Police Brutality on Display as Protesters Rail Against Post-Roe World
Abortion rights activists, journalists, and legal observers in recent days have been attacked and detained by police at demonstrations against the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade.
Providence, Rhode Island police officer and Republican state Senate candidate Jeann Lugo suspended his campaign after the publication of video footage showing him punching one of his Democratic opponents, reproductive rights organizer Jennifer Rourke, in the face at a protest outside the State House on Friday evening. Lugo, who was off duty at the time of the incident, was arrested, charged with assault and disorderly conduct, and arraigned on Saturday.
“This is what it means to be a Black woman running for office,” Rourke tweeted following the attack, adding, “I won’t give up.”
Speaking of Lugo in an interview with WPRI, Rourke said that “it’s the anger in his face that really gets to me.”
“There was a verbal altercation and I jumped in to de-escalate,” she explained. “I looked to my left and that’s when Officer Lugo punched me in my face multiple times.”
Numerous incidents of police violence, including attacks on journalists and a legal observer, were documented Friday evening in Los Angeles. Status Coup reporter Tina Desiree Berg, who was displaying her press credentials, was assaulted by Los Angeles Police Department officers, one of whom subsequently claimed he was “trying to protect” her.
Beverly Hills Courier reporter Samuel Braslow, who was shoved to the ground by officers, tweeted video of police using a baton to knock a National Lawyers Guild observer to the street and firing “less lethal” rounds at protesters at point-blank range.
In a statement referring to the Supreme Court’s ruling, National Lawyers Guild president Suzanne Adely said that “both the Dobbs decision and state repression of protest against it violate human rights.”
“Targeting legal observers, who serve as trained witnesses of police conduct, is an act of state repression that shows dangerous police entitlement to unchecked power and violence,” she added. “To truly reject the Supreme Court decision, we must support protesters.”
VPS Reports publisher Vishal P. Singh recorded and tweeted multiple police attacks on Los Angeles protesters, including a man who was slammed to the ground and appeared to have a seizure. When Singh tried to give the man water, police smacked the bottle out of his hand.
In Greenville, South Carolina, police were recorded tackling and using a Taser on pro-choice protesters at a downtown demonstration Saturday.
Cedar Rapids City Councilmember Ashley Vanorney, who was attending the demonstration, tweeted that “a truck jumped traffic and plowed into peaceful protestors crossing the pedestrian walkway at the federal courthouse. I was walking along side them—the crowd included children alongside me.”
Originally published at Commondreams.org, written by Brett Wilkins.
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