Disclaimer: I am a bleeding heart liberal and this may filter my observations.
I have been to a few rallies/vigils/marches lately and all incidences of violence that I have witnessed either in person or through media has been instigated by the police. As far as I know,every documented case where a formerly peaceful crowd turns into chaos has been started with police shooting pepperspray, teargas, or whatever into the crowd.
I find it really hard to not come to the conclusion that the police is desperately trying to set a narrative to justify a history of violence by escalating more violence, but please, someone, restore my faith.
It’s the same here in Seattle as it was while I was in Berkeley during Ferguson.
People protest peacefully, and police shoot tear gas into the crowd and attack whomever they can get their hands on.
I’ll admit, the outright brutality I saw in-person in Oakland was worse than what I’ve seen here in the recent days.
In Oakland, the police would purposely corral protestors into groups and literally beat the shit out of them. I saw this in-person multiple times. In Seattle, I haven’t seen that sort of corral behavior. However, police do shoot tear gas completely unprovoked and fire rubber bullets and mace without concern.
In both places, no looting was occurring at the main scene of the protests. In both cases, numerous videos show police breaking windows themselves.
In any case, it’s all the same: in a country that parades its freedom, people of color can’t protest without the president calling for them to be roughed up, and without the police willingly complying.
In a small suburb of San Diego the protest stopped traffic. Police forced the protesters off and then riots started and two banks were burnt down.
Two weeks ago a San Diego police deputy was released from jail after serving only six months after sexually assaulting (why forced oral sex is not rape I’m not sure) 16 women that had called the police for help. He does not have to register as a sexual offender.
Protesting is legal and a protest without a disturbance is not a protest, so arresting people causing a disturbance while shutting down non-violent disturbances is disappointing.
The justice dept definition as updated in 2012 would include this. I don’t know how that plays out in state law, but what I’ve read points to that being the definition for state charges too. Doesn’t help when it’s not enforced, which is clearly the case here since the officer didn’t have to register as a sex offender either.
Stopping traffic risks the lives of people in ambulances so it’s pretty hard to condone that. Make noise, block access to some businesses, etc, but don’t block streets and cause traffic jams that could kill people FFS.
Not a protest, but this exact thing occurred during the Fort Lee Lane closure scandal, when people intentionally created road closures in New Jersey. This was national news for awhile [0]
Also, a lack of media coverage for a thing doesn't mean it doesn't happen, nor does rampant media coverage mean a thing is common. Remember the summer of the shark? [1]
There are a lot of people out there who have important things that have to do with their health. Just because someone is not in an ambulance doesn't mean they don't have somewhere important to be. Not everyone with a medical condition rides in an ambulance.
But the vast majority of medical conditions where routing around a protest or road closure would cause serious harm to an individual are probably in ambulances.
Not really sure what your point is regarding 'vast majority'. How many people's lives are acceptable to endanger?
Just today, an interstate was shut down unexpectedly because of protesters. What about everyone who was trapped on that highway and could not move, let alone reroute?
That is a terrible analogy. The key difference is that parades, motorcades, and road construction are planned events. Protesters who unexpectedly stop traffic do not give people opportunity to plan.
side comment: Loving the downvotes for a legitimate point. When did hacker news turn into reddit?
So just roll the dice that you’re not going to hurt anyone by blocking traffic? Who’s responsible if something does go wrong? That’s going to really help the cause.
There are a million reasons that traffic gets blocked such as parades, funerals, road construction, and traffic accidents.
And I didn't hear anyone make the argument any of those things should be banned to prevent the potential loss of life from someone trying to get to a hospital while not in an ambulance.
It really seems like an isolated demand for safety.
Does it matter if it's planned? If you have a medical condition and you need to get to a hospital it doesn't matter whether you had a week's notice or a days notice because the need to get to a hospital is unplanned.
Yes it matters that it's planned. There are permits, detours, announcements and emergency response planning for all of the above. Here's the process for getting a parade permit in NYC
It's that blocking traffic is a material, aggressive escalation of a protest that could have very negative ramifications to the cause. Not only does it reallyreally piss people off, it puts human bodies in direct conflict with vehicles and could potentially block travel to someone that needs urgent medical attention.
If that's your jam then go for it. For my part, if i am in a vehicle with family and we are in a traffic jam due to a protest, i'm going to be in an agitated state...not because of the delay but because of the inability to escape. I'll wait it out, but if people start attacking my car and breaking windows, i'm hitting the gas till i see daylight. That innate sense of how i would respond and is why i think people should approach blocking traffic with caution.
jascii says>"The way you are firing yourself up to commit homicide over a hypothetical situation..."<
He's isn't "firing [himself] up.." as you say, he's thinking out what could possibly happen and considering what his options are.
If you wait until you're in such a situation (people are breaking into your car and threatening to harm the occupants) you simply don't have sufficient time to think out those options - you must think and prepare ahead of time. For those who live in places where riots or firefight break out regularly, this is the proper and usual way to prepare.
FWIW in most of the USA it isn't homicide if you kill an attacker(s), provided you are defending life or limb of yourself, others and/or your property.
I am well aware of the benefits of visualisation which is why this is so disturbing.
Driving a car into a crowd is not self-defense, it is mass homicide and mentally training yourself to make that a "valid option" can be extremely dangerous.
jcims clearly stated>"I'll wait it out, but if people start attacking my car and breaking windows, i'm hitting the gas till i see daylight."<
jcims didn't say that he would be "Driving a car into a crowd..." as you state.
Clearly, if rioters begin beating a car and breaking windows the driver has the option of surviving by driving to preserve life, limb and property.
jascii says>"mentally training yourself to make that a "valid option" can be extremely dangerous."<
Have you ever been surrounded by a mob or mobs while driving a vehicle? We're discussing it here, so you've now at least considered (and possibly once experienced) such a situation: otherwise how could you claim that such an option can be, as you state, "extremely dangerous"?
Tell us your valuable experiences, please.
BTW there's plenty on this topic previously on the innertubes:
I have worked as a UN human rights observer in several countries and have in that capacity been in vehicles in angry crowds. Standard operating procedure has always been to not engage and wait it out, and this has always worked well for me.
Vehicular manslaughter is not a viable option: eventually your vehicle will be stopped and you'll have an even more enraged croud to deal with.
I'm sorry if I made you feel like you were being trolled, that was certainly not my intention. I got triggered by the phrase: "i'm hitting the gas till i see daylight" which seemed indiscriminate and excessive to me.
We'd still have communism here if people were so obedient and concerned about blocking traffic that millions would not go into the streets for protests in 1989.
Look people can build killdozers and flatten police buildings for all i care. The point is that blocking traffic is an escalation that could literally cost lives, either by denying travel in an emergency or by putting cars and human bodies in conflict.
Oh really, how do you know this? Given the scale of protests over time, I bet it is likely someone has. And if someone hasn't already, someone eventually will. Saying something has never happened so therefore it won't happen is ridiculous.
This is not theoretical grandstanding, this is recognizing a potential threat.
Sure, if it was perfectly knowable it would be. Fox news would be numero uno--no doubt. But things like this are not necessarily known. It can be a complicated thing to piece together. What IS known is that at a large scale there is a -calculable- probability that someone who needs help could get caught up, or someone like a surgeon who needs to give help could get caught up. Again, like I said earlier, if it hasn't happened then it will. I'm willing to bet it has happened (though whether it has or has not yet is pointless debate given that it will with a statistical certainty).
Not an ambulance, but the fire department was (allegedly) blocked from reaching an occupied burning building in Richmond (VA) yesterday: https://youtu.be/AEncQKV8k_0?t=205
Not sure why you're being downvoted. There is documented evidence of this:
> "To see this - traffic blocking the main intersection of a level 1 trauma centre, blocking the entrance and exit to our hospital. Blocking patients from receiving care that they need, makes me angry. It hurts. It hurts a lot," said one healthcare worker on Facebook.
> WLNS reports another posting: "You are currently blocking ambulances, physicians and caregivers from making it to work to care for the sick and relieve the exhausted workers.
> Stopping traffic risks the lives of people in ambulances so it’s pretty hard to condone that.
Social media is clogged with live footage from the protests. Can you find a single video of an ambulance being stopped by protests?
The irony of your comment is that the likelihood of an ambulance being close to a protest is linked to the extreme violence that the police is using to attack and repress protests against police violence.
> Why would anyone make a video of stopped traffic?
Because people like you are hell bent on smearing the protests, resorting even to come up with made-up accusations like ambulances stuck in traffic, and any evidence would provide some support to those claims.
But apparently even that is hard to come by. So here we are, stuck with fabrications and imaginary "what if" scenarios.
If there was a stopped ambulance with its siren on, people would find that very interesting and record it. This isn't some boring traffic jam, it's very political.
Anyways, if you're trapped in traffic and not moving, there's not much else for you to do besides get out your phone and take some video.
Except for the "Open States Up" protests that occurred that had hospital personal begging the protestors to let the emergency vehicles through. But that's a different type of crowd.
This is a commonly repeated rumor about the Michigan lockdown protests, but its absolutely not true[1].
"Despite some "confusion," Lansing police had no complaints about any ambulance being locked in traffic during an emergency, said Robert Merritt, a spokesman for the Lansing Police Department. When ambulances on non-emergency runs were in traffic, "rally participants slowly cleared a path," he said."
So maybe all the protesters against police violence should arm themselves. But considering how eagerly US police uses "I thought they had a gun" as a reason to shoot someone, I fear it would turn into a massacre.
People have done tests with white people and black people open carrying in exactly the same way. Black open carriers got a very different police response.
(Fascinating trivia: California allowed open carry until the Mulford Act in 1967 restricted it -- directly in response to the Black Panthers practicing it. The Act was signed into law by Ronald Reagan, with the explicit support of the National Rifle Association.)
Fun fact, the reason why california banned open carry was to prevent the black neighborhoods in Oakland from policing themselves as armed citizens: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulford_Act
Usually "I saw videos of this" isn't a good argument, though I do agree. I've yet to see any proof of protests causing an emergency vehicle to arrive too late, while there are numerous counterexamples. The most memorable to me was the video of a street absolutely packed in France where they made room for the ambulance to drive through.
You don't have to condone it. The question is whether it's appropriate to escalate to violence to stop it. And it clearly isn't, even from the very narrow perspective of the police. The phone video shot two days ago energized the huge protests yesterday, who ended up getting gassed out of a church in DC so the president could hold up a bible, which is driving literally millions more people into the streets.
Let them do their thing, and everyone will get bored. Yes, it's a dick move to block an intersection. But we don't tear gas routine assholes, right?
This is a pretty short-sighted argument, isn't it? Surely the long-term harm from systemic issues people protest against (namely, police brutality) will claim many more lives than a few weeks of blocked street intersections downtown.
There is absolutely no need for emergency services to track pop-up protests, the very notion is absurd.
We don't have the right to block traffic to promote our political opinions.
When protestors block traffic, if the city decides they have to go, and they won't - in those situations, it's the protesters who are 'instigating', not the police.
NRA 2cnd amendment protestors, pro/anti-abortion protestors, anti-capitalist - whatever we want it doesn't matter. If the protest violates the local or regional ordinance, and the city asks protesters to move (and they do in many cases allow the protesters to stay) - they have to move, if they don't move, it's not the police's fault that they are literally required by us, the community, to move people.
Edit: I would like to invite anyone to define exactly under what conditions people think they have the right to stop traffic at major intersections for hours on end, other than of course signalling to the city beforehand.
Protests are inconvenient. But if you can amass enough people day after day to block major intersections with crowds of people, then the correct thing to do is to block major intersections with crowds of people day after day.
If people don't want their intersections blocked by crows of people day after day, then they should consider the extent to which their interests are compatible with the interests of the protesters, and if necessary and reasonable, consider joining the protesters to help them achieve their goal sooner. If seventy percent of the US population were protesting, the protests wouldn't last that long - unlike in Hong Kong.
Being a large enough crowd to block an intersection does not mean your views are valid enough to be supported by everyone else. Would you really advocate joining KKK protests just because they were large?
White supremacists are actively trying to fly under the radar in open-carry protests right now.[1] There’s a lot of weird noise in that area online and off. So just because white supremacists and their sympathizers get to protest, that doesn’t mean other people get to protest? Sounds like separate but equal to me.[2] Not for me or mine.
This was your hypothetical, but it’s actually reality. Protest is protest. It’s for the whole society to decide what are valid forms of it, at every level.
" It’s for the whole society to decide what are valid forms of it, at every level."
That's just lawlessness.
There's not way to make up the rules as we go along, using the 'winds of the day' and what's happening on the news to determine what's a legit protest and what is not.
We do decide collectively what's what by using laws and policies. We make those, we make them clear, and then we apply them.
It seems as though you can't block traffic at a busy intersection 'because' - and so whatever the protest is today, it's not right.
We can't make up as we go along, that's chaos.
People can protest in parks, in front of city hall etc. - that works, it's peaceful and within civil framework.
As I said before, that is not backed up by Supreme Court precedent. You need to cite your claims as to constitutionally-protected protests being synonymous with lawlessness. As I read the Constitution, any act determined to be protest by the courts is legal until found otherwise. Police decisions about lawlessness are only valid in a law-enforcement context, and such police determinations are only provisional, and are not exclusively binding; they can be superseded by higher authorities in the executive branch, and challenged by the public, legislature, and judiciary, on legal grounds as well as humanitarian grounds.
You haven’t responded to my legal arguments and justifications. You are moving the goalposts and doubling down. Please keep on point or
I will not have any substantial points to respond to.
> I would like to invite anyone to define exactly under what conditions people think they have the right to stop traffic at major intersections for hours on end, other than of course signalling to the city beforehand.
When peaceful protests have failed to affect change and police brutality (especially for POC) is continuing unabated.
I'll respond to this comment here on behalf of all of the responses to my point:
None of you have provided any reasonably objective definition of what could constitute an otherwise illegal, and sometimes violent protest.
These responses sound a lot like right-wing NRA 2cnd Amendment people barricading in buildings with guns and police surrounding them kind of rhetoric.
All three of the responses (at the time of my response) purport arbitrary definitions of self-determined, extra-judicial action - essentially vigilantism.
Literally, people inventing some cause and then taking over public property, sometimes causing damage, or worse.
If you accept your own definitions of 'legitimate cause' - I'm afraid you're really not going to like what a lot of other Americans would like to protest, just as violently.
If people are going to protest, especially when things can get violent, they're going to have to do so in a way that's not entirely disruptive -> like gather in a park, otherwise, it's just not going to work out.
We don't get to invent the law, no matter how passionate we are about something.
There are just a ton of better ways to create change that are totally within civil and legal framework, and there are many good examples to follow. And especially the rioting is probably counter-productive in almost every sense of the terms.
Whoa there, extremely confident used-to-being-right guy. You're digging in. I'm sure you feel threatened at the possibility you might be wrong, but take a breath, please.
By your definition, black people using or destroying a whites-only bathroom as a form of protest would be off limits. I'd recommend some time away from the keyboard and do some reading about protest and the cultural history of same. As a very basic starting point, you might consider reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protest in its entirety.
A mark of any free democratic society is for the right of the public to engage in peaceful protest and for the form of that peaceful protest to be not be constrained by external parties.
For example it is not up to the government to define what constitutes an acceptable peaceful protest.
When you get to the point where the government defines what is and what is not an acceptable protest then you no longer have a free democracy society.
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Your priorities are reversed. Black lives being taken by police aggression are not less important than free flowing traffic. Even more so when the former has been the status quo since before the civil war.
Where I live you have to send the places and waypoints your protest will take before you start one so that emergency services can route around protest and have some units on standby in case things go wrong.
You can see in the HK protests the sea of people instantly parts to form a path for ambulances. American protesters just need to learn these advanced coordination tactics.
Blocking traffic might reduce auto accidents, saving lives. How many of those ambulances are responding to auto accidents that could have been prevented?
If one person dies in an ambulance (which has never to my knowledge happened in the current protests), you think that is a more important problem to address than 1000 people getting extrajudicially executed by police in 2019?
Race relations between Oakland's black residents and Oakland police have been fraught for decades (probably at least since the founding of the Black Panther Party in Oakland in the 60s). But that doesn't justify the violent actions you've described.
Unfortunately, some senior "dog whistle" politicians have labeled protesters "thugs" and "looters" and have called for "shooting" and "no quarter." These loose words are dangerous and may be unlawful: https://lawandcrime.com/george-floyd-death/republican-senato...
As a result of these statements, some armed enforcers including police, National Guard, and U.S. military may interpret these bellicose pronouncements as a declaration of war or a granting of letters of marque and reprisal against protesters and their property.
Good leadership would call for toning down the rhetoric but leadership appears to be in short supply. Gefickt, we are.
While I think Cotton is a jackass, I can’t help but notice how your first paragraph is about Oakland, California, and your second paragraph is about a guy who is a Senator in Kentucky.[1]
Oakland has had a Democratic mayor since 1977. California routinely has a super-majority of Democrats in the state legislature, and the last Republican Federal Senator from the state left office almost 30 years ago. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that the second paragraph after mentioning the “fraught” relationship between black residents and the Oakland PD should have something to do with those Democrats who have direct executive and legislative control over the city and state, who are directly in charge of hiring/firing police chiefs and operating the state level internal affairs bureaus, and who set police department budgets and make the laws. And maybe the (admittedly deplorable) coded language a Republican Senator thousands of miles away uses belongs many paragraphs below that.
> Oakland PD should have something to do with those Democrats who have direct executive and legislative control over the city and state...
I agree. But that's not the whole story; perhaps not even the main story here. "Police act like laws don't apply to them because of Qualified Immunity": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23373329
- "Few doctrines were more solidly established at common law than the immunity of judges from liability for damages for acts committed within their judicial jurisdiction... "
- "This immunity applies even when the judge is accused of acting maliciously and corruptly... " and
- "... the immunity of legislators for acts within the legislative role was not abolished. The immunity of judges for acts within the judicial role is equally well established... "
- "The common law has never granted police officers an absolute and unqualified immunity" but "... a police officer is not charged with predicting the future course of constitutional law... " and "the defense of good faith and probable cause... available to the officers in the common-law action for false arrest and imprisonment, is also available to them in the action under § 1983 [Civil action for deprivation of rights]."
After which followed a cascade of case law that granted police officers, and others similarly anointed, a "qualified immunity" to trials (including pre-trial discovery): https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/qualified_immunity
Oakland lies within the ambit of the U.S. Supreme Court so, as long as qualified immunity remains the law of the land, local officials have limited ability to change a long-standing police culture of impunity.
> coded language a Republican Senator thousands of miles away uses belongs many paragraphs below that.
I disagree. Thanks to telecommunications, social media, and other new-fangled technologies, powerful and influential persons can cause action at a distance of thousands of miles. "Thousands of miles away" is meaningless in instances in which powerful persons can transmit or impose effects tens of thousands of miles away.
Referring to looters as 'looters' is not problematic.
Calling for shootings, using code-words like 'thugs' and referring to peaceful protesters as 'looters' is a problem - but let's not lose context here: there are riots and rioters are bad news.
I think in these ugly times it's even more important to be cool and clear about things.
In any given group, you can’t know with certainty whether past or future looters are present; looting is an action and not a quality. It is subjective.
Is removing anti-riot barricades ‘looting’ if protesters remove them from the street and out of the control of authorities in order to exercise their right to protest?
Branding someone a rioter empowers the utterer and subjugates the one deemed rioting in your framing. You seem to think it is justified to use violence against someone because of how you perceive their actions, even if they don’t hurt people, only property. There is a subtle but distinct difference. Using force to defend yourself and others has a long precedent and is largely uncontroversial in a public context such as this. However, a citizen in public generally can’t engage someone who is running away from them as they are not in imminent danger. Unless you think they are immediately returning with a weapon, you have to let them go once they get away or chase them and perform a citizen’s arrest. Shooting a fleeing person is frowned upon by the courts. Only police have that authority.
Why then are citizens taking it upon themselves to prevent looting and rioting? Defending businesses and private property from the inside and the entryway is one thing. Chasing fleeing ‘looters’ is a situation for disaster. Besides mistaken identity, which is already causing defenders and protesters who fought looters to be detained by police while actual looters escape, there are problems with armed individuals running into crowds of undifferentiable groups of protesters, looters, and rioters. How will the defenders know when to stop beating people up? How will they know if the protester defending the person next to them from collateral damage isn’t another looter? They will see what they want to see in the situation, on both sides.
Violence is not the way. I just don’t see how property damage is a mortal harm that justifies what I’m seeing. It may not be justified to damage the property, but as an individual or small group of defenders, there is no proportionality of response that makes sense against a large group of people. To start the fight is to lose on all sides. The protest will end when it ends. Lives shouldn’t end through protest, or through its consequences. One was enough to start this one. There’s a reason people do it, even if it may have knock-on effects. That’s the point. To shutdown protest because of its intended and unintended consequences is to make a means test for our constitutional rights. It’s not tolerated well in the streets or in the courtroom.
The defenders are unknowingly or knowingly participating in a counter-protest movement against the current legitimate George Floyd protests. It is being promoted through dog whistles by the right wing. It’s actually really obvious that authoritarians aren’t wasting this crisis. They start as many fires as they put out. I’m including rioters in that last part.
>>>>>>>>>> "looting is an action and not a quality." - no, it's absolutely a crime, and a 'quality' of an individual to the extent that we definitely consider it very immoral, and we have laws against it. It's not 'protesting' in any sense of the term.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "Branding someone a rioter empowers the utterer and subjugates the one deemed rioting in your framing" - a 'riot' is not a 'framing' - it's for the most part an objective fact. People trying to protest are not rioters, people smashing stores are rioters.
No doubt the press and various people will try to 'frame' in one direction or the other, but there's no escaping reality.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "Chasing fleeing ‘looters’ is a situation for disaster" of course it is, it's crazy irrational, and I hope that would be illegal everywhere, though I'm not sure. I also would hope that nobody would frame that as 'defending one's property' because it's not.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "I just don’t see how property damage is a mortal harm that justifies what I’m seeing."
Now this is a really meaty question. I agree with you, and I think most people would agree - however - in these cases the police are not using mortal aggression. There are literally riots and looting all over the country, and the police are using pepper spray, shields etc. - there were lethal responses where shots were fired (and FYI police and civilians have died amidst the riots). Also - things like rubber bullets can kill, but that's due to a probabilistic problem, not any kind of intention. Maybe the police should not use those things, but it's more of a very specific question about safety.
>>>>>>>>> "The defenders are unknowingly or knowingly participating in a counter-protest movement against the current legitimate George Floyd protests. "
There are a few things to unpack here:
'The defenders' if you mean police, then they are very lawfully authorized by you and I, the community, to move the rioters and looters out of the area, arrest them etc.. We should not for a second confuse them with some crazy folks with guns or weapons attacking protestors, that's clearly immoral and illegal. And we should also not confuse 'protesters' with 'rioters'.
As far as 'right-wing narrative' - although that is true, if anyone can't see that that there is a massive and systematic 'social narrative' (left wing?) being driven by millions of participants, even those who should be neutral, is living in a bubble.
Most importantly - there is rioting and looting. This is not being done by the police, or by some secret Russians, this is being done by people within the protest movement and it's clearly wrong. It's definitely happening and it's absolutely reasonable to point that out, and to do so is not to necessarily support some kind of narrative.
In fact, to not characterize rioters and looters as such, would be an offense against the truth, just as characterizing protesters standing on a corner with signs as 'rioters' would be as well.
Because there are a lot of people driving narratives of some kind or another (pretty much every political force and most in the press), doesn't mean we're entitled to just 'go with it', we have a responsibility to try to stay 'clear-eyed', perhaps more than ever.
1. Rubber bullets kill when they are used in the exact opposite way they were intended. They are not meant to be fired at people's heads. If used, they should be fired at the legs to incapacitate. This is covered in training. I very much doubt it's an accident that they wind up hitting someone in the temple.
2. I did not explicitly authorize escalation between my city police and protestors. If you want to know what works when it comes to preventing riots and looting, read: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/de-escalation-keeps-pro... I watched in my city as protestors were turned into rioters because the police reaction to the middle finger and some naughty language was riot gear and tear gas.
3. You're very confused. You explicitly say we should not confuse protestors with rioters, and then go on to say that rioting and looting is being done by people "within the protest movement". You can't have it both ways. What you don't seem to understand is that it can simultaneously be the case that there are people who are committing "crimes" to have their voices heard, and people who are committing crimes because it's an opportune time to commit them. What you fail to recognize, is that we may disagree about what a crime even is societally. And to wit, that is exactly what we're disagreeing about right now. By strict legal definition, looting is a crime. However, the motivation for the crime colors it. If someone was starving and stole a loaf of bread it would be a crime, but the motivations for that crime color it. I would not, for instance, tear gas a starving person for stealing a loaf of bread.
--
In the end, your version of "clear-eyed" is code for "whatever I deem to be the valid laws of this society", not necessarily what is truly just.
Good point about context. Are these looters stealing bread for survival? I see them looting jewelers and high end retailers, like Gucci then torching the place. What is the motive?
If you believe these looters are doing so for justice, then know that the people who killed Floyd will be tried for their crimes and that you can not cast all law enforcement officers with the same stone. The people that pinned down Floyd all should be punished, but if you believe all of america’s officers are the same, isn’t that like condemning all blacks when one commits murder? However, if you believe that there is systematic racism in law enforcement, wouldn’t it be healthier to petition for change peacefully and specifically instead of fucking up the city because someone was murdered?
People are more important than property, I‘m sure you‘ll say, so then I can rob you and torch your home? Of course not. If these recent flashes of theft and vandalism can be justified, please enlighten me.
Also, a new bill is being introduced to end Qualified Immunity. What are the reasons for protest at the moment?
"Urban riots must now be recognized as durable social phenomena. They may be deplored, but they are there and should be understood. Urban riots are a special form of violence. They are not insurrections. The rioters are not seeking to seize territory or to attain control of institutions. They are mainly intended to shock the white community. They are a distorted form of social protest. The looting which is their principal feature serves many functions. It enables the most enraged and deprived Negro to take hold of consumer goods with the ease the white man does by using his purse. Often the Negro does not even want what he takes; he wants the experience of taking. But most of all, alienated from society and knowing that this society cherishes property above people, he is shocking it by abusing property rights. There are thus elements of emotional catharsis in the violent act. This may explain why most cities in which riots have occurred have not had a repetition, even though the causative conditions remain. It is also noteworthy that the amount of physical harm done to white people other than police is infinitesimal and in Detroit whites and Negroes looted in unity.
A profound judgment of today’s riots was expressed by Victor Hugo a century ago. He said, ‘If a soul is left in the darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.’
The policymakers of the white society have caused the darkness; they create discrimination; they structured slums; and they perpetuate unemployment, ignorance and poverty. It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes; but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society. When we ask Negroes to abide by the law, let us also demand that the white man abide by law in the ghettos. Day-in and day-out he violates welfare laws to deprive the poor of their meager allotments; he flagrantly violates building codes and regulations; his police make a mockery of law; and he violates laws on equal employment and education and the provisions for civic services. The slums are the handiwork of a vicious system of the white society; Negroes live in them but do not make them any more than a prisoner makes a prison. Let us say boldly that if the violations of law by the white man in the slums over the years were calculated and compared with the law-breaking of a few days of riots, the hardened criminal would be the white man. These are often difficult things to say but I have come to see more and more that it is necessary to utter the truth in order to deal with the great problems that we face in our society."
Thanks for sharing that quote. It helps me understand your view a little bit more. Of course it’s well known that blacks experience a disproportionally higher degree of discrimination, but can we stop shifting blame for looting and vandalism over to another entity? Even if you want to blame the government, you would be hard pressed to find a law that oppresses anyone by race. Racist laws? No. Classicist laws? Yes.
It's not about shifting blame, it's about understanding that complaining about looting is missing the forest for the trees.
Protests and looting are a symptom of much deeper ills.
Also,
> you would be hard pressed to find a law that oppresses anyone by race. Racist laws? No. Classicist laws? Yes.
With all due respect, this position exposes a lack of understanding of US history, and I'm not just talking about slavery or the civil rights act.
Some things to Google if you want to open that Pandora's jar:
- Redlining
- Poll taxes
- Nixon starting "War on Drugs" to target black communities
- Federal exclusion of black families from New Deal homebuying programs
Many of the laws and policies that have targeted black people specifically are also classist through a certain lens, but when you look closer it's usually targeting poor people because poor Americans are disproportionately black.
> ...isn’t that like condemning all blacks when one commits murder?
I believe that's the case already, Ergo, racism.
If peaceful placards and singing kumbaya really did work effectively , for black people in particular all over the world, we'd have a very different discussion. Police brutality is an extension of the governments very existence - "legitimate" violence - which is turned up to war-time levels when minorities are concerned. All this is smoke an mirrors to the contempt of a man being killed by law enforcement officer in a way that would make Ted Bundy blush.
It seems whenever black people protest, the narrative seems to be of barbarians storming the city gates. An "over-reaction" if you will. Is it? The message of the protest is clear, if a tree falls - the ground will shake. Is that unreasonable?
Singing Kumbaya would fix nothing, just like looting fixes nothing - don’t strawman me. I’ve yet to see any justification for the theft and vandalism. If you believe police brutality is a systemic problem in the government, might I suggest you fix the problem in that arena instead of on the streets? If you feel compelled to protest, maybe do it in a manner that actually communicates your demands. The person who killed Floyd will be dealt with in court, and Qualified Immunity is being repealed. What are you insisting that we protest?
Looting proves that protest is amorphous, not black and white, and protest will autonomously raise the stakes when the risks associated with mass public social action is considered low, or the frequency between social progress payouts is too high, or the demand for social progress reaches a tipping point.
I have seen your comments in this thread and trust you to reword it in a less convoluted way if you choose. I agree that my syntactic construction was rather tortured.
My main point is protest is what protest does: force the issue. The methods of protest are varied and of disproportionate impact to society. If protest is to succeed, social impact must be calibrated to the received response to protester demands. If no response or negative response is received, increase social impact to belligerent parties and the general public, if necessary. Protest without corresponding social impact is ineffectual at forcing the issue but can be effective in virtue-signaling, which can create a virtuous loop of increasing awareness and support, and increasing numbers of protesters.
I live in an affluent community. Many of my neighbors are police officers. When I read that an officer in the city had been shot, I worried for the people I know. I don't condone violent protests.
But I feel compelled to object to your seeming attitude that things would work themselves out without the need to protest.
I strongly believe that two wrongs don't make a right. But one wrong observed in silence is tragic.
You question the reason for protest when there is some bill being introduced. I posit that the bill would not exist without the protests. I also remind you that a horrible, terrible war was fought to end inequality over 150 years ago. I remind you that the civil rights movement was more than 50 years ago. Why protest when those already solved all the problems?
We must always be willing to step up against injustice. It is not a one and done proposition.
This in no way excuses people who are just taking the opportunity to steal a TV. Or who mistakenly channel their emotions by destroying or injuring.
By defenders, I mean those not associated with law enforcement, who defended people or property from harm or damage during protests. You seem to really believe in capital T truth as something that can be known by you and by others including police in a large protest, or riot, or looting, or all of the above. I don’t share this belief in Truth being knowable in the field. That’s why police don’t have unlimited latitude to identify criminals and respond to suspected criminal acts in the field. They must act within policing standards set by the community in stated and unstated ways. Otherwise, they may not have a job if the service they provide is made redundant through community involvement in legislatively changing police mandates, authority, and priorities.
But more to my point, police are not judges, lawyers, or most important, juries. They don’t decide what is just. They just deliver those suspected of lawbreaking to the judicial system, which determines guilt or innocence under the law. As far as the legal system is concerned, everyone has presumption of innocence. The way you are characterizing people as looters or rioters is to say that what they are doing is unlawful, but that’s just like your opinion, man. One person’s rioter is another person’s edgy protesting neighbor. It’s for the courts to decide which behavior is law-abiding. If they aren’t convicted, they were not found to be in violation of the law, yet. It’s strange for you to presume they would found guilty just because you disagree with their actions. Sounds authoritarian to me and not in step with our justice system or the times.
I understand the truth can't always be known in a situation - and I fully agree given ambiguity, he police don't have the right to use inappropriate force - however 'looters are looters' - there's no question about the illegality and inappropriateness of that, and we do know that looting is happening.
This looting causes a lot of personal damage, people are losing their life savings and livelihoods, and nobody seems to care.
I see a lot of rhetoric and populism trying to side-step the issue and it really needs to be clear - there's a very wide gap between 'protesting' and 'looting' and they are not 'shades of the same thing'.
Also, I'm not sure if it's legal or appropriate to even 'protest' out in the open, on highways or streets - I think these things need to move to controlled ares, like in front of city hall or in parks, but that's a slightly different matter.
I'm also not entirely condemning people 'caught up in a riot' as I understand these things happen in social waves, and people would be doing things they might not otherwise. It's not a big moral condemnation, it's an articulation of reality.
I'm actually sympathetic to the protesters overall, but I lose sympathy quickly when I see it out of hand. I also think we need to be sympathetic to the police, and accept that we, as citizens are giving them a nary impossible task - which is to use force to move people out of an area, and then somehow remain within perfect contraints at all times. Some of the police actions are beyond unreasonable and they should go to jail, but I'm not even sure that it's systematic. What can we expect by sending 5000 officers in to physically move aggressive, often violent people out of the way. Punches will fly in some cases. Batons, purposeful harm with weapons, irresponsible use of fire arms - this is too much obviously and has to be punished.
I'm really happy to show support for reforming police actions, but I'm not going to take sides in a 'civic street war'.
What's happening now is just shameful for almost every party.
It's shameful that you think that these protests aren't acceptable outcomes of police brutality. The protests are a direct result of the public not accepting the status quo anymore. The death of a person at the hands of the police started this fire. The police keep it going by aggressive unconstitutional protest containment actions. I don't agree with you at all, and I have laid out the legal and social basis why you are wrong to believe what you do. If I have failed to convince you, I'm sorry. I tried and will keep trying. If you choose not to agree with my interpretation, that's fine too.
Protest and looting are shades of the same idea. If you don't care about us taking up space in your streets, maybe you may care about being deprived of your corporate assets. Corporations aren't people. People are people. If harming corporations leads to an increase in human rights, that is a net gain for society. To question whether the cost is too high like you do shows you care more for property, capital, and the people who wield these asset classes, than you do for those who have cause to protest. Just because you don't share their cause célèbre does not invalidate it.
Reasonable people can disagree. It's impossible to be reasonable or disagree if you're killing someone or being killed. The police actions up to this point have been unreasonable, and so the response of the public is currently outside the scope of actions that can have a reasonableness standard applied to them. Protest is inherently justified by the Constitution. The response to police brutality and lack of internal reform proves the police think they are right to kill people and don't need to change. That's why the protests continue. To stop protesting now would be to negotiate with terrorists. The protests must continue as long and until the police come to the table with protesters and stakeholders, and they all negotiate a solution.
Here in Santa Monica the police ignored nearby looters to fire upon protestors. The two groups were largely unrelated and physically separated, making the police’s actions very hard to justify.
"people of color can’t protest without the president calling for them to be roughed up"
Did Trump call for them to be "roughed up" before or after the protests turned into riots?
A more intellectual honest version might be:
"people can’t riot without Trump calling for them to be aggressively policed"
The splintering of reality is the scariest thing going on in the U.S. Some of us are still trying to stay grounded in facts while others float away on clouds of propaganda.
In any case, it’s all the same: in a country that parades its freedom, people of color can’t protest without the president calling for them to be roughed up, and without the police willingly complying.
That’s a load of bullshit and you know it. This isn’t the situation.
Instead of dismissing it all as “bullshit” it would be more helpful to elaborate on what you deem to be inaccurate.
For example, in my limited opinion, “the police willingly complying” is an overstatement as our country does have many responsible law-abiding police officers who would not heed incitement from anyone including the president.
In all seriousness, what is incorrect about that statement? Take a look at all the video taken since Saturday, then compare it to, say, the protests against lockdowns just a few weeks ago. Surely you see the very notable difference?
Is it the open carry of long guns? Is that what peaceful protesters should use to de-escalate the situation? Makes perfect sense. Cops love guns! Just some cool doodz having a chill gun party, come have a beer and a doobie, officer. Show you mine if you'll show me yours?
I’ve changed my mind on this recently; I suspect that if the protestors today had been heavily armed and armored, the cops would not have attacked them.
Numerical advantage of firearms means the first person to shoot downright loses. Both sides will do everything they can to not be the aggressor.
When you have disparity in ability to apply force vs ability to weather the response, that's when the violence actually happens. Nobody comes looking for a fair fight. Therefore you never find them when the stakes areas high as they are.
That sounds better on a bumper sticker than when you think about it even slightly longer. The police have tons of guns, armored vehicles, and the backing of the largest military in the world. If you threaten them, do you really think they’re going to back down instead of getting bigger guns?
The big bad military isn't going to end up doing squat, because the moment they are employed, odds are unless there are a hell of a lot more people out there perfectly fine with watching what are largely peaceful protests get steamrolled. Furthermore, it'll be a tacit admission that the State's legitimacy is significantly compromised.
Many in the military are, contrary to popular belief, quite patriotic, and very concerned withthe integrity of the system. It is not a foregone conclusion a dearth of volunteers to put the boot to countrymen may manifest.
Furthermore, to the sibling poster's assertion that's a great way to ensure gun control laws get passed, when the State's legitimacy is already in question, further clenching of the iron fist (particularly from the American viewpoint I grew up with) will exactly not yield the quiet compliance one might imagine. In fact, it would result in quite the opposite given any active attempt at confiscation.there's also the problem of who you intend on having do said confiscation, and just how bulletproof they are, and where on the "persons I'll comply with" spectrum they'll fall on .
Also, again, once the guns go, all the other far more destructive, nigh-impossible to regulate means of destruction and mayhem creation get put on the table. You don'thonestly think that all that new anger will just go home and sulk while you have the government of the United States running around fielding the least hyperbolic stormtrooper initiatives on American soil, do you?
If you think things are bad and violent now. Get back to me when you start actually pulling the pages from the dictator's population subjugation handbook.
