massachusetts. The proposed amendments would implement program changes resulting from the 2012 RGGI program review. A public hearing on the proposed amendments will be held on July 29, 2013 at 10:00 AM. Please feel free to contact Bill Lamkin (william.lamkin@state.ma.us or 978-694-3294) if you have any questions about this proposal.
Second, MassDEP is proposing a new regulation titled Reducing Sulfur Hexafluoride Emissions from Gas-Insulated Switchgear (310 CMR 7.72). Gas-insulated switchgear is used in high-voltage electrical applications. A public hearing on the proposed regulation will be held on July 29, 2013 at 2:00 PM. Please feel free to contact Will Space (william.space@state.ma.us or 617-292-5610) if you have any questions about this proposal.
The hearing notices, along with copies of the proposed regulations and background information, are available on MassDEP’s web siteathttp://www.mass.gov/eea/agencies/massdep/news/comment/. The hearings will be held at MassDEP’s Boston office (One Winter Street). Directions to the hearings can befoundathttp://www.mass.gov/eea/agencies/massdep/about/contacts/massdep-boston-office-hours-and-directions.html.
Written comments on either proposal may be submitted by mail or to climate.strategies@state.ma.us until 5:00 PM on August 8, 2013.
Event Contact Info
William Lamkin
Email: william.lamkin@state.ma.us
How many of the demonstrators know that at the last Restructuring Roundtable, Stephen Rourke, ISO-NE, presented their report on retiring the current 28 oil and coal plants in NE which are 40+ years old by 2020, a total of 8,281 MW. These plants are increasingly uneconomic due to natural gas competition and tightened environmental regulations. New transmission capabilities being built and planned throughout NE will add flexibility and facilitate their closing. However, if no new generation capacity is installed, only 950MW can be retired without causing reliability and resource deficiencies. At least 5000MW of new generation is needed to retire all the old plants but only 1 out of every 6 projects in the generation queue actually get built. [That leaves a little over 2MW unaccounted for although I suspect that energy efficiency, demand response, distributed generation, and more flexible transmission policies will be taking up some of that slack.]
more at http://vps28478.inmotionhosting.com/~bluema24/2013/06/retiring-nes-coal-and-oil-electric-plants/
The protest was peaceful, but 44 out of the 400 demonstrators were arrested for trespassing.
As reported by WBUR this morning, the demonstrators had been in contact with the police through the whole process so that both sides knew exactly what to expect and so there would be no surprises. Almost more like theater than law enforcement.
Which begs the question: Why then the news story implying otherwise and the dress-up show, creating this fuss where none was needed?
Only “drama”* gets you in the headlines now. Either it is manufactured (“will these thunderstorms destroy your commute tonight? Stay tuned!!”) or it is assured by turning events guaranteed to have a dramatic storyline into newsworthy events – any trial. This is why the parlor game of what will eventually happen to Snowdon is preferable to the boring process of looking at what he actually leaked.
*’Merica Exception: News that happens far away in places hard to pronounce is of course exempt from this rule. Remember, that require educating the viewer about context which would detract from the entertainment.
..about ‘drama’.
That said, the Somerset police are now prepared for demonstrators who do NOT liase with the department for kabuki arrests.
Since the plant is now an example and target, this is not that far-fetched.
Curious why the Sagamore oil burning plant – equally polluting and inefficient – wasn’t targeted.
Only used for backup only.
Why don’t these protestors scream about the MWRA outfall pipe, releasing “treated” sewage out in Cape Cod Bay, where the whales are frolicking.
do you mean water which is clean enough for people to safely drink? If not, please provide a reference. I had thought that the MWRA was really good on effluent emissions, but you seem to be perhaps suggesting otherwise…
Did you have a gulp? Not buying that line. If so clean, put it in Boston Harbor, or add it to the drinking supply.
If they poured a glass and tested that particular water to ensure that their process worked for the dangerous stuff, sure I’d drink it. I wouldn’t expect that many folks would though — it’s hard to overcome thousands of years of cultural evolution with a few years of science education.
MWRA water used to be released in the harbor, but the problem is one of volume. The harbor is shallow (30′ and under), and so that much fresh water with the remaining nutrients was too much. In this case, dilution is the solution to pollution, and the roughly 6x more water by volume means the effluent nutrients are more safely disbursed. The MWRA has been pumping the outflow ~8 miles east of Deer Island since about 2000.
