A brief occupation: Direct action as an effective tactical maneuver

Off topic, but Grits wanted to address a subject that's been on my mind since state Sen. Wendy Davis'  nationally hailed filibuster which, in case you've been living in a cave, helped run out time on Republicans' big abortion bill on the final day of Texas' first special session, spurring the governor to call another one. To be clear, this post seeks neither to promote a pro-choice nor an anti-abortion point of view, but instead to discuss issues of grass-roots political tactics, including the "direct action" by the crowd which prevented the bill from passing at the end-game.

Austin police who infiltrated 'Occupy' movement outed in open court

Two more Austin PD undercover officers assigned to infiltrate the "Occupy" movement were outed last week in open court in Houston, the Austin Chronicle's Jordan Smith reported, including this charming fellow, posing with what appears to be one of the "lockboxes" constructed by APD detectives which caused the protesters to face felony rather than misdemeanor charges:

Smith's story opened:

The saga of the Austin Police Department's infiltration of the Occupy Austin movement continued in Harris County court last week when the real names of two undercover detectives assigned to keep an eye on the OA activities were finally revealed.

According to a transcript of the pretrial hearing, APD officers Rick Reza and Deke Moore – known to Occupiers as "Rick" and "Dirk," respectively – worked alongside already-outted investigator Shannon Dowell, a.k.a. "Butch," in keeping tabs on the OA movement throughout the fall and into the winter of 2011. Reza and Moore's names were included in documents turned over by the APD to lawyers representing OA member Ronnie Garza and six other protesters now facing felony charges for using a so-called "lockbox" to obstruct a roadway at the Port of Houston during a protest there in December 2011. The issue yet to be resolved is whether Reza, Moore, and Dowell actually induced Garza and the others to use the device, which ratcheted up the obstruction of a road charge from a misdemeanor offense to a felony punishable by up to two years in a state jail.

According to Garza and other Occupiers, they hadn't considered using a lockbox – a sleeve made of PVC pipe into which protesters can slide their arms and lock themselves together with carabiners and bolts – until the undercover officers suggested it. Moreover, they say that the cops, posing as Occupiers, actually purchased the materials and assembled the devices, delivering them to the protesters for use. Indeed, among the items turned over to the defense during the Oct. 31 hearing in Judge Joan Campbell's Harris County courtroom were a series of photos depicting Dowell and Reza assembling, and goofing around with, the device in a garage. (Ed note: see above)

This was quite an undercover operation, don't you think? Perhaps at one of the hearings scheduled early next year the judge can delve further into who made the decision not to disclose the existence of APD undercovers to prosecutors pursuing felony charges against the Occupy protesters. Grits has argued before that the alleged Brady violations are "a bigger deal, even than the alleged entrapment."

See prior, related Grits posts:

• Austin PD withheld Brady material, administrators contradict each other on infiltration of Occupy movement
• Austin PD undercover officer allegedly gave material support to 'Occupy' action resulting in felony charges

Austin PD withheld Brady material, administrators contradict each other on infiltration of Occupy movement

Austin police administrators gave contradictory statements to Austin Chronicle reporter Jordan Smith about their use of three undercover operatives (or, perhaps, provocateurs) who infiltrated the Occupy Austin organization.

Police detective Shannon Dowell built a "lockbox" device for use at a Houston sit-in, the use of which upped criminal charges against the protesters from a misdemeanor to a felony. Reported Smith, such a "device usually must be cut off, posing risk to the user and, potentially, to the police or firefighters doing the cutting, if booby traps are employed inside the pipe." Further, "It was those concerns about safety, says APD Assistant Chief Sean Mannix, that prompted APD detective Shannon Dowell to get involved last December in constructing a series of lockboxes that the seven protesters were arrested for using at the Port of Houston."

