Dec 13 2011
An Occupy LA Protester Tells The Story of His Arrest, Draws Comparison With Corporate Criminals
On Sunday’s CBS news show “60 minutes” Steve Kroft asked President Obama if he was disappointed that not a single Wall Street executive has been prosecuted for crimes in connection with the 2008 economic crash. The President sidestepped the question saying, “Some of the most damaging behavior on Wall Street — in some cases some of the least ethical behavior on Wall Street — wasn’t illegal.” What the President failed to say was that some of the behavior was certainly illegal, and he failed to take responsibility for a justice department that declines to prosecute corporate criminals while regular Americans are being jailed for peacefully protesting. In an essay published last week Patrick Meighan, an arrested protestor at Occupy LA, makes this comparison when recounting his arrest during the police raid on the Occupy LA encampment on November 30th. Meighan, who cooperated with police orders, was violently thrown to the ground and handcuffed in zip-ties, and then made to kneel on concrete for 7 hours before being transported to jail. Meighan spent the night before being released on $5000 bail. Meighan concludes his piece asking why he was jailed when, “those who steal hundreds of billions, do trillions worth of damage to our economy… are not only spared the zipcuffs but showered with rewards?”
GUEST: Patrick Meighan is a father, a husband, a Green, a sitcom writer, a Unitarian Universalist, and a Culver Citizen.
Read Patrick Meighan’s article here: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/12/08-3
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