It was a FOX cameraman! AAAAAH! Now it makes sense!
Pittsburgh police arrested five anti-military protesters Saturday after they disrupted traffic in Oakland and clashed with police.
The Pittsburgh Organizing Group, an organization opposed to military recruitment in high schools, sponsored the march from the Carnegie Library down Forbes Avenue to the Armed Forces Recruiting Center in the 3700 block of Forbes. Organizers had hoped to shut down the center, but it had already closed.
Pittsburgh police said the melee started when protesters tried to stop a freelance photographer for Fox 53 television from filming.
Police said they used a Taser, which shoots a 50,000-volt dart, and pepper spray to subdue one of the protesters.
Police spokeswoman Tammy Ewin said the demonstrator subdued by the Taser and another bitten by a police dog were treated at UPMC Presbyterian hospital, Oakland.
Zone 4 police said protesters will face charges of failing to disperse, obstructing public sidewalks, highways and passages, obstructing an arrest, criminal mischief, disorderly conduct, simple assault, harassment and resisting arrest.
Police declined to identify those arrested.
"When you're fighting with police officers, we're allowed to use the force necessary to effect an arrest, up to and including Taser," said city police Sgt. Clinton Winkler of Zone 4.
About 20 police officers had tried to quell the fracas and disperse the crowd with a German shepherd. Carole Wiedmann, 68, of Ohio Township, pointed to a blood-stained rip in the thigh of her peach slacks and said she was turning to leave when the dog bit her.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/pittsburgh/s_365979.html
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20050821211311961
Winkler said campus police tried to quell the march, and at one point protesters grabbed the camera of a freelance media photographer and broke it. City police tried to help and said some protesters fought the effort to break up the march.
"That's when they were told, due to the violence, that this was no longer a lawful protest," Winkler said. "They were told to disperse, peacefully disperse, and failed to do so we started down the sidewalk _ officers in front, K-9's behind us, and started pushing the crowd down the sidewalk."
In addition to the injured women, a man was also arrested on charges of disorderly conduct and failure to disperse.