This entire endeavor is remarkable in that it is trivial for this turmoil to bedissipated bythepolice deescalating and being open to a a greater degree of civic oversight,and being held to a higher standard. Or so the protestor supporters seem to repeat. The refusal to make a meaningful gesture in that direction suggests to me that it what we're going through is a macro-event. Something that's been building for a long time, and isn't going to ground out without substantive structural change.
It's anyone's guess how this'll go; but I'm wagering the first time the military proper gets involved it may be a sign of the end days of the country I was brought up loving.
Then again, I've been wondering if that was the case since 2001... So... Yeah. Take it or leave it.
Well said internet stranger. I'm not American so I may miss some vital context but it really seems this protest has, at least execution, some parallels with the French yellow Vest Protest. The content of the protests could not be further apart but your observation, in the sense that this American protest is the resultant course of a long smoldering grievance, is apt. The situation is not helped by the American president being so cavalier about abusing the powers of the state. A dictator is like an angel compared to a democratically elected despot. Reminds me of a certain Indira and her son.
In some democratic countries and my own, the military is a respected, even hallowed institution. We never hear anything about them except the rare event some lose their lives in some UN mission or they have the rare parade in memorial events. No politician in his right mind would even utter, in the slightest, the deployment of the military for internal strife. Not even as a joke. So we trust our democracy as valid, imperfect, but in the best interests of the people.
But in the end, the American issue does strike one as strange. A people who believe themselves - self-proclaimed leaders of the free world - must surely ponder why they are at a junction such as this. The solution is simple as all hell and yet, here we are.
My view may be colored by living in occupied DC, where there are a lot of armored vehicles and heavily armed federal security forces, some of whom appear to be quite comfortable amping up the violence levels. Given their past actions, black people with guns would be a time-honored excuse to say they felt threatened.
I have a number of coworkers who are veterans and while they’re generally confident that the military would refuse to follow general orders to attack civilians, nobody wants to test what might happen in confusion if they’re deployed to backup the police. All you need is one mistake and a lot of people can get hurt before the confusion clears.
It’s tough to say which state will use Trump’s magnanimous offer to deploy the military, but similar to the lockdown, I can imagine a cascade across state governors taking the offer, and even more hilariously - a partisan split of Republican governors taking it and Democratic ones not. Perfect to bait back the base that secretly seethes at the racial undertones of events like this. The collective sentiment will be invisible in pre-election polls, but Trump knows how to conduct the silent orchestra. It seems unimaginable, but beware the hidden vote.
We’ll have to wait and see, but the stage for this to turn into a mockery is mostly set. NYC is on day two of a mandatory curfew.
I see we’ve already downgraded to “several parts” of the statement. But you’re right, if you refuse to actually articulate your objection then no, we cannot have a productive discussion.
"numerous videos show police breaking windows themselves"
I don't believe you.
The umbrella guy breaking the AutoZone window with a hammer has no connection to any police department. Someone made that up on social media and people shared it because that's what people do.
The only video I know of showing officers breaking a window is out of Seattle. It shows officers responding to a burglary in progress at a Target store. The officers had to chip away at the already broken glass windows so they could safely get in. (The burglars had broken the glass to get inside.) Once inside, the responding officers found and arrested the three burglars they had come for.
How much clearer can you get that the police are committing property destruction and using it to blame protesters? Like there is no justification for the police doing this outside of using to make their own narrative so that they can bust some heads at the next protest.
That looks very suspicious, but if this were really a widespread technique by the police, I'm assuming there would be more than a single video taken.
I mean, we know the black bloc and similar groups engages in these tactics, they've been doing it since Seattle WTO 1999. I've seen it in person to protests I've been to (as a protester). It's very hard for me to believe that all of a sudden those people are no longer active in protests, and their place has been taken by (insert your politically-convenient group here).
> That looks very suspicious, but if this were really a widespread technique by the police
Giving your comment the benefit of the doubt, that does not address the fact that a while platoon of police officers witnessed a fellow police officer vandalize public property without any reason or justification, and they didn't even flinched or complained or even frowned upon that brand of unprovoked abuse.
That's pretty much one of the central points of the whole protest.
> they didn't even flinched or complained or even frowned upon that brand of unprovoked abuse
I have seen dozens if not over a hundred videos of the police acting inappropriately over the last few days. I have only seen a single video in which any of them were stopped or reprimanded by another cop and that one "good cop" was a woman of color. If this inappropriate behavior is done by such a small percentage of the police force and is frowned on by all the other good cops, why is there so little evidence of police policing themselves?
The video of George that started all this has 4 cops in it. The 3 cops that allowed him to kneel on georg's neck for 7 minutes are not being charged with anything at all. The one female cop even remarks that George should be moved to be on his side, then when she's ignored, doesn't bring it up again. Why should they police each other when nothing happens when they dont
Have you seen dozens or hundreds of videos of civilians acting inappropriately?
If a “woman of color” was seen starting a fire, would you be comfortable saying things like “black women start fires”? I sure hope not. Even if you had dozens of examples, it would still be wrong to make such a statement.
>Have you seen dozens or hundreds of videos of civilians acting inappropriately?
Yes. I have also seen countless videos in which civilians were reprimanded by other citizens for acting inappropriately. They are trying to police themselves. Why can't the police police themselves?
>If a “woman of color” was seen starting a fire, would you be comfortable saying things like “black women start fires”? I sure hope not. Even if you had dozens of examples, it would still be wrong to make such a statement.
I don't know what you are trying to insinuate with this comment. I was not making any blanket statements about anyone beyond the general group of "police".
Joining the police is a choice. Being a woman of color is not a choice. Making a blanket statement about those two groups is therefore entirely different.
My blanket statement about police was also framed as a question. I said I have seen very little evidence I was wrong. If you think I am wrong, you could try providing an answer to that question rather than attacking the question itself.
If it were me, and I had a first hand account of what he did and whether he had a justifiable reason, I would have it documented and escalated after returning to the office, hopefully anonymously, or at least confidentially.
I would also keep an eye on that officer to see if there were more violations.
I would not break formation and try to handcuff another officer in the moment, because it would be strategically unwise.
Way to not read the post. You’re perhaps being a little naive. There is more than one way to accomplish things, and your way is not the most effective way.
Would you find it acceptable to shoot some footage of a handful of looting/arsonist incidents and proclaiming “protesters are doing X”, just like we are complaining that “police” are doing X?
Or would you correct someone and say that isn’t happening, and when confronted with a video of someone somewhere doing a bad thing, inform them of the fact that a few cherry picked anecdotes do not represent the activity of the broader population?
No one disagrees that in any group only a small number of bad actors are causing this issue.
However, when a civilian acts inappropriately there are legal consequences. When a police office acts inappropriately there are few legal consequences and they are very-very-rarely enforced.
I'll ask the question differently,
"Is destruction of property what you expect from rioters?" Yes, 1% or less of rioters are going to be stupid. "Should they be reprimanded?" Sadly yes, and we have specialized government entities that can utilize appropriate-force to reprimand them.
"Is destruction of property what you expect from police?" No, not even from the 1% or less that want to be stupid. That is unacceptable, their job is to protect and serve. Even from each other. "Should they be reprimanded?" Yes! but we as civilians have no legal way to do this, and even the "good cops" have no good way to do this.
What are your answers to these questions lawnchair_larry?
Aha, but the analogy that you made with those questions has a critical error. The correct analogy would be questions that read:
Is destruction of property what you expect from civilians?
Yes, sadly, 1% or less[1] of civilians are are going to be stupid and riot instead. And that is unacceptable.
Should they be reprimanded?
Absolutely. And we have specialized government entities that can utilize appropriate-force to reprimand them.
Is unwarranted destruction of property what you expect from police?
Yes, sadly, 1% or less[1] of police are going to be stupid and abusive. That is unacceptable, their job is to protect and serve. Even from each other.
Should they be reprimanded?
Yes! but we as civilians have no legal way to do this, and even the "good cops" have no good way to do this.
[1] We do not have data for either of these figures, so 1% is being used as a placeholder, and is not meant literally. I suspect that the percentage of criminals in the general population is far bigger than the number of police who destroy property for no reason, but I admit that I have no data for that.
And should reprimanded citizens continue to be citizens afterwards?
Yes, in almost all but the most extreme of cases. (And the people who make that determination are called "judges" not "cops".)
Should reprimanded cops continue to be cops?
No, in all but the most trivial and excusable cases. (And the people who make that determination should also be called judges not cops.)
If you get given a badge and a gun, and job that demand people to people to respect your authority, you not only get held to a higher standard than those of us without, but you also put your livelihood at stake if you choose to behave in a "stupid or abusive" manner.
It's abundantly clear to people outside the US that the cop who killed George Floyd needs to be fired and prosecuted for murder, the three cops who stood there and let him do it need to be fired and prosecuted for accessory to murder, and those four cops chain of command also needs to be investigated for culpability and almost certainly fired if not prosecuted as well. It seems unbelievable that some US citizens think otherwise. I expect that from cop unions, who've proven themselves time and time again to be completely devoid of humanity or morals, but find it unthinkable that anyone else can't see it clearly as evil thuggery from people who society has to demand better from. All four need to never be in any position of authority again. At least one of them needs to be in jail for life.
From what I can tell your only change was to add the word “unwarranted” before destruction.
Could you please help us understand your position on “Should abusive officers be reprimanded?”
And if we agree they should be reprimanded, what are your thought on how we build that system?
The system where we the civilians who witness or are victims of the abuse and other “good cops” who witness the abuse, can get legal ways to highlight and reprimand those few abusive police officers[0]?
[0] such that the person/people accusing (with evidence) the abusive police without worrying other police officers will “hold it against” the accuser.
He seems happy to accept that 1% (as a placeholder) of cops are murderers, and there's nothing we can do about that.
(He claimed that in the context of property damage, which hides the actual implications of that carelessness, because it wasn't police property damage that triggered this current unrest...)
I _strongly_ disagree. A cop committing assault or murder, while on the job, is a thing society needs to take great care does not happen. It's abhorrent to me to take a "shit happens" attitude to cop killings.
Parent said property damage, not me. So your uncharitable assumptions about my intentions are way off on that point. If you want to reframe the issue from property damage to killing unarmed civilians, take it up with the parent. We were talking about the video of the cop randomly smashing windows.
Not surprisingly, your straw man is just as bad. Nobody said or implied anything remotely close to a “shit happens” attitude. Did you just not read the next sentence or something?
You said "stupid and abusive". Not the sort of terminology usually used for "property damage".
And yeah, I read (and just reread) your next sentence, and it still reads as a "shit happens" attitude to me.
As I read it, you're saying there's nothing we can possibly do to ensure that rate of "stupid and abusive" cops is any lower than the rate of "stupid and rioting" civilians. (Or the most optimistic reading of it I can see is that you think we can't do any better a job of ensuring a lower rate of stupid and abusive cops than we have now.)
I think we need to do a _way_ better job of screening cop applicants before giving them a badge and gun, and hold them to a way higher standard that is currently the case.
It's well known that some people in society are crazy, so an occasional video of someone acting crazy doesn't really mean much. Police though need to be held to a higher standard. So a video of police doing something bad is much more impactful. And this isn't just a police officer doing something all alone, there are a ton of officers surrounding him and not stopping him.
> Would you find it acceptable to shoot some footage of a handful of looting/arsonist incidents and proclaiming “protesters are doing X”, just like we are complaining that “police” are doing X?
It's very easy to attribute actions to the police, since they very commonly wear easy-to-identify uniforms and it's illegal to impersonate them. The video above was of a uniformed police officer in the company of maybe a hundred others. It's the literal job of police to stop crimes, so if you see an officer commuting a crime and his colleagues see and don't intervene, you can assume some level of assent to the officer's criminal activity.
Even if you found a video of a looter/arsonist, how do you know they're a protester at all? If they are a protester, how do you establish what their faction is (BLM, anarchist anti-capitalist, Neo-nazi agitator, etc.)? How do you judge the attitudes of the other protesters to to their actions, given protesters aren't equipped to enforce the law and don't have the mandate to do so?
Yeah, at least 5. I've seen >50 videos of rioters destroying and looting, maybe 5 of them engaging in violence, and maybe 10 of police engaging in excessive force, so I feel pretty comfortable having established that there's a pattern in those activities.
I'd like to see about 4-5 of such videos. The more the merrier. I'm totally open to changing my mind.
There's no point in telling us how many videos you've watched in those categories, because "number of videos someone personally watched in each category" tells us more about that person's viewing preferences than the prevalence of those incidents. For example, here's a twitter thread of 170 (so far) videos of police excessive force. If you watch all of these then your updated statement has a different tone.
I wasn't providing those numbers to prove "my side", or any side. I was providing them as a benchmark for how many instances of an event became a pattern in my mind.
If you had read the comment carefully instead of rapidly responding with a "rebuttal" based on your ideology, you might have realized that.
I find the bigger issue to be the videos of police doing nothing to thwart blatant vandalism, and the contrast of those videos with the unprovoked attacks on what appear to be peaceful protesters.
The “politically convenient group” seems to be anyone being destructive, like ...
The sum of causing unnecessary damage and turning a blind eye to vandalism at least gives me confidence that there is a desire by many police officers to see property destroyed.
From that I can only guess at what the reasoning might be, but given that we’ve seen this method of undermining protests in the past, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume racist intent until there is evidence that begins to support an alternative conclusion.
Considering that police are being beaten badly and some killed attempting to stop
"protestors", I think it's not surprising that many have chosen to do nothing. Better safe than sorry.
Actually, there are dozens of different videos showing police being badly beaten as they attempt to stop vandalism. They just don't make the news as this isn't "progressive".
So is this how we've decided it's going to be? We have all protesters on one side, and if any protesters do anything bad, all get punished? (I also find some moderate irony in you claiming something doesn't make the news, then linking a news website.)
I can link a dozen twitter videos showing all kinds of people getting badly beat up by protestors - none of which ever made the news as it doesn't fit the progressive narrative - but I don't think its worth it. And frankly, it's not hard to find these by yourself.
Everyone now considers general violence and looting as legitimate actions in response to a crime committed by one police officer.
Floyd's death was a tragedy and Derek (the police officer) responsible must pay heavily for it - a 2nd or 3rd degree murder conviction should be handed down to set an example. That case should be scrutinised heavily - and it will be.
But I really don't understand why other people must suffer for one person's crime. The larger focus should be on the US police needing remedial training. Call up congressmen, call up senators. Rioting on the streets doesn't solve anything.
Calling up congressmen and senators hasn't solved anything. This has been an issue for thirty years, and no progress has been made. Violent crime is down, police use of force is up. What's going on wasn't working.
If you think this is one man, think again. Give me a city and I can give you the unarmed black person killed by police - Dallas, it's Botham Jean. Miami, it's Trayvon Martin. New York, it's Dwayne Brown. Years and years and so little done.
And now, people are now in the streets in reaction to police violence against people in the streets. If you see protesters being shot with tear gas for the crime of kneeling and shouting, people are going to come out and make their voices heard.
And this is working. Minneapolis Ward 3's district commissioner is calling for police abolition. For once, for absolute once, the media is actually on the side of the protesters, because once they got over the shock, they saw their own being attacked by police just as much. So before you say it doesn't solve anything, look at what it's already accomplished, and look what it can accomplish soon.
I got police sensitivity training when I travelled to the US - not a joke. How to talk to a US police officer, etc. Make sure you don't get out of your car - a lot of rules that Americans know implicitly.
But police abolition is not going to solve anything for you folks. It will mean an extraordinary increase in crime. I have lived in multiple nations and a strict police is better than police who do nothing. You will be at the mercy of crime lords. And no business store owner will open a shop in a police-free district.
All these rioters for freedom and dignity are fine on the TV. When people are on the wrong side of the mob, they change their minds pretty quick.
What I advocate for is a series of measures where trained members of the community, as a job, are in charge of primarily, defusing conflict, secondarily, preventing crime, and as a last resort, enforcing community standards and laws. No arrest quotas, limited jail, no cash bail, no mandatory minimum sentencing. This sounds like what I hear police are like in other places, but existing police power structures are powerful and resistant to reform, so wholesale replacement appears to be the best tactic.
I read through that article - naive and idealistic. I guess only a first-world citizen will believe it works. And not to put you down - I admire your innocence that you think this will work. This all breaks down as soon as someone from outside the community or someone powerful in the community introduces drugs which kill, a crime boss decides to beat up a few people for protection money, poor people or addicts decide to invade homes to steal your stuff, folks involved in 'community policing' decide to flex their muscles and make their 'fair' judgements which favour their own. You will feel utterly helpless.
Maybe you think all this won't happen. I have lived in poor and powerless communities earlier in life and seen all these things happen without a proper police presence. I had my sister assaulted when I was young and was unable to do anything about it. I despise 'community policing'. The cliques it creates is far worse than the full hammer of the full armed forces.
Anyways, I wish USA the best of luck. I really hope the looting and rioting in NY stops soon.
"Agent Provocateurs" are an old and well documented technique with examples varying from history through the civil rights era to the current day protests.
But it's also hard to dismiss it out of hand, given known true police behaviour. A very common view from the public is that cops are totally capable of that kind of behaviour. And whether the story about the cop setting the first fire is true our not, the believability of the story is as much a problem as the possible truth of the story.
> What's the process by which you established this as a known thing?
Primary, by power of observation. But OK, I'll make this as vague and 100% foolproof as I can, to start: there are people who dress in black, and masks, and destroy stuff and commit violence at protests. That's from actual observation. It's not just 1-2, there are groups of them. That's my personal observation from being at 2 protests with such groups.
OK, so what was the group dressed like that in black who were doing it in the video I posted, in the Trump inauguration? That guy is textbook black bloc. There are hundreds of mainstream media videos showing guys dressed like him burning and destroying in prior protests, from Seattle WTO 1999, to Occupy, to more recent protests.
I urge HNers to read that article you posted and decide for themselves if it's credible.
Then, read the wikipedia article I posted, refer to the sources at the end, google around, and decide for yourself.
An agent provocateur will always, except where it is physically impossible such as when no one of the right race is available for a group distinguished by race, outwardly appear as a textbook member of the targeted group. That's kind of central to the idea.
I'm characterizing the black bloc mostly by their tactics. Are you saying this guy blends into the group because he's dressing in black and destroying stuff, just like they do?
I think that we should publish short-sleeve mug photos of all these groups, because both anarchists and white supremacists often have identifying tattoos. Let there be light. The more transparency the better.
But unless I manage to convince myself that, somehow, police agent provocateurs or white supremacists were staging riots and destruction at Trump's inauguration (see video below[1], there are many others from those riots by mainstream media outlets), then my prior is currently that most of the people engaging in these tactics are the same people who have done it for the past 2-3 decades, which I've witnessed in person.
To clarify, are you suggesting that all this the riots, looting, and assaults are being done by agents provocateurs? Most of them? Some of them? Just that one autozone?
And they absolutely need to be held to a higher standard than "the public", because we give them guns and state sanctioned use-of-force. They cannot do their job without respect of their authority, and they do not have that respect, and they are doing the exact opposite thing of winning it back.
While not condoning the "textbook black bloc" actions, I can see why 2 centuries of systematic oppression might lead some people in some sections of society to think there are no other options.
I have no explanation for the current police behaviour that's more sympathetic than cynical South Park quotes. And if _that's_ how they want to be portrayed? Well, I guess they're achieving it...
(And as I pointed out elsewhere in this thread, I too have doubts about the veracity of that article I posted - but it's at least in mu mind, more than plausible. And _that_ is a serious problem. I too urge HNers to decide for themselves if they trust their local police force to think none of them would ever use unnecessary force, or go agent provocateur. If you have any doubt, you have a big problem.)
Multiple people have replied with evidence in this thread.
I don’t know your view on the matter, but somehow I doubt that seeing videos will do anything to change your view on the matter anyway. I say this because in a thread about police brutality, you cherry-pick an argument counter to what videos have already shown.
I do hope the continuing videos showcasing police brutality, during protests OF police brutality, do something to convince people that it is a very real problem.
It's actually worse than that. Even in the killing of Floyd the Police claimed he resisted arrest, which was a lie[0], the coroner said it wasn't asphyxia that killed him (despite all the videos) and a private autopsy found that's not true[1].
They did all this amidst a huge public outcry, what do you think happens to some poor schmuck when no camera is around.
Like this[2] and this[3].........
EDIT: Here is one where the cop force the poor guy to grab his baton and leave his fingerprints so he can accuse him of whatever he wants[4].
EDIT2: What do you know "his death [Floyd's] is on their hands [protesters and looters] as much as it is those officers"[5]
"the coroner said it wasn't asphyxia that killed him (despite all the videos) and a private autopsy found that's not true[1]."
The county coroner's report was technically true in a way meant to imply a false result.
Floyd didn't die from lack of airflow, he died because the knee stopped blood flow to the brain, that is the brain couldn't receive Oxygen despite the body being able to breath.
The county coroner carefully checked that Floyd could breathe, but not blood flow to the brain. Once asphyxia was ruled out (not really, since strangulation is not the only way to get it), the coroner was free to imply whatever was comfortable to the police.
I wonder how many other autopsies done by the same coroner were also misleading, and whether other cases will need a retrial.
Was this the coroner or medical examiner? I didn't think the coroner did a report. The medical examiner released their full report shortly after the preliminary one and did state the death was ultimately due to asphyxiation. I read that the initial medical examiner's report didn't go this far b/c they had not completed their review and they needed to get a report out quickly so that the officers could be charged.
IIRC we're talking about the initial report. Later on, they backtracked, but their original report was patently flawed. Given the direction and obviousness of the flaws, one must question whether the flaws were only due to haste.
In the video I watched (the one with multiple viewpoints from security cams, dash cams, etc.), Floyd did resist when they attempted to take him out of his car, and then again when they tried to put him in their car the first time. Of course, none of that should have resulted in a death sentence.
How is it that this man, Floyd, has been turned into a saint? He was intoxicated and behind the wheel of a car! Had he not been stopped, and killed an innocent child, it might be on the 5 o'clock news but probably not; none of you would care and would still be insisting that everyone be forced to stay quarantined for Covid-19 reasons. Sure, clearly the cops handled this wrong, but what got Floyd there in the 1st place? High on drugs or alcohol, passing counterfeit money, and driving while under the influence - hardly the kind of model citizen/saint we want on the streets. All of you are hypocrites...lambasting people at the beach enjoying the sun and praising people out on the street vandalizing and looting....
> Sure, clearly the cops handled this wrong, but what got Floyd there in the 1st place?
What? Seriously, what? Are you suggesting that the police should be free to pick and choose who they kill based on whether they are a "model citizen/saint" or not?
"Do not kill a person unnecessarily" should be a universal rule the police work to. It doesn't matter one bit who they are interacting with.
Between this attack and the flamebait in your other comments, you're crossing into bannable territory. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here.
"Do you have a reading comprehension disability" is plainly an attack.
"Pointing out the truth" can certainly be an attack or flamebait. It depends on which truth and how it's used. One middle schooler "pointing out" the acne on another's face can be quite an attack. The hardest substance (truth) makes the sharpest weapon. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23381247 on the "it's a fact" defense, the most beloved of trolls.
For example, let's assume that your comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23396054 was factual and that George Floyd was intoxicated when he was killed. Bringing that up in this context, as if it somehow mitigates anything about his killing, is certainly flamebait, true or not.
Re "I see - only the hive mind is allowed" - that's also a common response. Everyone always feels like the mods are against them, secretly siding with the opposition: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... We oppose your favorite sports team too, and conspire with the highway patrol to make sure it's always you who gets the speeding ticket.
I can’t respond to your earlier comment: but people aren’t saying he’s a saint; they’re making him a martyr of sorts. He died from police brutality, and instead of trying to fix that (over the past few decades), the police and President have waged civil war.
Civil War? More blacks are killed by blacks - far more than blacks are killed by police. That is the real civil war. When are black leaders going to address that?
Black leadership has been bombed, assassinated, and jailed. Their neighborhoods are targeted for predatory financial extraction and are disproportionately exposed to environmental hazards like waste processing plants, dumps, etc.
The Black Panther party had significant leadership and unification, social programs like food, educational programs, etc. They were killed. Bombed in fact. Prominent leaders were shot in their beds by the government.
Black Wall Street existed, utterly peacefully in fact, and they were utterly destroyed by white riots.
The black community has tried repeatedly to address things and in every turn they were beaten back down.
There was a public inquiry afterwards that led to the creation of a Police Complaints Commission. But that was largely ineffective for at least 20 years afterwards.
Ultimately I think integration and education are the only solution. My parents didn't meet a non-white person until they were in their late 20s. At my school there were a few black families. At my kids school there was a lot of diversity; and differences in race, sexuality and religion seem to be "old people's problems" to them now.
Deflections are not really a productive discussion tool.
That aside, why do you think that is? Could hundreds of years of systemic economic repression have any causual effect on that? Do you have any suggestions how we as society could bring those numbers down?
Lastly, how in bleeps name does that justify police violence?
Then why does it matter whether he is a "saint" or not? I could see your argument if he was angrily brandishing a gun and they had to make a quick decision to act, but that's very obviously not the case.
Exactly. He could have done whatever criminal things prior, but it has nothing to do with the specific scenario. He wasn't resisting arrest and was unjustly killed. Whatever he has done in the past has no bearing on it.
People tend to forget that others are just mere humans, and no one is a saint. Ffs, even MLK, for all the great progress he brought about, was cheating on his wife, which is imo pretty immoral and universally condemned. But it doesn't diminish his accomplishments in any way.
Get out of here. You whine about people putting words in mouths after saying
* We're calling Floyd a saint
* We support looting
* We don't take covid seriously
And you say a whole slew of accusations that you KNOW aren't widespread (and likely untrue) and don't post sources. And you'll say something like it's a liberal media coverup, but you won't have shit to back up your claims.
Please don't attack another user or post in the flamewar style like this to HN, regardless of how wrong or provocative another comment is. It only makes this place even worse.
Note this guideline: "Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead." That's our indirect version of please don't feed the trolls. Other users flagged the comment, and it was rightly flagkilled. That would have happened sooner if you had followed the guidelines also.
I'm compensated, which I mention because it's relevant to the health of HN. When people aren't paid to do something, they extract compensation in other ways, and that would exercise a distorting influence if it happened here. Being paid is part of what allows us to be relatively neutral. Also, the job can be a little intense, so one needs to remind oneself that one is choosing to do it, and being paid makes that relatively easy.
First, this evidence there was 'no resistance' is not evidence at all, in fact, the claim by CNN is 'the lie'. There are many minutes of the interaction we don't have insight into, in particular the moments leading up to the 'kneeling'. That doesn't mean the police are not lying, but it definitely means the 'proof' offered by CNN is not 'proof'.
Also, city coroner made one claim, the coroner hired by the family made a different one, the claim that somehow the coroner hired by the family is 'correct' is just flat out inappropriate. Personally, I'm slightly more inclined to believe the city coroner, and that there were probably some complications. When the victim initially came out of his vehicle, it seems he fell to the ground in a manner that didn't seem to be due to a struggle, which would indicate something was wrong, physically, already at that time, obviously exacerbated by the police brutality.
The county coroner changed their report and labeled the death a homicide after the outcry that the original report was a cover-up. They no longer have any credibility.
> In charging documents released last week, prosecutors said that preliminary results from an autopsy "revealed no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation."
>However the new report from the medical examiner did not include such language.
If this is true, it's all very terrible, it makes me dubious of the entire situation and I would hope that there would be an external (Federal? Non-Barr appointed?) investigation.
To me, it was pretty clear that the police in Santa Monica and Long Beach allowed the looting to occur while treating the protesters like criminals from the outset. This isn't to say that other local precincts weren't significantly better in their treatment of protesters, but there's clear evidence that many police departments are either corrupt or completely inept in addressing violent crime.
This has been a long time coming, too. In the last few years, many police departments around the country have thrown their hands up and publicly stated they won't be bothering with most property crimes. The way they see it, the only crimes worth their time involve people not committing real crimes at all or crimes involving guns or knives. Anyone who doesn't get why people don't trust the police has been living under a rock. This goes beyond just racism.
The police seem to clearly be allowing looting on purpose. SoHo was looted two days in a row. Where were the NYPD? There are 10's of thousands of uniformed officers Maybe you can say the first day they somehow missed it, but two days in a row? Come on. I refuse to believe that they didn't see this coming - they brag about how they're "gathering intel" on terrorist groups, but they couldn't check twitter to see #soho trending?
They want the story to be about rioters so they're letting them riot. It's a way to shift the public opinion (same way some cops have been seen breaking car and store windows).
> Politicians who cross the MPD find slowdowns in their wards. After the first time I cut money from the proposed police budget, I had an uptick in calls taking forever to get a response, and MPD officers telling business owners to call their councilman about why it took so long.
I have no context on this, but just reading that sentence, why wouldn't a budget cut raise response times? Is there context that suggests they're lying?
Huh, interesting. I was presuming the police department propose their budget and then the city alters/approves it as they see fit. If they lower it then that would be fairly accurately described as "cutting money from their proposed budget". Is that different from how it works here?
"What you've been seeing is basically a cat and mouse game all night. The police have been here with a huge show of force, but they can't stop people, because they don't know that they've necessarily been looting. And so they're waiting for somebody to do something, police move onto the next block, and then someone does something."
I don't know one way or another whether this is the whole truth, but it appears to play a significant role according to the reporter.
What would you have preferred? If the police shows up and the looting does not stop, they can either use force (aka violence) to make it stop, or they can go home, essentially giving up the rule of law in the area.
Not showing up can be a tactical decision: you don't have to generate more bad press and more cries about police brutality and you also don't need to quasi-officially hand over the area to the looters.
The state's power isn't real as in "we can crush you", it rests only in everybody's fear of the state being able to crush them. If there's a chance that the state has to back down, not seeking the confrontation sounds like a smart choice to me, even if it comes at the price of a day or two of looting.
But they were already violent, just to the peaceful protesters. So why was there a massive police force at a peaceful protest, where they were already willing to brutally engage with the protesters, but not in soho where there were looters two days in a row?
Your argument can't possibly be "Because they didn't want to escalate" or "They didn't want people to think they're violent" when they did escalate and were violent elsewhere.
I am in full agreement that it was tactical - it allows them to punish a neighborhood and to shift the story.
The state's power is not just fear alone, it's legitimacy. What stops people from looting under normal circumstances is the belief that looting is wrong and will be punished, and people will agree punishment was justified.
Failing to respond to looting damages the state's legitimacy. Responding to looting and failing to stop it damages the state's legitimacy. Even responding to looting and successfully stopping it damages the state's legitimacy, because mass looting signals that looting has become more acceptable.
Oh, absolutely, but there are different levels of damage.
Germany has an issue with criminal clans from the Middle East, our law enforcement system isn't equipped to deal with them and our laws in general aren't either. The approach is pretty much "try not to engage", because while it's damaging to have "extended families" with hundreds of members where basically everyone of them has a criminal record, the other option is either locking up everybody (terrible idea in Germany) or trying to reason with them and failing (showing the state tried to handle it but failed). Not engaging is just the cheapest option and does the least amount of damage (I'm not suggesting that's necessarily true for the situation in the US, I don't know it well enough).
If the Leviathan shows its teeth and the problem doesn't go away, it has to bite. If it doesn't, everybody will see that the teeth aren't that sharp any more, and that will encourage more challengers.
> The state's power is not just fear alone, it's legitimacy.
For the people that don't require laws and punishment to behave morally, yes. For those that do, they obviously don't care about legitimacy or that looting (or any crime) is wrong, otherwise they wouldn't commit it. It's only those people that any society needs to worry about, and it's only those people that the state needs to convince that it is stronger than them.
> Germany has an issue with criminal clans from the Middle East, our law enforcement system isn't equipped to deal with them and our laws in general aren't either.
There is a big disconnect between the crime statistics in Germany, that show low crime levels by international standards and recent reductions in crime levels, and what the German public believe about the prevalence of crime in Germany due to alarmist tabloid reporting.
Sure, but that doesn't change the fact that the (real and perceived) level of some clans are terribly high. And I still believe that "don't touch it" is the right call to make, the cost of trying and failing is too high, and the probability of succeeding is small.
> If the Leviathan shows its teeth and the problem doesn't go away, it has to bite. If it doesn't, everybody will see that the teeth aren't that sharp any more, and that will encourage more challengers.
But that's effectively what doing nothing does. The state has teeth (the police) and it doesn't bite.
That's a completely unambiguous signal to both criminals and law-abiding citizens. And the results of this policy anywhere in the world is the problems have just grown in size and gotten worse.
> because while it's damaging to have "extended families" with hundreds of members where basically everyone of them has a criminal record
Remember when these "extended families" were an order of magnitude smaller and we applied the same policy of non-intervention? And look what that got us!
When are we finally going to apply the only acceptable course of action?
> But that's effectively what doing nothing does. The state has teeth (the police) and it doesn't bite.
Kind of, but not really. If you send the police to confront the looters, you are showing your teeth, you're saying "this will stop right here and right now, or else". You have to have a plan for the "or else" part.
If you don't send the police, you're not saying anything. Everybody is aware that the police exists, but unless you assert your power, there is no challenge.
This is obviously not a possible long-term strategy, because not having any power and never asserting the power you have are functionally the same. I don't think that anybody assumes the rioting will be a long-term problem though, so that may not be an issue.
> When are we finally going to apply the only acceptable course of action?
We won't. We're doing harm-reduction, both on a society level and, for politicians, on an individual level (and for management in large companies). Kick the can down the road. Attacking the big problems before they become unavoidable isn't something our systems are set up to do, not causing disturbances is incentivized, be that in law enforcement, dealing with dead industries surviving only on subsidies, education, pollution and emissions, health care, public infrastructure etc pp. "Spending $5m on that bridge now will save us lots of money in the future" isn't what the public sees - it's "they want to waste $5m on a perfectly fine bridge".
The looting is giving them political cover to attack those who directly threaten their identity. It's quite clear from their other actions where their priorities lie.
They have no (personal) reason to stop the looting, and at the same time, occupying their attention, the opportunity to strike out at that (very personal) threat.
I would have preferred that law enforcement enforce the law. If people are looting which is illegal, they should be arrested or at least deterred. If they are violent and resist arrest then the minimum amount of force necessary to apprehend them should be used. If people are protesting peacefully which is legal, they should be left alone.
I just love how everyone hates cops and talks about how every single one of them is worthless yet they expects them to save their store from being looted.
You decided you were better off without me, fine, save your own store.
> You decided you were better off without me, fine, save your own store.
For what it's worth, this is why people hate cops! No one said anything about all cops being worthless, and you're saying that victims of crimes deserve it for not praising police brutality.
The expectation of the public is that police should prioritize deterrence and investigation of property crimes above assembling a massive show of force to deprive peaceful protesters of their 1st amendment rights to free speech, to peaceably assemble, and to petition government for redress of their grievances.
Cops that are busy kettling up protesters for later official intimidation and violence are not available to respond to crimes happening elsewhere.
Business owners are better off with insurance, alarms, and dedicated private security that won't abandon their protective duties every time they feel like pepper-spraying a liberal in the face for no apparent reason.
Please don't descend into strawman arguments and false dilemmas.
It is not a binary choice between the militaristic, public-hostile police we have now, and no police at all.
As it is, the police in schools frequently do inappropriate things, such as bodyslamming 40kg girls or putting children in handcuffs for acting up in class. A school security guard, charged with protecting the students and staff, with no authority to arrest or punish anyone, would do fine.
You literally said “this is why people hate cops” right before saying that nobody said that about “all cops”.
There are other examples all over this thread. Nobody is complaining about a specific cop, they’re generalizing everything to “cops”. That’s what that is.
you're saying that victims of crimes deserve it for not praising police brutality
How do you expect anyone to take you seriously with such absurd fabrications? Anyone can scroll up and easily see that I did not say any such thing.
> I guess it's too much to ask that police obey the law they are supposed to be enforcing.
Historically, we see that any group given power eventually starts abusing it. For modern definitions of abusing power, anyways. Past societies would have seen it differently, perhaps the divine right of kings or some such nonsense.
A fascinating example would be the wealthy nobles of the late (western) Roman empire. They shielded citizens from military service, and in exchange expected work from them, generally on their vast estates. After the collapse of the empire, this relationship eventually evolved into the feudal lord/serf relationship. Also, Diocletian's reforms didn't help, but that's a topic I'll leave for another post.
I guess this is kind of a long-winded way of saying this, but what you're asking for does seem unreasonable in the long term. Human beings don't seem to work that way.
That all being said, the long term I'm referring to is the 250+ year timeline. We might be able to goose the current system along for another few generations if we do it right. If it's worth it or not depends a bit on your perspective.
I’m not sure why you made this comment. As far as I can see, nobody is doing your first sentence, and we all agree on the second. Police should definitely obey the law!
> You decided you were better off without me, fine, save your own store.
How should we have read this sentence?
Why couldn't you have instead said, "You decided you were better off without a shitty abusive police officer, fine, call me or other police instead." ?
I'm not sure what it is you're suggesting they do. If they arrest the looters, you will complain of "police brutality", since as a rule, criminals do not go into custody willingly. If they do not, you will complain of "looting". They also can't individually go after looters in this situation - too dangerous. Whatever they do they have to do as a group, without dispersing.
The looters take advantage of the chaos. The chaos seems willingly and knowingly caused by the police. I would at this point consider the police atleast somewhat responsible for the conditions that lead to the looting.
Are you living under a rock? Reddit has a compilation thread of dozens of examples of police escalating situations, attacking press, pushing old men with canes to the ground, shooting residents ON THEIR doorstep, randomly grabbing civilians and assaulting them. The list doesn't seem to stop.
Since 2001, police have taken more American lives than all other terrorist activities combined.
Oh please, nice try. You'd have to be desperate to make that assumption, just like the previous person that tried to pull that.
Supporting protestors and civil unrest doesn't mean you support violence, but I'm not a naive child that thinks great change happens without bad things accompanying it.
Extraordinary enough? A birds eye view, of a protest that was peaceful for hours, until police grab for an umbrella, and start attacking the crowd.
Here's an ant's eye view of the same event, by the way. @26:30 - the gas masks arrive, @28:20 - the gas masks take their place in the line, @30:00 - the umbrella gets grabbed, and the crowd gets attacked.
This was also the case at Fairfax and 3rd in Los Angeles. Violence erupted only when the police arrived, not before. They escalated the moment they arrived.
