corrente

You can't buy press coverage like this:

Four men and a woman were charged yesterday in the melee between demonstrators and police Tuesday in Center City that left a veteran Philadelphia police officer dead of a heart attack.

[Officer Paris] Williams, a 17-year veteran, was trying with other officers to prevent protesters from nearing the entrance of the Convention Center where the BIO 2005 conference was under way.

[Reactionary death penalty maximalist D.A. Lynn] Abraham said news photographs and video helped police "ascertain precisely what appears to have occurred" during the scuffle.

Abraham said investigators believe that Williams was struck - either kicked or hit with a fist - during the struggle.

She added, however, that the autopsy showed no evidence of physical injury.

[A] member of the group, who identified herself as Init, said: "Our friends in jail did not cause any harm to any police officer.

Abraham said investigators did not have evidence at this point to justify a murder charge.

Williams, they said, had a well-equipped weight room in his basement that he allowed neighborhood youths to use.

Brian Weston, 21, said Williams could press more than 200 pounds. "He taught us how to lift weights properly," Weston said. Weston's father, Jon, the block captain, said there was never any hint that Williams was ill.

Williams was also a baker. "He made some incredible pies," said Peggy Weston, 49, Brian's mother.
(via Philly)

Leave aside the corporate food angle and whether policemen are cops or pigs or whatever.

If there was any incident that shows the self-indulgence and inanity of protests (as opposed to the sort of organizing that RDF does, for example) it's this incident. No real obstacles were put in the way of corporate food, and a man is dead in a way that will give all our enemies talking point fodder for years to come.

And what's with those stupid, stupid, stupid giant puppets?