"Pittsburgh is what a police state looks like!"

I have been to dozens of protests, large and small, since my son was killed in Iraq, but I have never seen anything like today and the only term I can use is: Profound Overkill. There were easily two cops/soldiers for every one of us protesters"or maybe even 3 to 1.

About two thousand of us gathered in Arsenal Park in Pittsburgh to try and march downtown. We were all peaceful and had no weapons. We had only traveled a few blocks when cops dressed like they were in full combat with heavily armed opponents stopped us and blocked our way with a new weapon called "LRAD:" A new "crowd control" device. LRAD stands for: "Long Range Acoustical Device." I was, unfortunately near it when the cops turned it on. It's painful.

The group dispersed and went in many different directions. Some of us got to a corner a few blocks up from where we were initially stopped and I am not kidding, at least 500 cops were stopped in formation at this intersection with their gas masks on and nightsticks at the ready to crack the head of anyone who actually tried to peacefully cross their lines"unarmed, of course.

I spoke to dozens of cops today and tried to explain to them that we peaceful protesters are only trying to exercise our 1st Amendment rights and the cops should be protecting us, members of their own class, and not suppressing our freedoms and actually physically hurting us.

There was absolutely no reason for the over-reaction of the police state to the protesters today. Do not believe the news propaganda that says the protesters were the cause of the violence"it was the cops. The thugs even dropped tear gas from helicopters. We're like ants trying to struggle against anteaters.

Seeing the National Guard troops, fresh from Iraq, broke my heart the hardest. I also talked to dozens of them, none had ever heard of posse commitatus, and asked them if my son, their brother, died in Iraq so they could steal the rights of his mother. Most of them wouldn't even look at me. The cops and soldiers should be ashamed of themselves for allowing their selves to be used as tools of the Robber Class "elites."

"Just following orders" is not a defense.

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