This does not align with my experience. I off 3rd street, right by the La Cienega where significant looting occured. I intentionally walked outside while looting/vandalism was occurring and there was absolutely no police presence whatsoever except for police helicopters.
I walked down third street until I reached the point where the riot police set up a barricade and didn't allow the protesters further. It was really a peaceful scene where the police were setup, and I thought it was being handled very professionally with the goal to not incite violence (There were also 6 police helicopters circling the area) Everywhere the police were not there was looting.
The amount of misinformation being circulated is staggering.
>the police is desperately trying to set a narrative to justify a history of violence by escalating more violence, but please, someone, restore my faith
Seems fairly accurate. I'm just annoyed that many people can't grasp that awful police behavior and awful behavior from other actors are not mutually exclusive. There is lots of unjustified police violence and provocations against perfectly peaceful protestors. There is also systematic vandalism and arson by people who aren't peaceful protestors. And there is massive amounts of opportunistic vandalism and looting. All three can and do co-exist.
This is not a two-sided conflict. More like three- or four- sided mess.
One side of this coin is that the police have a monopoly on lawful force and therefore should be held to a higher standard. The other side seems to me that police derive their tasks from laws (handed down by the same institutions) and a certain degree of pressure is therefore accorded to enforce said laws.
I agree that we should expect better from the police and authorities in return, but also that we accept their use of limited force (even when not physically harmful) when necessary as the means to do so.
I personally lean towards presumably the same direction as you: that police should first and foremost be held to a higher standard before their legitimacy is accepted. However, I think it's not that far from the views of some that see their role in this conflict as imposing harsh law and order.
No, the police do not have a monopoly on the lawful use of force. Not in the USA... or, at least, not in most areas of the USA.
It's ironic that the people trying their best to change that are also the ones who are most closely aligned with the victims of police brutality, politically speaking. One of many things I don't understand.
What are you hinting at? A second amendment thing? Because that really has nothing to do with the monopoly on use of violence. You can be violent without a gun. Who gets to be violent in a legal manner is an orthogonal issue.
And how is it ironic? When has the second amendment ever done anything for victims of police brutality? How often has widespread gun ownership been used as an excuse for excessive police force?
The second amendment has everything to do with the question of whether the police (or any other state-sanctioned agency) is entitled to a monopoly on the use of force.
But like I said, I don't understand any of this. Maybe others can offer some insight.
You can hold a gun. You can't, and shouldn't, shoot police with it.
Even Castle Doctrine or Stand Your Ground cannot help you if you are being attacked or harassed by the police.
I'm anti-gun, but as I understand it, the second amendment only "helps" against state actors if the population as a whole is willing to overthrow the current government. At that point what "is legal" changes, like when George Washington's troops took America from the UK and wrote the constitution.
However, from a legal standpoint (i.e. based on the current government), the police has a "monopoly on lawful use of force".
Even Castle Doctrine or Stand Your Ground cannot help you if you are being attacked or harassed by the police.
Sounds like that might be changing for the better, given what transpired in the Breonna Taylor incident. I understand they just dropped the charges against her boyfriend, who shot at the police when they broke in.
I disagree, for the reasons stated. But I'm not a constitutional expert, less so for a country that is not my own. That said, you haven't answered my questions.
"Monopoly on violence" or "use of force" is the way I've seen it put by political scientists defining what it means for a state to be sovereign (that quality is really high up the list of things that go along with that). It doesn't mean only the state can legally engage in, say, violent self-defense, but it means the state is capable of dictating where and when "legitimate" violence may occur, and backing up those dictates with its own violence, with great effectiveness.
Not that this means a sovereign state may choose to make violent self-defense legal, for example, without any risk to its sovereignty, provided it's still the force deciding whether a given instance was legal and backing up those rulings with threat of or actual violence. It's the unchallenged (un-successfully challenged, at any rate) arbiter of what is and is not permissible violence.
The police are the primary point of contact between the citizenry and the state monopoly on violence when it is most acutely exercised (rather than merely threatened or practiced more softly), so framing this as the police personally having (been invested with) that monopoly, in the context of a meeting on the street between non-police citizens and the police, seems reasonable to me.
A state that finds itself unable to claim or maintain its monopoly on violence is at serious risk of loss of sovereignty, usually to whichever group is having success challenging that claim. Understanding how that balance sits can be a way to insight into the de facto power structure of a governmental system—for example, the de jure sovereign power of a state might be the civil government, but if it effectively operates at the pleasure of a military bureaucracy that has demonstrated the ability to topple the civil government and maintains a tacit threat to do same again in the future, then at best the civil government shares sovereignty with the military bureaucracy, and at worst it's a kind of puppet-state of the actual sovereign power (this, specifically, is why strong standing armies are seen as a risky tool for a state to keep—rather than increasing the power or control of the supposed sovereign, they can easily turn to challenging it very effectively). Turkey's operated this way, at times. Egypt, too. Not that uncommon an arrangement, the de facto sovereignty resting less securely with the de jure rulers than one might suppose.
Looking elsewhere in the thread, reports of police deliberately failing to use their (threat of or actual) force to uphold the law in the districts of politicians who've tried to do something they don't like (reduce their funding)—assuming they get away with it and aren't brought to-heel (apparently they have not been)—is another example of a force-bearing arm of the state threatening the sovereignty of the civil government.
[EDIT] on a more personal note, I'm highly skeptical of the utility of widespread private ownership of small arms as a means of keeping the state in check. I've not seen them to be a significant factor in successful resistance against a state, and especially not against one's own state. For one thing they're plenty likely to be used to enforce tyranny or perpetrate injustice on behalf of the government, officially or unofficially (often the latter—see the post-reconstruction South for a close-to-home example) and for another they seem to be neither necessary nor sufficient for armed insurrection to succeed. The critical factor seems to be overt or covert support by part or all of an actual military, whether foreign or one's own, to provide materiel and direct support (e.g. no-fly zones, factions of the army joining the rebels in a civil war, that sort of thing). I see them as a distraction. I wish the left would stop talking about them because it just drives some people away and they've made little progress on restricting firearm ownership anyway, but I also don't see them as somehow key to preserving liberty, simply because they seem secondary at best in any successful rebellion I'm aware of (except maybe against very weak states with tiny militaries that fail to levy more loyal soldiers before the shooting starts, but that's not, you know, the US, at all).
Orwell, writing about the Spanish civil war, gives the release of arms stockpiles to trade union militias as a key factor in the early fighting against Franco. That war saw a combination of foreign intervention, plus soldiers and police choosing either side, but militias still played a crucial role.
It's not clear whether arms stockpiles would have the same impact on a modern war, but they might.
Maybe a counterexample, but it's also a really weird situation. The arms in that case were seized from government arsenals (that's how I'm taking "public arsenals", evidently under the authority of the government pre-seizure, anyway), and the whole thing was a reaction to a very recent military coup, plus the elected government was still kinda trying to resist Franco and the army at that point. At any rate, the rebels here were the military faction under Franco. Plus the scrappy resistance using looted public arms lost :-(
Disclaimer: I'm not trying to set any narrative, just giving my own data point, no one should extrapolate this more broadly.
In my neighborhood, the event organizer wasn't even from my city and she was doing everything she could to get the crowd angry at police. Many of the others who spoke were calmer, more reasonable, more positive, sincere, etc, but she was trying to get people ramped up. The police weren't at the protest originally and she tried to use the lack of police presence to anger people ("look, the police don't even care about protecting you!") and then they merely showed up and it was the other way around ("the police are here to stop us!"). Seemed like she was trying to agitate people into provoking the police. Even still, the protest was generally peaceful on both sides; as far as I know, there was no police violence nor rioting/looting/etc. Proud of my hood.
I can weigh in a bit on what the police claim happened here in Indianapolis. They won't account for all of their CS deployments, which I think is crazy, but they did address why it started the other day (Saturday?). Their claim is that what they saw was some police inside the city/county building and a single person started hitting the glass on the building. Simultaneously, "previously peaceful" protesters started locking arms at one end of the street, blocking emergency vehicle ingress, so they let loose a bunch of (13 year expired)_CS gas.
Is that believable? Sure, but locking arms is also a common thing during protests. The road was already blocked off and cars weren't going through. Also, they fired CS into crowds of protesters blocks away, claiming that they think the protesters are coordinating by secure communications and instantaneously turning violent across the city. Most of it seems like bullshit, and even if it's all true, locking arms on one side of a closed street is not at all unusual. They should have arrested the one guy hitting the glass and let the protest continue.
By the way, they used this event to justify the curfews that haven't been raised since then.
I'm in Richmond, Virginia, and according to people monitoring the unencrypted fire department radios on twitter (one of them a fairly reputable community organizer, but rate the source as you will), this exact situation supposedly happened on Saturday night. Fire department got called to a shoe store fire, they faced some impediment reaching the fire, police showed up and dropped tear gas all over the area, and the fire department ended up back on the scanner requesting an ambulance for the commander on site for tear gas exposure, and additional PPE from another department to help the other fire fighters cope. The building ended up being marked a complete loss, although I'm unclear of the nitty gritty details like timelines, source of the fire, etc.
EDIT: I will also note that this, among other events, was used to justify calling for a curfew in town, and today, the mayor and police chief have condemned their own police officers for deploying tear gas on peaceful protests prior to the start of the curfews last night, and then putting forward a false justification (admitted by the police chief to have been a false justification, to be clear) for doing so.
Right. And this is the justification given during a press conference the next morning; it's not some on-the-spot question asked to the deputy chief of Indianapolis Police. It's a dumb excuse. Plus, it's literally one block long. If you want police on that block, they can stop around the corner and walk in. The building isn't touching the street; it's a couple hundred feet back.
As another observation, I've been to the protests in Raleigh, and at least 75% of the initial violent actions have been from individuals in the protest.
(I say 'individuals', not 'protestors', because the latter are peaceful people. The instigators are rioters and looters, a small minority of the people hiding within the former group.)
The other 25% has been initial violent action from the police. Things like shooting gas and charging forward when protestors were simply standing still.
Welcome to Russia . Actually, since 1993 police actions in Russia were never that outright violent and cruel as they are now in the USA . I'm watching news coverage with disbelief and anger, and I'm wondering if the pot will continue calling various kettles around the world black.
I'm seeing the same. Even when people are acting out, the police are supposed to be a professional, trained force that is capable of keeping them selves in control and knowing when to back-off and regroup when things aren't in their control.
All I see is crazed fighting from them. Wide eyed with fear, wild swinging, just indiscriminate violence. Is property damage bad? Sure. But good lord stolen Nikes are so inconsequential to what I'm seeing from the police right now.
I am not a bleeding heart liberal, nor am I some apparently crazed republican. I just don't like seeing my fellow Americans getting killed and beaten. The fact that they are totally immune from prosecution and oversight makes the power dynamic of it all that much more infuriating.
On the other hand all incidents of violence that I have witnessed so far was from the protesters to other protesters, and some against shops, shopowners, counter-protesters, and drivers. Although I am not doubting what you said, in my experience it seems that the protestors scatter and do not cause any unjustified violence when the police starts chaos.
I certainly don’t think the police cars in NYC going through those pedestrians - the first example on the page - is a good example.
People crowded around the vehicles and starting throwing things at them. While I would expect police to have more restraint/less fear than they did, that wasn’t the police starting violence. I would expect almost anyone to have the same reaction they did.
There was another NYC incident that people were up in arms about without context and it turns out one of the police had been hit in the head with a brick.
Two different police vans drove up to a barricade and there were virtually no people behind them. Where do you think they were going? Why do you think they drove into the barrier to begin with? Why could they not back up?
The barricade was put by the protestors in front of them, and they were apparently responding to a call.
Yes, they should have backed up. My point is that they were attacked first, nothing else. It was kind of a play stupid games scenario - if you do that to someone chances are they’re going to freak out and at best be unpredictable.
They were. Check out the video. You can clearly see the drivers window is broken, things are being thrown at them left and right, windshield is broken, then the next cop car shows up and people surround it and start punching the windows and windshield.
From what I've seen is everything is peaceful during the day time, but after the curfews or when it becomes an unlawful gathering (i.e. blocking interstates etc.) is when police intervene. Which is what they job is supposed to be. The methods used for crowd control are acceptable when things reach the above mentioned criteria. Protests during daylight hours, and not breaking other laws is fully protected by 1st amendment, and I have seen no sign of police missteps in my city during these lawful peaceful demonstrations.
And of course there was the case of the riots at the CNN headquarters.
But I think this clearly & quantitatively shows that in general actions against journalists are initiated by the police force, which I don't find surprising.
Someone at a protest was stabbed. Police was called to arrest the stabber and take the victim to hospital. They were actually leaving when some people started throwing rocks and bottles at them.
Well a police officer was killed trying to prevent a store being looted. But many people here consider looting as justified and warranted in the current circumstances - shop owners should grin and bear it for the greater cause - so it may not be what you are asking for.
Police is actively avoiding helping victims of lootings. Helps to discredit the protests and US police NEVER have an interest in helping anyways.
Just from personal experience in ca. 2012, the Binghamton, NY PD has openly threatened to plant drugs on us following a a noise complaint.
We talked to officers trying to cooperate but as we weren't following ORDERS such as "Don't scratch your arm right now!" the cops escalated and one took out a tazer. We were all white btw. and as a European I couldn't believe those cops. We calmly talked and suddenly we face a tazer? Because those authoritarian scumbags didn't want to hold a conversation with the people THEY confronted? Over a noise complaint?
Something is super wrong in the US when it comes to police. Maybe start educating them before letting them lose on society. It helps.
I agree that the US police in general needs desperate remedial training. My experience with them wasn't pleasant either.
I simply don't agree with the massive general violence and looting going on at the moment. That must be stopped. And police officers attempting to do so are being beaten to death. Some are also being shot while trying to prevent looting. I disagree that all police should pay for one person's crime.
Super late, but maybe you see this. I do not agree with the looting at all and believe these people have to be stopped and held accountable.
However, I think that the situation is so difficult, that society is incapable of finding a real helpful solution and as injustice keeps being comitted by police across the country, the emotions find a channel to break out.
How long can they violently treat citizens without consequences? The negative energy just seems to burst out here and it appears to be the natural consequence (which doesn't make the looting right, but maybe explains the negative energy a little bit).
I don't understand how you can think that all violence everywhere was started by the police. Yes, the police has probably been guilty of that, but do you really think all protestors are unanimously and inherently peaceful in every single place? Even in Sweden most protests are filled with bad actors and professional rioters who just want to cause a stir.
> Even in Sweden most protests are filled with bad actors and professional rioters who just want to cause a stir.
That sounds very much like your own biased opinion rather than the statement of fact you are presenting it as. I'm open to any evidence of that rather outrageous sweeping statement though.
>As far as I know,every documented case where a formerly peaceful crowd turns into chaos has been started with police shooting pepperspray, teargas, or whatever into the crowd.
Question to Americans: if the police really are acting this badly, why aren't y'all exercising your second amendment rights to defend yourselves? My naive understanding as a foreigner is that it's exactly what the second amendment is supposed to be for: protecting yourselves from an oppressive government. If the current situation doesn't warrant it, what situation would?
> Question to Americans: if the police really are acting this badly, why aren't y'all exercising your second amendment rights to defend yourselves?
Because that is a fever dream. The reality is that if you use a firearm on the police you get killed on the spot or it turns into a siege and you are killed some time later.
Even when the protesters vastly outnumber the police? The police used much less force against the anti-lockdown protestors, who were armed, than against the unarmed BLM protestors. I don't think most police would be willing to risk their lives confronting a large crowd of armed protestors.
They're wearing full bulletproof vests, shields, helmets, and drive up in armored personel carriers. What, pray tell, would a semiauto rifle do against that, other than get you killed?
The example gun-nuts usually point to is that Afghani farmers (and Vietnamese rice farmers) did a pretty good job of giving US soldiers trouble even though the solders were way better equipped.
A cop felt so threatened by a pink umbrella that he just had to have it, at all costs.
I've been watching (and attending) a lot of the Portland protests and it's the same story here. Peaceful protesters, violent police. They're all fully geared and armed, and yet feel threatened by water bottles being thrown at them. They feel so threatened by the people that just having protesters get close to a fence around the Justice Center will cause police to start firing rubber bullets, flash bangs, smoke bombs, and tear gas at unarmed and unprotected protesters. Police feel so threatened by unarmed protesters that they now need the help of fully-armed, fully-geared, completely decked-out national guard. This is an embarrassment for police.
Not that any of this is a surprise, anyway. A police officer felt so threatened by an unarmed, handcuffed black man that the had to murder the unarmed, handcuffed black man.
Nobody shot tear gas into the crowd that burned down the 3rd precinct in Minneapolis. It was the exact OPPOSITE. Police left the premises hours prior to the gathering.
The police are being told by the governors who are being told by the POTUS that the protestors must “dominated”. I’m not editorializing or interpreting here. Listen to Trump himself say it over and over again in the course of this phone call:
I think at some level, police are rioting to keep their jobs.
I came around to prison abolition once I realized it was a goal that was meant to be achieved piece by piece.
Cash bail. That's one piece. None of those people need to be in jail. They haven't been convicted of a crime and they overwhelmingly show up for their court date if released. The only thing they can't afford is their bail and that is used to get them to plead to crimes without the police having to prove anything. That's 470k people on any given night. *
Drug possession. Like to smoke weed? Well, that's your choice and no need to throw you in jail over it like 1.4 million people each year.
The other pieces are more radical or require replacement programs or just don't even have proposed solutions. But just above are two pieces of the incarceration system that the many people will agree could just be turned off.
So, if you turn those off, what's the staffing change in police departments and correctional facilities? We're not talking about firing for performance (yet), this is just run of the mill right sizing. Gotta be efficient--can't give people jobs as a handout.
What if you kept going down this line of reasoning. What if you ended racial profiling? Across the country black motorists are 20% more likely to be pulled over. Either black people are being targeted (the consensus) or white people are being given a free pass (my personal experience is that this is also happening). So either hire more police to pull over white people more often. We are doing hella drugs, driving drunk all the time, texting while driving, etc. Or, more along the lines of what everyone wants, there could be a 20% reduction in the staffing of highway patrol.
I think if the will of the people was respected, police departments would probably be reduced by 25% across the country. Certainly in NYC, which has one of the highest cops per capita in the world even though we have the highest density and cops shouldn't have to walk far to do their jobs.
If it were my policy though, probably 50% of police could be eliminated.
Possible explanation: (Note: I am not saying this is what happened in any specific case, merely that it is plausible.)
Police are on a common radio channel and coordinate their actions. Protesters aren't. If one protester takes violent action, most protesters may be unaware but all police will be. What you see as an unprovoked, violent response may actually have been provoked by something you simply weren't close enough to witness.
This explanation is pure speculation. However, if true, it does prompt us to ask if police can find ways to localize their responses better. i.e. If violent response is necessary in a specific location, is there a way to make police relatively far from that location aware of it without signalling imminent personal danger to them, thereby priming them to over-respond to whatever is happening at their location?
e.g. Instead of just hearing "They've pulled out knives!" over the radio, they might have a corresponding heads-up display showing where that message came from and where they themselves are in relation to that.
I've had the opposite experience in Chicago. I live in a high rise in the loop. I was able to watch the "protests", "riots", whatever from above. I'm sure I'll get flagged but these are my honest impressions on the behavior of the CPD and the protestors.
My biggest takeaway is local events translate to global action in the crowd (police or protestors). And it leads to all this misunderstanding. "What I was just standing here. Why are you pushing me?". Because jackass, a group of people 10 feet away from you threw rocks and bottles at the police. Sorry you got shoved but shit happens.
Below are my unorganized thoughts. Just wanted to get them out.
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There were like 100k people at 2:30 (maybe more I didn't count I'm just guessing). These people were mostly peaceful. The worst thing they did was chant obscenities about the police and jump on the cars of bystanders. Not the worst thing in the world but not the nicest way to protest either. I don't hold it against them.
By 6ish there were maybe 10 or 20 thousand hardcore protestors remaining. The people legitimately concerned about police brutality but not clinically-insane-enough-to-march-for-four-hours-saying-the-same-thing-to-no-one-in-particular went home.
These diehards are mostly a bunch of power tripping assholes. "Fuck 12", "ACAB", "Pigs", running up to the police line and trying to 'punk' them out. Just stupid. The weaker and frailer they are the more it seemed they had to say. They know they have all the power when they're with the crowd. Its simultaneously the most pathetic and the most terrifying thing you've ever seen because one of these cracked out weirdos is probably going to try to light your building on fire soon.
And then the fires start. Police cars, a 7-11, doesn't matter. The protestors block the street when firefighters roll up to put it out. They eventually move but I couldn't tell you why. Big shoutout to CFD for being total badasses. I wasn't about to walk out in the crowd even if I were disguised as a "protestor". They make their way to the fire, get it out ASAP and roll out before the crowd has a chance to completely engulf them. Though I never saw the bulk of the crowd leave the police lines.
I have to criticize CPD a little here. I was legitimately concerned my wife and I were going to burn to death in our apartment. I didn't have faith that the CPD could prevent someone from lighting my building on fire.
Thankfully it never came to that.
The police were completely outnumbered and were generally powerless to do anything when the crowd was in its full force. There were people with hammers breaking up the sidewalk to use chunks of debris as weapons against the police. The police just stood there unable or unwilling to prevent it.
In my mind, the police were present to A). soak up as much of the crowds rage as possible and B). prevent the really heinous shit from going down. I'm not talking murder. I'm talking burning an apartment building down with all the people inside heinous. Several murders happened behind the crowds (i.e. bad people are using the crowd as a human shield to do whatever they want). The police didn't (maybe couldn't) budge. Even if they did try to prevent it the crowd would have raged at their intrusion into "their" space.
After curfew the cops went on the offensive. The police began to march. Pushing the remaining "protestors" further and further south outside of the loop. This involved rubber bullets and I assume tear gas but I couldn't actually see this part. Along the way the rioters looted every business (aside from the Crocs store hilariously enough) from Wacker all the way to Roosevelt. I assume they looted further down but I didn't feel like walking any further through the ruins of my city.
I think you're underestimating the effect of corralling people with bridges and police lines. And then shutting down CTA. It's subtle escalation, but it's escalation. There's a very blurry line between "control the people after our jobs" and "keep people safe" and nothing about CPDs behavior looked like "keep people safe".
Police escalate conflict simply by showing up, especially in riot gear.
If the police were not there my life would have been at imminent risk. And if the police show up their lives are at imminent risk. So the cops have to show up and they have to wear riot gear.
I've had to live with months of protest downtown. People protesting to release prisoners because of coronavirus. People protesting to lift the coronavirus lock downs. In those cases there was no riot gear. Minimal police presence. When Friday's protest came around it immediately felt different. The people were much more angry and much more hostile.
People were looking at the Minneapolis riots with envy. People were shouting about the righteous cause of riots and looting. "Its the language of the unheard." Despite noble protestations that they were only going to loot the wealthy corporations with fat insurance contracts, they ended up looting everything. They ended up shooting each other far from police lines. They ended up burning police cars that were parked far away from police lines. They lit buildings on fire that could have very easily spread to neighboring apartment buildings.
You said:
> nothing about CPDs behavior looked like "keep people safe"
I disagree. "People" are more than just the rioters. They are rioters. They are residents in the immediate area. They are residents outside the immediate area who were spared the carnage by virtue of CPD's actions.
You can talk all you want about "subtle escalations". But truth be told anything the "authorities" do will be considered an escalation because the mob is not rational. It is primed to perceive anything and everything as a reason to execute its collective will.
Yeah, I don’t believe it. Rioting is natural human behavior. In Bangladesh we have violent riots after every election. The police aren’t instigating them, they are nowhere to be found. Why would I believe that Americans are any different?
It's different now. Early in the presidential campaign, anti-Trump demonstrators were blocking the road to the Reagan library to deny access to people heading to a Trump/GOP fund raiser
I remember thinking, America is in for it now, the Rubicon has been crossed. Since then politically motivated violence has been embraced and celebrated by many luminaries. Welcome to the normal.
I've seen quite a few videos and read a lot of articles about what's going on, and from my perspective Law Enforcement are scared Sh&^less they will lose control and get completely over-run by the protesters.
Realizing how angry the people are and how massively outnumbered they are they've decided to come out hard with violence in an attempt to squash the protests, which makes sense.
I don't think it would take much for the people to overcome the Law Enforcement with their overwhelming numbers. Once the news gets around that it's happened in one place, that will embolden others to do the same. I just hope it doesn't get wickedly violent if it happens.
All most of the protestors want to do is protest, ie partake in some of their 1st amendment rights. So the protestors "overrun" the police and then what? Continue to stand in the street chanting?
This feels like straight projection, and focusing on the few people taking advantage of the situation by looting etc. The police could solve that in a heartbeat by deploying small units into the protest crowds and working with the peaceful protestors, but first they'd have to give up on the goal of disrupting legitimate protests.
I'm not saying it's productive or a good thing, I'm just saying that's what it feels like.
People are only going to stand and watch their fellow citizens get shot point blank in the face with tear gas canisters, pepper spray and rubber bullets for so long.
Law Enforcement are denying people their right to demonstrate, and I feel like people are going to fight hard to keep it.
EDIT: I mean, watch this [1]. Those look like Police who are desperately trying to maintain control with the only means they know how - violence.
Do you think everyone will continue to just watch them swing batons like the first few seconds and do nothing?
I usually try to understand all sides of an argument, even if I disagree. But I just don't see what the reasonable police position could be here, apart from the police forces that actually engaged with protestors (ie their employers) about their concerns. The hostile police would seem to insist on asserting baseless anti-American top-down control without reason or responsibility, similar to Trump, which explains the sympatico.
Constructively, maybe if the protestors do "overrun" the cops, then the protestors could setup a new justice system, arrest the criminal conspiracies, and try them under RICO. If there were enough protestors willing to work this justice system, it could even be a good time for cities to say farewell to the incumbent union and hire the new system to keep order instead.
But practically yes I agree things will get ugly if we keep going down this path. But since the police are over the line by aggressing against basic American values, the only peaceful resolution is for them to simply stand down and stop attacking protests. I don't see any other option that wouldn't be bargaining with totalitarianism.
They're not scared overall though. Yes, the guys on the front line against the riots, maybe. Those shooting at press, people on their porches, spraying directly in the faces of unarmed people passing by... no, they're not afraid.
My guess would be curfew, crowd was told to leave, and it didn't. That's when teargas starts getting fired from my experience ( crowd told to go home and it doesn't ).
I read this as "stop using your constitutional right to protest or we will attack you". These curfews are clearly being used to suppress protests, and I think disobedience is crucial here and does not justify police brutality in any way against otherwise peaceful protesters. Again as others have pointed out, a small group of violent protestors does not give police the right to attack clearly nonviolent protestors either.
I think if we banned police from getting near these protests at all / only getting involved with people causing physical violence, it would be a great step to actually minimizing the exact things the curfews are intended to address.
Without having any sort of insight into police behavior, I'm assuming two likely options:
1. They are given rubber bullets and mace without any form of de-escalation training, so they just use the tools they have at their disposal.
2. Just like any kind of organism, the police force needs to preserve itself and make sure it is necessary. The military doesn't like peace, and the police cannot thrive with peaceful protests. They do what they see fit to make themselves irreplaceable.
I can't speak to your experience, but I've been in multiple riots, and you are right, teargas make some peaceful protestors violent and angry.
From what I've seen, teargas and mace are used after a small minority of protesters become violent and the crowd is lawfully ordered to disperse.
I can't say if these are the right tactics, but I have not seen police use these things for no obvious reason.
The one situation where this wasn't the case is when peaceful protesters were blocking one of the two roads that was going to be used to transport multiple heads of state off of a peninsula after high level discussions. I assume this was due to some security consideration, but I don't know. The crowd was passive.
Police do use teargas and mace for no reason. There are dozens (hundreds?) of videos of exactly that from the last week, including an aerial shot of Seattle PD instigating with mace at point blank range on protesters who were behind a barricade.
* https://www.facebook.com/omarisal/videos/10220021035848747/ - Livestream of 30+ minutes leading up to the incident. The interesting stuff starts at 26' in, but he gives a lot of good context on the protest leading up to then. The livestreamer was at the front line when they started pepper spraying, and in fact you can even see him in the aerial footage as he's next to a pink umbrella that makes a good landmark. It's very clear from ground eye view the violence was deliberately premeditated and coordinated by SPD and not in response to any immediate threat. No orders to disperse, or do anything else for that matter, are given prior to pepper spray, teargas, and flashbangs.
* https://mobile.twitter.com/izaacmellow/status/12676798206006... - Official SPD story claiming incident is a "riot" and was forced on them: " Crowd has thrown rocks, bottles and fireworks at officers and is attempting to breach barricades one block from the East Precinct."
I don't think you can watch these videos and come to the conclusion that at least in this instance, it's not the protesters rioting but rather the police. Then they're officially lying about it.
Normally, in healthy police forces, the police is in contact with protest organisers to cooperate on weeding out the violent troublemakers to ensure the protest remains peaceful. This has always been very effective in many countries, including the US, before US police abandoned this approach and started training for escalation instead.
> 1. They are given rubber bullets and mace without any form of de-escalation training, so they just use the tools they have at their disposal.
From what I've heard , they aren't even using the rubber bullets they way they are designed, but instead in a more dangerous way. Incompetence or maliciousness, take your pick. I wager its a bit of both.
Well I would hope that many BHLs or similar, I am a Libertarian, as asking themselves, how did blue cities get to this point. The Democratic Party has been pretty much in control of politics in most major US cities for decades; it is only common rebuttal here on many stories that cities are losing out to rural suburban areas at the national level to Republicans.
The question they should ask is, why did the party turn from the people who put it into power and become beholden to public employee unions which encompass police, fire, education, if not regular government employees. Easy answer, the support where the money comes from. People decry corporate money in politics but this money is more poisonous because of its out sized influence because of pressure they can put on any politician who tries to stand up to them; just go google stories of these unions protesting in the streets of the homes of politicians making moves against them, they have bought billboards and even homes nearby to put pressure down.
TL,DR : This is all about money. The politicians have been more than willing to turn a blind eye to police malfeasance; if not problems in fire departments and education; because the money is too good and the groups involved have very big influence over the citizenry.
How did blue cities get to this point? An interesting observation here is that while the police forces are supposed to represent the populations they serve, the police unions (FOP) endorses Trump and so clearly takes a stand against that representation in "blue" cities.
Last I heard, protesting is enshrined in the first amendment of the Bill of Rights and you cannot use the crimes of other people to crack down on all protesters.
The following is a heartfelt text that one of my friends in my PhD program sent. She wishes this to be shared to raise awareness, so I'm sharing here for people who might not have a good understanding of the context. This is related to the relationship between the American police and the black populace, so imo relevant in this context.
"Sorry for this lengthy message but here goes: My ancestors are African and Native American. My African ancestors were taken from Africa, brought here to America, beat and killed, and forced to be slaves since the late 1600s. Of course as slaves you have no rights, so my great-great grandmother was raped, which is how my my branch of the family came about. So I actually have white and black ancestors. The Civil War occurred, which most people think the north fought to help free slaves, but actually the north just didn't want the south to have slaves anymore because it was giving the south an economic advantage - not because they wanted to free black people. And although the north won, no one told slaves in the south this for many years, so they had no idea because they were not allowed to read. But eventually the word was spread and black people learned that they were technically free, but they could not own land, so they had no where to go. A few more benevolent slave masters gave some land to the slaves because, like my ancestors they were raped by the slave master and therefore the kids were part-family. This is why you see different shades of black people in America. My grandfather (born 1920) was forced to flee Texas as a young boy in fear for his life. He could've been another Emit Till. If you don't know who Emit Till is, please, please just search the name. It will break your heart (Also sidenote: the woman who was the cause of the Emit Till murder announced on her deathbed that she lied about it all). Moving along...so my grandfather moved to Detroit where things were just a little better for black people. He was the only black person in his engineering program at Michigan State, and endured brutality and abuse for just trying to get an education. Then we had WW2 where he was not allowed to vote or have rights, but served as a Tuskegee Airman, a troup of all black pilots who literally saved America's ass from Germany. If it were not for the Tuskegee Airman, we would have lost WW2. But he comes back after the war, and still has no rights, no freedoms. Blacks and whites were segregated and when black people made our own financial district and economy it was burned to the ground because it threatened white capitalism (see 1921 burning of black wallstreet in Tulsa Oklahoma). And then Jim Crow laws were put into place. Basically this meant that white people could legally discriminate against black people, which also included violent acts without repercussions. POLICE were created during this time to literally "police" black people because the slave masters did not have control anymore. So police did the slave master's dirty work and it was still legal. This is why people are protesting against police brutality with a focus on black lives. Because the police were specifically created to take our lives, but not the lives of others. And you can see this today, for example George Floyd. So when people say "all lives matter" it is just another way of covering up the real reason police were created, and it hurts that 400 years later we are still trying to get justice, within a country that we literally built with our black hands. We are the economy, which is why when we created our own economy, it rocked the US economy so much that they burned it down. We have tried to march peacefully, we have tried to kneel peacefully, we have tried to protest peacefully, and it has gotten us nowhere. So that is why many people feel that the only option left to make our voices heard is to hurt the economy. And that's what the rioting and looting is about. I'm not saying I condone it, but believe me, I understand it. Also if you have been following any of it, the vast majority of people being violent and breaking things are not black people, but actually white supremacists who dress up as protesters. They are trying to make black people seem violent so that the police take violent action against the protestors. Things are never as simple as they seem, so you have to know the history to understand the full scope if the situation, and guess what....they took the real history out of the textbooks! So yes, this is a heavy time for black people and I hope you all can start to understand why this is happening. Thank you for reading and being open-minded."
I tend to think that 100 cops against thousands of people will agitate for a reason. The reason is this - somewhere in that group of thousands is a punk that is going to try to hurt them. If they make the first move when there is a tension build up, they are forcing everyone else to be reactionary. At that point the people that are peaceful protesting will generally leave or move away. The ones interested in rioting will stay. Psychologically, they can read the difference and address the rioters more effectively by reacting preemptively.
I get that everyone wants the cops to be kinder and gentler and maybe there will be that day, but there's also the other side of things. I've seen videos some cops in the UK that are so useless and passive that criminals can basically do whatever they want all the damn day long. No offense to the UK, the US also has the stereotypical donut eating cop.
At some point you're going to have to decide what kind of society you want. If you want a society where cops don't make deadly mistakes, it would be a hell of a lot easier if we got a little privacy invasive and profiled people as risks early on and dealt with them then.
If you don't deal with violent thugs preemptively, your cops for better or worse are going to be a little twitchy on the trigger finger. I can guarantee you that 98% of cops out there would gladly trade out the violence if they could without sacrificing the paycheck.
"all incidences of violence that I have witnessed either in person or through media has been instigated by the police"
You "witnessed" incidents "through the media"?
It sounds like your perspective is as informed as anyone who is watching videos on the internet. And since you're a self-professed "bleeding heart liberal" you're likely consuming a biased selection of videos that fit into the narrative your tribe has endorsed.
The "bleeding heart liberal" talking point is that police officers are "instigating" all of these riots. This is mental gymnastics and doesn't even make sense. Even children aren't allowed to use the "they started it" excuse. How do police responding to protests justify burning and looting?
Even the very heart of the issue is not clear.
Is it even true that black people are treated worse by police? Do black police officers treat black people worse than white police officers? Is it a racial issue or a class issue? Are poor white people treated better or worse?
These are unanswered questions. Anyone who claims to know is confused or lying. The propaganda on the left is that even asking this question makes you a racist Nazi.
You will hear "bleeding heart liberals" claim that "white people demonstrated with machine guns and the police did nothing to them" as if this counts as proof of something, ignoring the massive differences besides race. The obvious difference being that these weren't anti-police riots...
It's very clear that anyone who cares about police reform should be disassociating themselves with the violent people who don't actually give a shit about the cause. And yet, instead, we see the "bleeding heart liberals" rushing to justify and rationalize it.
Consider that the police are heavily networked, whereas the crowd is not. It's possible that one section of the crowd is antagonizing the police, the police respond as a whole, but you have no idea why because you were 200' away in a different section of the crowd and didn't know about what that other section was doing.
> that the police is desperately trying to set a narrative to justify a history of violence by escalating more violence, but please, someone, restore my faith.
The police is composed of a bunch of individuals. It is highly unlikely that there is any kind of conspiracy to set the narrative of excessive violence by being...excessively violent? It doesn't even logically follow.
I'd say people misbehaving doesn't justify attacking non-violent people 200' away from that. Many examples of the recent days can not explained by "someone nearby did something, so it was an unlucky accident", and their police departments and local governments don't seem to care all that much. Which is fueling the anger, given this happens at protests against overreacting/overly aggressive police.
Here's another article uncovering the brutality of the police [1]. Some of the scenes are really inhuman [2] and I feel sorry for the poor people trying to make their voices heard.
I hope, that both sides, the protesters and police force will find a way, to exit that spiral of violence. But right now it looks like this won't happen. It's a shame.
If the state acts harder against protesters, journalists and civilian bystanders it will only fuel their anger. Leading to more violence, used by the state to issue a even worse crackdown than now. And so on and so on.
The only hope that I have is, that other politicians from all parties will stand up against that.
The onus is on both. One may be able to do it better, and more conveniently, but everyone's responsible for doing their bit in ceasing and stopping violence.
You understand why the protests started though, right? It's not like the protesters can say "ok, if we stop protesting now, will you please consider following the law?"
How to you expect protesters to deescalate this with absolutely nothing changing and high level LE people still not accepting any blame and pushing for military help?
First of all they should say that they are not related to any of the looters, that anyone even throwing trash on the streets is against protesters. Use every opportunity to show how peaceful the protesters are. Not gather at nights as at nights there is a higher chance for confusing situation to arise that give opening to police to apply force. Instead of negative chants like fuck the police use positive chants like join us, or police is ours.
Police knows how to deal with force, the goal of the protest should be to not give it any opportunity to apply the force, so that even the people who are against protesters can't find a way to justify police actions.
It may be too late for applying this tactic now, but if it was applied earlier it would make the protest much more successful. At least that's what happened in Armenia few years ago, when after many years of unsuccessful violent protests, non-violent protest brought a real change.
