October 11, 2011

VIDEO: Police Arrest #OccupyBoston Protesters, Including Veterans, in Late-Night Clash

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In the early morning hours on Tuesday, Boston police officers clashed with Occupy Boston protesters demonstrating in the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway. Police had surrounded the park and demanded that the protesters leave, but after they did not, law enforcement arrested nearly 100 people.

Among those protesting was a contingent from Vets for Peace, an anti-war organization made up of US veterans. The following video shows police dragging protesters to the ground and hand-cuffing them with plastic flexi-cuffs. You can see an American flag knocked to the ground during the scuffle, and Boston police also collected crumpled tents, signs, and other materials and tossed them into nearby garbage trucks.

Here’s the video:

Boston wasn’t the only site of conflict in recent days. In Des Moines, activists defying an 11 p.m. curfew to continue their own Occupy protest were pepper-sprayed and arrested by police. Read more about that confrontation, including video of the arrests, here.

A key point to bear in mind: As Nate Silver points out, police clashes like those in Boston and Des Moines result in more press coverage, and so more momentum, for the Occupy movement. In the case of Occupy Wall Street specifically, Silver found, news coverage jumped after clashes between protesters and New York cops, including the use of pepper-spray and mass arrests of protesters on the Brooklyn Bridge. Given widespread coverage of the Boston arrests, it’s likely the same effect will play out in that city as well.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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