Mr. Dieter & Occupy South Bend

In the past I've helped organize and have protested at many events in SB and our police have always been more than respectful and very protective of us in lots of ways. However, I see that it's not like that in many places around the country, and an interesting intersection to that point and almost on cue here in SB, is that the first politician to discuss dismantling the camp and cracking down on the protesters in front of the Morris at Occupy South Bend is a policeman on the Common Council, Dereck Dieter. It's been posited around this here internet thingie that there's a concerted effort among police admins to crackdown on the protests:

The cop group coordinating the Occupy crackdowns

…a little-known but influential private membership based organization has placed itself at the center of advising and coordinating the crackdown on the encampments. The Police Executive Research Forum, an international non-governmental organization with ties to law enforcement and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, has been coordinating conference calls with major metropolitan mayors and police chiefs to advise them on policing matters and discuss response to the Occupy movement. The group has distributed a recently published guide on policing political events.

Speaking to Democracy Now! On November 17, PERF Executive Director Chuck Wexler acknowledged PERF's coordination of a series of conference-call strategy sessions with big-city police chiefs. These calls were distinct from the widely reported national conference calls of major metropolitan mayors.

Mr Dieter might want to remember that we’re fighting for his public employee pension too and we all need to remember who comes dressed for riots at the protests.

Move on is asking people to contact Officer Pike. As always, please be polite.
The officer who sprayed the students was UC Davis Police Lt. John Pike at (530) 752-3989 or japikeiii@ucdavis.edu.