You understand why US cops are so heavy handed though, right? It may be because they have to deal with a population with 3 guns per capita, where the amount of police killed per year on duty(even disregarding accidents) is more akin to a third world country than anything going on in the EU.
> and high level LE people still not accepting any blame
I don't know how you get that from OP saying that both sides need to de-escalate.
I meant that LE is largely not accepting any blame right now. That's a signal for protest not to deescalate.
But since you mention that, cops do not have to be heavy handed. Training around handling mental health helps. Training around de-escalation helps. Not being a murdering racist helps. Body cameras work.
If the guns were the main reason, we'd see similar reactions every time a group of open-carry white protesters show up on the streets. They're not treated the same way though.
> I meant that LE is largely not accepting any blame right now.
Well, multiple people have been fired and imprisoned. And investigations are on the way to probably arrest and imprison more cops.
Mental health is probably a small part of the picture of civilian-on-police violence, unless you consider anyone who considers it a good idea to kill a police officer as intrinsically mentally unhealthy.
> If the guns were so scary, we'd see similar reactions every time a group of open-carry white protesters show up on the streets
Cops aren't generally worried about open carry nuts, because they are mostly a known quantity. I'd imagine getting shot at a routine traffic stop or doing a domestic violence call is much more on the mind of your average officer than getting attacked by someone open carrying.
> Well, multiple people have been fired and imprisoned
1 out of 4 initially involved people has been charged. People who did the initial coverup are still untouched. One chief of police was fired by a mayor. Firing someone for helping with murder or current attack on unarmed civilians is a joke and bringing that up will only make people more angry. (Fired cops often go straight into security jobs)
> Turns out it's not about just any people having guns
Yes, apparently the likelihood of someone actually using the gun factors into their fear of guns. They aren't afraid of the mere idea of a gun, they are afraid of being shot by a gun. Not all people who carry guns are equally as likely to shoot you.
> where the amount of police killed per year on duty(even disregarding accidents) is more akin to a third world country than anything going on in the EU.
Police officers in the US face 12.9 fatalities per 100,000 workers. In comparison, construction workers see 14.3, agricultural workers see 17.7, farmers and ranchers around 24 and truck drivers 26.9.
Being an officer is not even close to the top most dangerous jobs in the US. Saying it's on the level of a 'third-world country' is objectively wrong.
> Being an officer is not even close to the top most dangerous jobs in the US
This is a strawman. I never claimed this, and yet refuting it is apparently the core point of your post. Please proofread your posts before accusing someone of being objectively wrong on a matter which they never made a claim.
>where the amount of police killed per year on duty(even disregarding accidents) is more akin to a third world country
Police mortality isn't any more exceptionally high in a "third world country" than anywhere else. Your view that bad things = third world country, is simplistic. Your attitude is typical of a certain mindset. It's also boring because now I can tell a lot about you and could guess 100% correctly about any of you derivative political viewpoints.
Sorry, I took the total gun count(~400M) and didn't state that I did some math based on how many adults there are in the US since children and the extremely elderly tend to own far fewer guns than run of the mill adults.
The result is still more or less the same if there is 1.1 guns per capita.
that's not unreasonable. I saw your post a few minutes after another that claimed there were a billion guns in the US, so I was starting to wonder if this was a common misconception.
I personally don't feel that pervasive civilian gun ownership is incompatible with proportionate policing, but that's certainly a debate that reasonable people can have.
per capita in run of the mill statistics is just a raw division of things over population (people or other organism in question). per capita income isn't dividing total income over "employed earners" for example.
This is mitigating garbage trying to avoid blame, and more both-sides junk that will excuse anything so long as quiet (not "peace", that would be something else) is restored. This is an unusual protest of the usual systemic violence and prejudice of police and government.
There are people to blame and it is not everyone's responsibility to make it easy and comfortable for the channel surfers at home.
Aren't the journalists supposed to be the third party oversight? Showing and telling the rest of us what's happening so that when one side oversteps we as a society can take action to correct it?
Freedom of the press is certainly important, and if anything changes because of all this, people hearing about it will be instrumental, but it's not a replacement for proper systems of accountability. If the bar for getting away with murder is "don't make national headlines," something is deeply wrong.
Up until now the bar has been far lower than that.
The journalists are clipping context out of video that they are broadcasting.
The pink umbrella bit was clipped out of the riot started by police in Seattle on Monday - instead the news agencies started showing footage after pepper spray was deployed.
In Canada, the CBC cut a video right before a police van physically drove its way through a crowd. [1] Anyone else doing that would be described as vehicular assault, possibly attempted manslaughter.
The press isn't holding the police accountable for any of this. It's pushing a narrative that "The appropriate amount of force was used against rioters", without showing the inappropriate use of force that started the riot.
> I hope, that both sides, the protesters and police force will find a way, to exit that spiral of violence. But right now it looks like this won't happen. It's a shame.
Is it a shame?
The only way this de-escalates is if the police violently repress the protests so hard that dissent is silenced. Which is what Trump wants. Which will only push the country further into authoritarianism.
And the police have shown themselves completely unwilling to self-interrogate their actions, and truly see themselves as the victim in this situation, justifying their reaction.
Honestly, I think the only way through this is down. There needs to be a violent insurrection from the left. Revolution is the ONLY way to enact societal change at this point.
I had been heartened by the right's recent upswing in fierce support for the first amendment, but unfortunately I've seen little of that support during the protests as freedom of assembly and freedom of the press have been attacked. For example Rand Paul has not tweeted in a week. Sadly, as always, these kind of principled arguments, on both sides, are a sham to advance whatever the partisan battle of the week is.
That renewed interest in free speech was never genuine. At the same time they were decrying Twitter “censorship” (mostly on Twitter, I will add), they were busy trying to force laws that would forbid people boycotting Israel from ever getting a government contract. The same people who were praising protest against lock downs are now saying that being out past curfew justifies being shot with a rubber baton.
Indeed. No one likes it when people disagree with them. And this is precisely why the freedom of speech is so important and has thankfully stood its tests in court.
This is, of course, ridiculous. There are serious people who genuinely care about that issue.
More generally, there is always nearby the temptation to definitionally exclude one's political opponents from serious discussion by the lazy insinuation that they don't really believe what they say they believe, that their side is more opportunistic and cynical than yours, and that, therefore, what work even needs to be done to argue the point? After all, there are only two staked-out positions: those who agree with me already and those who are lying about their motives!
Try to resist this. It goes nowhere. It leads to nothing. And I assure you that, whatever the issue, there really are people who see it differently than you. I know that can be hard to accept, but it's almost always true.
Sure, don't assume malice with regular people, but US politicians are completely disingenuous and they know exactly what they're doing. It is rare for them to "really believe what they say they believe", because saying anything true at all pretty quickly starts to reveal their financial interests.
I honestly wish there was anyone in Washington who seemed willing or able to lead in a bipartisan manner. Someone who didn't rely on the partisan firestorm of the week to get support.
It's all very disheartening, and hard to explain to my children.
Prisoner's dilemma. Bipartisanship is "cooperate", divisiveness is "defect". Cooperating with a defector results in losing badly. The right have worked this out and are playing "defect" continuously. And currently "winning".
Agreed, but I think it’s perhaps just an unavoidable outcome of human nature. (Apologies for the pessimism.) It’s my view that humans are most moved by emotion, and the easiest way to produce emotion as a politician is to play up a charged partisan issue.
Would love to hear alternative takes or solutions if anyone has them.
The first step is encouraging local governments to switch away from first-past-the-post voting, which has been mathematically demonstrated to lead to polarization between two parties that are mostly indistinguishable outside of the core polar issues.
Because rioting isn’t free speech. All conservatives support peaceable assembly and protest. They also fiercely believe in property rights as inherently tied to the concept of liberty. It is right in the Declaration of Independence. No conservative worth his or her salt will defend theft, property destruction, etc.
rioting is indeed not free speech, but surely attacking the press, one of the fundamental institutions in any democracy, is a violation of free speech.
And not only have the people in question not spoken up in defense of the press, they've actually routinely declare them the enemy of the people.
When everyone has a camera, social media audiences, live streams, YouTube channel, websites, and blogs/micro-blogging, what is the definition of Press and why do Press get to ignore restrictions and closed off areas?
Are the only Press allowed to be Press those that are part of a large national news network? Is Alex Jones Press if he shows up to these with a guy with a camera and enters areas civilians are not allowed to be in?
Anybody remember the Clinton administration, when the popular cry was "Charlton Heston is my president!" and "The purpose of the Right to Bear Arms isn't for hunting, it is so that politicians fear the people!"
Yeah, I don't either.
Yes, rioting isn't free speech. Unfortunately, nothing short of rioting seems to work---the people in question are poor and already at the bottom of the social pile, so their options seem limited.
But rioting doesn’t work. The first comprehensive study of riots was just done at Princeton and riots are found to result in crackdowns, not reform. Occupy Wallstreet, Ferguson riots, 1968 riots, LA Riots, Camden riots, all had opposite the intended effect.
Democrats already had the African American vote and the cities. Rioting will swing the suburbs back to Republicans, completing the cycle again.
I guess we'll have to wait and see if it results in any changes, but baltimore is currently making national news for having some of the most peaceful protests of this last weekend.
I hate to break it to you, but the Boston Tea Party that conservatives were so fond of hijacking for their own partisan purposes destroyed over a million US dollars (in today's money) in other people's property. YOU are comfortable sitting there and "defending property" because it props up a system that benefits you.
And after the revolution the government immediately cracked down on similar tax protests like the Whiskey Rebellion. So what?
On its own I agree the Tea Party is wonton vandalism. The patriots knew that too. They wanted to start a war. They also knew it was lawless and it was debated afterwords until it set of a wave of similar vandalism.
No one outside of a very small group looks back on the race riots of 1968 with pride, or the burning of LA, or Camden.
Are the rioters trying to start a revolutionary war? I hope not. There will be a lot of death everywhere.
The rioters don’t even have a plan or goal for if they “win.” They aren’t making demands. “Fix the police“ and “end systemic racism” isn’t something that can just happen. The rioters don’t have Federalist Papers or any plan for what’s next (unless you count the Communist Manefesto).
Personally I’d like these things to happen too. The police shouldn’t be terrifying. When I was growing up they were likable Andy Griffith types. Everyone knew them. Now they are shaven headed paramilitary. I have no idea who my local cops are. Wtf?
The rioters aren't trying to start a revolutionary war. They're trying to start a conversation that will never happen with a bunch of hand holding and song singing.
We're FAR past that point, and the reason that comfortable white people are so taken aback by this is because they've been given the freedom to ignore it all. Just watch the alternate dimension that is OAN or Fox News, and you will never have to worry about how a minority is ever treated in this country, because they will either tell you it's all bullshit or they will wring their hands for a segment and then go right back to bashing Obama or Clinton for things that are happening 3.5 years into Trump's presidency.
RIGHT NOW cops are shooting tear gas and grenades at peaceful protesters.
RIGHT NOW photographers are losing their vision because police officers are firing rubber bullets at their heads.
RIGHT NOW cops are destroying property and blaming it on imaginary groups of paid protesters.
RIGHT NOW cops are hiding their badge numbers because they don't want to get fired.
RIGHT NOW cops are assaulting and arresting the press.
RIGHT NOW cops have the right to wander into a woman's apartment and shoot her stone cold dead because they didn't read the number.
RIGHT NOW people in this country watch with baited breath to see whether people like that woman who murdered Botham Jean in his own home would even get charged.
It seems to me that a large portion of the conservative side of this country is more than happy with "coming down hard" on people to try to scare anyone else from trying to upset the apple cart. Because it "works."
These protesters? They're just reciprocating what "works."
Not at all. When Kaepernick protested in the most quiet, peaceful and respectful way possible, conservatives were screaming bloody murder. They also did that when MLK was leading protests.
Conservatives support protests by white people, but never by black people.
This is such utter fucking bullshit. You can watch hundreds of videos of peaceful protesters being attacked by police. They are not looting. What you are saying is an outright lie.
Conservatives are just practicing the same racist tribalism t hey always have. There is no structural logic to how they behave except "us vs them" and right now the police are hurting the right people. It is not and has never been about principles.
err.. There are so many videos of people grabbing stuff from stores and running. That is looting.
Now, If you make the argument that these people are not protesters but opportunistic thieves, then we can all move on.
Looting & destroying someone else's property as a response to injustice is almost as bad as the injustice itself.
This is not to say all protesters are looters, but that thieves take this opportunity to insert themselves into these situations masquerading as protesters.I have no sympathy for these people.(Not that anyone cares about my opinion)
I'm talking about protesters. Deflecting to looters isn't really that helpful when cops are attacking people who are peacefully demonstrating and kneeling in the street.
I agree that looting/destroying property is bad (obviously...), but I disagree that it's a problem that's even within an order of magnitude of the behavior I've seen out of the police. Property can be replaced. It's called insurance.
However...our right to not be inflicted with cruel and unusual punishment, our right to assemble, and our right to freedom of speech is in grave danger here. That's why I can't stand that everyone is focused on the looters.
Speaking of the constitution, whered the 2nd amendment people go? I thought I'd have some allies in them.............
There are videos of people carrying property out of shops en masse. You are delusional. An officer was shot in the back of the head, a black pawn shop owner was killed by looters. The only people practicing tribalism are on the left who encourage everyone to identify with their own tribe (black, gay, etc.) instead of identifying with each other.
A black shop owner was arrested at gunpoint, live on Fox News for asking for help because of some looters, but again some people don’t see the problem.
Aren't most of these happening in majority left wing states and cities run by the left. AFAIK they are still report the Mayors of the cities. Let's not make this a Right vs Left thing any more. The country is already divided as it is, we don't need further division in this country.
If the first amendment violations are being done by left wing politicians then it should be even easier for the right to attack them, but instead they're silent or encouraging tougher violations.
The riots today are driven by the far left and their typical rejection of capitalism and tradition. I don't see the right supporting their message of social authoritarianism any time soon.
Sure, but that doesn't extend to rioting and looting.
The government has been restricting our first amendment rights to assemble for covid for 3 months. It's illegal to hold church services right now. Are we in a public heath emergency or not?
The Supreme Court has ruled on religious freedom during a pandemic and found that the 1st Amendment rights of religious organizations were not violated as the restrictions on gathering in public applied equally to everyone.
You may disagree with the ruling, but it’s case law and reality in the US now.
Right, government should not have the right to shutdown churches or the press or political rallies. We ostensibly hold these shared American values but it always breaks down along partisan lines.
When unfettered capitalism is resulting in extreme wealth inequality where workers are struggling to pay the rent while working full time, and "tradition" involves the oppression of minorities, you're damn right they're going to riot.
Destroying businesses and property of fellow citizens to get your point across will always fall on deaf ears. The only possible way to achieve your goals by rioting is completely terrorizing everyone into submission. Good luck with that.
I've seen the boston tea party brought up several times over the last couple days, and it strikes me as an odd comparison. unlike the rioting/looting that sometimes accompanies protests, the boston tea party was a specifically targeted act of resistance. the colonists resented british taxes in general, and were particularly enraged by the EIC's exemption from the tea tax (which allowed them to undercut other tea merchants in the colonies), so they directly targeted an EIC tea shipment. doesn't really seem that similar to taking advantage of a protest to smash windows and burn random buildings.
"Let me spell it out for you: underneath the lofty rhetoric of the patriots of New England was a criminal enterprise. A vast smuggling operation, illicitly supplying the residents of the New World with their drug of choice, bohea, that deliciously addictive tea varietal with a dark liquor and a deep, leathery taste. The foundational myth of the American Republic is not righteous, freedom-loving citizens rising up against oppression. No, it's drug dealers defending their turf."
thanks for linking the transcript. if true, that certainly changes the narrative, but I don't think it weakens my main point: dumping the tea in the harbor made sense given their objective, both symbolically and practically. and to the extent that it weakens the narrative of noble freedom fighters, it makes the comparison even weirder.
yeah, that would be a fair comparison. or if you really want to stick with the boston tea party, you might liken it to the police station that got burned down in minneapolis (a symbolically and practically meaningful target).
in general I don't think this is a good rhetorical pattern though. comparing controversial current event A to mythologized account of historical event B seems like an attempt to avoid having to defend A on its own merit. as we've seen here in this thread, it may also rely on an incorrect/embellished understanding of B that introduces some weird implications.
Suggesting that unfettered capitalism is resulting in extreme wealth inequality assumes we live in a system of unfettered capitalism. Which we don't, not even close.
That's fair. Still, "nuh uh" is not an effective rebuttal. Asking for evidence is better than "you're wrong" or "you're a liar". "Here's evidence that you're wrong" is even stronger.
If that's your concern, fine. Then just ask for evidence for the lie. That takes 10 seconds, and costs the liar the 10 minutes. Don't just say "you're wrong". Even if they are in fact wrong, it's still really weak. People aren't going to believe you. (Nor should they, based on what you've presented, which is nothing but a bare denial.)
You’re just reversing the burden of proof with more words. The expectation you’re setting up is that we have to refute every single bit of nonsense tossed out; an impossible and exhausting process.
I agree that the original claimant has the burden of proof. But this isn't high school debate. The people reading your posts aren't debate judges (for the most part), they're just people. They aren't (for the most part) going to apply strict debate judging rules to the exchange. And if all you say is "is not!", to people reading the exchange, you look like you have no evidence and therefore have fallen back to arguing like a five-year-old. It's not a convincing look, even if you're right, and even if the other side actually has the burden of proof.
in general yes, but if someone says something is "verifiably false", you might expect them to at least provide some clues as to how that could be verified.
>I had been heartened by the right's recent upswing in fierce support for the first amendment, but unfortunately I've seen little of that support during the protests
You do see a difference in the protests, right? The protests against lockdowns didn't include looting, arson, rape, murder, and multiple murdered police.
Here, have a small sample,
Black pawn shop employee murdered by looters for TVs
I can keep going. It is utterly dispicable. There's a long long list of videos with these "peaceful protestors" in action. Everyone has a camera, and all of this is available for you to see, if you only choose to see it.
You neglect the hundreds of thousands of people who turned up in peaceful protests around the world over the last week. These people are seeking positive change within their communities.
Your attempt to mine a simplistic “protests bad” narrative from a complex event is done in bad faith.
It's unfortunate that it's gotten to this point for people to take police brutality at least somewhat seriously.
I'm mistaken for being pro-police and anti-BLM merely because I'm against the looting and rioting. I've always had the stance that the police in their current form are state-sanctioned street gangs.
I recently read that if you tend to think, "it's a shame that black people are being killed by cops like this, but the rioting and looting MUST stop," perhaps you should consider thinking more like, "it's a shame that there is rioting and looting, but black people being killed by cops like this MUST stop."
There is no reason why it can't be "black people being killed by cops like this MUST stop" and "the rioting and looting MUST stop."
Buried in your reasoning is the idea that the rioting and looting is helping reducing black deaths by cops. I see no reason to believe that.
First, its directly putting people into violent conflict with police. So additional black people have been killed by police caused by the rioting. Second, innocent people are getting killed by the rioting.
Third, there are people who would support police reform but are also terrified of looters and rioters. The riots are giving me a look at what my city looks like without police control, and it is scary. I know that police v. lawlessness is a false dichotomy and I reject that sort of thinking.
There was a consensus that what happened to George Floyd was an atrocity. Even racists thought so. A huge peaceful protest would have raised awareness.
It was not by accident[1] - remember the police force was on the wrong side of that consensus. Strategically, allowing and even encouraging[2][3] violence is a winning move for the police (as long as their members are relatively safe) - both to punish the communities who have seemingly "turned against the police" and to change the narrative so that the same communities beg the police to save them from the violence.
Rioting and looting don't generally kill people. Cops do kill people, time and time again, and they usually get away with it. That's why it is absurd to equate the two.
"There was a consensus that what happened to George Floyd was an atrocity."
Who cares? Thinking something is an atrocity accomplished precisely jack shit. Peaceful protests get ignored or mocked. Police forces continue to get more militarized. Far right politicians, like the president, encourage violence from their bully pulpit. At a certain point, people need to respond. To not respond is to encourage those who seek to abuse power.
"Rioting and looting don't generally kill people... Peaceful protests get ignored or mocked."
Can you find a large episode of rioting and looting without any death toll? Even the 2011 London riots led to the deaths of five people.
The bigger issue though is that the current situation is starting to turn counterproductive. The only way to eventually fix things is with politics. Protests are politics.
But violence eventually takes a life of its own. Already now there are overwhelming evidence various third party actors are interfering. Soon this turns into an order vs chaos issue, and guess in who's favour that framing would play out?
The protests can no longer be ignored, now is the time to step back and to do whatever can be done to make this peaceful - before people forget why the protests started in the first place.
I always thought the police in America is too violent comparing to other places but this is a race war, not a demonstration against police violence and if anything it shows me why the police is so violent there. If it was a demonstration against police violence it would have happened also when they kill white people because there are much more unjustified cases like that.
I think the reason for police violence in the US are black people, they simply kill each other too much and from what I see act completely irrationally and with indiscriminate violence towards innocent people. No wonder the police is all the time on edge there and other races suffer because the police policies are created with black communities behaviour in mind, then they apply it also to peaceful people outside and inside the black community.
I can't believe in all of this discussion nobody mention the way African Americans in the US behave, as if the police works in a vacuum and as if slavery that was abolished years ago is an excuse for what's going on there. I think people are too afraid to say what's on their mind because they will be called racist but deep inside that's what people think otherwise how comes half of the country voted for Trump but I don't see anybody here say what half of the country thinks?
All ideas should be considered, but yours is not one I subscribe to. More people have been killed and had their lives destroyed as the result of non-protestors taking advantage of the protests to destroy communities. This is before the actual protests themselves have even been given a chance to succeed without violence. To subscribe to your perspective, I would have to believe that rioting and looting is the way to address police violence, and that the protesters and rioters are on the same page. If that were the case, then the country should be set on fire for the number of crimes it commits.
Put simply, there's no need for a "but". Once can make both statements without implying that one has precedence over the other.
> More people have been killed and had their lives destroyed as the result of non-protestors taking advantage of the protests to destroy communities.
[Citation needed]
I find it hard to believe that a few days of these riots has caused more damage and loss of life than generations of racial oppression and police brutality. If you’ve got a source, I’m all ears.
If you had simply asked me to share what I know, I would have given you some links. But I have a distaste for the "[Citation Needed]" meme because it's pompous, so I suggest you do some basic research yourself. If you can do 2nd grade arithmetic, you can figure out that 2 or more deaths is greater than 1 death. If you've even watched a minute of TV in the last 5 days, I shouldn't have to argue whether more people's lives have been destroyed than if the riots didn't happen at all.
> I find it hard to believe that a few days of these riots has caused more damage and loss of life than generations of racial oppression and police brutality.
> If you had simply asked me to share what I know, I would have given you some links. But I have a distaste for the "[Citation Needed]" meme because it's pompous,
Totally fair. That wasn’t very conservative. I’m sorry.
> That's not even close to what I said.
Could you clarify what you were saying? I directly quoted you, but I’ll admit your sentence isn’t clear. It says “More” but doesn’t indicate “more than what?”, so I assumed you meant the oppression that rioters are responding to. Maybe that’s not the case.
Maybe there are more, and I think it's fortunate that the deaths don't appear to be excessively high. But I would still argue these people might not be dead or in critical condition if the rule of law wasn't out of control. I'm no fan of police, but that doesn't mean I don't think about how some kids may have lost a parent.
Rubber bullets are suppose to be used below the waist. They can easily kill or maim someone with a head or neck hit. Whoever shot him was attempting to kill or severely injure the journalist.
> It's unfortunate that it's gotten to this point for people to take police brutality at least somewhat seriously.
They still aren't taking it seriously. People are still bending over backwards to justify violence and police incompetence against even peaceful protestors and press members. They're cheering for people to be run down in the street, etc. Nothing is getting better and things I fear things will only get worse from here.
I don't know who you are talking about. This isn't meant to be an insult, but I don't know a single person anywhere on the political spectrum that is trying to justify police incompetence and violence. That sounds like a very fringe view.
I agree with you in that things probably will only get worse.
Since this is happening simultaneously in many different cities around the country, I have to wonder if there are private Facebook or WhatsApp or Signal groups where police members are talking about this trend. I'd very much like to see those conversations.
When four St Louis cops beat up an undercover cop at a protest, the ensuing federal suit (that's right, takes a cop to charge a cop) revealed some of the text messages of those involved:
The more the merrier! Its gonna get IGNORANT tonight! But it's gonna be a lot of fun beating the hell out of those shitheads once the sun goes down and nobody can tell us apart!
Someone took screenshots of Amber Guyger's Instagram pages before she cleaned up her social media, and it was disgusting. Private cop groups absolutely exist. It would be interesting to subpoena Facebook when the Minneapolis Four go to trial and investigate how deep the rot goes.
It's possible, but also, there's precedent from 2014 in Ferguson. Several members of credentialed media were arrested and assaulted to various degrees. Pretty much nothing happened by way of punishment other than a settlement from the DoJ saying they couldn't kettle people anymore, enforced by what is now Barr's department.
Any officer paying attention would know you won't be punished unless you act particularly egregiously like the one officer in Louisville reassigned to desk duty (big whoop). Add on the amount of animosity stoked by the president toward media for the past 4-5 years, and it really doesn't take a simultaneously coordinated effort to have this outcome.
Don't you think it's curious that only the police are allowed to have these super-effective unions with literal stay-out-of-jail clauses in their contracts - while Amazon workers who want proper toilet breaks will simply be fired?
Police unions shouldn't exist. It would be like having a union of military soldiers. Imagine if the US military had a union that refused to defend the country unless every soldier got immunity from war crimes and high 6 figure salaries. That is effectively what the police unions have done to this country.
does this argument not apply to all or most public sector employees? what if a teachers' union demanded high salaries and protection against being fired for poor performance (or worse)?
That's about public v. private unions, not really about cops v. everyone else.
Companies can fairly easily break a union. After call, why does Ford need a Detroit plant when they can use Mexico.
But governments are lead by politicians who get money from unions. Union supports leader, leader pays union, union supports leader. No incentive to keep costs down at all. It's actually better for politicians to have strong public unions.
Teachers unions make it pretty much impossible to fire someone. You pretty much need to molest a child in places with a union (after you make tenure).
>But governments are lead by politicians who get money from unions. Union supports leader, leader pays union, union supports leader. No incentive to keep costs down at all.
Hence the US states' and cities' unfunded pension debt crisis. Only solution to it in democracies is for non government employees to actively participate in local elections.
Maybe not as extreme but teacher's union is pretty bad about protecting members when accused/convicted of abuse. In any case, I was pointing out "reassigning to desk job" might be largely out of the hands of sergeants, and not just cronyism or racism.
Partially, maybe. But there's also a large role of qualified immunity and poor use of force policies in departments around the country. If an officer isn't required to report every time they threatened lethal force, it doesn't matter what the contract says about what should be done with use of force complaints.
No police union contract includes a statement that the officers are immune from criminal investigation and prosecution, and most of the egregious events would clearly result in investigation and prosecution (if not necessarily conviction) if done by non-police. That these cases don't get that far shows the effects of a general cooperation between police and the judicial and political system---DAs don't prosecute and courts won't convict---all backed by a social system that encourages that behavior: you won't get elected on a police reform platform anywhere in the US.
Facebook employees - this is how you can speak truth to power. Publish those private group communications. Name and shame the officers encouraging violence against protestors. You know it is happening, and you have the power to expose these abuses by police, military, and other extremist groups that have taken over what used to be a highly respectable profession.
If a single or even small group of employees could leak private chats without getting immediately caught then Facebook's security is completely screwed
the brain behind all this is the police union, FOP. It is a national scale organization which uses violence and threat of it to achieve its political goals. People mistakenly think that when they're dealing with local police they're dealing with local police.
I think you are on the right track, in so far as we need to understand what the constant across many different cities around the country.
Here is what I think (I know I will be burned at the steak for this):
The media market is the constant.
Media organizations and reporters are incentivized to get the most extreme and sensationalistic footage, so they are taking more risks and crossing more lines than every before.
If you haven't seen it yet there's a 2020 Police Brutality subreddit - https://www.reddit.com/r/2020PoliceBrutality/ - that's very active in cataloguing the increasing number of video evidence of police brutality; 35,000 subscribers, up from 12,000 just this morning.
Warning: there is a lot of disturbing content there.
When "Freedom of the Press" is under attack, newspapers/press/media have had their legal counsel file lawsuits against the government. But with the demise of revenue for many newspapers (and many going out of business), I wonder if they will take those expensive steps.
The ACLU has too many objectives, so I don't think defending journalism is their primary goal. This fund is probably better, dollar for dollar: https://www.spj.org/ldf.asp
It's not that clear cut fortunately. There are people who do this because they really believe it should be done. Even without large org support, they'll be out there.
See for example https://unicornriot.ninja/ which was on the ground, live streaming from the early days of the protest in Minneapolis.
Is qualified immunity really the issue? The general impression I have is that PDs/DAs straight up refuse to investigate/prosecute abuses of power. It's not like we have a bunch of cases where the case was airtight, but the officer was being acquitted because of qualified immunity.
Qualified immunity affects civil suits, not criminal prosecution. If the police department or district attorneys refuse to investigate or prosecute, qualified immunity means that cannot sue for recourse (under some qualifications).
I have been trying to think of good, relatively simple policy decisions that can make a large impact. I have not heard too many proposed besides removing qualified immunity. I would be curious what ideas people have:
Ideas include:
-Banning police unions
-Having a federal agency to discipline police (outside the purview of local politics)
I haven't heard this idea elsewhere but I like the idea of us addressing from the top down the fact that we have the highest incarceration rate in the world at 698 per 1,000 currently. This is something like 10x some comparable countries, and at least 3x any country we consider "free" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_ra...). We can make a top down decision to change this by making a hard "200 incarcerated per 100,000" cap at the state level. Dec 31st of each year, each state with over 200 per 100,000 prisoners has to release prisoners until they are below the threshold.
I am not saying it is a simple problem, but any other solution ideas?
Ending cash bail policies wouldn't directly address police violence, but it could reduce the incarceration rate. There are many people in jail waiting trial for crimes they did not commit, simply because they could not afford bail and would not take a plea deal.
Ending the use of private prisons and restricting police use of military equipment and weapons are also frequently suggested proposals.
In terms of police violence, I think the main thing lacking right now is accountability. There are a lot of ways to impose that. One avenue is to impose accountability from a higher level of government (for instance: the FBI getting involved if local government doesn't act), and the other traditional approach is accountability from voters.
Thanks! Ending cash bail is a good one. I'm not so well versed on private prisons, but I think I'm general the scale of incarceration is a larger issue than the quality of it. Still a good suggestion for discussion.
We have 10x more incarcerated per capital than germany. If the police think 1 in 100 (rounding a bit) belong in jail, it leads to a very different quality of interaction if it is 1 in 1,000.
Definitely agree on the issues with accountability.
I think another simple one is simply that police officers cannot be formally afforded any due process differences than other citizens of their jurisdiction.
Any news reports of people posing as reporters might be suppressed by newsrooms themselves as to not encourage copycats or get the idea out there that reporters might not be reporters, that is entirely unsubstantiated conjecture though.
In at least some states, "internet blogger" qualifies you as a journalist. So, y'know, if you've got a twitter account and you're talking about the protest, congrats: you're press!
For anyone who wants to keep an eye on what's going on, the subreddit /r/PublicFreakout is full of videos of police (and rioters) engaging in violence. I haven't found a better source yet. There's sometimes misattributed content, so be sure to wade carefully. Many of these cases have multiple videos from different people from different angles as well. The evidence is quite damning.
Could you clarify your use of "permitted" here? In the sense of "allowed", it seems redundant, since you go on to say that they were or were not forcibly dispersed.
The other option, more literal, is "they got a permit to do this protest", but there have certainly been plenty of peaceful grassroots protests that got no sort of official go-ahead and yet were executed perfectly fine on both sides.
I changed it from the article title to a shortened version of the URL slug (/well-try-to-help-you-follow-the-police-attacks-on-journalists-across-the-country). That's often a legit source title, along with the HTML doc title, and other places that articles tend to reveal what they're actually about (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...).
The reason I changed it is that "U.S. police have attacked journalists more than 110 times since May 28" is more baity. First you've got the aggressive verb "attacked". And then you've got the specific facts and figures (100 times, May 28). Why do these things make a title more baity? I don't know, but they are somehow active ingredients in the psychology of titles, which is why headline writers use them. I think of them as sharp edges. If you throw a spiky thing into a crowd, it gets more attention than a beach ball—but the quality of attention is not conducive to a reflective discussion on the internet (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). People react to the sharp bits.
It's in HN's interest to rewrite baity titles (indeed the site guidelines request it: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) but this is 1000x more important on inflammatory topics of the moment, like this one. We want HN to discuss this, but we want to support the discussion to stay in the intended spirit of the site: thoughtful, respectful, curious conversation. The material is provocative enough, and a title doesn't need sharp edges to make readers here care about the topic.
To clear up a misconception that sometimes arises: I'm not saying the statement in the sharper title is false. Obviously it's legitimate to use an aggressive verb to describe an aggressive action, and if the facts and figures are true then it's obviously legitimate to make a factual statement with them. As a reader I have zero problem with that title. But the moderator perspective is different: the question for a moderator, on HN at least, is always: what is the prospective effect on forthcoming discussion? Or to put it pseudotechnically: given choice A vs. choice B, what is the diff between the probability distribution of threads that A is a prefix of, vs. threads that B is a prefix of? (This is just a metaphor, but it reflects how we think about this. See https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... for more.) In the case of these two alternative titles, experience has shown that there's a significant difference in probable outcomes, and titles are by far the biggest influence on threads, so it's potentially a big deal.
I would like you to please change the title back because the quantity and recency is salient to the topic, and that the new title diminishes the title in those two specific ways.
1. This is not just about police attacks against journalists across the U.S. in general, this is about attacks since a specific date. The date matters because it is recent, it delineates a specific span of time (a mere five days), which helps the reader place it into context. This is about the protests that have occurred since the murder of George Floyd.
2. This is not just about some rare occurrence of police attacks against journalists since a specific date, this is about how this happened many, many times, and as the article notes, in the majority of the cases the journalists were clearly identifiable as press. This places it in context again: this is not a one-off incident, but something that has happened with startling frequency.
With the original title, it is easy to identify a through-line from the start of protests against the murder of George Floyd to a startling factual statement: on average, each day since then, police have attacked journalists over 20 times a day. Or to put it another way, police have attacked a journalist almost once an hour since the protests have begun.
That context is vital to the discussion, if as you say the headline has such an enormous impact on the conversation that follows. If, as I see in your recent edit, the distribution function is changed because the headline specifically calls out that high rate of attacks on journalists in a small window of time, then I think it moves that function for the better.
That's a fair point about recency, so I've added the date back to the title above.
(Sorry for editing my comment on the fly like that - yours is long enough that I imagine I changed the carpet under you several times while you were writing. It's the most convenient way for me to craft responses, so I do it all the time, even though there are downsides.)
It's good that you emailed because I probably wouldn't have seen the question otherwise. That's one main reason the guidelines ask people to email us with questions instead of posting them on the site (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). There's far too much material here for us to see it all.
in zimbabwe, the police was once put on lockdown. & guess what the protests were peaceful, no looting etc. america needs to do the same. otherwise, this is another pointer show america has been a 3rd world country. i'm sure you know where else journos are harassed.
I feel fairly confident that police don't usually attack media, but it seems clear that in the past few days there has been some kind of deliberate choice made to start doing so.
Are individual groups of police making the decision to attack media, or is it concerted? Are they just seeing it from other police and copying? I know some people will say it's because Trump has called media "fake news" and such, but is that really all it takes for police to start such gross behaviour? At the same time, I presume there hasn't been a direct order to start targeting media or it would have been leaked.
It all started with the media, as in, police crime was documented. Now when police already uses questionable methods, cameras will point at them. Since they can't be identified in full gear, they can shoot at press without anyone stopping them, so I guess why not? They're already shooting at random people so there's a lot of aggression built up.
They do, but they put black tape on the numbers or conveniently have some piece of equipment in front of it. It's not like someone is going to punish them for doing that
Maybe I implied this too subtly: If you've got a phone camera pointed at police, there may be a legal definition difference, but effectively you're media or the content provider for them.
You have to outnumber for security. From the videos in Hong Kong, I noticed that the journalists in shiny PRESS vests were usually WAAAAAY more than the number of police, many of them only holding video-taking cell phones.
I can imagine animosity from the leadership, for example classifying most journalists as "fake news", contributing to violence from the front line against them.
That, and the journalists are literally there to record evidence of their abuse. Police don't like it too much when you record evidence of them, say, beating a peaceful protester, or forcing a weapon into the hands of someone already pinned to the ground.
Where have you seen cops forcing weapons into the hands of someone on the ground? I haven't seen that.
Definitely seen excessive use of force against seemingly peaceful protesters, but context is everything, and a 10 second snippet does not tell the full story of the interactions between that protester and that cop for the 45 minutes leading up to those 10 seconds.
I tend to reserve my judgement on those types of videos, since cops have been also taking a beating in the last few days with bricks, rocks, water bottles, etc... thrown at them off camera or before those clips start, where the convenient "editing" is done to portray the cops as the "bad guys" when often they have spent the last hour being insulted, assaulted and injured before they decide to move in with force on that "peaceful" protester...
There is definitely a video from a day or two ago of a cop on top of a protestor with his hand pinned to the ground the cop then moves his baton under the hand of the protester and keeps it pinned on top. He proceeds to then punch his hand trying to appear as if he wants him to let go.
Also who gives a shit if they just got verbally harassed for an hour. I don’t get to lose my shit and delete a project because someone keeps submitting bad code. Why do cops get to lose their temper when their job is to keep the peace and enforce the law. Learn to control yourself and do your job or find another profession.
Nurses get verbally abused and harassed far more commonly than you might imagine, in extremely stressful, typically 12 hour shifts, and you just don't hear about them responding with brutality. Source: My wife and many of her friends are nurses.
>> Why do cops get to lose their temper when their job is to keep the peace and enforce the law. Learn to control yourself and do your job or find another profession.
