A Letter To Police

A letter to Vincent B. Lee, Sergeant of Police, Intelligence.
1400 S. Lamar St.
Dallas, Tx. 75215

Introduction

This letter is addressed to you, but it will be shared with others. Honestly, I’m writing it directly to you because you took the time to come down to our camp this morning and it mostly includes information regarding our relationship with the police department. I had to write this introduction after the letter itself because I digressed far away from the issues that would concern just you and your office. I apologize for that, but not for what I have to say. 

Mr. Lee,

We have met before. I believe at the JFK Memorial on the first day of our march we discussed the possibility of arranging an interview with the city police department. I was not informed as to why we had the pleasure of your company this morning, so I wanted to reach out and contact you as soon as possible.

Regarding interaction with law enforcement:

It is the official policy of the occupy movement to treat every individual law enforcement officer as a potential recruit for our cause. That being said, we have recruited many. There are several fine officers in your department that have made personal donations to our camp and others that have contributed by exchange of correspondence on a variety of issues; banks taking bailouts from taxpayers with impunity while continuing to give executives exorbitant bonuses and illegally evicting tenants from their homes seems to be a popular topic among your force. The officers I speak to seem to be under the impression that expressing ideological beliefs would lead to them being ostracized by their supervisors. Regardless, I want you to know that your department is full of philosophers and their standard of values is high. We commend your selection process.

Opposite of my unexpected growing predilection for the police is a growing concern that there are members of your force that are misrepresenting the official policies of the Dallas Police Department. You should be aware of the following: 

1)      An intoxicated vagrant was removed from our camp by the police. His only identification was an card that identified him as a felon; he was in possession of a sharpened plastic homemade object; upon returning the next day to our camp sober, the individual disclosed that after informing a police officer he had been recently released from prison and had no where to stay, he was directed to our camp—not to a homeless shelter.

2)      Three other productive individuals that are homeless in our camp were sent to us by the police. 1 directly from Lew Sterritt Justice Center after being released.

3)      A young girl who identified herself as being 19 years old was apparently arrested two days ago at or near a homeless shelter by our camp. It has been alleged that she was actually underage and had interactions with older males at our camp that may have been originally directed to us by officers at a DART station downtown. Instructions were given by organizers to inhabitants of the City Hall campsite to cooperate with police as this is a police matter only, invite officers to interview anyone they perceived to have valuable information which could lead to arrests and to identify anyone they believed to have been involved with this issue to authorities. A curfew exists that states no individuals under the age of 18 are allowed at our campsite without the supervision of an adult during school hours or after dark.

4)      There have been a number of incidences of theft by individuals and harassment by individuals at our camp that originally identified themselves as having been sent to Occupy Dallas by police. One individual had a laptop stolen. It contained sole copies of photographs of his wife over the past few years. She passed away last March. The individual is saddened by the fact that his children may never see those photographs of their mother, but has decided to remain at our camp because he is worried about their future.

5)      KEGL DJ Russ Martin announced at approximately 4:30pm on Oct. 21st on air that a police officer and friend of the station informed them that the Dallas Police Department was sending vagrants to the Occupy Dallas camp indicating that knowledge of tactics including sending individuals with potential substance abuse problems and or recent criminal charges was prevalent among Dallas Police. Occupy Dallas finds the comments of a shock jock that has been convicted for assaulting a female to be otherwise inconsequential.  

Law Enforcement around the nation are distinguishing their departments in various ways. At 4:00am last night, Oakland SWAT Teams moved in on a group of protesters. They employed the use of chemical agents—possibly including tear gas—during the raid. This URL:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zgr3DiqWYCI is a link to a network news broadcast made over this weekend detailing the atrocious acts of brutality being perpetrated on peaceful protesters at the Occupy Wall St. movement. These acts have led to global condemnation and can be expected to leave a scar on the public opinion of their departments and national perception of their cities for decades.

Occupy Dallas does not want our protests associated with violence nor do we wish the city of Dallas to be thought of as a dangerous place to exercise your first amendment rights.  

I was very disappointed in the way the city of Dallas chose to handle the events leading up to our agreement to occupy City Hall vs. Pioneer Plaza. First of all, the argument that we were breaking the law seems to have been invalidated by your willingness to allow us to trespass in another location. We are allowed to defy city ordinances directly in plain view of City Hall and the rest of the city, but quietly doing so hidden atop a hill shrouded by trees is unacceptable. When I pass by Pioneer Plaza daily, I think about how alive and beautiful the park was with 200 people dancing, meditating and chasing their children around covered in finger-paint.  

The City of Dallas—Mike Rawlins and the rest of the City Counsel—missed a historic opportunity. They could have been remembered as men and women who defended the 1st Amendment. We could have been known as the city that—despite the attempted shutdowns by authorities in every other major population—stood up for the rights of it’s citizens. A city that encourages people to peacefully assemble and exercise the rights our people have fought and died for. 

Nationally, Dallas could have been the city people would remember for decades as a place where we take constitutional rights seriously and don’t deny our citizens the right to have a voice, despite what the rest of the world is doing. People could come here from all over the world not to visit a park full of bull statues, but to find the place where the officials of a city came down from their positions of power to stand side by side with the people—people, who with absolute justification, cried out in solidarity against injustice and a system of corruption so vile and widespread that it led to a world wide economic crisis.  

I suppose the death of President Kennedy will have to remain our sole distinguishing historical event for a little while longer.

The Dallas Police Department is encouraged to interact with us as often as they’d like. We are the 99% and so are you.

DB
OccupyDallas.Org
Writer/99%er