Over the last week crackdowns have occurred at occupied spaces nationwide. On Nov. 10th eleven mayors participated in a conference call about "Occupy" protests in their cities. Mayor Jean Quan of Oakland, CA confirmed the conference call during an interview on the BBC. Amy Ruiz, spokesman for Portland, Ore., Mayor Sam Adams denies the talk was a strategy session. "It was more like a therapy session," she said.
The fact remains; five of those eleven conference Mayor's have since launched military style police assaults against citizens occupying areas in their cities and all five mayors cited crime, poor sanitary conditions and local merchants’ complaints to justify the eviction of protesters and all insisted public safety concerns outweighed the demonstrator's free-speech and freedom to assemble rights.
It is not only mayors who were coordinated. Police departments also displayed a disturbing tactical union. Chuck Wexler, director of the Police Executive Research Forum, organized calls on Oct. 11 and Nov. 4. Such things were discussed in these meetings as the need to secrecy, rapid deployment to prevent reinforcement of numbers by occuption sympathizers, the use of overwhelming force (riot gear and assault weaponry like tear gas canisters and rubber bullets), and the prevention of media coverage.
More disturbing still is persitent rumor of homeland security and FBI participation in the coordinated assaults.