TITLE 18, U.S.C., SECTION 242
DEPRIVATION OF RIGHTS UNDER COLOR OF LAW
Acts under “color of any law” include acts not only done by federal, state, or local officials within the bounds or limits of their lawful authority, but also acts done without and beyond the bounds of their lawful authority; provided that, in order for unlawful acts of any official to be done under “color of any law,” the unlawful acts must be done while such official is purporting or pretending to act in the performance of his/her official duties. This definition includes, in addition to law enforcement officials, individuals such as Mayors, Council persons, Judges, Nursing Home Proprietors, Security Guards, etc., persons who are bound by laws, statutes ordinances, or customs.
This means Chauvin could say he was acting under the "color of law" when he attempted to restrain George Floyd and during his restraint is when Floyd died. Because Chauvin was acting as a police officer and not a legal citizen, it was within his official duty as a police officer to apprehend someone who is breaking the law.
However, in the initial part of the statue, it clearly states:
This law further prohibits a person acting under color of law, statute, ordinance, regulation or custom to willfully subject or cause to be subjected any person to different punishments, pains, or penalties, than those prescribed for punishment of citizens on account of such person being an alien or by reason of his/her color or race.
This also means the prosecution can simply say that Chauvin was a known racist and violent around black people and his restraint was not an approved technique for restraining or arresting someone, therefore, based on those facts, the prosecution can make a compelling case that Chauvin attempted to use "color of law" to cover his willful infliction and in doing so, deprived George Floyd of his civil rights while doing so.
The shorter answer is yes, they can lose their temper because it might be required in the application of their duties as a police officer and officer of the government for which they serve. No, in that they cannot abuse that power and use "color of law" to deprive someone of their civil rights under the constitution.
>the unlawful acts must be done while such official is purporting or pretending to act in the performance of his/her official duties
This is probably the most disturbing thing I read about law enforcement. To me it translates into following: as an officer acting under "color of law" I am free to loose my temper and kill whoever the f..k I want for any reason as long as I am not doing it based on color/race/whatever. All I have to do is to "pretend to act in the performance of my duties".
Can somebody correct me if I am wrong (I sincerely hope I am).
My understanding is that "color of law" merely refers to the state of being where a person is acting in an official capacity. It imparts no legality or illegality of actions per se, but statutes might criminalize or decriminalize activity based on whether or not a person is acting under color of law.
What GP is referring to is a provision in the federal law that specifically criminalizes police activity undertaken under color of law. (Reading the statute, in this scenario, the police officer can be charged up to and including the death penalty).
As far as I'm aware, states' statutes for murder or manslaughter do not protect people acting under color of law.
>> Also who gives a shit if they just got verbally harassed for an hour.
This statement is emblematic of the fundamental problem affecting our culture.
I hate excessive violence. I hate excessive force. I can’t take anyone seriously if they argue that bad behavior doesn’t matter. Your 8 hour day in retail or at the office is not the same as working law enforcement during a riot.
In Atlanta, our excessive force on Saturday evening didn't literally force a weapon into someone's hands, but several officers have now been charged, and one of the discovery items was common post police incident reports of a weapon, even though no body cam footage mentions a weapon and no weapon was found.
It's a case of officers committing perjury as to the events that occurred to figuratively put a weapon into the scene.
So the video of the man being held down and a baton being forcibly placed into his hand, is the one I'm assuming you're calling out.
What possible context would make that okay? In what possible scenario is putting a man's hand on a weapon for the sole purpose of harming him reliant on context?
These are not meant at all to be snarky, these are my very real questions, because I'm confused by your statements.
There's fault on both sides without a doubt, but I think this flare-up is culmination of a systematic discrimination against a race and a long string of unaddressed and unpunished misconduct on behalf of certain policemen.
I really feel sorry for the people in uniform who are genuinely trying to make a difference, when the few bad apples make sure that nobody can have nice things.
Something had to give though. There are only so many blatant crimes that can be committed by police only to go unpunished before people say Enough!
Worst of all, we are not talking about crimes that can be repaid or repaired. Murder is the ultimate crime in some sense as (ignoring religion) it's irreversible and the loss the victim and their loved ones have suffered is the ultimate loss that we can never undo.
The callousness and carelessness with which these crimes were carried out and the complete lack of remorse or even acknowledgment from leading figures in police unions is basically just more fuel on the fire.
The countless acts of kindness and compassion of (I assume) the majority of officers is unfortunately drowned out by these bad examples.
Something has to change. The police force clearly does not have the ability or will to solve this problem on their own.
Leadership, but individuals too and they spread it themselves.
Bias is now barely defined as "I didn't hear my opinion read back to me." and just about any event is used to discredit entire news organizations, reporters, etc. Write some less than positive articles about a company "they have an agenda" and so forth. We get it on HN here too.
A buddy of mine was a camera man. Not far from the station was a lake where they heard there was some sort of boating accident. He got there first as the station was across the street, emergency services hadn't showed up yet and the crowd that gathered got quite upset and accused them of exploiting the situation somehow as soon as they got out of their van.
It seems people assume poor intentions, not just on the media but in most cases now.
Most modern “journalism” is garbage and “fake news” is a pretty accurate description of what they’re peddling. Let’s not pretend that most institutional journalists aren’t in bed with powerful political or financial interests, or that they don’t habitually misrepresent facts for those interests.
And I can't imagine, after months of wall-to-wall COVID-19 coverage, how you can still believe that the US press is anything other than outlets of biased and profit-driven crisis porn.
That doesn't justify attacks on reporters, but today's journalists aren't just part of the problem, arguably they are the problem.
Cops, like many other corps wearing uniforms and carrying guns are very often -not always but very often- aligned with the right. I've direct experiences having worked with them, also have a close relative who taught at the police school confirming it. Not in the US, but I would be extremely surprised if it didn't work the same over there. The mindset is what matters.
So it's not that a cop embraces right wing ideals but rather the other way around: it's a job looked for by many people who feel the need to wear an uniform and carry a gun (exercise power, dominate others, there are lots of psychological implications). I'd say that also the cops who expressed respect for George Floyd might be Trump Supporters, although they don't agree with their colleagues violent methods.
Yes. It's anecdotal at best, but all of the 6 cops I know have either "Trump 2020" or "Trump No More Bullshit" or (my personal favorite) "Trump Making Liberals Cry Since 2016" flags flying above the US flag at their homes.
My baseline assumption is a vast majority of police/sheriffs/troopers support Trump. Is this incorrect?
Sheriffs and State Troopers are very majority Republican, police are barely majority Democrat.
I suspect that if we had individual data per region, the affiliation would track with the local politics, maybe with +2 R across the board, or something like that.
Ignoring the antisocial aspects of the wording, the U.S. flag code indicates the national flag should always be the highest in a display.
“When flags of States, cities, or localities, or pennants of societies are flown on the same halyard with the flag of the United States, the latter should always be at the peak. When the flags are flown from adjacent staffs, the flag of the United States should be hoisted first and lowered last. No such flag or pennant may be placed above the flag of the United States or to the United States flag’s right.”
The irony that you’re missing is that many conservatives hold the flag to a very high standard. Standing on it, not pledging allegiance, etc. are wrong in their eyes. Look no further that Collin Kaepernick when he took a knee at the NFL. Then you have those same people (the “rule of law” people) turn around and ignore the Flag Code (never mind it not being enforceable) is quite ironic.
This is something people are severely underestimating.
If you slander and dehumanize 40-60% of the population with accusations of white supremacy, you're going to create a white supremacist movement where one did not previously exist.
Considering that the police force were initially created for slave patrols, it’s not really surprising that white supremacy is a part of police culture.
I would like to believe that people have more personal agency than that, and that in fact, calling someone or their actions white supremacist does not make them such and instead causes them to reflect on what caused the accusation.
If merely calling someone or their actions white supremacist makes them suddenly start self-identifying as a white supremacist and they don't see a problem with that, maybe the original accusation wasn't that wrong?
White supremacist infiltration of police organizations goes back a long time. Blaming the much more recent attention that people are paying to white supremacy for the movement itself is absurd. "You called me a white supremacist so now I am one" is nonsense.
The FBI warned of white supremacist infiltration of police forces over a decade ago.
> The press is doing everything within their power to fight the magnificence of the phrase, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! They can’t stand the fact that this Administration has done more than virtually any other Administration in its first 2yrs. They are truly the ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!
In all actuality, it’s probably Fox News. They’re one of the few remaining “big” newsrooms with a heavy conservative bias. Nothing wrong with that, but when people take what them and Trump say as doctrine, well, that’s a problem.
> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
'kingkawn's response is neither snarky, uncurious, unkind, or demanding. It's pleading against a particularly common kind of cynicism.
Whatever else you might think of this situation, it's impossible to deny something has shifted. Appeals to "it's just the same thing" are at best hollow, at worst placative.
It's interesting you say that, because most people feel one way or the other.
In my personal experience, even most written news is junk. It just seems like it's not junk because it uses intellectual language and doesn't feature a man in a suit speaking loudly. All news leaves out key details and editorializes.
But some people don't see it this way, and it's scary that we are this fractured because it's hard to reconcile. If two people are reading the news and come to dipolar conclusions, how do they come to an agreement? For the sake of argument, let's say that one perspective on the news is accurate, and the other is inaccurate; the chances that the more correct person will be able to persuade the person with the less accurate view seems close to nil.
There's no such thing as unbiased news coverage. Any news outlet has more stories to report than they have capacity to report. They must exhibit some bias to control for what they show. (Or, alternatively, I guess they could just randomly select news stories, but I don't think that'd be very compelling.)
Or they could only write about things they have thoroughly researched, not try to write about every event that happens, many of which they are just regurgitating from another source without any additional fact-checking or analysis anyway.
what i try to do is read the story from two sources that hate each other and try to take an average. Stay away from opinion and "analysis" pieces period.
That's a big distinction I think. Also looking at who provides cheap and easy summaries vs raw information / deep investigation helps. Right now even if Unicorn riot is likely biased in many ways, I'll take them actually standing in the crowd doing a live stream for days than another source: https://unicornriot.ninja/
While this is very disappointing news, these matters are not black and white. That is that say that even if police attack journalists in two countries, the one where it happens less frequently still outperforms the other.
I am honestly rejoicing at the sight of Americans discovering they are not really as free or as better than the rest of the world as they think they are. Maybe this will be the kindle that will help make things right for the entire population. I know the majority of HN readers are in the top 10% of the population and don't face the same struggles as others.
> I am honestly rejoicing at the sight of Americans discovering they are not really as free or as better than the rest of the world as they think they are
Americans are still freer than the rest of the world in general. None of this changes that. "As better" - still hasn't changed either if by better you mean better off. If you're born in the US, in general, you're in a position to be better off than most of the world. These two things also apply to most European countries. We aren't going to apologize for it. I understand if American patriotism and confidence puts off other countries. It's not for everyone. Different cultures have different values. It's ok.
Sad we have to address police corruption and brutality, but it's part of the process. Many nations don't have the ability for civilians to enact change. It's core to our foundation. We've done it many times before.
That’s exactly what I’m appealing to. Khashoggi got murdered brazenly, and nothing could be done about it. Hong Kong protestors get detained indefinitely, and nothing can be done about it.
The American imperative is that we must do something about it. Our failure is that we have a threshold that needs to be met, but we do have a threshold. In most of the world there is no threshold. You can do anything, indefinitely, with no change.
That’s why Putin is a multi decade President. That’s why China has a multi decade firewall. There’s no threshold.
We are imperfect, but we acknowledge the boiling points, an actual metric we can work with. A number we can improve upon.
I think you underestimate how far down the road towards totalitarianism you have travelled in the last 20-30 years. There's nothing I can see that suggests you have a threshold which will spur change. Your voting systems are being more actively rigged than ever before to ensure the people most angry about police brutality will be most likely to be disenfranchised in November.
> Your voting systems are being more actively rigged than ever before
This is simply not true. The only things that are rigged are the two party system that spit out bad candidates (seemingly more often than before), has mechanisms to suppress other parties, and no term limit career politicians that are bought out by special interests. But the voting system itself is not the problem.
I do not agree at least not where I am. I am in Reno Nevada and I witnessed a kid with a skateboard break out the back window of a police car that had 2 police inside the car at the time and the police did nothing, the kid (i say kid but early 20's) walked away after without being arrested, pepper-sprayed, or anything. What I witnessed was a peaceful protest that started mid-morning and did not turn violent until 6 pm when some non-local possibly Antifa idiots ran up to city hall with a baseball bat and started breaking out windows of the building, then a follow the herd mentality took over and people cheering them on and before you know it its a full-blown riot. They even spray painted up the police station and the police did nothing. It was not until the destruction of property at city hall that the heavy police presence showed up but even then most of them were just standing around city hall. They fired some tear gas to push people back and out of the downtown area. I was disappointed at our police and their lackadaisical approach to handling the unrest. So, its neither the protesters nor the police inciting the violence it is these non-local wannabe thugs like Antifa starting it. Someone needs to investigate George Soros for having these people on his payroll to go out and do this very thing.
It's a pity that some on the left in the past have been so ready with the word 'fascism'. It's a serious word describing a serious problem, and it should not be used casually for "people on the right I disagree with". I believe that the word is appropriate to describe this administration.
The irony is that the right seems to be abusing the word more than the left does these day. It seems to be a catch-all for people who are mean to me on the internet for them.
It's not specifically fascist, in the sense that many groups are doing it, and it's not exactly a central tenet of fascism. Mussolini was himself a journalist.
My reference was to people casually tossing around the word for "people on the right they dislike", when it wasn't really warranted.
I'm not good at predicting much of anything, but best guess is that the model is something more like Venezuela/Hungary/Turkey/Russia rather than the variety from the 1930ies.
> My reference was to people casually tossing around the word for "people on the right they dislike", when it wasn't really warranted.
I'm trying to understand why you think it wasn't really warranted. Perhaps it really isn't warranted. But I also think it's possible you are, like you said below, not seeing a bigger picture. I'll take your next sentence in reverse though.
> the model is something more like Venezuela/Hungary/Turkey/Russia rather than the variety from the 1930ies.
I haven't been to Venezuela/Hungary/Turkey/Russia. I did study World War II in early school and a lot of what led up to it though.
> I'm not good at predicting much of anything, but best guess is
I understand not being good at predicting much of anything. Most people are like that!
However, a lot of what our current presidency was doing prior to COVID-19 echoed very strongly about actual events from the late 1920s and early 1930s. And, as a software developer with a strong emphasis on data analysis, I see a lot of differences which make the current situation feel like the 1930s all over again but with liberal amounts of modern technology both overtly and also behind the scenes.
I do think that there are a lot of people who throw words like fascist around just because their emotions are high. That unfortunately happens with any slur. But I also believe that there's a lot of eye-opening moments that make "fascist" less rhetorical than before the current US president was elected.
To be fair, he's built his regime on a lot of laws and court precedent which was established before he was elected. But he's a completely different beast than any previous US president. And I think it's disingenuous to not consider slur in that light and to not combine it with the hidden facets of technology that most people don't think about or understand.
I kind of feel like people here are not reading what I'm actually writing.
I think 45 and company are fascists, or fascist-curious or adjacent or something like that.
In the past. Say, GHWB, people would call him a fascist because they didn't like some bit of policy. I didn't care for his policies by and large, but I also do not think he was a fascist.
> I kind of feel like people here are not reading what I'm actually writing.
Perhaps. I think I did read what you wrote. Let me look (again) at your top-level flagged post. I've now vouched for it, by the way.
> It's a pity that some on the left in the past have been so ready with the word 'fascism'. It's a serious word describing a serious problem, and it should not be used casually for "people on the right I disagree with". I believe that the word is appropriate to describe this administration.
Let me dissect this a little further.
> It's a pity that some on the left in the past have been so ready with the word 'fascism'
Now after our discussion, it's clear that you're not meaning "past today but in the context of Trump in general". I'd assumed that meaning since in general that's the context I've seen the word used. And indeed, Trumps election is in the past.
> I believe that the word is appropriate to describe this administration.
I don't remember this part being in your comment in my first reply. HN doesn't let me see edits or edit history or that a comment was edited. I'd like to think my memory's good enough to remember what I replied to, and there's also in general a netiquette of calling out substantial edits to messages. If you didn't edit your top level post then you are right; I didn't read it and I'm sorry for the confusion!
Edit to add:
> In the past. Say, GHWB, people would call him a fascist because they didn't like some bit of policy. I didn't care for his policies by and large, but I also do not think he was a fascist.
I was under ten for the entire duration of GHWB's presidency so I don't have that experience to draw upon. My experience is almost solely on reading history books and following politics since around Bush Jr's election with the "hanging chads of Florida" being the most prominent political memory I have other than being in polling lines waiting for my mom to vote.
Indeed, I can see how use of the slur during previous presidencies has significantly watered down its meaning today such that people skip over its use thinking it's political rhetoric.
I most certainly did include the bit about this administration and the word 'fascist' - that was the whole point! I included the other stuff as a prelude because I feel that the accusation needed a sense of gravity. It's a serious one, but accurate in my opinion.
Very few people understand fascism because it's a very context-specific and loosely-defined ideology. Unlike Marxists, fascists rarely wrote books. So if you read any book about fascism, the first chapter typically struggles with even defining what it actually is.
Now post a compilation of rioter and looter attacks against citizens, especially the poor, elderly, and disabled citizens who can't afford to insulate ourselves from this like you rich SV sociopaths supporting all of this can.
Two things can be true here: police overreach, and terrorist violence. Both need to be dealt with.
We need law enforcement to keep order and uphold the law, while also not silencing reporters and journalists.
Terrorists, we just need them to fuck right off. (In this case, the horizontally-organized “antifa” cells)
Good. Fuck all journalists. If anything, maybe start killing them off. Also, start dismantling these corporations that pay their social media coordinators to grovel on twitter with thoughts and prayers.
Rioters are the competition for police right now, and competition is anything but fierce.
When people are driving cars full speed into policemen, executing officers, throwing incendiary devices at people, covering for looters, and major media outlets are bending over backwards to justify it (which I suspect is, at the managerial/editorial level, naked self-preservation).
This is not grieving, it's a civil war; many journalists have chosen a side and you know it, and there is no moral principle that you will be able to uphold on that matter from your apartment.
@dang are you making an exception for these posts given the current situation? Although important, I do not see anything of technological interest. Any post about the protests are going to incite flame wars and make HN indistinguishable from any other social website right now.
Though I agree the discussion might turn into flame war. I think this too much of an important flame war to just remove or deprioritise from the homepage ... Just my two cents.
Technology has been extremely relevant in this whole ordeal. The fact that we can now create and share videos online that document these human right violations en masse is a thing that technology has allowed us to do.
OTOH We as the 'tech world' play a huge role in both how the narrative of "the media is the enemy" came to fruition and how people are radicalised online to actually believe this.
It is extremely important to recognise what tech's place is in all this
The poster you are responding to is not making his argument in good faith. He is more than fine posting inflammatory political statements on HN:
>The benefits of diversity is the Left’s pseudoscience...I want climate deniers and diversity sycophants alike purged from the scientific apparatus.[1]
>make HN indistinguishable from any other social website right now
This is incredibly uncharitable to HN. Yes, the discussion on average is far from ultra-rationalistic, but it's also far, far, far from "any other social website right now".
There are several things posted daily that are not "of technological interest" and land on the front page. Sometimes those things are even tangentially political. Unfortunately, I think this topic makes plenty of people very uncomfortable to talk about. Whether that's because of privilege or ignorance or something else altogether, I don't know. However, I think the ramifications and scale of this situation merits paying attention regardless of how uncomfortable it makes someone feel to encounter it. The rest of the world certainly is.
Personally speaking only, but I am a tech worker in the larger media sphere—mainly publishing with some titles over a century old.
These matters strike very close to home.
edit: I wanted to add that I have a lot of respect for most of the people in this community and the diversity of perspectives it provides. I'm very interested in hearing what people have to say here.
it is the justification given for shutting down anti ccp discussions and articles
what makes this situation different? surely not the scale of human atrocity? ccp still has the us gov beat, hands down. maybe us lives just matter more?
The war on cops is nothing more than class warfare; the elite scapegoating people asked to do the hard work.
This is college educated, wealthier folks picking on middle class working folks.
Our byzantine legal system, that conveniently maximizes revenue for the legal industry,
sows a lower class persecuted for mostly victimless crimes then asks the police to bring
in the harvest.
If you really want to get mad at the malfeasance in civil serice, take a look at your local school system.
Unless, of course, you can afford the Catholic schools or a prep school.
Frankly, if I were a cop, after watching the wink,wink "it's a peaceful protest" news reports, with clowns screaming and throwing bricks in the background, I might shoot a rubber bullet at the "reporters".
Sorry for the anger , folks, but .... look in the mirror ... and at who you voted into local offices.
1. If that were true women would still be unable to vote. Would you tell women in 1905 that "it's a democracy, you don't need to protest, just vote."
2. Even now, we have seen the power that be make it more and more difficult to vote. The current administration is throwing a complete temper tantrum at even the thought of letting people use absentee ballots during a national pandemic, citing the voter fraud boogeyman.
>Women didn’t shoot cops in the back of the head, burn down city hall, steal and loot stores
In what timeline are you talking about? Women's Suffrage definitely had protests turn violent. Here[1] is source about documenting this violence, and I went through the trouble of finding a source published 2 years ago in order to counter any narrative that it's "convenient" for today's issues. History has a way of whitewashing and romanticizing what were difficult fights for rights.
Large protests turn violent, and I'm not surprised that, with record unemployment as well, that looting is being amplified as well.
Besides, in any case, it's long established that peaceful protests don't even work. A man can't even kneel during a sports game without his protest being diminished.
Yes they are. Rioting is not protest. It is criminal activity. Your right to protest, assemble, and speak does not include setting buildings with children inside on fire, murdering pawn shop owners, killing federal officers.
I fully support everyone out there marching not committing crimes.
Do you think the french revolution happened peacefully ? Do you think the 2nd amendment is there to peacefully do thing ? Do you think slavery would have ended with peaceful protests ?
Nothing of importance is accomplished peacefully when the other side doesn't have to follow the law and is making the rules on the fly. "B-bu-but the rioters, they're bad =(" yes they are, but they're not the root cause, we have to stop shifting the blame on the very last link of the chain.
> Your right to protest, assemble, and speak does not include setting buildings with children inside on fire, murdering pawn shop owners, killing federal officers.
So what ? What's the biggest issue here ? A system rotten to the very core or people burning stuff because they are fed up of being fucked over and over again. People don't go out and get beat, shot at or tear gassed for fun, if you think they're the issues YOU are the issue. You play the exact same card as most medias, hiding the insanely huge systemic issue behind a "hey look there people are breaking stuff, how dare they!".
The US is turning into a Turkey or Egypt and a lot people seem fine with that, can't wait to read the history books in 50 years.
Is this because of police changing their tactics or is it because of journalists changing their tactics?
I don't know the answer, but with the internet and analytics, we've seen media become more sensationalistic to get those clicks and views. So this is a possibility that should be considered.
Honestly cannot tell if you're trolling. If journalists are getting roughed up more because of sensationalism (still well within their 1st amendment rights) that is _completely_ the fault of police.
One side has cameras. The other side has guns. When violence happens, who's fault do you think it is?
Clear the area how? I think people have forgotten this doesn't need to mean your first step is pulling out the batons. If you tell a journalist they are under arrest, they will always comply. They won't fight back. So yes, still cops' fault.
>I think people have forgotten this doesn't need to mean your first step is pulling out the batons.
When and where did this happen? The first step is verbally telling people to clear the area.
>If you tell a journalist they are under arrest, they will always comply. They won't fight back. So yes, still cops' fault.
Given the fact that the police are always outnumbered in these situations, and vehicles, jails and officers have limited capacity, arresting everyone who doesn't comply is impossible. So they are first asked to leave. If they don't they are pushed out of the area by force.
If reporters are too close to the police line that is pushing people they will get pushed along with everyone else. Breaking the line weakens it and hampers the police's efforts.
The police? Not so much. Police don't make law, they shouldn't get to decide very many things at all.
The state (or city, or nation, where appropriate)? Absolutely, but only when absolutely necessary. (like curfew orders which follow widespread disorder and destruction)
In practice, they do have that right. And they have the right to use reasonable force to enforce that. So arguing that police are always wrong to use force to clear an area, regardless if media are there or not, is an argument against the laws as they are.
Some has to do with the police tactic of breaking up protests by lining up in riot gear and marching towards a crowd advancing and then clearing the area in front of them with tear gas. (the example of this was breaking up an after-curfew protest in Minneapolis in front of a police station, the night after a different station had burned to the ground). Their goal seemed to be to disburse the crowd and arrest a few people as possible.
The next night their tactics changed, for the better, a similar after-curfew protest group was warned, given time, and everybody remaining was encircled by a close knit line of police and every single person was arrested. The second tactic had a much better outcome, it seemed.
There were reporters stationed on the outskirts of the crowd but between the crowd and police, and I saw some of them get teargassed. In that case it had more to do with wind and proximity than being targeted. Much different than police actively going after reporters, but sources like this one don't seem to differentiate between collateral damage from proximity and direct targeting of media teams.
Also, police in gas masks, partially for tear gas protection, partially for covid protection, facing crowd who at times have attacked police, they can't see very well, they are under enormous amounts of stress, and few of them have experience doing anything like this... if you pull back from the blame, talking about rights and duties, and just focus for a minute on the humanity... ask yourself how are these people going to fail? You'd probably come up with a lot of the ways the police indeed are failing. Now in the same context think of how those failures could be reduced without thinking about blame... and it's hard. It's a hard problem.
Just like failures in a tech stack and a team of programmers, blame is not the path to solving problems. You don't go find the guy who wrote the bug and shout at him or send him to jail or fire him or string him up in the public square, you write unit tests, you write post-mortems, you make backups, you make new monitors... in short you find the sources of problems, you investigate them, and you solve them. That sort of thought about failure needs to happen more in software, and it needs to happen more in the rest of life too. Recognizing failures, having empathy for those who fail, realizing the source of those failures is systematic, and working on systematic solutions.
It is totally ironic bullshit that mainstream media "journalist" are presumed to get passes to watch police brutalize the actual 1st amendment right to free assembly.
Some people say police attacking journalists are isolated incidents by a few bad eggs, most of them are doing the right thing.
Some people say protestors becoming violent, vandalizing, and looting are isolated incidents by a few bad eggs, most of them are doing the right thing.
Really similar thought processes go into those two, usually by people you can sort into camps of opposing worldviews. They're both right and both wrong, but it's surprising how similar the lines of thought are and how people can't see the other side is thinking just the same way.
One of those groups has access to military hardware, live ammunition, and legal (or cultural) protections from prosecution.
It's dangerously to boil down the arguments from both sides and say, "Look, these two things are the same!" because even if both sides were saying, "It's a few bad apples", the implications of that would be wildly different.
It's unfortunately not an easy task, getting people to see a whole issue and not just their own interpretation.
Whatever your side, have empathy for the people you oppose and try to understand their failings and mistakes. Without that, progress and improvement are nearly impossible.
One of these groups is capable of violating our right to free speech, our right to assemble, and our right to a trial by jury. The other is not.
No one is condoning looting - in fact, it's just as frustrating for me in that it's distracting from the message. But let's not forget what the (much, much) bigger problem is. I also believe that various bad-faith actors (police, conservatives) are using the looting to distract from the fact that the police have systematically deprived us of our rights with no recourse.
"Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic." HN Guidelines
But this is probably just my lurker observation. Not against all news but there should be at least some spark of insight of novelty. Feel free to flag now.
Edit: To expand a bit. What I like about HN is not that it's tech but it has plethora of very interesting topics and comments are almost always insightful (unlike this one). This headline is basically the whole article. The comments are therefore not guided by idea, but news. This topic is important but nothing comes out of these threads. This rant is contributing to bad quality of comments, one thing I always try to avoid.
While this "off-topic" definition has always been a gray line, I'm definitely in favor of continuing discussion on hacker news. While it's not about technology per se, HN IMO has had the best discussions when it comes to freedom of information, and how to balance varying interests and definitions when it comes to freedom of information (e.g. is requiring you give up a password the same thing as requiring a physical key, what rights do police have to search your phone, etc.)
This topic is fundamentally about freedom of information and what level we are comfortable (or uncomfortable) limiting that freedom in certain situations.
News stories about freedom of speech and freedom of the press have always been welcome on HN, which is common in tech communities, and the words “most” and “probably” are doing a lot of work there.
This rule is fuzzy by design and I really don’t get why some people here are so pedantic about it.
It actually is. While the police have often attacked journalists I don't know that it has ever been so blatant, so well documented, and done so broadly across all journalists, even from the larger news networks that often have the clout and means to avoid such abuse.
Right now, on the front page, there are posts about the recreation of the first automobile, the archaeological discovery of cannabis residue at a dig site, news articles about meetings between Zuckerberg and civil rights leaders.
While this site trends heavily towards tech, it is not so narrow-minded that we cannot discuss things not strictly related to that subject.
The argument does work in that context. It's the same across all topics as far as I know.
The moderation question is always: what serves intellectual curiosity? https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... Once a topic becomes repeated enough, there's a power-law-style dropoff in how interesting it is (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...), except to people who have a strong identification with one side of an argument, and that sort of interest isn't intellectual curiosity, it's loyalty to a cause. That may be an admirable quality in many ways, but it's not a good fit for this site.
Nationalistic flamewar, which is the theme you're referring to, definitely falls in this category. That doesn't mean that "anti ccp" stories don't get attention here—they certainly do. Just not enough to satisfy the warriors, and rightly so, since warriors want every story that serves their cause to be on HN's front page.
i see, so this topic is considered 'intellectually curious' while anti-ccp is 'loyalty to a cause'
i am not really sure how you make that determination, i personally find accounts of what the ccp does to exploit its citizens intellectually interesting when it is not widely reported
so, given you exponential drop off comment, i assume that means a small number of highly voted protest posts are allowed, and then past that point they will get modded. is that correct?
and yes, we had this discussion before, and i became confused in this context since protest topics also seem prone to intellectually uninteresting flamewars hn wishes to avoid
it seems there is an exception in this kind of case where a controversial topic is allowed if it is new
technically, police brutality and protesta are not new topics, but i suppose this exception is the current national impact?
The issue isn't the topic itself but the amount of repetition around it. Curiosity withers under repetition. You would see exactly the same pattern if the current topic ended up getting repeated a lot: the users who felt most strongly about it ('loyalty to a cause') would want every single article to be on the front page, and would feel like the mods and/or community must be pro-police-brutality if that didn't happen, just as some people feel like we must be pro-communist or pro-China or whatever.
I tried to explain that above, and linked to past explanations of the same points. If you want to take a look at those past explanations, and still have a question that isn't answered there, I'd be curious to know what it is. Perhaps it would be helpful to describe what these links contain more explicitly:
Yes, #3 is the key point, that there are exceptions to the flamewar constraint if there is some new, interesting information for a current major topic..
I think it would show more nuanced sentiment to say, that on 110 occasions journalists ended up caught in aggressive police action since May 28. Current wording would have an implication for many people, that journalists were deliberately chosen as targets.
They were though. The videos out of twitter are completely horrifying. An endless wave of cops hearing "Reporter! Here's my badge! I am a reporter!" and just ... not caring. Bash their face, mace them, just follow orders. I saw a video where an officer smashed their video camera. A big one, the style a professional reporter uses.
It's our democracy. And we want to hope for the best. But damn if this isn't worrisome.
EDIT: Hehe, well. Sorry you got piled on. For what it's worth, I was very much on the side of the police about three days ago, so I had to do some soul searching. In case you're in the same boat: I urge you to go seek out and find some of the videos that people are upset about. It's not propaganda; it can't be. It's just footage from citizens.
> just ... not caring. Bash their face, mace them, just follow orders.
That's how law generally works. It does not matter who violates it. If you see a problem with the law - change the law. Do not bash police officers for enforcing it.
But they aren't enforcing the law with many of these actions. See the first major publicized incident with the CNN crew. No laws were broken, the crew was compliant, they asked if they should move, explained they were in that spot because other police had told them to be there.
The police have gone beyond the law in these cases, and their handling of protesters (not to mention the cases which precipitated this present set of protests). The law doesn't need to be changed, the way police behave does.
You are incorrect. The law does need to be changed. There is a specific law called Qualified Immunity which prevents officers from being brought to trial for these acts.
Change or remove that law, and things will absolutely change as you see families taking officers to court for felony murder, assault and battery, and other felony charges.
Read my comment in context. The person I replied to implied that the police actions we're seeing this past week (in particular with their behavior towards the press) is itself legal, which it is not. That they have a way out for their illegal (or at least wrong) behavior is a separate, but related, issue. The thing I was discussing was that the law is already on the side of the press, the police are violating the law. Your comment is about the separate issue of why they are violating the law (the belief, validated repeatedly, that they are above the law itself). So yes, the law needs to change, but the police are not presently acting within the bounds of the law so the issue isn't just changing the law, but reforming the police forces.
A few days ago I had that exact discussion with someone here who didn't understand that there's a distinction between legal and illegal orders (wrt the military, in that context). That it is in fact illegal to obey an illegal order, and the right of members of the military to disobey such orders (assuming knowledge that it is illegal). The other person thought that I was advocating for anarchy...
So the part of that which isn't paywalled simply says that doing something illegal, or doing something legal in a threatening manner, can be broken up by police.
Maybe it's in the full-text, but where does it say police can attack non-violent bystanders? Because I'm not seeing it in there.
I did not see behind paywall to, but here's a relevant quote:
> However, the second element is more difficult because it concerns gathering for lawful purposes and only becomes a violation when the gathering turns violent, boisterous, or tumultuous.
After it turns violent, police generally issues an order to disperse, and then proceeds to anti-riot measures. If you don't disperse after that lawful order, you are violating the law, which even most educated people don't seem to understand.
> but where does it say police can attack non-violent bystanders?
That's the general point of police. They do not only attack violent people, but anyone, who violates the law. In this case it is the law of unlawful assembly.
Let's turn the discussion, as I think you have some predispositions there. How do you think police should prevent looting and damage to property on the street (like parked cars, shop windows, etc) during 95% peaceful protests, when the protestors form a crowd, and the peaceful folk refuse to disperse, because "they are just peaceful bystanders"?
P.S. Regarding the paywall. It seems to cut at your screen height, so the more vertical space you have, the more text is available.
The first amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America supersedes local ordnances, and journalists absolutely do no have to disperse when police issues such an order to the general public.
> The first amendment speaks nothing about who can be where. It just denies government the right to prosecute people for making statements.
"just" free speech? Might want to check your pocket constitution again. The first amendment also protects the free press- and the freedom to assemble. (Not to mention religion and to petition for redress of grievances)
i find that very hard to believe. Crowds are ordered to disperse when things are getting dangerous or a curfew put in place by an elected official has passed. I don't see any plausible reason why dispersal wouldn't apply to the whole crowd and only a subset.
I appreciate the desire for prudence on emotional topics - however, in this specific case, the description is a reasonable generalization. Maybe not all 110 cases were unreasonable or deliberate, but it's impossible to overstate the importance of the fact that many of the cases were.
Just like experience accounts of individual members of riots, most videos I saw are very out of context. Specifically in regards to media representatives following lawful police orders before getting caught in the push.
Intentionally picked up from a position that police told them was okay to take. Offered to move for a subsequent officer who confronted them, and were arrested for resisting arrest. Don't take my word for it, cameras were rolling the whole time. Governor acknowledges that this was improper.
The first one is concerning, but the incident appears to be resolved now (?).
The second one does not seem like a major problem to me, as the police might not know a random filming guy showing some piece of paper to be an actual reporter, rather than just a friend of the rioters filming their action for YouTube. It seems it also was resolved.
Unless there's an easy way for police to make a credible determination if the media badge is valid, I would count it as an honest mistake with no major consequences.
Again, this does not support the implication of the title, that police picked journalists intentionally, and more supports my point that journalists were caught in the process.
That's two examples, literally the first two hits of an obvious search. Officials are acknowledging that these are wrongful arrests, why can't you?
There's 110 cases mentioned in this article. Instead of demanding that we spoon-feed you evidence, please continue looking into the evidence. Because there's tons of it and you know how to find it.
> The first one is concerning, but the incident appears to be resolved now (?).
Sure. Call it resolved. That does not mean that it didn't happen the way that it's being described.
> Again, this does not support the implication of the title, that police picked journalists intentionally...
This is a really weird point to get hung up on, given that the title of the original article is "U.S. police have attacked journalists more than 120 times since May 28". Where does it say "intentional"? I can't decide if this is a strawman or goalpost shifting, but either way your approach to this conversation is odious.
> Sure. Call it resolved. That does not mean that it didn't happen the way that it's being described.
I am not arguing if the events are misstated. I will continue calling it resolved, as crew took the apology and does not seem to want anything else. So why bring it up again?
> This is a really weird point to get hung up on, given that the title of the original article is "U.S. police have attacked journalists more than 120 times since May 28". Where does it say "intentional"? I can't decide if this is a strawman or goalpost shifting, but either way your approach to this conversation is odious.
This whole discussion is a subthread of a comment, that the title might be misleading, because for many it will imply intent to attack journalists specifically.
> Officials are acknowledging that these are wrongful arrests, why can't you?
If you want a serious talk, we should use proper legal terms. "Wrongful arrest" definitely does not apply to the second of two cases, and in the official statement that wording was not used. They did apologize for making a mistake, which happens. But it is a mistake permitted by the law due to special circumstances (e.g. a riot).
> please continue looking into the evidence. Because there's tons of it and you know how to find it.
I am not making extraordinary statements, to which I consider "police intentionally focus journalists".
> Unless there's an easy way for police to make a credible determination if the media badge is valid, I would count it as an honest mistake with no major consequences.
And some were in the crowd and others were apart of crowd. No, they were not randomly stumbled upon nor are these cases of being randomly hit while police attacks indiscriminately. Through such cases exists too.
Watching the videos posted online it certainly seems that the journalists were chosen as targets. At a bare minumum the police knew they were press (given that they are wearing badges indicating as such, often holding them above their head) and proceeded anyway.
This is not the first article claiming that on HN (the previous one was flagged to death). Like the previous one, this one does not show anything objective to support this interpretation.
