Why Did The Police Break-Up The Strikers

They were also arrested. (Auerbach 1688) That's all it took for this riot to come into play, a few people unhappy about the way the police handled the situation. The next thing you know its a few thousand unhappy people.

When the riot started the guards went into small rooms called safe wells. The rooms were made out of 2 layers of block and had steel reinforced doors. The doors did their job but the prisoners started to beat at the block walls with weight lifting bars. Soon they busted a hole into the room and dragged the guards through the walls. The guards were assigned men to watch them; these men were ordered to kill the guards if the prison came under attack. A few of the guards were protected very well because they affiliated with the Aryan Brotherhood. These few lucky guards were even given weapons to defend themselves incase of a race riot within the prison.

Strikers headed to Ottawa were the main reason for the Regina Riot. Their strike turned into a violent riot when RCMPs involved.

The workers demanded an eight hour workday for which the average work week was sixty hours or more. The company hired strikebreakers which were often used by this era. On May 3rd, 1886 as a protest resulted in the killing of an individual by the police, and on May 4th a mass meeting was called to take place in the Haymarket Square to protest what was seen as police brutality. At the meeting there were approximately 1500 people as radical speakers addressed the crowd. As the mood of the crowd began as a peaceful meeting that quickly turned confrontational when the police began to break up the crowd. As fights broke out, a powerful bomb was thrown. The police began to use their guns. Seven police officers lost their lives which was later proclaimed that they were not killed by the bomb but however from the bullets from other police officers from the chaos of the event. Four citizens were killed and over a hundred were injured. The public was outraged because of the event. Within the next two weeks, on the cover of a magazine, illustrations were drawn of the bomb thrown into the crowd, cutting down police officers, and a priest giving last rites to a police officer at the local police station, thus leading to the blame of the riot on the labor movement and particularly the Knights of Labor.

The Labor Unions organized various strikes in an attempt to improve labor conditions and rights. The strikes became increasingly more violent and the media merged the violence with radicalism, communism and anarchism. The political cartoon suggests that Labor Unions are killing capitalism with communism, the radical violence tainting the image of the Labor Unions and shifted the public support; focused on the Great Rail Road Strike of 1877 and the radical violence (Document 2). Following the Great Strike of 1877, the Haymarket Square Riot sparked further controversy towards the acts of violence. The Haymarket Square Riot and Bombing involved the Knights of Labor and advocated a violent overthrow of the American government. The Chicago police had been called to end the protest and in the chaos a bomb was thrown, injuring and killing several dozen people. After the Haymarket Square Riot, a gradual repression of the labor movement occurred. The public lost trust in the worker's associations and the campaign. The American labor movement, in general, received a setback due to the riot, also weakening the struggle for the eight-hour day demand. The Homestead Strike and Lockout of 1892 was one of the most violent strikes; the riot was ended by Pinkerton Detectives and the state militia, and the violence further damaged the image of unions. The purpose of the

As a result of this "threat" of entering a labor union, the commissioner of police, Edward Curtis, told the men that no policemen were to join a union. After men decided to join the American Federation of Labor, Curtis decided to suspend those men. Leaders of the union were angered by this action and told the commissioner not to punish the men or else all union members would go on strike. Compromises were brought the Curtis, but none were accepted. Soon, a vast majority of the police department was on strike. It did not take long for violence in the streets to set in. Many volunteers were put in the line of duty. Angry mobs ran the streets, and many newspapers ran articles such as, "Riots in Boston", "Terror Reigns in City". This was a disgrace to the city of Boston. After eight deaths of seventy wounded, and thousand of dollars of damage done, the cities order was finally restored. The officers were given the raises that were requested and no longer had to pay for there uniforms.

Around midnight some trouble started when drunken bikers left a bar and started to throw beer bottles at cars. They broke windows in the downtown area, one a bank window that set off an alarm. The news spread and several bars closed early to avoid trouble. Soon more people joined the vandalism and looting, while others stood by and watched. A crowd of about 100 had gathered by the time the police got there. They appeared to be a mix of bikers, students and out-of-town kids who often came to Kent's bars. Some of them began throwing bottles at the police and the crowd shouted obscenities, it took about an hour for the police to restore order.

The mayor made a drastic decision to set the prisoners free to keep them safe from the fire as well. So, they were released into the midst of the burning streets. Albeit, the police thought the prisoners would run and seek shelter. . . that is quiet the opposite. The prisoners rushed into the streets and begin smashing windows of abandon buisnesses and homes, looting them of their goods.

When one thinks of a cop. What should come to mind is “hero.” But nowadays cops are seen as people you want to stay away from. In the past, they were publicly displayed as heroes on television shows and parents, as well as children, knew the names of the officers patrolling their neighborhoods. However, times have certainly changed because police departments have increased the size of their force and tactics have switched and have become less about protect and serve, and more of a militaristic approach. Police officers have abused their power for too long because they have access to so many different types of weapons and there’s been so many cases involving police brutality that it needs to come to an end and they need to be held accountable for what they’ve done.

The African American community in Los Angeles were outraged when they heard the decision that the five officers were found innocent the following year. The decision triggered three days of violent riots causing 54 people to die, 7,000 people to get arrested and costing the city millions of dollars for damages. During the riots, blacks would use baseball bats to batter cars driven by whites, another white individual got hit in the face by a block of concrete,

Due to the lack of peacekeeping experience in the volunteers, they had no other option than to open fire on the crowds. In total, nine people were dead by sunrise (Source 2). After the second night of the strike, national newspapers reversed their opinions of the police, including The LA Times, writing "...no man's house, no man's wife, no man's children will be safe if the police force in unionized and made subject to the orders of the Red Unionite bosses." (Source 3) Coolidge would have no sympathy for the strikers, calling them "deserters" and "traitors", despite a fair number of them being World War 1 veterans that defended The United States and its ideals overseas. Even Samuel Gompers, the chief of the AFL was worried with what would happen next if he couldn't persuade the Boston police to return tot he bargaining table before more people and property could be harmed. Curtis would not sway to his neutral suggestion and refused the officers a chance to work for the force again. The entire force was replaced after this incident. National troops were summoned to pull the brakes on the strike and break up any

Fights would often break out eventually becoming riots, activists would be verbally and physically assaulted before being thrown in prison for months and these actions were barely announced to the public.

The impact of the strike was much wider than just in the mining industry and the regions: the scenes of violence between strikes and police regularly seen on television shocked the nation and divided public opinion. Polls suggested that 65% of the people supported the government and the police 35% of the miners. social commentators suggested that the violent clashes that frequently accompanied the strike stimulated a general strike

They were trying to stop the union from forming because they didn’t want a union to form. Many other men showed up later in the video from the Coal Company as well. The two who arrived first, kicked the people of Matewan out of their houses because they belonged to the Coal Company and they didn’t want them living there because they were all a part of the union that was forming.

In August 2012, mine workers from the Lonmin platinum mine (a Multi-billion Rand Company) started a strike to increase their low wages, just a few days into the strike, the police used live ammunition to brutally suppress the strike, and they had killed 34 minors and injuring many others. The SAPS were adamant that they had only shot in self-defence, but watching this film tells a very different story. This documentary shows the realness of the