So according to Mannix, the officer's actions were part and parcel of the intent of the operation to promote the safety of protesters and law enforcement. However, Austin police chief Art Acevedo told Smith that the undercover activities "went beyond the scope of the mission ... that was established at the executive level." "The trouble wasn't coming from the 'core Occupiers,'" says Acevedo, ignoring that the trouble was coming in part from APD's own officers. The chief told Smith that "'we are reviewing the matter, from top to bottom,' ... to see where the mission might have gone astray, in order to keep anything like that from happening in the future."

Which is right? Mannix's comments imply the officers were doing exactly what they were put there for, while if Acevedo is correct, it speaks to gross failures in management and oversight.

Regardless, the claim that the purpose of the undercovers was to protect the First Amendment rights of protesters is outright Orwellian. What a low opinion of public intelligence they must have to imagine anyone is stupid enough to believe such a disingenuous comment! (Sadly, the low opinion is probably justified. After all, the MSM keeps repeating the claim.)

Then there's APD's blatant recalcitrance when ordered to submit records for judicial oversight. Reported Smith:

Based on the transcripts of an Aug. 27 hearing in Campbell's court, the judge has not readily embraced the APD's official story. Dowell was subpoenaed by Gladden to attend the pretrial hearing, and to bring with him all written and electronic records – police reports, text messages, emails, pictures, and notes – related to his Occupy assignment. But Dowell showed up, essentially, empty-handed. He had photos on a thumb drive of the boxes and the woman he delivered them to, he testified, but he somehow lost that drive on the way to court; he had emails on a work computer (and, it seems, on a personal computer as well) and phone messages, but said he had deleted them. He brought with him only "a little note that I made here regarding [an Occupy] meeting," he said. There are no written police reports, he said; since there was no criminal investigation ongoing, there was no reason to write an official report for the APD system, he testified. Judge Campbell did not seem impressed: "When he is sent a subpoena and he doesn't respond and he doesn't come with his own attorney," she said, "I think they lose a little bit of the dignity that they should be carrying themselves with."

At the end of last week's hearing, she told prosecutor Joshua Phanco that the state must produce the names of Dowell's undercover APD cohorts or see the case dismissed. The two other officers are fact witnesses who could help determine whether the police induced the activists' use of the lockboxes. On Wednesday, those names were provided to the court for the judge's private inspection. Also provided were documents related to the APD's undercover mission, though court watchers said that some of those documents were redacted – which did not appear to make Campbell happy. A motion was also filed to quash the subpoenas for the APD's undercover officers, including Dowell, to appear in court, though the judge has not yet ruled on that request. Campbell has again reset the hearing, for Sept. 25, in order to give her time to review all of the relevant documents.

This "dog ate my homework" excuse is simply not credible. KTRK-TV reported that, in court, "APD dodged most questions Wednesday" at the latest hearing, where according to the Houston Chronicle, "State District Judge Joan Campbell lectured prosecutors ... about not disclosing the police officers' roles in the case." However, according to the Houston Chronicle:

prosecutors told the judge they had no idea the Austin Police Department evidently planted an officer in the movement, until defense attorneys subpoenaed him.

"Had we realized that an undercover officer was involved" and had participated in the construction of the dragon sleeves, "that is clearly Brady material," Harris County prosecutor Colleen Barnett said in an interview after the hearing. "Had we known that, we would have turned it over to the defense."

"Brady material" is exculpatory evidence that's required by law to be handed over to defendants. Police failing to hand that information over to prosecutors - much less destroying it, as Dowell may have done - is a bigger deal, even than the alleged entrapment. Given that, I find bewildering the statement from Assistant Chief David Carter to the Austin Statesman that "Nothing officials have seen initially indicates department policies were violated." Is there not a policy in the department to turn over Brady material to prosecutors?

As Grits mentioned previously, I've little sympathy nor patience with the Occupy protesters' methods - which I earlier called "dumb as a bag of hair" - and in most cases I think anyone foolish and narcissistic enough to intentionally get themselves arrested at such an event deserves what they get. But here the police sought not to deter crime but to worsen it, facilitating felonious actions instead of thwarting them, and withheld exculpatory evidence from prosecutors. Combine that with the contradictory justifications from APD administrators - disavowing their officers' activities while simultaneously justifying them - not to mention the evasive refusal to provide documentation to the judge, and it's difficult not to find understated the judge's observation that, at the very least, the episode caused the department to "lose a little bit of the dignity that they should be carrying themselves with."

