Robocops Come to Pittsburgh
Tuesday 29 September 2009
“No longer the stuff of disturbing futuristic fantasies, an arsenal of ‘crowd control munitions,’ including one that reportedly made its debut in the US, was deployed with a massive, overpowering police presence in Pittsburgh during last week’s G-20 protests”.
“I saw the LRAD, mounted in the turret of an Armored Personnel Carrier (APC), in action twice in the area of 25th, Penn and Liberty Streets of Lawrenceville, an old Pittsburgh neighborhood. Blasting a shrill, piercing noise like a high-pitched police siren on steroids, it quickly swept streets and sidewalks of pedestrians, merchants and journalists, and drove residents into their homes, but in neither case were any demonstrators present. The APC, oversized and sinister for a city street, together with lines of police in full riot gear looking like darkly threatening Michelin Men, made for a scene out of a movie you didn’t want to be in.”
“Most significant of all, however, was what Witold Walczak, legal director of the Pennsylvania ACLU, told The Associated Press: ‘It’s not just intimidation, it’s disruption and in some cases outright prevention of peaceful protesters being able to get their message out.'”
