Cross-posted from Murdoc Online:

A few days back I posted a YouTube of a Pittsburgh protester being snatch and grabbed by some clowns in BDUs and dismissed it as a poorly-produced hoax:

I’d had a few comments and emails claiming it was for real, but I hadn’t been able to find anything derfinitive online until a reader sent Murdoc a heads up:

Statement from G-20 Joint Information Center to College Politico: The individuals involved in the 9/24/2009 arrest which has appeared online are law enforcement officers from a multi-agency tactical response team assigned to the security operations for the G20. It is not unusual for tactical team members to wear camouflaged fatigues. The type of fatigues the officers wear designates their unit affiliation. Prior to the arrest, the officers observed this subject vandalizing a local business. Due to the hostile nature of the crowd, officer safety and the safety of the person under arrest, the subject was immediately removed from the area.

So these are guys from a G-20 “tactical response team.” Personally, given the shennanigans that these anarchists pull at every G-20 and WTO meeting, maybe they really do need a “tactical response team.” But to arrest a vandal by nabbing him in broad daylight? They just recruited a thousand more protesters for the next meeting.

Suddenly, everyone who should be dismissing these protesters as the anarchist goons that they are has reason to despise the authorities the goons are fighting.

But it wasn’t the military or even the local PD.

I’d be curious to know who mans this “tactical response team.” Guys that couldn’t get in at Blackwater and DynCorp?

UPDATE: These were “law enforcement officers from a multi-agency tactical response team assigned to the security operations for the G20″, so they WERE cops. My mistake despite it being spelled out clearly in the excerpt I posted.

Which leaves me wondering why they looked such a shambles, why their uniforms had virtually nothing at all let alone LEO insignia or department ID, and exactly why they needed apparent SWAT types to pick up an idiot anarchist vandal in the first place.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 at 9:53 am and is filed under Crime and Violence, Law Enforcement, Video, WTF. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.