OccupyingLIES: How Occupy Movement Lied About Cecily McMillan
The attack on a policeman by longtime violent socialist and militant Occupy protester Cecily McMillan has been completely obscured by the Occupy movement. The story was reported as a poor little girl who was minding her own business, happily skipping and swinging her arms until a vicious cop attacked her, beat her up until she was in convulsions, broke her ribs, and then kept her in handcuffs while obstructing Emergency Medical Technicians from treating her. Even now, 2 days later, the Occupy Movement supporters keep sending around disinformation that has already been proven false.
Here’s the truth of what happened…
WHO IS CECILY?
First of all, Cecily McMillan is not just any girl who happens to end up at an Occupy Wall Street protest. As I documented in an earlier post, she has a long history of attending protests, of organizing protests even before the Occupy movement. Her family has a long history of active protest involvement, and she sees this as “cultural capital” that makes her and people like her more suited to lead these movements. So much for equality, huh?
She is very proud of her violent actions at other Occupy events, and brags about it. So she has a history of violent protesting, and is known for organizing protests. This doesn’t excuse any harm she might have met at the hands of the police, but does shed light on the reasons why she might have either premeditated the attack or had feelings of antagonism that led to the attack on the policeman.
The fact that she attacked the policemen instead of what is being reported is also documented through many videos that some in the occupy movement were trying to hide.
THE BROKEN RIBS
Now for the “broken ribs.” Initially this was claimed because apparently, Cecily was exclaiming it was so. Now, unless you’re actually seeing and feeling broken ribs, there’s a lot of pain you can experience that you might think is from broken ribs but isn’t.
From her friend who was with her at the hospital:
She’s crying saying she thinks her ribs are broken.Police escorted us out of ER said she’s not allowed family or friends.
— Sarah (@SarahBTweets) March 18, 2012
The next day, in this picture taken by fellow Occupier Ryan Devereaux, he shows her smoking a cigarette while awaiting her court case. Now, are we led to believe that someone could be lounging around a day after having her ribs broken? And smoking?
This same Ryan reports at the courthouse the extent of her injuries – this is it, no mention of ribs broken, or head trauma from hitting the pavement:
McMillan is in court. Her left eyelid is swollen and discolored. Court officials attempting to take an iris photo. #ows #m17
— Ryan Devereaux (@RDevro) March 19, 2012
Even still, some tweets float around that she was nearly killed by cops. The policeman she assaulted seemed to have worse injuries:
Her arresting officer suffered a cut to the eye but refused medical attention, police said.
SEIZURE OR PANIC ATTACK?
Third – originally, every report said that she was convulsing and having a seizure. The video does seem to indicate this – however, as more details starting coming out, the story changed. Now it’s reported that she had a panic attack – this is not nearly as serious as a seizure. It doesn’t matter – it’s still being reported as a seizure, despite the facts.
Reports now that #OWS protester Cecily McMillan did not suffer a seizure last night, but a panic attack.
— Joanne Michele (@SabzBrach) March 18, 2012
DID COPS KEEP HER HANDCUFFED?
Fourth, the claim that policemen purposely kept her in handcuffs while she was having her panic attack is equally false. Immediately after her initial panic attack, she either falls on or pushes away 3-4 policemen from the bus. This is harder to see in the videos available. However, after about a minute, the policemen carry her away from the bus and the middle of the road onto the nearby sidewalk. It appears her arms are caught in her sweater – if she is handcuffed, it’s not for very long, as the video shows clearly that by the 3:30 mark, she has free use of her arms. This is one of the clearer stills I can capture to show this:
Again, the narrative told is that the cops maliciously kept her handcuffed while she was convulsing.
MEDIA CORRUPTS THE STORY
So now let’s take a look at how the leftist media is reporting the story and misreporting it.
Democracy Now is a leftwing news outlet that regularly tweak the narrative in order to further their agenda. In the video linked here, the reporter describes the McMillan arrest as such:
Many reported excessive use of force with the New York City Police Department… In one widely reported incident, a young woman suffered a seizure after she was pulled from the crowd and arrested. Witnesses say police initially ignored Cecily McMillan as she flopped about on the sidewalk with her hands zip-tied behind her back, but she was eventually taken away in an ambulance.
Notice they don’t pay attention to the fact that she’s a longtime activist from a family of agitators, or that she was proud of her history of violent acts against police prior to this attack. No, she’s just a “young woman.”
And she was simply pulled from the crowd – they don’t show the video where she assaults the policeman, and this is only mentioned 10 minutes later in their video once your opinion against the police is already set.
Finally, they perpetuate the myth that they ignored a seizure, when it was only a panic attack, and they promptly treated her and took her handcuffs off. In fact, it’s a complete lie that she “flopped around on the sidewalk with her hands zip-tied” – by the time they got her to the sidewalk, she was completely free, as is clear from the video.
Ryan Devereaux was the person who took the picture of Cecily above, and he also was interviewed on Democracy Now about the incident – notice how often he talks about what others say happened, so that they can report without responsibility:
What was really disturbing for a lot of people that were there on the scene was one incident with a young woman named Cecily McMillan, who witness say suffered from a seizure. She was handcuffed in the street sidewalk area near the entrance to the park. She was on the ground, and videotape seems to show her convulsing, you can hear people screaming to help her, to call 911. Witnesses that were there said that it took approximately 22 to 23 minutes for an ambulance to arrive. People were really disturbed that there were hundreds of police there, and no paramedics. And also disturbed by the fact that you see a number of police officers standing around this young woman as she’s convulsing, and no one seems to be doing much of anything… her head was bouncing off the concrete, the paramedic said she could have easily died.
Eventually, they took the handcuffs off, but it was quite some time. She was on the ground convulsing, in handcuffs.
Again – why does he say “witnesses say she suffered a seizure”? By now they know it was a panic attack and she’s perfectly fine. The handcuffing on the sidewalk lie is repeated. And who cares if they are yelling for the police to call 911 – who do they think answers 911? This is just added to make it appear more heinous.”Witnesses say” it took 23 minutes for ambulance to arrive – that’s a complete lie that you can verify yourself through watching the video of the entire event. “People were disturbed” there were no paramedics – did they ask the police if the particular policeman actually treating her with oxygen was a medic? Or did they just assume he wasn’t? It doesn’t matter – as long as they report what “people were disturbed” about, the facts are inconsequential. They report that people said her head could have been “bouncing off the pavement” and she could have died – then why is she walking around the next day smoking nonchalantly?
There you have it – how the story of a violent left-wing activist attacking a policeman is demogogued to fit a narrative to further a political agenda.
Even more insidious, despite their self-righteous claims of transparency, some aligned with the Occupy movement were actively trying to scrub the videos that showed she attacked him, and tried to squelch this info from getting out. Oh and by the way, the guy trying to hide all this, was convicted of domestic terrorism. [READ MORE HERE]