Thursday, November 17, 2011

NYPD Did NOT Drag a Woman By Her Hair at OWS Day of Action

While looking through various news reports about today's Occupy Wall Street "Day of Action" in New York City, I came across an inaccurate representation about the NYPD and I wanted to set the record straight.

A video was originally uploaded to CNN by a CNN iReporter.

Next, the story was posted on "The Raw Story" with a quote from the iReporter who shot the video:
“We noticed that cops were pulling the girl by her hair,” said a CNN iReporter, who recorded the incident.

“People starting yelling that it was police brutality. That’s when I started filming.”

When you watch the video at normal speed, it does kind of look like the officer is dragging her around by her hair. I wanted to know for sure, so I downloaded the video and looked at it frame-by-frame. The officer certainly does NOT have a hold of her hair, he's got a hold of her backpack.

She was dragged because that's what happens to people who practice passive resistance when the cops arrest them. The person goes limp and they do not comply with the officers. If she didn't want to be dragged by her backpack, she could have walked. If others didn't want to see her be dragged, they should have implored her to "stand up & walk" instead of yelling out "go help her" and chanting "shame" at the cops.

Here is the original video, in its entirety, from CNN (this video was "approved for air" on CNN and is listed as an "Editor's Pick" on CNN's iReport website):



Here is a slow-motion video (with that annoying chanting MUTED and REPLACED with Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata) of the interaction between the police and the criminal. The slow-motion part begins at about the 2-minute mark.



Keep up the excellent job, NYPD and police all over the country. You and your families are in our prayers.


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