I’m writing this, with some effort, from a bed in the hospital. I’m not here because of illness or an accident that I caused, I’m here because of Hathian’s supposed “finest” and their tendency to overreact to everything that happens.
Last night, there was a party and in the middle of it, HPD barged in wearing full riot gear. It wasn’t enough to disperse the party, they had to start bashing heads as well, and I mean that quite literally. I saw men in riot gear beating women senseless as they stood there, hurling them against concrete pillars and otherwise abusing the authority given to them by the city.
I can’t say that I’m innocent. When I saw the police attacking a woman who hadn’t made a violent movement, I threw myself at one of them. I was raised in a culture that doesn’t look kindly on men beating women, whether they’re cops or not. But the entire incident could have been avoided if the police in Hathian relied less on their batons and more on their brains.
In the next week or so, I imagine that the city authorities will try to make villains of the Rejects and the rest of us who were there, rather than the police. But I feel that it’s time for the citizens of Hathian, who the police are supposed to protect, to stand up and ask why instead of being protected, we’re being beaten to the point of ending up in the hospital.
