Free Trade Area Americas (FTAA) talks ended early in Miami after ministers from 34 countries accepted a watered-down proposal in order to save the talks from total collapse. All that was agreed was to scale back the FTAA’s scope.

        Seventy people were arrested and dozens injured at large-scale demonstrations staged against the FTAA summit.

        More than ten thousand union members from across the country marched through downtown Miami to protest the meeting where some 2,500 police officers from more than two-dozen law enforcement agencies had converged.

        The first problem is obvious. The marchers out numbered the police. The second problem is also obvious. Riot control was entrusted into the hands of 2,500 intermingled police officers who are not accustomed to working together, much less under the same commanders. The third problem is not so obvious.

        Police officers throughout America have become accustomed to being the law. When too many of them are gathered in one place, police brutality is absolutely predictable.

        Large gatherings of any kind in America ought to anticipate police brutality. It is here to stay in those kinds of situations particularly when a police department feels threatened by protesters, and when they disagree with the protest.

        The demonstration was apparently peaceful, yet it was marked by extraordinary police brutality against demonstrators. Why? The I am boss attitude among police nationwide plus the fact the officers were intimidated by such a large multitude.

        Police forces repeatedly deployed on the streets of Miami throughout the day fired rubber bullets and tear gas at demonstrators. Many were injured as police used both concussion grenades and stun guns outside the hotel where the FTAA summit was taking place.

        The closer the marchers got to the hotel, the more danger they faced at the hands of those who are entrusted with the enforcement of law not the violating of it.

        Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill was shot twice with rubber bullets, as was independent filmmaker John Hamilton who was working with Democracy Now! in Miami.

        Once again, from one end of the nation to the other; we see police departments with no respect whatsoever for the media. Police are threatened by the media for obvious reasons. When the police are out in force brutalizing the public, they don't want media coverage of their transgressions.

        In recognition of this trend to destroy freedom of press in America, laws are needed to guarantee police protection and the use of armoured vehicles by the press to guard them in violatile situations like marches and protests.