Videos of MacArthur Park Mayday Police Violence

A couple truly outstanding videos came out of the unexpected police action during the May 1 Immigration Rights Rally at MacArthur Park on Wilshire and Alvarado Streets in LA, Tuesday. So, good, and important to see, that I’m compelled to offer them below.

The first video puts you right in the action, a great piece of live journalism by GameJew, aka Jonathan Mann.

Unbelievable to see cops chasing people like this.

The second video was shot by Sasha Constanza-Chock (his written account of the experience is here. The disturbing footage begins at about 2:00.


LAPD Unleashes on ‘Peaceful’ MacArthur Park Rally

No time to elaborate, however, I can direct you to my immediate reaction to last night’s events posted here.

Also, LA Weekly reporter Daniel Hernandez blogs in detail about the scene at his blog.

Listen to voices of reporters, observers, and organizers describe the melee here.

KPCC on the scene reports here.

Why did the police in riot gear allegedly not have badges visible? Why did they push the few derelict anarchists throwing “missiles” into the peaceful, all-ages crowd in the park instead of isolating them? How are they possibly trained to believe they can get away with intimidating the press for filming and reporting on the scene by firing rubber bullets indiscriminately?

photo by Sarah Hayes, used with permission.

Murdoch Bids $5 Billion for Dow Jones

Scary and unsolicited — are newspapers suddenly worth something again? (more to follow)…

Dow Jones owns the Wall Street Journal, among other things, and Murdoch’s News Corp. bends the rules of media ownership with it’s massive stable of multiple media in practically every English speaking market worldwide. Just who does that include? It’s all on this list.

The Bancroft family (which controls Dow Jones), along with practically the entire staff of the Wall Street Journal, currently oppose News Corp.’s offer, while others — like analyst Mort Zuckerman — are calling Murdoch “brilliant.”

Shares of Dow Jones jumped over 50% to just shy of Murdoch’s offering price of $60/share in Tuesday trading. Other publicly traded newspaper company’s saw prices surge as well.

But the offer raises numerous red flags, writes Mark @ News Corpse including News Corp.’s plans to launch a Fox Business Channel to compete with the likes of CNBC.

It may seem insulting to WSJ writers to be threatened with ownership by the likes of the mogul who has turned the likes of the New York Post into practically a supermarket tabloid. But more important and influential could be the residual effect of Murdoch’s lofty valuation of Dow Jones on the struggling (by Wall Street standards) newspaper industry.