The last time I linked you multiple objective instances showing journalists being attacked by the police unprovoked, you made some strong efforts to try and ignore the context of those videos.
I don't think you're here to actually argue in good faith at all.
I have been to a few rallies/vigils/marches lately and all incidences of violence that I have witnessed either in person or through media has been instigated by the police. As far as I know,every documented case where a formerly peaceful crowd turns into chaos has been started with police shooting pepperspray, teargas, or whatever into the crowd.
I find it really hard to not come to the conclusion that the police is desperately trying to set a narrative to justify a history of violence by escalating more violence, but please, someone, restore my faith.
People protest peacefully, and police shoot tear gas into the crowd and attack whomever they can get their hands on.
I’ll admit, the outright brutality I saw in-person in Oakland was worse than what I’ve seen here in the recent days.
In Oakland, the police would purposely corral protestors into groups and literally beat the shit out of them. I saw this in-person multiple times. In Seattle, I haven’t seen that sort of corral behavior. However, police do shoot tear gas completely unprovoked and fire rubber bullets and mace without concern.
In both places, no looting was occurring at the main scene of the protests. In both cases, numerous videos show police breaking windows themselves.
In any case, it’s all the same: in a country that parades its freedom, people of color can’t protest without the president calling for them to be roughed up, and without the police willingly complying.
Two weeks ago a San Diego police deputy was released from jail after serving only six months after sexually assaulting (why forced oral sex is not rape I’m not sure) 16 women that had called the police for help. He does not have to register as a sexual offender.
Protesting is legal and a protest without a disturbance is not a protest, so arresting people causing a disturbance while shutting down non-violent disturbances is disappointing.
The justice dept definition as updated in 2012 would include this. I don’t know how that plays out in state law, but what I’ve read points to that being the definition for state charges too. Doesn’t help when it’s not enforced, which is clearly the case here since the officer didn’t have to register as a sex offender either.
https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/blog/updated-definition...
Also, a lack of media coverage for a thing doesn't mean it doesn't happen, nor does rampant media coverage mean a thing is common. Remember the summer of the shark? [1]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Lee_lane_closure_scandal [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_of_the_Shark
Just today, an interstate was shut down unexpectedly because of protesters. What about everyone who was trapped on that highway and could not move, let alone reroute?
side comment: Loving the downvotes for a legitimate point. When did hacker news turn into reddit?
And I didn't hear anyone make the argument any of those things should be banned to prevent the potential loss of life from someone trying to get to a hospital while not in an ambulance.
It really seems like an isolated demand for safety.
- https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/services/law-enforcement/perm....
And planning does matter, because when events are planned, proper detours can be set up with signage.
It's that blocking traffic is a material, aggressive escalation of a protest that could have very negative ramifications to the cause. Not only does it really really piss people off, it puts human bodies in direct conflict with vehicles and could potentially block travel to someone that needs urgent medical attention.
If that's your jam then go for it. For my part, if i am in a vehicle with family and we are in a traffic jam due to a protest, i'm going to be in an agitated state...not because of the delay but because of the inability to escape. I'll wait it out, but if people start attacking my car and breaking windows, i'm hitting the gas till i see daylight. That innate sense of how i would respond and is why i think people should approach blocking traffic with caution.
He's isn't "firing [himself] up.." as you say, he's thinking out what could possibly happen and considering what his options are.
If you wait until you're in such a situation (people are breaking into your car and threatening to harm the occupants) you simply don't have sufficient time to think out those options - you must think and prepare ahead of time. For those who live in places where riots or firefight break out regularly, this is the proper and usual way to prepare.
FWIW in most of the USA it isn't homicide if you kill an attacker(s), provided you are defending life or limb of yourself, others and/or your property.
jcims didn't say that he would be "Driving a car into a crowd..." as you state.
Clearly, if rioters begin beating a car and breaking windows the driver has the option of surviving by driving to preserve life, limb and property.
jascii says>"mentally training yourself to make that a "valid option" can be extremely dangerous."<
Have you ever been surrounded by a mob or mobs while driving a vehicle? We're discussing it here, so you've now at least considered (and possibly once experienced) such a situation: otherwise how could you claim that such an option can be, as you state, "extremely dangerous"?
Tell us your valuable experiences, please.
BTW there's plenty on this topic previously on the innertubes:
https://urbansurvivalsite.com/caught-riot-driving/
https://www.quora.com/What-are-my-legal-options-if-my-car-is...
Work is an escalation that could literally cost lives..
Theoretical grandstanding over an unlikely hypothetical scenario to condemn protesters is being obtuse.
This is not theoretical grandstanding, this is recognizing a potential threat.
> "To see this - traffic blocking the main intersection of a level 1 trauma centre, blocking the entrance and exit to our hospital. Blocking patients from receiving care that they need, makes me angry. It hurts. It hurts a lot," said one healthcare worker on Facebook.
> WLNS reports another posting: "You are currently blocking ambulances, physicians and caregivers from making it to work to care for the sick and relieve the exhausted workers.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
Quotes a local news story: https://www.wlns.com/news/health/coronavirus/capitol-protest...
> Sparrow spokesperson John Foren said there are no access problems and ambulances can “get in and out. There’s no problem.”
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/0...
Social media is clogged with live footage from the protests. Can you find a single video of an ambulance being stopped by protests?
The irony of your comment is that the likelihood of an ambulance being close to a protest is linked to the extreme violence that the police is using to attack and repress protests against police violence.
Why would anyone make a video of stopped traffic?
Because people like you are hell bent on smearing the protests, resorting even to come up with made-up accusations like ambulances stuck in traffic, and any evidence would provide some support to those claims.
But apparently even that is hard to come by. So here we are, stuck with fabrications and imaginary "what if" scenarios.
Anyways, if you're trapped in traffic and not moving, there's not much else for you to do besides get out your phone and take some video.
"Despite some "confusion," Lansing police had no complaints about any ambulance being locked in traffic during an emergency, said Robert Merritt, a spokesman for the Lansing Police Department. When ambulances on non-emergency runs were in traffic, "rally participants slowly cleared a path," he said."
[1] https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/0...
People have done tests with white people and black people open carrying in exactly the same way. Black open carriers got a very different police response.
Edit: I mean, come on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eVPKpBKGCE
(Fascinating trivia: California allowed open carry until the Mulford Act in 1967 restricted it -- directly in response to the Black Panthers practicing it. The Act was signed into law by Ronald Reagan, with the explicit support of the National Rifle Association.)
You don't have to condone it. The question is whether it's appropriate to escalate to violence to stop it. And it clearly isn't, even from the very narrow perspective of the police. The phone video shot two days ago energized the huge protests yesterday, who ended up getting gassed out of a church in DC so the president could hold up a bible, which is driving literally millions more people into the streets.
Let them do their thing, and everyone will get bored. Yes, it's a dick move to block an intersection. But we don't tear gas routine assholes, right?
Never thought of it this way before, but this train of thought strongly resonates with me and makes sense. Thanks for posting it.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/de-escalation-keeps-pro...
We don't have the right to block traffic to promote our political opinions.
When protestors block traffic, if the city decides they have to go, and they won't - in those situations, it's the protesters who are 'instigating', not the police.
NRA 2cnd amendment protestors, pro/anti-abortion protestors, anti-capitalist - whatever we want it doesn't matter. If the protest violates the local or regional ordinance, and the city asks protesters to move (and they do in many cases allow the protesters to stay) - they have to move, if they don't move, it's not the police's fault that they are literally required by us, the community, to move people.
Edit: I would like to invite anyone to define exactly under what conditions people think they have the right to stop traffic at major intersections for hours on end, other than of course signalling to the city beforehand.
If people don't want their intersections blocked by crows of people day after day, then they should consider the extent to which their interests are compatible with the interests of the protesters, and if necessary and reasonable, consider joining the protesters to help them achieve their goal sooner. If seventy percent of the US population were protesting, the protests wouldn't last that long - unlike in Hong Kong.
This was your hypothetical, but it’s actually reality. Protest is protest. It’s for the whole society to decide what are valid forms of it, at every level.
[1] https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2020/05/27/the-boogaloo-move...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separate_but_equal
That's just lawlessness.
There's not way to make up the rules as we go along, using the 'winds of the day' and what's happening on the news to determine what's a legit protest and what is not.
We do decide collectively what's what by using laws and policies. We make those, we make them clear, and then we apply them.
It seems as though you can't block traffic at a busy intersection 'because' - and so whatever the protest is today, it's not right.
We can't make up as we go along, that's chaos.
People can protest in parks, in front of city hall etc. - that works, it's peaceful and within civil framework.
You haven’t responded to my legal arguments and justifications. You are moving the goalposts and doubling down. Please keep on point or I will not have any substantial points to respond to.
When peaceful protests have failed to affect change and police brutality (especially for POC) is continuing unabated.
None of you have provided any reasonably objective definition of what could constitute an otherwise illegal, and sometimes violent protest.
These responses sound a lot like right-wing NRA 2cnd Amendment people barricading in buildings with guns and police surrounding them kind of rhetoric.
All three of the responses (at the time of my response) purport arbitrary definitions of self-determined, extra-judicial action - essentially vigilantism.
Literally, people inventing some cause and then taking over public property, sometimes causing damage, or worse.
If you accept your own definitions of 'legitimate cause' - I'm afraid you're really not going to like what a lot of other Americans would like to protest, just as violently.
If people are going to protest, especially when things can get violent, they're going to have to do so in a way that's not entirely disruptive -> like gather in a park, otherwise, it's just not going to work out.
We don't get to invent the law, no matter how passionate we are about something.
There are just a ton of better ways to create change that are totally within civil and legal framework, and there are many good examples to follow. And especially the rioting is probably counter-productive in almost every sense of the terms.
By your definition, black people using or destroying a whites-only bathroom as a form of protest would be off limits. I'd recommend some time away from the keyboard and do some reading about protest and the cultural history of same. As a very basic starting point, you might consider reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protest in its entirety.
For example it is not up to the government to define what constitutes an acceptable peaceful protest.
When you get to the point where the government defines what is and what is not an acceptable protest then you no longer have a free democracy society.
Concern trolling?
Unfortunately, some senior "dog whistle" politicians have labeled protesters "thugs" and "looters" and have called for "shooting" and "no quarter." These loose words are dangerous and may be unlawful: https://lawandcrime.com/george-floyd-death/republican-senato...
As a result of these statements, some armed enforcers including police, National Guard, and U.S. military may interpret these bellicose pronouncements as a declaration of war or a granting of letters of marque and reprisal against protesters and their property.
Good leadership would call for toning down the rhetoric but leadership appears to be in short supply. Gefickt, we are.
Oakland has had a Democratic mayor since 1977. California routinely has a super-majority of Democrats in the state legislature, and the last Republican Federal Senator from the state left office almost 30 years ago. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that the second paragraph after mentioning the “fraught” relationship between black residents and the Oakland PD should have something to do with those Democrats who have direct executive and legislative control over the city and state, who are directly in charge of hiring/firing police chiefs and operating the state level internal affairs bureaus, and who set police department budgets and make the laws. And maybe the (admittedly deplorable) coded language a Republican Senator thousands of miles away uses belongs many paragraphs below that.
[1] Interesting fact. Oakland and Louisville are ranked similarly (188 versus 194) on Urban Institute’s “economic inclusiveness” index: https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/97981/...
I agree. But that's not the whole story; perhaps not even the main story here. "Police act like laws don't apply to them because of Qualified Immunity": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23373329
Thanks to HN commenter @yyyk ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23382006 ), we learn that in 1967, the Supreme Court held that:
- "Few doctrines were more solidly established at common law than the immunity of judges from liability for damages for acts committed within their judicial jurisdiction... "
- "This immunity applies even when the judge is accused of acting maliciously and corruptly... " and - "... the immunity of legislators for acts within the legislative role was not abolished. The immunity of judges for acts within the judicial role is equally well established... "
- "The common law has never granted police officers an absolute and unqualified immunity" but "... a police officer is not charged with predicting the future course of constitutional law... " and "the defense of good faith and probable cause... available to the officers in the common-law action for false arrest and imprisonment, is also available to them in the action under § 1983 [Civil action for deprivation of rights]."
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Pierson_v._Ray/Opinion_of_the...
After which followed a cascade of case law that granted police officers, and others similarly anointed, a "qualified immunity" to trials (including pre-trial discovery): https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/qualified_immunity
Oakland lies within the ambit of the U.S. Supreme Court so, as long as qualified immunity remains the law of the land, local officials have limited ability to change a long-standing police culture of impunity.
> coded language a Republican Senator thousands of miles away uses belongs many paragraphs below that.
I disagree. Thanks to telecommunications, social media, and other new-fangled technologies, powerful and influential persons can cause action at a distance of thousands of miles. "Thousands of miles away" is meaningless in instances in which powerful persons can transmit or impose effects tens of thousands of miles away.
Edit: formatting
Referring to looters as 'looters' is not problematic.
Calling for shootings, using code-words like 'thugs' and referring to peaceful protesters as 'looters' is a problem - but let's not lose context here: there are riots and rioters are bad news.
I think in these ugly times it's even more important to be cool and clear about things.
Is removing anti-riot barricades ‘looting’ if protesters remove them from the street and out of the control of authorities in order to exercise their right to protest?
Branding someone a rioter empowers the utterer and subjugates the one deemed rioting in your framing. You seem to think it is justified to use violence against someone because of how you perceive their actions, even if they don’t hurt people, only property. There is a subtle but distinct difference. Using force to defend yourself and others has a long precedent and is largely uncontroversial in a public context such as this. However, a citizen in public generally can’t engage someone who is running away from them as they are not in imminent danger. Unless you think they are immediately returning with a weapon, you have to let them go once they get away or chase them and perform a citizen’s arrest. Shooting a fleeing person is frowned upon by the courts. Only police have that authority.
Why then are citizens taking it upon themselves to prevent looting and rioting? Defending businesses and private property from the inside and the entryway is one thing. Chasing fleeing ‘looters’ is a situation for disaster. Besides mistaken identity, which is already causing defenders and protesters who fought looters to be detained by police while actual looters escape, there are problems with armed individuals running into crowds of undifferentiable groups of protesters, looters, and rioters. How will the defenders know when to stop beating people up? How will they know if the protester defending the person next to them from collateral damage isn’t another looter? They will see what they want to see in the situation, on both sides.
Violence is not the way. I just don’t see how property damage is a mortal harm that justifies what I’m seeing. It may not be justified to damage the property, but as an individual or small group of defenders, there is no proportionality of response that makes sense against a large group of people. To start the fight is to lose on all sides. The protest will end when it ends. Lives shouldn’t end through protest, or through its consequences. One was enough to start this one. There’s a reason people do it, even if it may have knock-on effects. That’s the point. To shutdown protest because of its intended and unintended consequences is to make a means test for our constitutional rights. It’s not tolerated well in the streets or in the courtroom.
The defenders are unknowingly or knowingly participating in a counter-protest movement against the current legitimate George Floyd protests. It is being promoted through dog whistles by the right wing. It’s actually really obvious that authoritarians aren’t wasting this crisis. They start as many fires as they put out. I’m including rioters in that last part.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "Branding someone a rioter empowers the utterer and subjugates the one deemed rioting in your framing" - a 'riot' is not a 'framing' - it's for the most part an objective fact. People trying to protest are not rioters, people smashing stores are rioters.
No doubt the press and various people will try to 'frame' in one direction or the other, but there's no escaping reality.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "Chasing fleeing ‘looters’ is a situation for disaster" of course it is, it's crazy irrational, and I hope that would be illegal everywhere, though I'm not sure. I also would hope that nobody would frame that as 'defending one's property' because it's not.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "I just don’t see how property damage is a mortal harm that justifies what I’m seeing."
Now this is a really meaty question. I agree with you, and I think most people would agree - however - in these cases the police are not using mortal aggression. There are literally riots and looting all over the country, and the police are using pepper spray, shields etc. - there were lethal responses where shots were fired (and FYI police and civilians have died amidst the riots). Also - things like rubber bullets can kill, but that's due to a probabilistic problem, not any kind of intention. Maybe the police should not use those things, but it's more of a very specific question about safety.
>>>>>>>>> "The defenders are unknowingly or knowingly participating in a counter-protest movement against the current legitimate George Floyd protests. "
There are a few things to unpack here:
'The defenders' if you mean police, then they are very lawfully authorized by you and I, the community, to move the rioters and looters out of the area, arrest them etc.. We should not for a second confuse them with some crazy folks with guns or weapons attacking protestors, that's clearly immoral and illegal. And we should also not confuse 'protesters' with 'rioters'.
As far as 'right-wing narrative' - although that is true, if anyone can't see that that there is a massive and systematic 'social narrative' (left wing?) being driven by millions of participants, even those who should be neutral, is living in a bubble.
Most importantly - there is rioting and looting. This is not being done by the police, or by some secret Russians, this is being done by people within the protest movement and it's clearly wrong. It's definitely happening and it's absolutely reasonable to point that out, and to do so is not to necessarily support some kind of narrative.
In fact, to not characterize rioters and looters as such, would be an offense against the truth, just as characterizing protesters standing on a corner with signs as 'rioters' would be as well.
Because there are a lot of people driving narratives of some kind or another (pretty much every political force and most in the press), doesn't mean we're entitled to just 'go with it', we have a responsibility to try to stay 'clear-eyed', perhaps more than ever.
1. Rubber bullets kill when they are used in the exact opposite way they were intended. They are not meant to be fired at people's heads. If used, they should be fired at the legs to incapacitate. This is covered in training. I very much doubt it's an accident that they wind up hitting someone in the temple.
2. I did not explicitly authorize escalation between my city police and protestors. If you want to know what works when it comes to preventing riots and looting, read: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/de-escalation-keeps-pro... I watched in my city as protestors were turned into rioters because the police reaction to the middle finger and some naughty language was riot gear and tear gas.
3. You're very confused. You explicitly say we should not confuse protestors with rioters, and then go on to say that rioting and looting is being done by people "within the protest movement". You can't have it both ways. What you don't seem to understand is that it can simultaneously be the case that there are people who are committing "crimes" to have their voices heard, and people who are committing crimes because it's an opportune time to commit them. What you fail to recognize, is that we may disagree about what a crime even is societally. And to wit, that is exactly what we're disagreeing about right now. By strict legal definition, looting is a crime. However, the motivation for the crime colors it. If someone was starving and stole a loaf of bread it would be a crime, but the motivations for that crime color it. I would not, for instance, tear gas a starving person for stealing a loaf of bread.
-- In the end, your version of "clear-eyed" is code for "whatever I deem to be the valid laws of this society", not necessarily what is truly just.
If you believe these looters are doing so for justice, then know that the people who killed Floyd will be tried for their crimes and that you can not cast all law enforcement officers with the same stone. The people that pinned down Floyd all should be punished, but if you believe all of america’s officers are the same, isn’t that like condemning all blacks when one commits murder? However, if you believe that there is systematic racism in law enforcement, wouldn’t it be healthier to petition for change peacefully and specifically instead of fucking up the city because someone was murdered?
People are more important than property, I‘m sure you‘ll say, so then I can rob you and torch your home? Of course not. If these recent flashes of theft and vandalism can be justified, please enlighten me.
Also, a new bill is being introduced to end Qualified Immunity. What are the reasons for protest at the moment?
"Urban riots must now be recognized as durable social phenomena. They may be deplored, but they are there and should be understood. Urban riots are a special form of violence. They are not insurrections. The rioters are not seeking to seize territory or to attain control of institutions. They are mainly intended to shock the white community. They are a distorted form of social protest. The looting which is their principal feature serves many functions. It enables the most enraged and deprived Negro to take hold of consumer goods with the ease the white man does by using his purse. Often the Negro does not even want what he takes; he wants the experience of taking. But most of all, alienated from society and knowing that this society cherishes property above people, he is shocking it by abusing property rights. There are thus elements of emotional catharsis in the violent act. This may explain why most cities in which riots have occurred have not had a repetition, even though the causative conditions remain. It is also noteworthy that the amount of physical harm done to white people other than police is infinitesimal and in Detroit whites and Negroes looted in unity.
A profound judgment of today’s riots was expressed by Victor Hugo a century ago. He said, ‘If a soul is left in the darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.’
The policymakers of the white society have caused the darkness; they create discrimination; they structured slums; and they perpetuate unemployment, ignorance and poverty. It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes; but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society. When we ask Negroes to abide by the law, let us also demand that the white man abide by law in the ghettos. Day-in and day-out he violates welfare laws to deprive the poor of their meager allotments; he flagrantly violates building codes and regulations; his police make a mockery of law; and he violates laws on equal employment and education and the provisions for civic services. The slums are the handiwork of a vicious system of the white society; Negroes live in them but do not make them any more than a prisoner makes a prison. Let us say boldly that if the violations of law by the white man in the slums over the years were calculated and compared with the law-breaking of a few days of riots, the hardened criminal would be the white man. These are often difficult things to say but I have come to see more and more that it is necessary to utter the truth in order to deal with the great problems that we face in our society."
Protests and looting are a symptom of much deeper ills.
Also,
> you would be hard pressed to find a law that oppresses anyone by race. Racist laws? No. Classicist laws? Yes.
With all due respect, this position exposes a lack of understanding of US history, and I'm not just talking about slavery or the civil rights act.
Some things to Google if you want to open that Pandora's jar:
- Redlining
- Poll taxes
- Nixon starting "War on Drugs" to target black communities
- Federal exclusion of black families from New Deal homebuying programs
Many of the laws and policies that have targeted black people specifically are also classist through a certain lens, but when you look closer it's usually targeting poor people because poor Americans are disproportionately black.
I believe that's the case already, Ergo, racism.
If peaceful placards and singing kumbaya really did work effectively , for black people in particular all over the world, we'd have a very different discussion. Police brutality is an extension of the governments very existence - "legitimate" violence - which is turned up to war-time levels when minorities are concerned. All this is smoke an mirrors to the contempt of a man being killed by law enforcement officer in a way that would make Ted Bundy blush.
It seems whenever black people protest, the narrative seems to be of barbarians storming the city gates. An "over-reaction" if you will. Is it? The message of the protest is clear, if a tree falls - the ground will shake. Is that unreasonable?
My main point is protest is what protest does: force the issue. The methods of protest are varied and of disproportionate impact to society. If protest is to succeed, social impact must be calibrated to the received response to protester demands. If no response or negative response is received, increase social impact to belligerent parties and the general public, if necessary. Protest without corresponding social impact is ineffectual at forcing the issue but can be effective in virtue-signaling, which can create a virtuous loop of increasing awareness and support, and increasing numbers of protesters.
But I feel compelled to object to your seeming attitude that things would work themselves out without the need to protest.
I strongly believe that two wrongs don't make a right. But one wrong observed in silence is tragic.
You question the reason for protest when there is some bill being introduced. I posit that the bill would not exist without the protests. I also remind you that a horrible, terrible war was fought to end inequality over 150 years ago. I remind you that the civil rights movement was more than 50 years ago. Why protest when those already solved all the problems?
We must always be willing to step up against injustice. It is not a one and done proposition.
This in no way excuses people who are just taking the opportunity to steal a TV. Or who mistakenly channel their emotions by destroying or injuring.
But more to my point, police are not judges, lawyers, or most important, juries. They don’t decide what is just. They just deliver those suspected of lawbreaking to the judicial system, which determines guilt or innocence under the law. As far as the legal system is concerned, everyone has presumption of innocence. The way you are characterizing people as looters or rioters is to say that what they are doing is unlawful, but that’s just like your opinion, man. One person’s rioter is another person’s edgy protesting neighbor. It’s for the courts to decide which behavior is law-abiding. If they aren’t convicted, they were not found to be in violation of the law, yet. It’s strange for you to presume they would found guilty just because you disagree with their actions. Sounds authoritarian to me and not in step with our justice system or the times.
This looting causes a lot of personal damage, people are losing their life savings and livelihoods, and nobody seems to care.
I see a lot of rhetoric and populism trying to side-step the issue and it really needs to be clear - there's a very wide gap between 'protesting' and 'looting' and they are not 'shades of the same thing'.
Also, I'm not sure if it's legal or appropriate to even 'protest' out in the open, on highways or streets - I think these things need to move to controlled ares, like in front of city hall or in parks, but that's a slightly different matter.
I'm also not entirely condemning people 'caught up in a riot' as I understand these things happen in social waves, and people would be doing things they might not otherwise. It's not a big moral condemnation, it's an articulation of reality.
I'm actually sympathetic to the protesters overall, but I lose sympathy quickly when I see it out of hand. I also think we need to be sympathetic to the police, and accept that we, as citizens are giving them a nary impossible task - which is to use force to move people out of an area, and then somehow remain within perfect contraints at all times. Some of the police actions are beyond unreasonable and they should go to jail, but I'm not even sure that it's systematic. What can we expect by sending 5000 officers in to physically move aggressive, often violent people out of the way. Punches will fly in some cases. Batons, purposeful harm with weapons, irresponsible use of fire arms - this is too much obviously and has to be punished.
I'm really happy to show support for reforming police actions, but I'm not going to take sides in a 'civic street war'.
What's happening now is just shameful for almost every party.
Protest and looting are shades of the same idea. If you don't care about us taking up space in your streets, maybe you may care about being deprived of your corporate assets. Corporations aren't people. People are people. If harming corporations leads to an increase in human rights, that is a net gain for society. To question whether the cost is too high like you do shows you care more for property, capital, and the people who wield these asset classes, than you do for those who have cause to protest. Just because you don't share their cause célèbre does not invalidate it.
Reasonable people can disagree. It's impossible to be reasonable or disagree if you're killing someone or being killed. The police actions up to this point have been unreasonable, and so the response of the public is currently outside the scope of actions that can have a reasonableness standard applied to them. Protest is inherently justified by the Constitution. The response to police brutality and lack of internal reform proves the police think they are right to kill people and don't need to change. That's why the protests continue. To stop protesting now would be to negotiate with terrorists. The protests must continue as long and until the police come to the table with protesters and stakeholders, and they all negotiate a solution.
Did Trump call for them to be "roughed up" before or after the protests turned into riots?
A more intellectual honest version might be:
"people can’t riot without Trump calling for them to be aggressively policed"
The splintering of reality is the scariest thing going on in the U.S. Some of us are still trying to stay grounded in facts while others float away on clouds of propaganda.
That’s a load of bullshit and you know it. This isn’t the situation.
For example, in my limited opinion, “the police willingly complying” is an overstatement as our country does have many responsible law-abiding police officers who would not heed incitement from anyone including the president.
Is it the open carry of long guns? Is that what peaceful protesters should use to de-escalate the situation? Makes perfect sense. Cops love guns! Just some cool doodz having a chill gun party, come have a beer and a doobie, officer. Show you mine if you'll show me yours?
Numerical advantage of firearms means the first person to shoot downright loses. Both sides will do everything they can to not be the aggressor.
When you have disparity in ability to apply force vs ability to weather the response, that's when the violence actually happens. Nobody comes looking for a fair fight. Therefore you never find them when the stakes areas high as they are.
Many in the military are, contrary to popular belief, quite patriotic, and very concerned withthe integrity of the system. It is not a foregone conclusion a dearth of volunteers to put the boot to countrymen may manifest.
Furthermore, to the sibling poster's assertion that's a great way to ensure gun control laws get passed, when the State's legitimacy is already in question, further clenching of the iron fist (particularly from the American viewpoint I grew up with) will exactly not yield the quiet compliance one might imagine. In fact, it would result in quite the opposite given any active attempt at confiscation.there's also the problem of who you intend on having do said confiscation, and just how bulletproof they are, and where on the "persons I'll comply with" spectrum they'll fall on .
Also, again, once the guns go, all the other far more destructive, nigh-impossible to regulate means of destruction and mayhem creation get put on the table. You don'thonestly think that all that new anger will just go home and sulk while you have the government of the United States running around fielding the least hyperbolic stormtrooper initiatives on American soil, do you?
If you think things are bad and violent now. Get back to me when you start actually pulling the pages from the dictator's population subjugation handbook.
This entire endeavor is remarkable in that it is trivial for this turmoil to bedissipated bythepolice deescalating and being open to a a greater degree of civic oversight,and being held to a higher standard. Or so the protestor supporters seem to repeat. The refusal to make a meaningful gesture in that direction suggests to me that it what we're going through is a macro-event. Something that's been building for a long time, and isn't going to ground out without substantive structural change.
It's anyone's guess how this'll go; but I'm wagering the first time the military proper gets involved it may be a sign of the end days of the country I was brought up loving.
Then again, I've been wondering if that was the case since 2001... So... Yeah. Take it or leave it.
In some democratic countries and my own, the military is a respected, even hallowed institution. We never hear anything about them except the rare event some lose their lives in some UN mission or they have the rare parade in memorial events. No politician in his right mind would even utter, in the slightest, the deployment of the military for internal strife. Not even as a joke. So we trust our democracy as valid, imperfect, but in the best interests of the people.
But in the end, the American issue does strike one as strange. A people who believe themselves - self-proclaimed leaders of the free world - must surely ponder why they are at a junction such as this. The solution is simple as all hell and yet, here we are.
I have a number of coworkers who are veterans and while they’re generally confident that the military would refuse to follow general orders to attack civilians, nobody wants to test what might happen in confusion if they’re deployed to backup the police. All you need is one mistake and a lot of people can get hurt before the confusion clears.
It’s tough to say which state will use Trump’s magnanimous offer to deploy the military, but similar to the lockdown, I can imagine a cascade across state governors taking the offer, and even more hilariously - a partisan split of Republican governors taking it and Democratic ones not. Perfect to bait back the base that secretly seethes at the racial undertones of events like this. The collective sentiment will be invisible in pre-election polls, but Trump knows how to conduct the silent orchestra. It seems unimaginable, but beware the hidden vote.
We’ll have to wait and see, but the stage for this to turn into a mockery is mostly set. NYC is on day two of a mandatory curfew.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulford_Act
https://historylink.org/File/20649
I don't believe you.
The umbrella guy breaking the AutoZone window with a hammer has no connection to any police department. Someone made that up on social media and people shared it because that's what people do.
The only video I know of showing officers breaking a window is out of Seattle. It shows officers responding to a burglary in progress at a Target store. The officers had to chip away at the already broken glass windows so they could safely get in. (The burglars had broken the glass to get inside.) Once inside, the responding officers found and arrested the three burglars they had come for.
I replied "I don't believe you."
You responded by showing one video. I'm still waiting.
I mean, we know the black bloc and similar groups engages in these tactics, they've been doing it since Seattle WTO 1999. I've seen it in person to protests I've been to (as a protester). It's very hard for me to believe that all of a sudden those people are no longer active in protests, and their place has been taken by (insert your politically-convenient group here).
Giving your comment the benefit of the doubt, that does not address the fact that a while platoon of police officers witnessed a fellow police officer vandalize public property without any reason or justification, and they didn't even flinched or complained or even frowned upon that brand of unprovoked abuse.
That's pretty much one of the central points of the whole protest.
I have seen dozens if not over a hundred videos of the police acting inappropriately over the last few days. I have only seen a single video in which any of them were stopped or reprimanded by another cop and that one "good cop" was a woman of color. If this inappropriate behavior is done by such a small percentage of the police force and is frowned on by all the other good cops, why is there so little evidence of police policing themselves?
If a “woman of color” was seen starting a fire, would you be comfortable saying things like “black women start fires”? I sure hope not. Even if you had dozens of examples, it would still be wrong to make such a statement.
Yes. I have also seen countless videos in which civilians were reprimanded by other citizens for acting inappropriately. They are trying to police themselves. Why can't the police police themselves?
>If a “woman of color” was seen starting a fire, would you be comfortable saying things like “black women start fires”? I sure hope not. Even if you had dozens of examples, it would still be wrong to make such a statement.
I don't know what you are trying to insinuate with this comment. I was not making any blanket statements about anyone beyond the general group of "police".
Yes, that was the point. Blanket statements don’t work in either case.
My blanket statement about police was also framed as a question. I said I have seen very little evidence I was wrong. If you think I am wrong, you could try providing an answer to that question rather than attacking the question itself.
I would also keep an eye on that officer to see if there were more violations.
I would not break formation and try to handcuff another officer in the moment, because it would be strategically unwise.
Right. Maybe that's why you aren't a police officer.
> I would not break formation and try to handcuff another officer in the moment
Maybe you should be a police officer.
> because it would be strategically unwise
Things need to change now.
When the police can demonstrate they are able to rein each other in, we can all go home and celebrate.
(shows a video of it happening)
"This isn't widespread"
So how many videos do you need to see? 2? 10? 15???
Or would you correct someone and say that isn’t happening, and when confronted with a video of someone somewhere doing a bad thing, inform them of the fact that a few cherry picked anecdotes do not represent the activity of the broader population?
You don’t have to answer.
However, when a civilian acts inappropriately there are legal consequences. When a police office acts inappropriately there are few legal consequences and they are very-very-rarely enforced.
I'll ask the question differently,
"Is destruction of property what you expect from rioters?" Yes, 1% or less of rioters are going to be stupid. "Should they be reprimanded?" Sadly yes, and we have specialized government entities that can utilize appropriate-force to reprimand them.
"Is destruction of property what you expect from police?" No, not even from the 1% or less that want to be stupid. That is unacceptable, their job is to protect and serve. Even from each other. "Should they be reprimanded?" Yes! but we as civilians have no legal way to do this, and even the "good cops" have no good way to do this.
What are your answers to these questions lawnchair_larry?
Is destruction of property what you expect from civilians?
Yes, sadly, 1% or less[1] of civilians are are going to be stupid and riot instead. And that is unacceptable.
Should they be reprimanded?
Absolutely. And we have specialized government entities that can utilize appropriate-force to reprimand them.
Is unwarranted destruction of property what you expect from police?
Yes, sadly, 1% or less[1] of police are going to be stupid and abusive. That is unacceptable, their job is to protect and serve. Even from each other.
Should they be reprimanded?
Yes! but we as civilians have no legal way to do this, and even the "good cops" have no good way to do this.
[1] We do not have data for either of these figures, so 1% is being used as a placeholder, and is not meant literally. I suspect that the percentage of criminals in the general population is far bigger than the number of police who destroy property for no reason, but I admit that I have no data for that.
Yes, in almost all but the most extreme of cases. (And the people who make that determination are called "judges" not "cops".)
Should reprimanded cops continue to be cops?
No, in all but the most trivial and excusable cases. (And the people who make that determination should also be called judges not cops.)
If you get given a badge and a gun, and job that demand people to people to respect your authority, you not only get held to a higher standard than those of us without, but you also put your livelihood at stake if you choose to behave in a "stupid or abusive" manner.
It's abundantly clear to people outside the US that the cop who killed George Floyd needs to be fired and prosecuted for murder, the three cops who stood there and let him do it need to be fired and prosecuted for accessory to murder, and those four cops chain of command also needs to be investigated for culpability and almost certainly fired if not prosecuted as well. It seems unbelievable that some US citizens think otherwise. I expect that from cop unions, who've proven themselves time and time again to be completely devoid of humanity or morals, but find it unthinkable that anyone else can't see it clearly as evil thuggery from people who society has to demand better from. All four need to never be in any position of authority again. At least one of them needs to be in jail for life.
Could you please help us understand your position on “Should abusive officers be reprimanded?”
And if we agree they should be reprimanded, what are your thought on how we build that system?
The system where we the civilians who witness or are victims of the abuse and other “good cops” who witness the abuse, can get legal ways to highlight and reprimand those few abusive police officers[0]?
[0] such that the person/people accusing (with evidence) the abusive police without worrying other police officers will “hold it against” the accuser.
(He claimed that in the context of property damage, which hides the actual implications of that carelessness, because it wasn't police property damage that triggered this current unrest...)
I _strongly_ disagree. A cop committing assault or murder, while on the job, is a thing society needs to take great care does not happen. It's abhorrent to me to take a "shit happens" attitude to cop killings.
Not surprisingly, your straw man is just as bad. Nobody said or implied anything remotely close to a “shit happens” attitude. Did you just not read the next sentence or something?
And yeah, I read (and just reread) your next sentence, and it still reads as a "shit happens" attitude to me.
As I read it, you're saying there's nothing we can possibly do to ensure that rate of "stupid and abusive" cops is any lower than the rate of "stupid and rioting" civilians. (Or the most optimistic reading of it I can see is that you think we can't do any better a job of ensuring a lower rate of stupid and abusive cops than we have now.)
I think we need to do a _way_ better job of screening cop applicants before giving them a badge and gun, and hold them to a way higher standard that is currently the case.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23398553
Thank you either way.
"The police have been acting, and continue to act, with impunity. This needs to change ASAP".
If you genuinely missed that, then we're letting you know this is the problem. And it's a widespread problem across many countries.
If you're intentionally being dishonest, then piss off.
It's very easy to attribute actions to the police, since they very commonly wear easy-to-identify uniforms and it's illegal to impersonate them. The video above was of a uniformed police officer in the company of maybe a hundred others. It's the literal job of police to stop crimes, so if you see an officer commuting a crime and his colleagues see and don't intervene, you can assume some level of assent to the officer's criminal activity.
Even if you found a video of a looter/arsonist, how do you know they're a protester at all? If they are a protester, how do you establish what their faction is (BLM, anarchist anti-capitalist, Neo-nazi agitator, etc.)? How do you judge the attitudes of the other protesters to to their actions, given protesters aren't equipped to enforce the law and don't have the mandate to do so?
I'd like to see about 4-5 of such videos. The more the merrier. I'm totally open to changing my mind.
https://mobile.twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/126675152005...
If you had read the comment carefully instead of rapidly responding with a "rebuttal" based on your ideology, you might have realized that.
https://old.reddit.com/r/2020policebrutality
Are both accumulating quite a lot of evidence that police are using force recklessly and capriciously under the color of law without consequences.
The “politically convenient group” seems to be anyone being destructive, like ...
https://twitter.com/SARAHKSTUDIO/status/1267371809084567554/...
... white women?
The sum of causing unnecessary damage and turning a blind eye to vandalism at least gives me confidence that there is a desire by many police officers to see property destroyed.
From that I can only guess at what the reasoning might be, but given that we’ve seen this method of undermining protests in the past, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume racist intent until there is evidence that begins to support an alternative conclusion.
