A Berkeley, California, man is dead and some residents say it's because police were focused on an Occupy march. Peter Cukor made a non-emergency call to police last Saturday night to report a suspicious man hanging around his home. He was told police were only responding to emergency calls because the department's officers were on standby to monitor an Occupy Oakland march to the UC Berkeley campus. Cukor walked to a nearby fire station for help and was beaten to death as he returned home. The suspect in custody Daniel DeWitt has a history of mental illness. An Occupy Oakland representative says people should be furious over Cukor's killing. He said Berkeley police officials made monitoring a non-violent march a higher priority than responding to what turned into a deadly crime.(Copyright 2012 by VERTEXNews/Newsroom Solutions)
So, the police department in Berkeley is more concerned about what may happen with respect to a bunch of protestors, and are too busy concentrating on what may happen, to actually be effective and do their job when someone reports a suspicious person trying to get into your home.
Need I point out that police, who have unions, are part of the Republican strategy of eliminating collective bargaining, which is but one of the things the Occupy movement is concerned with. Although many police unions have been given the opportunity to be "exempt" from the right to work laws enacted as of recent in many states, and the stripping down of the collective bargaining powers of government employees, it is still distasteful to me that the police side on the part of protecting the 1% when, in fact, the police are part of the 99% across the board.
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