Videos show brazen police brutality across U.S. universities at the demand of Israel
By isabelle // 2024-04-28
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Some police are reacting violently to people who are protesting Israel’s actions in Gaza at universities throughout the nation, with video footage making the rounds online showing just how far Israel’s reach is when it comes to silencing dissenters. One particularly horrifying incident took place at Emory University in Atlanta. When economics professor Caroline Fohlin saw a student protester being violently arrested, she asked the police “What are you doing?” Apparently, that was enough to send the officer into a rage. He told her that she was under arrest and grabbed her arm. He screamed at her to get on the ground, and when she did not immediately comply, he forcefully pushed her to the ground, and then another officer came in to help pin her down. The second officer slammed her head on the concrete. The 57-year-old professor then said “I am a professor of economics,” perhaps to clarify that she was not trespassing and had a right to be there, but they proceeded to arrest her. Horrified onlookers can be heard screaming “You people are fascists. You are Hitler, you’re a rabid dog. Shame on you. May you never live another day.” At one point, she tried to reason with the officers, apologizing and asking them to remove the handcuffs, but they continued to arrest her. She wasn’t the only professor detained by Atlanta police; CNN crews saw at least one other professor being arrested, Philosophy Department Chair Noelle McAfee. At least 28 people were arrested overall at the pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus, where police used rubber bullets to try to disperse the crowds. While the school tried to accuse protesters of trespassing and not being affiliated with the university, The Emory Wheel’s editor in chief, Madi Olivier, confirmed that 20 of the 28 people detained were indeed affiliated with the school.

Video shows brutal takedown of Fox 7 camera man

In another incident, a Fox 7 camera man was slammed to the ground by police and detained at a pro-Palestine protest being held at the University of Texas at Austin. In video footage posted online, he does not appear to hit anyone, but the chaotic crowd pushes him as he tries to navigate the scene with a large camera. It is possible that he was accidentally bumped into a police officer, but he is clearly carrying a camera and his press credentials. He said: “They were pushing me, and they said that I hit an officer. I didn’t hit an officer.” He added that he was only covering the event and nothing like this had ever happened to him before. A journalist for the Austin American-Statesman and KVUE, Tony Plohetski, reposted the video online and wrote: “I can’t remember a journalist ever being arrested for doing his job in my 24 years of reporting in Austin.” Texas Governor Greg Abbott said the protesters “belong in jail.” The arrests continue to pile up, with 108 protesters reportedly arrested at Emerson College in Boston on Thursday morning, nearly 60 arrested at the University of Texas in Austin, and 93 arrested at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. The protests are part of a movement calling on universities to sever their financial tiers to Israel and divest from the companies they are affiliated with that they feel are supporting the genocidal campaign in Gaza. At least 34,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since October 7, when Hamas terrorists attacked southern Israel. Although the protests have been largely peaceful, they have been addressed with a heavy hand from universities, many of which are claiming the issue is anti-Semitism. USC law professor Jody Armour said: “We have lots of Jewish, and Muslim, and Palestinian, and Catholic like I am, Protestants too, intergenerational, coming together. Everybody should hate anti-Semitism and fight anti-Semitism, but being opposed to Israel’s slaughter in Gaza that the UN has said may plausibly be genocide, does not mean that you’re anti-Semitic, and we need to stop allowing people to weaponize anti-Semitism against real, valid protests.” If anyone still had any doubts about how much influence Israeli interests have on the U.S., this should put them to rest. Sources for this article include: Mediaite.com Slate.com
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