Actually, there are dozens of different videos showing police being badly beaten as they attempt to stop vandalism. They just don't make the news as this isn't "progressive".
https://abcnews.go.com/US/small-town-police-chief-killed-off...
https://www.insider.com/george-floyd-protests-violence-again...
Everyone now considers general violence and looting as legitimate actions in response to a crime committed by one police officer.
Floyd's death was a tragedy and Derek (the police officer) responsible must pay heavily for it - a 2nd or 3rd degree murder conviction should be handed down to set an example. That case should be scrutinised heavily - and it will be.
But I really don't understand why other people must suffer for one person's crime. The larger focus should be on the US police needing remedial training. Call up congressmen, call up senators. Rioting on the streets doesn't solve anything.
If you think this is one man, think again. Give me a city and I can give you the unarmed black person killed by police - Dallas, it's Botham Jean. Miami, it's Trayvon Martin. New York, it's Dwayne Brown. Years and years and so little done.
And now, people are now in the streets in reaction to police violence against people in the streets. If you see protesters being shot with tear gas for the crime of kneeling and shouting, people are going to come out and make their voices heard.
And this is working. Minneapolis Ward 3's district commissioner is calling for police abolition. For once, for absolute once, the media is actually on the side of the protesters, because once they got over the shock, they saw their own being attacked by police just as much. So before you say it doesn't solve anything, look at what it's already accomplished, and look what it can accomplish soon.
But police abolition is not going to solve anything for you folks. It will mean an extraordinary increase in crime. I have lived in multiple nations and a strict police is better than police who do nothing. You will be at the mercy of crime lords. And no business store owner will open a shop in a police-free district.
All these rioters for freedom and dignity are fine on the TV. When people are on the wrong side of the mob, they change their minds pretty quick.
What I advocate for is a series of measures where trained members of the community, as a job, are in charge of primarily, defusing conflict, secondarily, preventing crime, and as a last resort, enforcing community standards and laws. No arrest quotas, limited jail, no cash bail, no mandatory minimum sentencing. This sounds like what I hear police are like in other places, but existing police power structures are powerful and resistant to reform, so wholesale replacement appears to be the best tactic.
Maybe you think all this won't happen. I have lived in poor and powerless communities earlier in life and seen all these things happen without a proper police presence. I had my sister assaulted when I was young and was unable to do anything about it. I despise 'community policing'. The cliques it creates is far worse than the full hammer of the full armed forces.
Anyways, I wish USA the best of luck. I really hope the looting and rioting in NY stops soon.
Hard to evaluate the accuracy of that story.
But it's also hard to dismiss it out of hand, given known true police behaviour. A very common view from the public is that cops are totally capable of that kind of behaviour. And whether the story about the cop setting the first fire is true our not, the believability of the story is as much a problem as the possible truth of the story.
How do you know this? What's the process by which you established this as a known thing?
Primary, by power of observation. But OK, I'll make this as vague and 100% foolproof as I can, to start: there are people who dress in black, and masks, and destroy stuff and commit violence at protests. That's from actual observation. It's not just 1-2, there are groups of them. That's my personal observation from being at 2 protests with such groups.
Now, combine that with all the sources references in this Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_bloc
Along with many, many, many dozens of media reports like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mr0i6piW_ak
I'm able to discern a certain pattern.
https://eurweb.com/2020/05/29/jacob-pederson-minneapolis-pol...
Yeah, I smell a pattern too...
I urge HNers to read that article you posted and decide for themselves if it's credible.
Then, read the wikipedia article I posted, refer to the sources at the end, google around, and decide for yourself.
An agent provocateur will always, except where it is physically impossible such as when no one of the right race is available for a group distinguished by race, outwardly appear as a textbook member of the targeted group. That's kind of central to the idea.
I think that we should publish short-sleeve mug photos of all these groups, because both anarchists and white supremacists often have identifying tattoos. Let there be light. The more transparency the better.
But unless I manage to convince myself that, somehow, police agent provocateurs or white supremacists were staging riots and destruction at Trump's inauguration (see video below[1], there are many others from those riots by mainstream media outlets), then my prior is currently that most of the people engaging in these tactics are the same people who have done it for the past 2-3 decades, which I've witnessed in person.
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mr0i6piW_ak
To clarify, are you suggesting that all this the riots, looting, and assaults are being done by agents provocateurs? Most of them? Some of them? Just that one autozone?
I'm pointing out that _cops_ do it.
And they absolutely need to be held to a higher standard than "the public", because we give them guns and state sanctioned use-of-force. They cannot do their job without respect of their authority, and they do not have that respect, and they are doing the exact opposite thing of winning it back.
While not condoning the "textbook black bloc" actions, I can see why 2 centuries of systematic oppression might lead some people in some sections of society to think there are no other options.
I have no explanation for the current police behaviour that's more sympathetic than cynical South Park quotes. And if _that's_ how they want to be portrayed? Well, I guess they're achieving it...
(And as I pointed out elsewhere in this thread, I too have doubts about the veracity of that article I posted - but it's at least in mu mind, more than plausible. And _that_ is a serious problem. I too urge HNers to decide for themselves if they trust their local police force to think none of them would ever use unnecessary force, or go agent provocateur. If you have any doubt, you have a big problem.)
I don’t know your view on the matter, but somehow I doubt that seeing videos will do anything to change your view on the matter anyway. I say this because in a thread about police brutality, you cherry-pick an argument counter to what videos have already shown.
I do hope the continuing videos showcasing police brutality, during protests OF police brutality, do something to convince people that it is a very real problem.
They did all this amidst a huge public outcry, what do you think happens to some poor schmuck when no camera is around.
Like this[2] and this[3].........
EDIT: Here is one where the cop force the poor guy to grab his baton and leave his fingerprints so he can accuse him of whatever he wants[4].
EDIT2: What do you know "his death [Floyd's] is on their hands [protesters and looters] as much as it is those officers"[5]
[0]: https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/28/us/video-george-floyd-contrad...
[1]: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/06/george-floyd-au...
[2]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2018/07/27/...
[3]: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/black-woman-shot-killed...
[4]: https://v.redd.it/yo3bpzzt9h251
[5]: https://youtu.be/tIBoxt9maJs?t=64
The county coroner's report was technically true in a way meant to imply a false result.
Floyd didn't die from lack of airflow, he died because the knee stopped blood flow to the brain, that is the brain couldn't receive Oxygen despite the body being able to breath.
The county coroner carefully checked that Floyd could breathe, but not blood flow to the brain. Once asphyxia was ruled out (not really, since strangulation is not the only way to get it), the coroner was free to imply whatever was comfortable to the police.
I wonder how many other autopsies done by the same coroner were also misleading, and whether other cases will need a retrial.
The autopsy was purposely vague so as to give as much leeway as possible to the police.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/04/zachary-hamm...
What? Seriously, what? Are you suggesting that the police should be free to pick and choose who they kill based on whether they are a "model citizen/saint" or not?
"Do not kill a person unnecessarily" should be a universal rule the police work to. It doesn't matter one bit who they are interacting with.
"Pointing out the truth" can certainly be an attack or flamebait. It depends on which truth and how it's used. One middle schooler "pointing out" the acne on another's face can be quite an attack. The hardest substance (truth) makes the sharpest weapon. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23381247 on the "it's a fact" defense, the most beloved of trolls.
For example, let's assume that your comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23396054 was factual and that George Floyd was intoxicated when he was killed. Bringing that up in this context, as if it somehow mitigates anything about his killing, is certainly flamebait, true or not.
Re "I see - only the hive mind is allowed" - that's also a common response. Everyone always feels like the mods are against them, secretly siding with the opposition: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... We oppose your favorite sports team too, and conspire with the highway patrol to make sure it's always you who gets the speeding ticket.
The Black Panther party had significant leadership and unification, social programs like food, educational programs, etc. They were killed. Bombed in fact. Prominent leaders were shot in their beds by the government.
Black Wall Street existed, utterly peacefully in fact, and they were utterly destroyed by white riots.
The black community has tried repeatedly to address things and in every turn they were beaten back down.
What do you recommend?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Brixton_riot
There was a public inquiry afterwards that led to the creation of a Police Complaints Commission. But that was largely ineffective for at least 20 years afterwards.
Ultimately I think integration and education are the only solution. My parents didn't meet a non-white person until they were in their late 20s. At my school there were a few black families. At my kids school there was a lot of diversity; and differences in race, sexuality and religion seem to be "old people's problems" to them now.
That aside, why do you think that is? Could hundreds of years of systemic economic repression have any causual effect on that? Do you have any suggestions how we as society could bring those numbers down?
Lastly, how in bleeps name does that justify police violence?
People tend to forget that others are just mere humans, and no one is a saint. Ffs, even MLK, for all the great progress he brought about, was cheating on his wife, which is imo pretty immoral and universally condemned. But it doesn't diminish his accomplishments in any way.
* We're calling Floyd a saint * We support looting * We don't take covid seriously
And you say a whole slew of accusations that you KNOW aren't widespread (and likely untrue) and don't post sources. And you'll say something like it's a liberal media coverup, but you won't have shit to back up your claims.
Note this guideline: "Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead." That's our indirect version of please don't feed the trolls. Other users flagged the comment, and it was rightly flagkilled. That would have happened sooner if you had followed the guidelines also.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Also, city coroner made one claim, the coroner hired by the family made a different one, the claim that somehow the coroner hired by the family is 'correct' is just flat out inappropriate. Personally, I'm slightly more inclined to believe the city coroner, and that there were probably some complications. When the victim initially came out of his vehicle, it seems he fell to the ground in a manner that didn't seem to be due to a struggle, which would indicate something was wrong, physically, already at that time, obviously exacerbated by the police brutality.
https://www.npr.org/2020/06/01/867219130/george-floyd-indepe...
> In charging documents released last week, prosecutors said that preliminary results from an autopsy "revealed no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation."
>However the new report from the medical examiner did not include such language.
This has been a long time coming, too. In the last few years, many police departments around the country have thrown their hands up and publicly stated they won't be bothering with most property crimes. The way they see it, the only crimes worth their time involve people not committing real crimes at all or crimes involving guns or knives. Anyone who doesn't get why people don't trust the police has been living under a rock. This goes beyond just racism.
They want the story to be about rioters so they're letting them riot. It's a way to shift the public opinion (same way some cops have been seen breaking car and store windows).
https://twitter.com/MplsWard3/status/1267891878801915904
> Politicians who cross the MPD find slowdowns in their wards. After the first time I cut money from the proposed police budget, I had an uptick in calls taking forever to get a response, and MPD officers telling business owners to call their councilman about why it took so long.
In practical terms, they already do it and US law allows them prosecutorial discretion.
Local news reporting tries to explain what's going on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJGT06zIUiY&t=2m01s
"What you've been seeing is basically a cat and mouse game all night. The police have been here with a huge show of force, but they can't stop people, because they don't know that they've necessarily been looting. And so they're waiting for somebody to do something, police move onto the next block, and then someone does something."
I don't know one way or another whether this is the whole truth, but it appears to play a significant role according to the reporter.
Not showing up can be a tactical decision: you don't have to generate more bad press and more cries about police brutality and you also don't need to quasi-officially hand over the area to the looters.
The state's power isn't real as in "we can crush you", it rests only in everybody's fear of the state being able to crush them. If there's a chance that the state has to back down, not seeking the confrontation sounds like a smart choice to me, even if it comes at the price of a day or two of looting.
Your argument can't possibly be "Because they didn't want to escalate" or "They didn't want people to think they're violent" when they did escalate and were violent elsewhere.
I am in full agreement that it was tactical - it allows them to punish a neighborhood and to shift the story.
Failing to respond to looting damages the state's legitimacy. Responding to looting and failing to stop it damages the state's legitimacy. Even responding to looting and successfully stopping it damages the state's legitimacy, because mass looting signals that looting has become more acceptable.
Germany has an issue with criminal clans from the Middle East, our law enforcement system isn't equipped to deal with them and our laws in general aren't either. The approach is pretty much "try not to engage", because while it's damaging to have "extended families" with hundreds of members where basically everyone of them has a criminal record, the other option is either locking up everybody (terrible idea in Germany) or trying to reason with them and failing (showing the state tried to handle it but failed). Not engaging is just the cheapest option and does the least amount of damage (I'm not suggesting that's necessarily true for the situation in the US, I don't know it well enough).
If the Leviathan shows its teeth and the problem doesn't go away, it has to bite. If it doesn't, everybody will see that the teeth aren't that sharp any more, and that will encourage more challengers.
> The state's power is not just fear alone, it's legitimacy.
For the people that don't require laws and punishment to behave morally, yes. For those that do, they obviously don't care about legitimacy or that looting (or any crime) is wrong, otherwise they wouldn't commit it. It's only those people that any society needs to worry about, and it's only those people that the state needs to convince that it is stronger than them.
There is a big disconnect between the crime statistics in Germany, that show low crime levels by international standards and recent reductions in crime levels, and what the German public believe about the prevalence of crime in Germany due to alarmist tabloid reporting.
Cf. e.g., https://www.dw.com/en/crime-in-germany-drops-10-percent-in-2...
But that's effectively what doing nothing does. The state has teeth (the police) and it doesn't bite.
That's a completely unambiguous signal to both criminals and law-abiding citizens. And the results of this policy anywhere in the world is the problems have just grown in size and gotten worse.
> because while it's damaging to have "extended families" with hundreds of members where basically everyone of them has a criminal record
Remember when these "extended families" were an order of magnitude smaller and we applied the same policy of non-intervention? And look what that got us!
When are we finally going to apply the only acceptable course of action?
Kind of, but not really. If you send the police to confront the looters, you are showing your teeth, you're saying "this will stop right here and right now, or else". You have to have a plan for the "or else" part.
If you don't send the police, you're not saying anything. Everybody is aware that the police exists, but unless you assert your power, there is no challenge.
This is obviously not a possible long-term strategy, because not having any power and never asserting the power you have are functionally the same. I don't think that anybody assumes the rioting will be a long-term problem though, so that may not be an issue.
> When are we finally going to apply the only acceptable course of action?
We won't. We're doing harm-reduction, both on a society level and, for politicians, on an individual level (and for management in large companies). Kick the can down the road. Attacking the big problems before they become unavoidable isn't something our systems are set up to do, not causing disturbances is incentivized, be that in law enforcement, dealing with dead industries surviving only on subsidies, education, pollution and emissions, health care, public infrastructure etc pp. "Spending $5m on that bridge now will save us lots of money in the future" isn't what the public sees - it's "they want to waste $5m on a perfectly fine bridge".
They have no (personal) reason to stop the looting, and at the same time, occupying their attention, the opportunity to strike out at that (very personal) threat.
You decided you were better off without me, fine, save your own store.
For what it's worth, this is why people hate cops! No one said anything about all cops being worthless, and you're saying that victims of crimes deserve it for not praising police brutality.
Cops that are busy kettling up protesters for later official intimidation and violence are not available to respond to crimes happening elsewhere.
Business owners are better off with insurance, alarms, and dedicated private security that won't abandon their protective duties every time they feel like pepper-spraying a liberal in the face for no apparent reason.
There is no reason to have police that don't follow the Peelian principles.
We can’t not have police, don’t be ridiculous.
We need something closer to social service workers, the vast majority of which do not require arms.
It is not a binary choice between the militaristic, public-hostile police we have now, and no police at all.
As it is, the police in schools frequently do inappropriate things, such as bodyslamming 40kg girls or putting children in handcuffs for acting up in class. A school security guard, charged with protecting the students and staff, with no authority to arrest or punish anyone, would do fine.
There are other examples all over this thread. Nobody is complaining about a specific cop, they’re generalizing everything to “cops”. That’s what that is.
you're saying that victims of crimes deserve it for not praising police brutality
How do you expect anyone to take you seriously with such absurd fabrications? Anyone can scroll up and easily see that I did not say any such thing.
> You decided you were better off without me, fine, save your own store.
That was you saying that people who don't support police don't deserve police protection.
I guess it's too much to ask that police obey the law they are supposed to be enforcing.
This is why the country is in flames right now.
Historically, we see that any group given power eventually starts abusing it. For modern definitions of abusing power, anyways. Past societies would have seen it differently, perhaps the divine right of kings or some such nonsense.
A fascinating example would be the wealthy nobles of the late (western) Roman empire. They shielded citizens from military service, and in exchange expected work from them, generally on their vast estates. After the collapse of the empire, this relationship eventually evolved into the feudal lord/serf relationship. Also, Diocletian's reforms didn't help, but that's a topic I'll leave for another post.
I guess this is kind of a long-winded way of saying this, but what you're asking for does seem unreasonable in the long term. Human beings don't seem to work that way.
That all being said, the long term I'm referring to is the 250+ year timeline. We might be able to goose the current system along for another few generations if we do it right. If it's worth it or not depends a bit on your perspective.
How should we have read this sentence?
Why couldn't you have instead said, "You decided you were better off without a shitty abusive police officer, fine, call me or other police instead." ?
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Since 2001, police have taken more American lives than all other terrorist activities combined.
Supporting protestors and civil unrest doesn't mean you support violence, but I'm not a naive child that thinks great change happens without bad things accompanying it.
Extraordinary enough? A birds eye view, of a protest that was peaceful for hours, until police grab for an umbrella, and start attacking the crowd.
Here's an ant's eye view of the same event, by the way. @26:30 - the gas masks arrive, @28:20 - the gas masks take their place in the line, @30:00 - the umbrella gets grabbed, and the crowd gets attacked.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1022002103584874...
I walked down third street until I reached the point where the riot police set up a barricade and didn't allow the protesters further. It was really a peaceful scene where the police were setup, and I thought it was being handled very professionally with the goal to not incite violence (There were also 6 police helicopters circling the area) Everywhere the police were not there was looting.
The amount of misinformation being circulated is staggering.
Seems fairly accurate. I'm just annoyed that many people can't grasp that awful police behavior and awful behavior from other actors are not mutually exclusive. There is lots of unjustified police violence and provocations against perfectly peaceful protestors. There is also systematic vandalism and arson by people who aren't peaceful protestors. And there is massive amounts of opportunistic vandalism and looting. All three can and do co-exist.
This is not a two-sided conflict. More like three- or four- sided mess.
I agree that we should expect better from the police and authorities in return, but also that we accept their use of limited force (even when not physically harmful) when necessary as the means to do so.
I personally lean towards presumably the same direction as you: that police should first and foremost be held to a higher standard before their legitimacy is accepted. However, I think it's not that far from the views of some that see their role in this conflict as imposing harsh law and order.
It's ironic that the people trying their best to change that are also the ones who are most closely aligned with the victims of police brutality, politically speaking. One of many things I don't understand.
And how is it ironic? When has the second amendment ever done anything for victims of police brutality? How often has widespread gun ownership been used as an excuse for excessive police force?
But like I said, I don't understand any of this. Maybe others can offer some insight.
Even Castle Doctrine or Stand Your Ground cannot help you if you are being attacked or harassed by the police.
I'm anti-gun, but as I understand it, the second amendment only "helps" against state actors if the population as a whole is willing to overthrow the current government. At that point what "is legal" changes, like when George Washington's troops took America from the UK and wrote the constitution.
However, from a legal standpoint (i.e. based on the current government), the police has a "monopoly on lawful use of force".
Sounds like that might be changing for the better, given what transpired in the Breonna Taylor incident. I understand they just dropped the charges against her boyfriend, who shot at the police when they broke in.
Not that this means a sovereign state may choose to make violent self-defense legal, for example, without any risk to its sovereignty, provided it's still the force deciding whether a given instance was legal and backing up those rulings with threat of or actual violence. It's the unchallenged (un-successfully challenged, at any rate) arbiter of what is and is not permissible violence.
The police are the primary point of contact between the citizenry and the state monopoly on violence when it is most acutely exercised (rather than merely threatened or practiced more softly), so framing this as the police personally having (been invested with) that monopoly, in the context of a meeting on the street between non-police citizens and the police, seems reasonable to me.
A state that finds itself unable to claim or maintain its monopoly on violence is at serious risk of loss of sovereignty, usually to whichever group is having success challenging that claim. Understanding how that balance sits can be a way to insight into the de facto power structure of a governmental system—for example, the de jure sovereign power of a state might be the civil government, but if it effectively operates at the pleasure of a military bureaucracy that has demonstrated the ability to topple the civil government and maintains a tacit threat to do same again in the future, then at best the civil government shares sovereignty with the military bureaucracy, and at worst it's a kind of puppet-state of the actual sovereign power (this, specifically, is why strong standing armies are seen as a risky tool for a state to keep—rather than increasing the power or control of the supposed sovereign, they can easily turn to challenging it very effectively). Turkey's operated this way, at times. Egypt, too. Not that uncommon an arrangement, the de facto sovereignty resting less securely with the de jure rulers than one might suppose.
Looking elsewhere in the thread, reports of police deliberately failing to use their (threat of or actual) force to uphold the law in the districts of politicians who've tried to do something they don't like (reduce their funding)—assuming they get away with it and aren't brought to-heel (apparently they have not been)—is another example of a force-bearing arm of the state threatening the sovereignty of the civil government.
[EDIT] on a more personal note, I'm highly skeptical of the utility of widespread private ownership of small arms as a means of keeping the state in check. I've not seen them to be a significant factor in successful resistance against a state, and especially not against one's own state. For one thing they're plenty likely to be used to enforce tyranny or perpetrate injustice on behalf of the government, officially or unofficially (often the latter—see the post-reconstruction South for a close-to-home example) and for another they seem to be neither necessary nor sufficient for armed insurrection to succeed. The critical factor seems to be overt or covert support by part or all of an actual military, whether foreign or one's own, to provide materiel and direct support (e.g. no-fly zones, factions of the army joining the rebels in a civil war, that sort of thing). I see them as a distraction. I wish the left would stop talking about them because it just drives some people away and they've made little progress on restricting firearm ownership anyway, but I also don't see them as somehow key to preserving liberty, simply because they seem secondary at best in any successful rebellion I'm aware of (except maybe against very weak states with tiny militaries that fail to levy more loyal soldiers before the shooting starts, but that's not, you know, the US, at all).
It's not clear whether arms stockpiles would have the same impact on a modern war, but they might.
In my neighborhood, the event organizer wasn't even from my city and she was doing everything she could to get the crowd angry at police. Many of the others who spoke were calmer, more reasonable, more positive, sincere, etc, but she was trying to get people ramped up. The police weren't at the protest originally and she tried to use the lack of police presence to anger people ("look, the police don't even care about protecting you!") and then they merely showed up and it was the other way around ("the police are here to stop us!"). Seemed like she was trying to agitate people into provoking the police. Even still, the protest was generally peaceful on both sides; as far as I know, there was no police violence nor rioting/looting/etc. Proud of my hood.
Is that believable? Sure, but locking arms is also a common thing during protests. The road was already blocked off and cars weren't going through. Also, they fired CS into crowds of protesters blocks away, claiming that they think the protesters are coordinating by secure communications and instantaneously turning violent across the city. Most of it seems like bullshit, and even if it's all true, locking arms on one side of a closed street is not at all unusual. They should have arrested the one guy hitting the glass and let the protest continue.
By the way, they used this event to justify the curfews that haven't been raised since then.
That doesn't make sense, unless they wanted the driver and other people in a not airtight emergency vehicle to end up in the gas cloud as well...
EDIT: I will also note that this, among other events, was used to justify calling for a curfew in town, and today, the mayor and police chief have condemned their own police officers for deploying tear gas on peaceful protests prior to the start of the curfews last night, and then putting forward a false justification (admitted by the police chief to have been a false justification, to be clear) for doing so.
(I say 'individuals', not 'protestors', because the latter are peaceful people. The instigators are rioters and looters, a small minority of the people hiding within the former group.)
The other 25% has been initial violent action from the police. Things like shooting gas and charging forward when protestors were simply standing still.
All I see is crazed fighting from them. Wide eyed with fear, wild swinging, just indiscriminate violence. Is property damage bad? Sure. But good lord stolen Nikes are so inconsequential to what I'm seeing from the police right now.
I am not a bleeding heart liberal, nor am I some apparently crazed republican. I just don't like seeing my fellow Americans getting killed and beaten. The fact that they are totally immune from prosecution and oversight makes the power dynamic of it all that much more infuriating.
Others have already shown examples, however here is an news article covering some incidents: https://www.newsweek.com/fbi-asks-evidence-individuals-incit...
I have so far not seen any evidence of the opposite taking place, I would certainly appreciate some counter examples.
People crowded around the vehicles and starting throwing things at them. While I would expect police to have more restraint/less fear than they did, that wasn’t the police starting violence. I would expect almost anyone to have the same reaction they did.
There was another NYC incident that people were up in arms about without context and it turns out one of the police had been hit in the head with a brick.
Yes, they should have backed up. My point is that they were attacked first, nothing else. It was kind of a play stupid games scenario - if you do that to someone chances are they’re going to freak out and at best be unpredictable.
https://www.insider.com/nypd-cruisers-ram-down-protesters-vi...
https://www.npr.org/2020/06/01/867532070/trumps-unannounced-...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS5C38kayWI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5sKN2vOtZM
https://tuckbot.tv/#/watch/gvc5pt
https://tuckbot.tv/#/watch/gvimlx
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RokxrLLBjKA
And many more examples are available...
https://mobile.twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/126675152005...
And of course there was the case of the riots at the CNN headquarters.
But I think this clearly & quantitatively shows that in general actions against journalists are initiated by the police force, which I don't find surprising.
But when will people take a step back and start asking themselves; who profits on this turmoil?
Someone at a protest was stabbed. Police was called to arrest the stabber and take the victim to hospital. They were actually leaving when some people started throwing rocks and bottles at them.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/small-town-police-chief-killed-off...
Just from personal experience in ca. 2012, the Binghamton, NY PD has openly threatened to plant drugs on us following a a noise complaint.
We talked to officers trying to cooperate but as we weren't following ORDERS such as "Don't scratch your arm right now!" the cops escalated and one took out a tazer. We were all white btw. and as a European I couldn't believe those cops. We calmly talked and suddenly we face a tazer? Because those authoritarian scumbags didn't want to hold a conversation with the people THEY confronted? Over a noise complaint?
Something is super wrong in the US when it comes to police. Maybe start educating them before letting them lose on society. It helps.
I simply don't agree with the massive general violence and looting going on at the moment. That must be stopped. And police officers attempting to do so are being beaten to death. Some are also being shot while trying to prevent looting. I disagree that all police should pay for one person's crime.
However, I think that the situation is so difficult, that society is incapable of finding a real helpful solution and as injustice keeps being comitted by police across the country, the emotions find a channel to break out.
How long can they violently treat citizens without consequences? The negative energy just seems to burst out here and it appears to be the natural consequence (which doesn't make the looting right, but maybe explains the negative energy a little bit).
Do you have any concrete examples in your situation in Sweden?
That sounds very much like your own biased opinion rather than the statement of fact you are presenting it as. I'm open to any evidence of that rather outrageous sweeping statement though.
Question to Americans: if the police really are acting this badly, why aren't y'all exercising your second amendment rights to defend yourselves? My naive understanding as a foreigner is that it's exactly what the second amendment is supposed to be for: protecting yourselves from an oppressive government. If the current situation doesn't warrant it, what situation would?
Because that is a fever dream. The reality is that if you use a firearm on the police you get killed on the spot or it turns into a siege and you are killed some time later.
Here's a video of the Seattle police instigating violence: https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/gv0ru3/this_is_the...
A cop felt so threatened by a pink umbrella that he just had to have it, at all costs.
I've been watching (and attending) a lot of the Portland protests and it's the same story here. Peaceful protesters, violent police. They're all fully geared and armed, and yet feel threatened by water bottles being thrown at them. They feel so threatened by the people that just having protesters get close to a fence around the Justice Center will cause police to start firing rubber bullets, flash bangs, smoke bombs, and tear gas at unarmed and unprotected protesters. Police feel so threatened by unarmed protesters that they now need the help of fully-armed, fully-geared, completely decked-out national guard. This is an embarrassment for police.
Not that any of this is a surprise, anyway. A police officer felt so threatened by an unarmed, handcuffed black man that the had to murder the unarmed, handcuffed black man.
https://mobile.twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/126675152005...
https://soundcloud.com/the-daily-beast-politics/trump-audio
I can’t stress how useful it is to hear this context first hand yourself.
Never mind that you always see them as law enforcement and not a service to the community.
I came around to prison abolition once I realized it was a goal that was meant to be achieved piece by piece.
Cash bail. That's one piece. None of those people need to be in jail. They haven't been convicted of a crime and they overwhelmingly show up for their court date if released. The only thing they can't afford is their bail and that is used to get them to plead to crimes without the police having to prove anything. That's 470k people on any given night. *
Drug possession. Like to smoke weed? Well, that's your choice and no need to throw you in jail over it like 1.4 million people each year.
The other pieces are more radical or require replacement programs or just don't even have proposed solutions. But just above are two pieces of the incarceration system that the many people will agree could just be turned off.
So, if you turn those off, what's the staffing change in police departments and correctional facilities? We're not talking about firing for performance (yet), this is just run of the mill right sizing. Gotta be efficient--can't give people jobs as a handout.
What if you kept going down this line of reasoning. What if you ended racial profiling? Across the country black motorists are 20% more likely to be pulled over. Either black people are being targeted (the consensus) or white people are being given a free pass (my personal experience is that this is also happening). So either hire more police to pull over white people more often. We are doing hella drugs, driving drunk all the time, texting while driving, etc. Or, more along the lines of what everyone wants, there could be a 20% reduction in the staffing of highway patrol.
I think if the will of the people was respected, police departments would probably be reduced by 25% across the country. Certainly in NYC, which has one of the highest cops per capita in the world even though we have the highest density and cops shouldn't have to walk far to do their jobs.
If it were my policy though, probably 50% of police could be eliminated.
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2020.html
https://www.drugpolicy.org/issues/drug-war-statistics
* https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/21/us/police-stops-race-stanford...
Police are on a common radio channel and coordinate their actions. Protesters aren't. If one protester takes violent action, most protesters may be unaware but all police will be. What you see as an unprovoked, violent response may actually have been provoked by something you simply weren't close enough to witness.
This explanation is pure speculation. However, if true, it does prompt us to ask if police can find ways to localize their responses better. i.e. If violent response is necessary in a specific location, is there a way to make police relatively far from that location aware of it without signalling imminent personal danger to them, thereby priming them to over-respond to whatever is happening at their location?
e.g. Instead of just hearing "They've pulled out knives!" over the radio, they might have a corresponding heads-up display showing where that message came from and where they themselves are in relation to that.
My biggest takeaway is local events translate to global action in the crowd (police or protestors). And it leads to all this misunderstanding. "What I was just standing here. Why are you pushing me?". Because jackass, a group of people 10 feet away from you threw rocks and bottles at the police. Sorry you got shoved but shit happens.
Below are my unorganized thoughts. Just wanted to get them out.
---
There were like 100k people at 2:30 (maybe more I didn't count I'm just guessing). These people were mostly peaceful. The worst thing they did was chant obscenities about the police and jump on the cars of bystanders. Not the worst thing in the world but not the nicest way to protest either. I don't hold it against them.
By 6ish there were maybe 10 or 20 thousand hardcore protestors remaining. The people legitimately concerned about police brutality but not clinically-insane-enough-to-march-for-four-hours-saying-the-same-thing-to-no-one-in-particular went home.
These diehards are mostly a bunch of power tripping assholes. "Fuck 12", "ACAB", "Pigs", running up to the police line and trying to 'punk' them out. Just stupid. The weaker and frailer they are the more it seemed they had to say. They know they have all the power when they're with the crowd. Its simultaneously the most pathetic and the most terrifying thing you've ever seen because one of these cracked out weirdos is probably going to try to light your building on fire soon.
And then the fires start. Police cars, a 7-11, doesn't matter. The protestors block the street when firefighters roll up to put it out. They eventually move but I couldn't tell you why. Big shoutout to CFD for being total badasses. I wasn't about to walk out in the crowd even if I were disguised as a "protestor". They make their way to the fire, get it out ASAP and roll out before the crowd has a chance to completely engulf them. Though I never saw the bulk of the crowd leave the police lines.
I have to criticize CPD a little here. I was legitimately concerned my wife and I were going to burn to death in our apartment. I didn't have faith that the CPD could prevent someone from lighting my building on fire.
Thankfully it never came to that.
The police were completely outnumbered and were generally powerless to do anything when the crowd was in its full force. There were people with hammers breaking up the sidewalk to use chunks of debris as weapons against the police. The police just stood there unable or unwilling to prevent it.
In my mind, the police were present to A). soak up as much of the crowds rage as possible and B). prevent the really heinous shit from going down. I'm not talking murder. I'm talking burning an apartment building down with all the people inside heinous. Several murders happened behind the crowds (i.e. bad people are using the crowd as a human shield to do whatever they want). The police didn't (maybe couldn't) budge. Even if they did try to prevent it the crowd would have raged at their intrusion into "their" space.
After curfew the cops went on the offensive. The police began to march. Pushing the remaining "protestors" further and further south outside of the loop. This involved rubber bullets and I assume tear gas but I couldn't actually see this part. Along the way the rioters looted every business (aside from the Crocs store hilariously enough) from Wacker all the way to Roosevelt. I assume they looted further down but I didn't feel like walking any further through the ruins of my city.
That's basically it.
Police escalate conflict simply by showing up, especially in riot gear.
If the police were not there my life would have been at imminent risk. And if the police show up their lives are at imminent risk. So the cops have to show up and they have to wear riot gear.
I've had to live with months of protest downtown. People protesting to release prisoners because of coronavirus. People protesting to lift the coronavirus lock downs. In those cases there was no riot gear. Minimal police presence. When Friday's protest came around it immediately felt different. The people were much more angry and much more hostile.
People were looking at the Minneapolis riots with envy. People were shouting about the righteous cause of riots and looting. "Its the language of the unheard." Despite noble protestations that they were only going to loot the wealthy corporations with fat insurance contracts, they ended up looting everything. They ended up shooting each other far from police lines. They ended up burning police cars that were parked far away from police lines. They lit buildings on fire that could have very easily spread to neighboring apartment buildings.
You said:
> nothing about CPDs behavior looked like "keep people safe"
I disagree. "People" are more than just the rioters. They are rioters. They are residents in the immediate area. They are residents outside the immediate area who were spared the carnage by virtue of CPD's actions.
You can talk all you want about "subtle escalations". But truth be told anything the "authorities" do will be considered an escalation because the mob is not rational. It is primed to perceive anything and everything as a reason to execute its collective will.
If it's documented, it should be easy to produce documentation backing that claim, because to me that sounds incredibly unlikely.
We don't have violent riots after every election, for one thing.
Not in recent memory, and certainly not as a regular occurrence.
>Also after sports games.
Ok, you got me there.
I remember thinking, America is in for it now, the Rubicon has been crossed. Since then politically motivated violence has been embraced and celebrated by many luminaries. Welcome to the normal.
Realizing how angry the people are and how massively outnumbered they are they've decided to come out hard with violence in an attempt to squash the protests, which makes sense.
I don't think it would take much for the people to overcome the Law Enforcement with their overwhelming numbers. Once the news gets around that it's happened in one place, that will embolden others to do the same. I just hope it doesn't get wickedly violent if it happens.
All most of the protestors want to do is protest, ie partake in some of their 1st amendment rights. So the protestors "overrun" the police and then what? Continue to stand in the street chanting?
This feels like straight projection, and focusing on the few people taking advantage of the situation by looting etc. The police could solve that in a heartbeat by deploying small units into the protest crowds and working with the peaceful protestors, but first they'd have to give up on the goal of disrupting legitimate protests.
I'm not saying it's productive or a good thing, I'm just saying that's what it feels like.
People are only going to stand and watch their fellow citizens get shot point blank in the face with tear gas canisters, pepper spray and rubber bullets for so long.
Law Enforcement are denying people their right to demonstrate, and I feel like people are going to fight hard to keep it.
EDIT: I mean, watch this [1]. Those look like Police who are desperately trying to maintain control with the only means they know how - violence.
Do you think everyone will continue to just watch them swing batons like the first few seconds and do nothing?
[1] https://twitter.com/JordanUhl/status/1267968926761312256
Constructively, maybe if the protestors do "overrun" the cops, then the protestors could setup a new justice system, arrest the criminal conspiracies, and try them under RICO. If there were enough protestors willing to work this justice system, it could even be a good time for cities to say farewell to the incumbent union and hire the new system to keep order instead.
But practically yes I agree things will get ugly if we keep going down this path. But since the police are over the line by aggressing against basic American values, the only peaceful resolution is for them to simply stand down and stop attacking protests. I don't see any other option that wouldn't be bargaining with totalitarianism.
I think if we banned police from getting near these protests at all / only getting involved with people causing physical violence, it would be a great step to actually minimizing the exact things the curfews are intended to address.
1. They are given rubber bullets and mace without any form of de-escalation training, so they just use the tools they have at their disposal.
2. Just like any kind of organism, the police force needs to preserve itself and make sure it is necessary. The military doesn't like peace, and the police cannot thrive with peaceful protests. They do what they see fit to make themselves irreplaceable.
From what I've seen, teargas and mace are used after a small minority of protesters become violent and the crowd is lawfully ordered to disperse.
I can't say if these are the right tactics, but I have not seen police use these things for no obvious reason.
The one situation where this wasn't the case is when peaceful protesters were blocking one of the two roads that was going to be used to transport multiple heads of state off of a peninsula after high level discussions. I assume this was due to some security consideration, but I don't know. The crowd was passive.
If the lawful order was give, was it because criminals were using the peaceful protest as cover?
* https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/gv0ru3/this_is_the... - Main reddit thread, with aerial footage of the incident, as well as lots of other sources in the comments
* https://www.facebook.com/omarisal/videos/10220021035848747/ - Livestream of 30+ minutes leading up to the incident. The interesting stuff starts at 26' in, but he gives a lot of good context on the protest leading up to then. The livestreamer was at the front line when they started pepper spraying, and in fact you can even see him in the aerial footage as he's next to a pink umbrella that makes a good landmark. It's very clear from ground eye view the violence was deliberately premeditated and coordinated by SPD and not in response to any immediate threat. No orders to disperse, or do anything else for that matter, are given prior to pepper spray, teargas, and flashbangs.