Austin PD undercover officer allegedly gave material support to 'Occupy' action resulting in felony charges

At Firedoglake, writer Kit O'Connell asks, "Why did undercover Austin Police Department Detective Shannon G. Dowell provide material support for an activist protest that resulted in them being charged with a felony in Houston?"

Sounds like a reasonable question to me.

Last December, wrote O'Connell, "seven activists from Austin, Dallas, and Houston blocked the main entrance into the port by laying in the road and linking arms inside lockboxes (also known as sleeping dragons), which physically linked them together so that police cut them apart. The use of these instruments resulted in these seven being charged with Unlawful Use of a Criminal Instrument or Device, while others who merely linked arms and legs faced lesser misdemeanor charges."

So where did the protesters get these "lockboxes"? An undercover Austin police detective, later identified in court as Shannon G. Dowell but known to the protesters as "Butch," allegedly "obtained the materials, constructed, then delivered the lockboxes to Austin activists before they left for Houston," wrote OConnell. "Funds for the lockboxes came from Occupy Austin’s general funds allocated to the trip by its assembly."

That's classic provocateur behavior. Without the "lockboxes" constructed by the detective, the activists would have only faced misdemeanor charges, but they wouldn't have had that capacity without "Butch's" help. Is it unreasonable to suspect that's why he did it?

Attorney Greg Gladden who's handling the case told O'Connell that "The behavior of Austin Police Department is shocking to my conscience. I believe it is shocking to the conscience of the court. and it is one of the worst ways I can think of for the government to be spending its money, our money. The case needs to be dismissed and the Austin Police Department needs to rethink its role in society."

Notably, local police across the country have partnered with the Department of Homeland Security in undercover operations aimed at "Occupy" protesters, sharing information through so-called "fusion centers."

To be clear, I think intentionally getting oneself arrested in an action like this is dumb as a bag of hair and another example of the Occupy movement's failures of leadership. It furthers no identifiable political goal and forces activist groups to redirect energy and resources from their policy agenda to legal defense. But that doesn't excuse police from using undercover operatives to promote felonious behavior that wouldn't occur without their involvement. It's one thing to use undercover operatives to identify and prosecute crime, but quite another to facilitate and promote it.

MORE: See coverage from the Austin Chronicle and a followup post from Firedoglake, citing testimony from Detective Dowell that he couldn't provide the court with emails related to the undercover operation because they'd been deleted, which if true may violate state record retention laws. Other records related to the case, Dowell told the court, he'd uploaded onto a thumb drive which he claimed to have lost between his hotel in Houston and the courthouse. Judge Joan Campbell was not amused and has threatened to dismiss the charges if Austin PD cannot provide the documents by next week.

Who watches for sleepers when watchers sleep?

Brilliant! When the "Occupy" movement came to San Antonio and took up residence in a downtown park, the city sent a parks-police officer to the protest site to enforce the city's ban on sleeping there. The protesters snapped photos of the poor fellow (who of course didn't ask for the assignment of harassing  "Occupy" protesters) while sleeping on the job. KENS-TV reported that "the officer was supposed to be keeping an eye on the Occupy camp to make sure that the protesters didn't fall asleep, and to write them tickets if they did." In other words, he'd have probably done more harm had he been awake. Via Injustice Everywhere. Related: See "Police v. OWS," from The Crime Report. See also: Matthew 7:3. Your tax dollars at work, San Antonio.