I’d also add that, since 2000, a number of indicators suggest that the MWRA is emitting less nasties than it had previously. Between 2000 and 2009, the pounds of metals [Ag, Ni, Cr, Pb, Cu, Zi] has been halved. So has the pounds of solids in discharge. Yes, it is greater than zero. It’s true. Yes, it would be preferable if the amount released very closely matched the levels found in a healthy Cape Cod Bay. Yes, the MWRA should continue refining its processes to be even better at what they do. The MWRA has been a remarkable organization in the past few decades, and is worthy of accolades. They’ve dramatically reduced the amount of water piped, amount of water coming back, and the amount of nasties emitted into our waterways, all while remaining completely solvent financially.
But the water gurus want us to sewer the Cape due to nitrogen levels. Hmm…
BTW – I have long contended that the desalinization of the bay and lack of septic treatment is the cause of the uptick in red tide.
I have no idea what impact the tertiary treatment would have on emissions of nitrogen, nor do I know how the nitrogen levels in the bay [nearer the Cape Cod shores] would be different if Deer Island emitted the water there instead. I also have no idea how much nitrogen is coming from storm water runoff from the Cape. The point is that those numbers matter, and we should look for efficient (read: inexpensive) solutions to the problem. Maybe that means more MWRA treatment, maybe that means storm sewers on the Cape, maybe that means encouraging land owners to use native crops and little/no fertilizer on landscaped areas. Again, I don’t know where the “low hanging fruit” is for reducing the nitrogen, which means I certainly don’t know who should or how to pay for reducing it [subsidies? fines? infrastructure? regulations?].
As for desalinization, is that true? Is the bay less salty than it was 100 years ago? 1000 years ago? I have no idea…
As for septic, I can tell you for sure that the amount of sanitary sewer emissions coming from the Boston metro and finding their way into the bay is down, and significantly so. That trend has been downward on any number of time scales [10 years, 50 years, 100 years, 200 years]. The current CSO sewer separation work going on in Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, Quincy, etc. will continue that trend of fewer floaties in the bay.
That two things both pollute does not mean that they are equally polluting.
Sagamore burns oil, Brayton burns coal (and a bit of oil and gas). Coal has higher emissions of CO2, NO2, and SOx per MWh, on average (a href=”http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/energy-and-you/affect/air-emissions.html”>source). I don’t have the specific emission rates of these plants handy.
The Sagamore oil burning plant I presume to which you refer is Canal (ORSPL ID 1599), located on the south side of the canal, nearer the Cape Cod Bay. It’s capacity is 1,165 MW, which is pretty dang big. It’s capacity factor in 2010, however, was 0.38%, as its total generation was 38,639 MWh.
Brayton Point (ORSPL 1619), is 1,611 MW (1,125 MW coal, 486 MW oil or gas), which is something like 30% bigger than Sagamore. It operated at a capacity of 25.6%, which is 70 times more “often”. It’s generation in 2010 was 3,382,751 MWh from coal and another ~240,000 MWh from oil and gas, mostly gas.
Brayton Point generated over 90 times as much electricity as Canal in 2010, using coal, a fuel which emits (on average) more CO2, SO2, and NOx than oil. I’m not arguing in favor of oil, but to claim that a smaller plant which operates a few hours a year and with a lesser polluting fuel is “EQUALLY POLLUTING AND INEFFICIENT” with a larger plant which operates about 1/4 of the year, burning a more polluting fuel is just silly.
Close Pilgrim by stopping the cast containers, close the coal plant, which is 2X powerful than Pilgrim, and keep the oil plant on idle 75% of the time, yet build Cape Wind.
FYI, I was in Plymouth and Sagamore this weekend, the wind turbines were not spinning at all, yet Pilgrim worked 24/7 and didn’t make a sound generating the electricity that we need.
…there’s no information to suggest that the protest at the power station would be anything but peaceful. If there’s no information of that kind, then the appropriate response for police would be to be available if needed, not to act like a riot could break out any second.
These protesters are exercising First Amendment rights. It’s the kind of behavior that as a society we should encourage, not discourage. It’s scary enough for most people to take their courage in both hands and come to a protest; having to confront police with guns and billy clubs in riot gear is nothing short of intentionally terrifying.
It seems that everything was planned with the police a head of time, down to protesters wearing red to indicate that they were willing to be arrested as soon as they trespassed.
IMO it’s posts like these that are the problem.
Still better than Ministry of Truth officers in Madison arresting 80 year olds for the high crime of singing in a public building.