“Ideals on Wheels” – time to get Ret. Police Captain Ray Lewis’ on the Road for Occupy!

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This is our second interview with this amazing, multi-year veteran patrolman who worked his way through the ranks – a man who is thankful for the humanizing experience of dealing directly with the civilian population when he wore his uniform.

Did this reflect in his own experience of being arrested in NYC by his brothers in blue when he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with fellow citizens at an Occupy Wall Street Rally last fall?  Well, yes, and no.

“I should have been arrested.  I was committing civil disobedience.  I did sit in the street, and I refused an order to leave.  So, the arrest was legal and the way they handled me and all the others that day was done in a professional manner,” he declares.

He regrets that this initial respect and civility shown by the police has melted away, almost uniformly, across the U.S.

His latest disappointment in his brothers in blue – an incident in Seattle in the early closing hours of Gay Pride week.  A high-ranking police lieutenant – and this is caught on video – walks up to a parties standing on the sidewalk, pepper sprays him without provocation, and grabs him by his shirt front to drag him into the street to be cuffed and arrested.  (http://bit.ly/LjYLkP).

What was on the official police arrest report?  That this 24-year-old male bystander had “pushed forward” and “kicked the Lieutenant in the shin” resulting in his being arrested for “assault.”

And the use of pepper spray?  (Listen up, NYC and Philly cops)

“Even if (the lieutenant) was kicked, you do not use the level of force of the pepper spray.  That’s a level used when you have a totally uncontrolled assailant and that’s the only way you can subdue that person,” Ray offers.  “Pepper spray, if done by another (non-police?) individual against a person in public would come under ‘aggravated assault…not simple assault.”

At the urging of many in Occupy who see him as an authentic hero and example of claiming the high road in police-civilian interactions, Ray intends to search out funding to put wheels under his ideals – a van or bus to carry him to Occupy cities across the U.S.

Listen to this fascinating interview which touches on everything from For-Profit Prisons, the “Yippee Café” in NYC, his being on the front cover of a new publication being published called “OccupyMetro,” and why more policemen need to come to “the other side” of the barricades.

If you care to send a donation to put Ideals on Wheels, Ray can be reached on Facebook as Captain Ray Lewis (http://on.fb.me/K9aIxf), as Ray Occupy Lewis (http://on.fb.me/MxAhGC), or write him at 218RayLewis@gmail.com.

You can find my original HuffPost article on Ray Lewis here:  http://huff.to/KLV7mk.