The age old story: Cop attacks protester, arrests protester for assault, but this time caught on video

Via Unfair Park and Injustice Everywhere, on Nov. 5 Occupy Dallas protester Stephen Benavides was arrested, maced and spent four days in jail for allegedly assaulting an off-duty police officer, 19-year veteran Jimmy Hollis. When video showed that Hollis actually initiated the violence by shoving the fellow off a 4' planter, the chief issued a one-day suspension without pay and forbade him from working off-duty jobs for 60 days. So the cop got a day off and missed out on a few holiday security gigs, while his victim was attacked, maced, spent four days in jail, and is still waiting for charges to be formally, finally cleared. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Often protest movements that begin small escalate not because of the righteousness of their cause (or in this case, the nebulousness of it) but because the state engages in police brutality or illegal methods to suppress or discredit it. That's the risk run when police respond violently to Occupy protesters. And doling out slaps on the wrist to offending cops in incidents like this one adds insult to injury. Remember it wasn't the images of Rodney King's beating that sparked riots and national protests back in 1992, it was the acquittal of the officers so clearly seen wailing on him in the video. People understand there will always be bad apples, but they want to see them held accountable.

I'm not a great fan of the Occupy movement, but neither do I endorse a police officer initiating violence then blaming it on protesters. The cop in that video wasn't doing his job, he was just a bully in uniform.

RELATED: From The Crime Report: "Police vs. OWS."

Death to the Facilitators: Why Grits won't be "occupying" anything anytime soon

With public support weakening, police today will roust Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protesters in multiple cities, most notably at the epicenter in New York. In general, Grits disapproves of police rousting protesters of whatever ilk, but since the OWS folks appear to have no goals and no endgame, I suppose it had to happen sooner or later.

OWS has accomplished one amazing thing. They've re-framed how Americans talk about wealth inequality in a way that gives most Americans an "us" (the 99%) to align with. But there's a lot more to do to turn that important but potentially short-lived shift in public perception into tangible reform. Getting to actual change takes more than vague ideas and slogans. It requires leadership, decision making, and long-term movement-building and mass organizing.

Sign at OWS protest, via the International Business Times

The main reason I won't join the OWS movement any time soon has nothing to do with its lack of a well-defined agenda (there are plenty of opportunities for good work on their issue areas), but mainly with its lack of a well-defined leadership. Sun Tzu said millenia ago that formations dictate outcomes, and it's true. I vowed several years back never to join another political group that operates based on a "consensus" decision making process, which unfortunately is one of the hallmarks of the OWS movement. Indeed, I wrote a disgusted polemic several years ago articulating a detailed case against that bane of lefty movements and corporate retreats titled "Death to the Facilitators! In Favor of Roberts Rules of Order." The issues addressed in that unpublished essay are incredibly relevant IMO to why the OWS movement is losing steam as winter sets in: Their structure disavows leadership to the point that their decisionmaking processes become as frozen as Zuccotti Park campers in a snowstorm.

Your correspondent has never been a big "joiner" when it comes to political groups, and I'm not much of a "little d" democrat. I'm as suspicious of the mob as I am of law enforcement. In general, I do not consider public camping a viable nor sustainable political tactic. When I hear a protester chant into a bullhorn, "This is what democracy looks like," I must (usually successfully) resist the urge to physically attack them. When sitting through any meeting involving a "facilitator," I harbor dark fantasies of hitting them over the head, covering them with a sack, and transporting them to a dimly lit warehouse where I'd hold a gun to their head and force them to read aloud from Robert's Rules of Order.

So while I share many of the "Occupy Wall Street" critiques of society - particularly regarding the complicity of the financial sector in both a casino mentality and severing middle-class wage hikes from productivity gains - I think we're witnessing the limits of their tactics. Professional lobbyists and political campaigners are disdained as sell-outs by the drum-circle crowd, and Robert's Rules are considered antiquated and hierarchical compared to cool, supposedly more democratic "consensus" approach. But the OWS folks could learn a thing or sixty about the nuts and bolts of mass organizing from those who've organized successful mass movements in the past. For reasons presaged in my 2005 essay, reliance on a "consensus" decisionmaking structure doomed this effort before it ever got started. The OWS episode may have symbolic resonance going forward, but regrettably, in its current form, it's unlikely to have much structural impact on laws, regulations, or how Wall Street operates.