* https://mobile.twitter.com/izaacmellow/status/12676798206006... - Official SPD story claiming incident is a "riot" and was forced on them: " Crowd has thrown rocks, bottles and fireworks at officers and is attempting to breach barricades one block from the East Precinct."
I don't think you can watch these videos and come to the conclusion that at least in this instance, it's not the protesters rioting but rather the police. Then they're officially lying about it.
Edit: formatting
From what I've heard , they aren't even using the rubber bullets they way they are designed, but instead in a more dangerous way. Incompetence or maliciousness, take your pick. I wager its a bit of both.
The question they should ask is, why did the party turn from the people who put it into power and become beholden to public employee unions which encompass police, fire, education, if not regular government employees. Easy answer, the support where the money comes from. People decry corporate money in politics but this money is more poisonous because of its out sized influence because of pressure they can put on any politician who tries to stand up to them; just go google stories of these unions protesting in the streets of the homes of politicians making moves against them, they have bought billboards and even homes nearby to put pressure down.
TL,DR : This is all about money. The politicians have been more than willing to turn a blind eye to police malfeasance; if not problems in fire departments and education; because the money is too good and the groups involved have very big influence over the citizenry.
I'd say holding the protestors responsible for it is a bit missleading.
"Sorry for this lengthy message but here goes: My ancestors are African and Native American. My African ancestors were taken from Africa, brought here to America, beat and killed, and forced to be slaves since the late 1600s. Of course as slaves you have no rights, so my great-great grandmother was raped, which is how my my branch of the family came about. So I actually have white and black ancestors. The Civil War occurred, which most people think the north fought to help free slaves, but actually the north just didn't want the south to have slaves anymore because it was giving the south an economic advantage - not because they wanted to free black people. And although the north won, no one told slaves in the south this for many years, so they had no idea because they were not allowed to read. But eventually the word was spread and black people learned that they were technically free, but they could not own land, so they had no where to go. A few more benevolent slave masters gave some land to the slaves because, like my ancestors they were raped by the slave master and therefore the kids were part-family. This is why you see different shades of black people in America. My grandfather (born 1920) was forced to flee Texas as a young boy in fear for his life. He could've been another Emit Till. If you don't know who Emit Till is, please, please just search the name. It will break your heart (Also sidenote: the woman who was the cause of the Emit Till murder announced on her deathbed that she lied about it all). Moving along...so my grandfather moved to Detroit where things were just a little better for black people. He was the only black person in his engineering program at Michigan State, and endured brutality and abuse for just trying to get an education. Then we had WW2 where he was not allowed to vote or have rights, but served as a Tuskegee Airman, a troup of all black pilots who literally saved America's ass from Germany. If it were not for the Tuskegee Airman, we would have lost WW2. But he comes back after the war, and still has no rights, no freedoms. Blacks and whites were segregated and when black people made our own financial district and economy it was burned to the ground because it threatened white capitalism (see 1921 burning of black wallstreet in Tulsa Oklahoma). And then Jim Crow laws were put into place. Basically this meant that white people could legally discriminate against black people, which also included violent acts without repercussions. POLICE were created during this time to literally "police" black people because the slave masters did not have control anymore. So police did the slave master's dirty work and it was still legal. This is why people are protesting against police brutality with a focus on black lives. Because the police were specifically created to take our lives, but not the lives of others. And you can see this today, for example George Floyd. So when people say "all lives matter" it is just another way of covering up the real reason police were created, and it hurts that 400 years later we are still trying to get justice, within a country that we literally built with our black hands. We are the economy, which is why when we created our own economy, it rocked the US economy so much that they burned it down. We have tried to march peacefully, we have tried to kneel peacefully, we have tried to protest peacefully, and it has gotten us nowhere. So that is why many people feel that the only option left to make our voices heard is to hurt the economy. And that's what the rioting and looting is about. I'm not saying I condone it, but believe me, I understand it. Also if you have been following any of it, the vast majority of people being violent and breaking things are not black people, but actually white supremacists who dress up as protesters. They are trying to make black people seem violent so that the police take violent action against the protestors. Things are never as simple as they seem, so you have to know the history to understand the full scope if the situation, and guess what....they took the real history out of the textbooks! So yes, this is a heavy time for black people and I hope you all can start to understand why this is happening. Thank you for reading and being open-minded."
I get that everyone wants the cops to be kinder and gentler and maybe there will be that day, but there's also the other side of things. I've seen videos some cops in the UK that are so useless and passive that criminals can basically do whatever they want all the damn day long. No offense to the UK, the US also has the stereotypical donut eating cop.
At some point you're going to have to decide what kind of society you want. If you want a society where cops don't make deadly mistakes, it would be a hell of a lot easier if we got a little privacy invasive and profiled people as risks early on and dealt with them then.
If you don't deal with violent thugs preemptively, your cops for better or worse are going to be a little twitchy on the trigger finger. I can guarantee you that 98% of cops out there would gladly trade out the violence if they could without sacrificing the paycheck.
You "witnessed" incidents "through the media"?
It sounds like your perspective is as informed as anyone who is watching videos on the internet. And since you're a self-professed "bleeding heart liberal" you're likely consuming a biased selection of videos that fit into the narrative your tribe has endorsed.
The "bleeding heart liberal" talking point is that police officers are "instigating" all of these riots. This is mental gymnastics and doesn't even make sense. Even children aren't allowed to use the "they started it" excuse. How do police responding to protests justify burning and looting?
Even the very heart of the issue is not clear.
Is it even true that black people are treated worse by police? Do black police officers treat black people worse than white police officers? Is it a racial issue or a class issue? Are poor white people treated better or worse?
These are unanswered questions. Anyone who claims to know is confused or lying. The propaganda on the left is that even asking this question makes you a racist Nazi.
You will hear "bleeding heart liberals" claim that "white people demonstrated with machine guns and the police did nothing to them" as if this counts as proof of something, ignoring the massive differences besides race. The obvious difference being that these weren't anti-police riots...
It's very clear that anyone who cares about police reform should be disassociating themselves with the violent people who don't actually give a shit about the cause. And yet, instead, we see the "bleeding heart liberals" rushing to justify and rationalize it.
> that the police is desperately trying to set a narrative to justify a history of violence by escalating more violence, but please, someone, restore my faith.
The police is composed of a bunch of individuals. It is highly unlikely that there is any kind of conspiracy to set the narrative of excessive violence by being...excessively violent? It doesn't even logically follow.
I hope, that both sides, the protesters and police force will find a way, to exit that spiral of violence. But right now it looks like this won't happen. It's a shame.
If the state acts harder against protesters, journalists and civilian bystanders it will only fuel their anger. Leading to more violence, used by the state to issue a even worse crackdown than now. And so on and so on.
The only hope that I have is, that other politicians from all parties will stand up against that.
[1] https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2020/05/31/us-law-e...
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Byk2axDVNHE
The two sides are massively unequal in terms of power, the onus is on the police to stop the violence.
This is certainly not true except on an individual scale.
> the onus is on the police to stop the violence.
The onus is on every individual. On each side.
How to you expect protesters to deescalate this with absolutely nothing changing and high level LE people still not accepting any blame and pushing for military help?
Police knows how to deal with force, the goal of the protest should be to not give it any opportunity to apply the force, so that even the people who are against protesters can't find a way to justify police actions.
It may be too late for applying this tactic now, but if it was applied earlier it would make the protest much more successful. At least that's what happened in Armenia few years ago, when after many years of unsuccessful violent protests, non-violent protest brought a real change.
> and high level LE people still not accepting any blame
I don't know how you get that from OP saying that both sides need to de-escalate.
But since you mention that, cops do not have to be heavy handed. Training around handling mental health helps. Training around de-escalation helps. Not being a murdering racist helps. Body cameras work.
If the guns were the main reason, we'd see similar reactions every time a group of open-carry white protesters show up on the streets. They're not treated the same way though.
Well, multiple people have been fired and imprisoned. And investigations are on the way to probably arrest and imprison more cops.
Mental health is probably a small part of the picture of civilian-on-police violence, unless you consider anyone who considers it a good idea to kill a police officer as intrinsically mentally unhealthy.
> If the guns were so scary, we'd see similar reactions every time a group of open-carry white protesters show up on the streets
Cops aren't generally worried about open carry nuts, because they are mostly a known quantity. I'd imagine getting shot at a routine traffic stop or doing a domestic violence call is much more on the mind of your average officer than getting attacked by someone open carrying.
1 out of 4 initially involved people has been charged. People who did the initial coverup are still untouched. One chief of police was fired by a mayor. Firing someone for helping with murder or current attack on unarmed civilians is a joke and bringing that up will only make people more angry. (Fired cops often go straight into security jobs)
Re. mental illness issues, have a read: https://health.usnews.com/wellness/articles/2016-12-07/how-c...
> Cops aren't generally worried about open carry nuts
Yeah. Turns out it's not about just any people having guns. Black Panthers and all...
Yes, apparently the likelihood of someone actually using the gun factors into their fear of guns. They aren't afraid of the mere idea of a gun, they are afraid of being shot by a gun. Not all people who carry guns are equally as likely to shoot you.
Police officers in the US face 12.9 fatalities per 100,000 workers. In comparison, construction workers see 14.3, agricultural workers see 17.7, farmers and ranchers around 24 and truck drivers 26.9.
Being an officer is not even close to the top most dangerous jobs in the US. Saying it's on the level of a 'third-world country' is objectively wrong.
This is a strawman. I never claimed this, and yet refuting it is apparently the core point of your post. Please proofread your posts before accusing someone of being objectively wrong on a matter which they never made a claim.
Cops don’t need to stomp on peoples necks till they asphyxiate to feel safe at work.
> You understand why US cops are so heavy handed though, right?
???
Police mortality isn't any more exceptionally high in a "third world country" than anywhere else. Your view that bad things = third world country, is simplistic. Your attitude is typical of a certain mindset. It's also boring because now I can tell a lot about you and could guess 100% correctly about any of you derivative political viewpoints.
Well go ahead and guess then, and let's see how accurate you are.
where did you find this figure? this is off by more than a factor of two from any source I can find.
The result is still more or less the same if there is 1.1 guns per capita.
I personally don't feel that pervasive civilian gun ownership is incompatible with proportionate policing, but that's certainly a debate that reasonable people can have.
There are people to blame and it is not everyone's responsibility to make it easy and comfortable for the channel surfers at home.
Aren't the journalists supposed to be the third party oversight? Showing and telling the rest of us what's happening so that when one side oversteps we as a society can take action to correct it?
Up until now the bar has been far lower than that.
The pink umbrella bit was clipped out of the riot started by police in Seattle on Monday - instead the news agencies started showing footage after pepper spray was deployed.
In Canada, the CBC cut a video right before a police van physically drove its way through a crowd. [1] Anyone else doing that would be described as vehicular assault, possibly attempted manslaughter.
The press isn't holding the police accountable for any of this. It's pushing a narrative that "The appropriate amount of force was used against rioters", without showing the inappropriate use of force that started the riot.
[1] https://twitter.com/_llebrun/status/1267209166545981445?s=20...
Is it a shame?
The only way this de-escalates is if the police violently repress the protests so hard that dissent is silenced. Which is what Trump wants. Which will only push the country further into authoritarianism.
And the police have shown themselves completely unwilling to self-interrogate their actions, and truly see themselves as the victim in this situation, justifying their reaction.
Honestly, I think the only way through this is down. There needs to be a violent insurrection from the left. Revolution is the ONLY way to enact societal change at this point.
It was all partisan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech
More generally, there is always nearby the temptation to definitionally exclude one's political opponents from serious discussion by the lazy insinuation that they don't really believe what they say they believe, that their side is more opportunistic and cynical than yours, and that, therefore, what work even needs to be done to argue the point? After all, there are only two staked-out positions: those who agree with me already and those who are lying about their motives!
Try to resist this. It goes nowhere. It leads to nothing. And I assure you that, whatever the issue, there really are people who see it differently than you. I know that can be hard to accept, but it's almost always true.
It's all very disheartening, and hard to explain to my children.
We have to change the payoff matrix.
Would love to hear alternative takes or solutions if anyone has them.
What positive are they doing for us at this juncture?
And not only have the people in question not spoken up in defense of the press, they've actually routinely declare them the enemy of the people.
Are the only Press allowed to be Press those that are part of a large national news network? Is Alex Jones Press if he shows up to these with a guy with a camera and enters areas civilians are not allowed to be in?
Yeah, I don't either.
Yes, rioting isn't free speech. Unfortunately, nothing short of rioting seems to work---the people in question are poor and already at the bottom of the social pile, so their options seem limited.
Democrats already had the African American vote and the cities. Rioting will swing the suburbs back to Republicans, completing the cycle again.
This all will not end well.
P.s. Were there significant riots with the Occupy thing? I seem to recall it being mostly quiet (and completely ineffectual).
On its own I agree the Tea Party is wonton vandalism. The patriots knew that too. They wanted to start a war. They also knew it was lawless and it was debated afterwords until it set of a wave of similar vandalism.
No one outside of a very small group looks back on the race riots of 1968 with pride, or the burning of LA, or Camden.
Are the rioters trying to start a revolutionary war? I hope not. There will be a lot of death everywhere.
The rioters don’t even have a plan or goal for if they “win.” They aren’t making demands. “Fix the police“ and “end systemic racism” isn’t something that can just happen. The rioters don’t have Federalist Papers or any plan for what’s next (unless you count the Communist Manefesto).
Personally I’d like these things to happen too. The police shouldn’t be terrifying. When I was growing up they were likable Andy Griffith types. Everyone knew them. Now they are shaven headed paramilitary. I have no idea who my local cops are. Wtf?
We're FAR past that point, and the reason that comfortable white people are so taken aback by this is because they've been given the freedom to ignore it all. Just watch the alternate dimension that is OAN or Fox News, and you will never have to worry about how a minority is ever treated in this country, because they will either tell you it's all bullshit or they will wring their hands for a segment and then go right back to bashing Obama or Clinton for things that are happening 3.5 years into Trump's presidency.
RIGHT NOW cops are shooting tear gas and grenades at peaceful protesters.
RIGHT NOW photographers are losing their vision because police officers are firing rubber bullets at their heads.
RIGHT NOW cops are destroying property and blaming it on imaginary groups of paid protesters.
RIGHT NOW cops are hiding their badge numbers because they don't want to get fired.
RIGHT NOW cops are assaulting and arresting the press.
RIGHT NOW cops have the right to wander into a woman's apartment and shoot her stone cold dead because they didn't read the number.
RIGHT NOW people in this country watch with baited breath to see whether people like that woman who murdered Botham Jean in his own home would even get charged.
It seems to me that a large portion of the conservative side of this country is more than happy with "coming down hard" on people to try to scare anyone else from trying to upset the apple cart. Because it "works."
These protesters? They're just reciprocating what "works."
Conservatives support protests by white people, but never by black people.
Conservatives are just practicing the same racist tribalism t hey always have. There is no structural logic to how they behave except "us vs them" and right now the police are hurting the right people. It is not and has never been about principles.
Now, If you make the argument that these people are not protesters but opportunistic thieves, then we can all move on.
Looting & destroying someone else's property as a response to injustice is almost as bad as the injustice itself.
This is not to say all protesters are looters, but that thieves take this opportunity to insert themselves into these situations masquerading as protesters.I have no sympathy for these people.(Not that anyone cares about my opinion)
However...our right to not be inflicted with cruel and unusual punishment, our right to assemble, and our right to freedom of speech is in grave danger here. That's why I can't stand that everyone is focused on the looters.
Speaking of the constitution, whered the 2nd amendment people go? I thought I'd have some allies in them.............
You are ridiculous.
Sure, but that doesn't extend to rioting and looting.
The government has been restricting our first amendment rights to assemble for covid for 3 months. It's illegal to hold church services right now. Are we in a public heath emergency or not?
You may disagree with the ruling, but it’s case law and reality in the US now.
The state (i.e. the police) also don't have the right to murder people without provocation, yet they routinely get away with it. So here we are.
Destroying businesses and property of fellow citizens to get your point across will always fall on deaf ears. The only possible way to achieve your goals by rioting is completely terrorizing everyone into submission. Good luck with that.
But this paragraph summarizes things pretty well:
"Let me spell it out for you: underneath the lofty rhetoric of the patriots of New England was a criminal enterprise. A vast smuggling operation, illicitly supplying the residents of the New World with their drug of choice, bohea, that deliciously addictive tea varietal with a dark liquor and a deep, leathery taste. The foundational myth of the American Republic is not righteous, freedom-loving citizens rising up against oppression. No, it's drug dealers defending their turf."
in general I don't think this is a good rhetorical pattern though. comparing controversial current event A to mythologized account of historical event B seems like an attempt to avoid having to defend A on its own merit. as we've seen here in this thread, it may also rely on an incorrect/embellished understanding of B that introduces some weird implications.
Hitchen's razor: What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.
You do see a difference in the protests, right? The protests against lockdowns didn't include looting, arson, rape, murder, and multiple murdered police.
Here, have a small sample,
Black pawn shop employee murdered by looters for TVs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhG0v9pDycM
"You said black lives matter.. look what you did to my store"
https://mobile.twitter.com/Mus1yMustafa/status/1267874483840...
Destroying store and beating unarmed woman and her husband
https://streamable.com/rvrwil
Restaurant manager beaten and stomped for trying to defend his workplace
https://streamable.com/ila4dh
Stopping, beating and stomping a truck driver while protesters yell to kill him
https://streamable.com/8zk9dq
Protesters attack a media member and then pummel him
https://streamable.com/p4i3jb
Police officer beaten on the streets
https://streamable.com/je4ki5
Car runs over a cop
https://streamable.com/q4nat7
Protesters set homeless man’s belongings on fire
https://streamable.com/sdjvfa
Throwing fireworks at the cops
https://streamable.com/7sv4a9
Chasing and beating guy with red had
https://streamable.com/rcsmi0
I can keep going. It is utterly dispicable. There's a long long list of videos with these "peaceful protestors" in action. Everyone has a camera, and all of this is available for you to see, if you only choose to see it.
This was staged by infowars. I cannot be arsed to look at all of your videos.
The right wing lockdown protests had a strong smell of AstroTurf about them:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/21/us/politics/coronavirus-p...
Oh well, I guess black lives don't actually matter to you then, because the video I lead with is a real black man who really died.
https://fox6now.com/2020/06/02/police-retired-st-louis-polic...
You neglect the hundreds of thousands of people who turned up in peaceful protests around the world over the last week. These people are seeking positive change within their communities.
Your attempt to mine a simplistic “protests bad” narrative from a complex event is done in bad faith.
https://laist.com/2020/05/31/reporters_injured_protests_poli...
It's unfortunate that it's gotten to this point for people to take police brutality at least somewhat seriously.
I'm mistaken for being pro-police and anti-BLM merely because I'm against the looting and rioting. I've always had the stance that the police in their current form are state-sanctioned street gangs.
Buried in your reasoning is the idea that the rioting and looting is helping reducing black deaths by cops. I see no reason to believe that.
First, its directly putting people into violent conflict with police. So additional black people have been killed by police caused by the rioting. Second, innocent people are getting killed by the rioting.
Third, there are people who would support police reform but are also terrified of looters and rioters. The riots are giving me a look at what my city looks like without police control, and it is scary. I know that police v. lawlessness is a false dichotomy and I reject that sort of thinking.
There was a consensus that what happened to George Floyd was an atrocity. Even racists thought so. A huge peaceful protest would have raised awareness.
Violence lost that consensus.
It was not by accident[1] - remember the police force was on the wrong side of that consensus. Strategically, allowing and even encouraging[2][3] violence is a winning move for the police (as long as their members are relatively safe) - both to punish the communities who have seemingly "turned against the police" and to change the narrative so that the same communities beg the police to save them from the violence.
1. Twitter thread on how the Minneapolis police is on "strike" https://twitter.com/lynnellmick/status/1266489804444721152
2. https://twitter.com/JoshuaPotash/status/1267670804696895488
3. https://twitter.com/realDavidOnline/status/12673136333918699...
"There was a consensus that what happened to George Floyd was an atrocity."
Who cares? Thinking something is an atrocity accomplished precisely jack shit. Peaceful protests get ignored or mocked. Police forces continue to get more militarized. Far right politicians, like the president, encourage violence from their bully pulpit. At a certain point, people need to respond. To not respond is to encourage those who seek to abuse power.
Can you find a large episode of rioting and looting without any death toll? Even the 2011 London riots led to the deaths of five people.
The bigger issue though is that the current situation is starting to turn counterproductive. The only way to eventually fix things is with politics. Protests are politics.
But violence eventually takes a life of its own. Already now there are overwhelming evidence various third party actors are interfering. Soon this turns into an order vs chaos issue, and guess in who's favour that framing would play out?
The protests can no longer be ignored, now is the time to step back and to do whatever can be done to make this peaceful - before people forget why the protests started in the first place.
I think the reason for police violence in the US are black people, they simply kill each other too much and from what I see act completely irrationally and with indiscriminate violence towards innocent people. No wonder the police is all the time on edge there and other races suffer because the police policies are created with black communities behaviour in mind, then they apply it also to peaceful people outside and inside the black community.
I can't believe in all of this discussion nobody mention the way African Americans in the US behave, as if the police works in a vacuum and as if slavery that was abolished years ago is an excuse for what's going on there. I think people are too afraid to say what's on their mind because they will be called racist but deep inside that's what people think otherwise how comes half of the country voted for Trump but I don't see anybody here say what half of the country thinks?
We lost a couple banks and a pizza hut.
But its quite tenable. No one will mourn for the buildings or police cruisers.
But you see cops being abusive and "It's just a few bad apples!"
Anything to quell the cognitive dissonance.
Put simply, there's no need for a "but". Once can make both statements without implying that one has precedence over the other.
[Citation needed]
I find it hard to believe that a few days of these riots has caused more damage and loss of life than generations of racial oppression and police brutality. If you’ve got a source, I’m all ears.
If you had simply asked me to share what I know, I would have given you some links. But I have a distaste for the "[Citation Needed]" meme because it's pompous, so I suggest you do some basic research yourself. If you can do 2nd grade arithmetic, you can figure out that 2 or more deaths is greater than 1 death. If you've even watched a minute of TV in the last 5 days, I shouldn't have to argue whether more people's lives have been destroyed than if the riots didn't happen at all.
> I find it hard to believe that a few days of these riots has caused more damage and loss of life than generations of racial oppression and police brutality.
That's not even close to what I said.
Totally fair. That wasn’t very conservative. I’m sorry.
> That's not even close to what I said.
Could you clarify what you were saying? I directly quoted you, but I’ll admit your sentence isn’t clear. It says “More” but doesn’t indicate “more than what?”, so I assumed you meant the oppression that rioters are responding to. Maybe that’s not the case.
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Police-Davenport-officer...
https://www.foxnews.com/us/federal-law-enforcement-officer-k...
https://www.foxnews.com/us/kentucky-man-killed-by-cops-who-d...
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/article/Police-Retired...
https://www.ibtimes.com/george-floyd-las-vegas-protests-1-po...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/top-detroit-news-most-arre...
----
Maybe there are more, and I think it's fortunate that the deaths don't appear to be excessively high. But I would still argue these people might not be dead or in critical condition if the rule of law wasn't out of control. I'm no fan of police, but that doesn't mean I don't think about how some kids may have lost a parent.
It's not a choice to make for one or the other.
https://bjssjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002...
They still aren't taking it seriously. People are still bending over backwards to justify violence and police incompetence against even peaceful protestors and press members. They're cheering for people to be run down in the street, etc. Nothing is getting better and things I fear things will only get worse from here.
I agree with you in that things probably will only get worse.
https://twitter.com/alexiszotos/status/1068260482807676931
The more the merrier! Its gonna get IGNORANT tonight! But it's gonna be a lot of fun beating the hell out of those shitheads once the sun goes down and nobody can tell us apart!
Any officer paying attention would know you won't be punished unless you act particularly egregiously like the one officer in Louisville reassigned to desk duty (big whoop). Add on the amount of animosity stoked by the president toward media for the past 4-5 years, and it really doesn't take a simultaneously coordinated effort to have this outcome.
Isn't this honestly largely due to the police union rules and contacts, which (unions) are a key part of leftist labor relations?
Does that answer your question?
Companies can fairly easily break a union. After call, why does Ford need a Detroit plant when they can use Mexico.
But governments are lead by politicians who get money from unions. Union supports leader, leader pays union, union supports leader. No incentive to keep costs down at all. It's actually better for politicians to have strong public unions.
Teachers unions make it pretty much impossible to fire someone. You pretty much need to molest a child in places with a union (after you make tenure).
Hence the US states' and cities' unfunded pension debt crisis. Only solution to it in democracies is for non government employees to actively participate in local elections.
No police union contract includes a statement that the officers are immune from criminal investigation and prosecution, and most of the egregious events would clearly result in investigation and prosecution (if not necessarily conviction) if done by non-police. That these cases don't get that far shows the effects of a general cooperation between police and the judicial and political system---DAs don't prosecute and courts won't convict---all backed by a social system that encourages that behavior: you won't get elected on a police reform platform anywhere in the US.
Here is what I think (I know I will be burned at the steak for this):
The media market is the constant.
Media organizations and reporters are incentivized to get the most extreme and sensationalistic footage, so they are taking more risks and crossing more lines than every before.
I've not seen any footage that reflects that - and there is plenty of footage of police attacks on reporters at this point.
Reporters know that these attacks are happening - it's their job to know what's going on! They don't want to be attacked, so they aren't taking risks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YbWHQ0WgDg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSf8vpRLif4&has_verified=1
Warning: there is a lot of disturbing content there.
See for example https://unicornriot.ninja/ which was on the ground, live streaming from the early days of the protest in Minneapolis.
> "Ending Qualified Immunity Act," which would allow civil lawsuits against police, a recourse that the Supreme Court has all but done away with.
https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/06/01/us/politics/01reu...
That plus the laundry list of obvious issues with criminal justice that any defense attorney could list off hand.
Ideas include: -Banning police unions -Having a federal agency to discipline police (outside the purview of local politics)
I haven't heard this idea elsewhere but I like the idea of us addressing from the top down the fact that we have the highest incarceration rate in the world at 698 per 1,000 currently. This is something like 10x some comparable countries, and at least 3x any country we consider "free" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_ra...). We can make a top down decision to change this by making a hard "200 incarcerated per 100,000" cap at the state level. Dec 31st of each year, each state with over 200 per 100,000 prisoners has to release prisoners until they are below the threshold.
I am not saying it is a simple problem, but any other solution ideas?
Ending the use of private prisons and restricting police use of military equipment and weapons are also frequently suggested proposals.
In terms of police violence, I think the main thing lacking right now is accountability. There are a lot of ways to impose that. One avenue is to impose accountability from a higher level of government (for instance: the FBI getting involved if local government doesn't act), and the other traditional approach is accountability from voters.
We have 10x more incarcerated per capital than germany. If the police think 1 in 100 (rounding a bit) belong in jail, it leads to a very different quality of interaction if it is 1 in 1,000.
Definitely agree on the issues with accountability.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_Zero
https://www.joincampaignzero.org/s/CampaignZero-Policing.pdf
They seem like sensible policy positions for reducing violence and misconduct by police.
After that ensure they are chaperoned by a black person.
All costs for “bad apples” come out if the departments pension fund.
Any news reports of people posing as reporters might be suppressed by newsrooms themselves as to not encourage copycats or get the idea out there that reporters might not be reporters, that is entirely unsubstantiated conjecture though.
There are peaceful/permitted protests that the police leave alone and occasionally support/join.
There are peaceful/not-permitted protests that the police disperse with various uses of non-lethal force.
There are Rioters that vandalize and try to blend with protesters but seldom directly confront the police - occasionally confronted by protesters.
...and then there's just tons of rampant looting with little police intervention.
Anyone blending these four distinct phenomenon is just doing truth and justice a disservice.
The other option, more literal, is "they got a permit to do this protest", but there have certainly been plenty of peaceful grassroots protests that got no sort of official go-ahead and yet were executed perfectly fine on both sides.
The reason I changed it is that "U.S. police have attacked journalists more than 110 times since May 28" is more baity. First you've got the aggressive verb "attacked". And then you've got the specific facts and figures (100 times, May 28). Why do these things make a title more baity? I don't know, but they are somehow active ingredients in the psychology of titles, which is why headline writers use them. I think of them as sharp edges. If you throw a spiky thing into a crowd, it gets more attention than a beach ball—but the quality of attention is not conducive to a reflective discussion on the internet (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). People react to the sharp bits.
It's in HN's interest to rewrite baity titles (indeed the site guidelines request it: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) but this is 1000x more important on inflammatory topics of the moment, like this one. We want HN to discuss this, but we want to support the discussion to stay in the intended spirit of the site: thoughtful, respectful, curious conversation. The material is provocative enough, and a title doesn't need sharp edges to make readers here care about the topic.
To clear up a misconception that sometimes arises: I'm not saying the statement in the sharper title is false. Obviously it's legitimate to use an aggressive verb to describe an aggressive action, and if the facts and figures are true then it's obviously legitimate to make a factual statement with them. As a reader I have zero problem with that title. But the moderator perspective is different: the question for a moderator, on HN at least, is always: what is the prospective effect on forthcoming discussion? Or to put it pseudotechnically: given choice A vs. choice B, what is the diff between the probability distribution of threads that A is a prefix of, vs. threads that B is a prefix of? (This is just a metaphor, but it reflects how we think about this. See https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... for more.) In the case of these two alternative titles, experience has shown that there's a significant difference in probable outcomes, and titles are by far the biggest influence on threads, so it's potentially a big deal.
1. This is not just about police attacks against journalists across the U.S. in general, this is about attacks since a specific date. The date matters because it is recent, it delineates a specific span of time (a mere five days), which helps the reader place it into context. This is about the protests that have occurred since the murder of George Floyd.
2. This is not just about some rare occurrence of police attacks against journalists since a specific date, this is about how this happened many, many times, and as the article notes, in the majority of the cases the journalists were clearly identifiable as press. This places it in context again: this is not a one-off incident, but something that has happened with startling frequency.
With the original title, it is easy to identify a through-line from the start of protests against the murder of George Floyd to a startling factual statement: on average, each day since then, police have attacked journalists over 20 times a day. Or to put it another way, police have attacked a journalist almost once an hour since the protests have begun.
That context is vital to the discussion, if as you say the headline has such an enormous impact on the conversation that follows. If, as I see in your recent edit, the distribution function is changed because the headline specifically calls out that high rate of attacks on journalists in a small window of time, then I think it moves that function for the better.
(Sorry for editing my comment on the fly like that - yours is long enough that I imagine I changed the carpet under you several times while you were writing. It's the most convenient way for me to craft responses, so I do it all the time, even though there are downsides.)
And no worries, I do the same thing.
Thank you dang for doing so and bringing transparency to your moderating decisions.
I feel fairly confident that police don't usually attack media, but it seems clear that in the past few days there has been some kind of deliberate choice made to start doing so.
Are individual groups of police making the decision to attack media, or is it concerted? Are they just seeing it from other police and copying? I know some people will say it's because Trump has called media "fake news" and such, but is that really all it takes for police to start such gross behaviour? At the same time, I presume there hasn't been a direct order to start targeting media or it would have been leaked.
https://github.com/2020PB/police-brutality
Definitely seen excessive use of force against seemingly peaceful protesters, but context is everything, and a 10 second snippet does not tell the full story of the interactions between that protester and that cop for the 45 minutes leading up to those 10 seconds.
I tend to reserve my judgement on those types of videos, since cops have been also taking a beating in the last few days with bricks, rocks, water bottles, etc... thrown at them off camera or before those clips start, where the convenient "editing" is done to portray the cops as the "bad guys" when often they have spent the last hour being insulted, assaulted and injured before they decide to move in with force on that "peaceful" protester...
https://metro.co.uk/2020/06/01/cop-put-baton-george-floyd-pr...
Also who gives a shit if they just got verbally harassed for an hour. I don’t get to lose my shit and delete a project because someone keeps submitting bad code. Why do cops get to lose their temper when their job is to keep the peace and enforce the law. Learn to control yourself and do your job or find another profession.
TITLE 18, U.S.C., SECTION 242 DEPRIVATION OF RIGHTS UNDER COLOR OF LAW
Acts under “color of any law” include acts not only done by federal, state, or local officials within the bounds or limits of their lawful authority, but also acts done without and beyond the bounds of their lawful authority; provided that, in order for unlawful acts of any official to be done under “color of any law,” the unlawful acts must be done while such official is purporting or pretending to act in the performance of his/her official duties. This definition includes, in addition to law enforcement officials, individuals such as Mayors, Council persons, Judges, Nursing Home Proprietors, Security Guards, etc., persons who are bound by laws, statutes ordinances, or customs.
This means Chauvin could say he was acting under the "color of law" when he attempted to restrain George Floyd and during his restraint is when Floyd died. Because Chauvin was acting as a police officer and not a legal citizen, it was within his official duty as a police officer to apprehend someone who is breaking the law.
However, in the initial part of the statue, it clearly states:
This law further prohibits a person acting under color of law, statute, ordinance, regulation or custom to willfully subject or cause to be subjected any person to different punishments, pains, or penalties, than those prescribed for punishment of citizens on account of such person being an alien or by reason of his/her color or race.
This also means the prosecution can simply say that Chauvin was a known racist and violent around black people and his restraint was not an approved technique for restraining or arresting someone, therefore, based on those facts, the prosecution can make a compelling case that Chauvin attempted to use "color of law" to cover his willful infliction and in doing so, deprived George Floyd of his civil rights while doing so.
The shorter answer is yes, they can lose their temper because it might be required in the application of their duties as a police officer and officer of the government for which they serve. No, in that they cannot abuse that power and use "color of law" to deprive someone of their civil rights under the constitution.
This is probably the most disturbing thing I read about law enforcement. To me it translates into following: as an officer acting under "color of law" I am free to loose my temper and kill whoever the f..k I want for any reason as long as I am not doing it based on color/race/whatever. All I have to do is to "pretend to act in the performance of my duties".
Can somebody correct me if I am wrong (I sincerely hope I am).
What GP is referring to is a provision in the federal law that specifically criminalizes police activity undertaken under color of law. (Reading the statute, in this scenario, the police officer can be charged up to and including the death penalty).
As far as I'm aware, states' statutes for murder or manslaughter do not protect people acting under color of law.
Phew. thank you. Hopefully maiming is not protected as well.
This statement is emblematic of the fundamental problem affecting our culture.
I hate excessive violence. I hate excessive force. I can’t take anyone seriously if they argue that bad behavior doesn’t matter. Your 8 hour day in retail or at the office is not the same as working law enforcement during a riot.
It is entitlement or stupidity.
1. police forces need to limit their time, and forces that do not need to held accountable
2. they need to not be police
They _need_ to be held to a higher standard than everyone else.
It's a case of officers committing perjury as to the events that occurred to figuratively put a weapon into the scene.
The DAs slides https://twitter.com/wsbtv/status/1267843835889156097/photo/1
That's institutionalized malice aforethought in my book.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xvzwp/baltimore-cops-car...
What possible context would make that okay? In what possible scenario is putting a man's hand on a weapon for the sole purpose of harming him reliant on context?
These are not meant at all to be snarky, these are my very real questions, because I'm confused by your statements.
I really feel sorry for the people in uniform who are genuinely trying to make a difference, when the few bad apples make sure that nobody can have nice things.
Something had to give though. There are only so many blatant crimes that can be committed by police only to go unpunished before people say Enough!
Worst of all, we are not talking about crimes that can be repaid or repaired. Murder is the ultimate crime in some sense as (ignoring religion) it's irreversible and the loss the victim and their loved ones have suffered is the ultimate loss that we can never undo.
The callousness and carelessness with which these crimes were carried out and the complete lack of remorse or even acknowledgment from leading figures in police unions is basically just more fuel on the fire.
The countless acts of kindness and compassion of (I assume) the majority of officers is unfortunately drowned out by these bad examples.
Something has to change. The police force clearly does not have the ability or will to solve this problem on their own.
maybe maybe
Bias is now barely defined as "I didn't hear my opinion read back to me." and just about any event is used to discredit entire news organizations, reporters, etc. Write some less than positive articles about a company "they have an agenda" and so forth. We get it on HN here too.
A buddy of mine was a camera man. Not far from the station was a lake where they heard there was some sort of boating accident. He got there first as the station was across the street, emergency services hadn't showed up yet and the crowd that gathered got quite upset and accused them of exploiting the situation somehow as soon as they got out of their van.
It seems people assume poor intentions, not just on the media but in most cases now.
Does this make them legitimate targets for attack by the police?
Btw the same can be said about politicians.
That doesn't justify attacks on reporters, but today's journalists aren't just part of the problem, arguably they are the problem.
https://www.policemag.com/342098/the-2016-police-presidentia...
So it's not that a cop embraces right wing ideals but rather the other way around: it's a job looked for by many people who feel the need to wear an uniform and carry a gun (exercise power, dominate others, there are lots of psychological implications). I'd say that also the cops who expressed respect for George Floyd might be Trump Supporters, although they don't agree with their colleagues violent methods.
My baseline assumption is a vast majority of police/sheriffs/troopers support Trump. Is this incorrect?
Majority blue areas will see more Democrat police, majority red (rural) will see more Republican sheriffs.
This is born out by the data I was able to find, but I can't vouch for the veracity: http://verdantlabs.com/politics_of_professions/
Sheriffs and State Troopers are very majority Republican, police are barely majority Democrat.
I suspect that if we had individual data per region, the affiliation would track with the local politics, maybe with +2 R across the board, or something like that.
I'm having a hard time understanding why this is wrong?
EDIT: "Meh, I'm not going to try and explain it, I'll just downvote it." Bravo. B R A V O.
“When flags of States, cities, or localities, or pennants of societies are flown on the same halyard with the flag of the United States, the latter should always be at the peak. When the flags are flown from adjacent staffs, the flag of the United States should be hoisted first and lowered last. No such flag or pennant may be placed above the flag of the United States or to the United States flag’s right.”
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/4/7
But it is wrong, nonetheless -- it violates 4 U.S. Code § 7(c).
EDIT: Ok, downvoted for inductive reasoning, here is data point.
https://twitter.com/natesilver538/status/1267883609886728193...
If you slander and dehumanize 40-60% of the population with accusations of white supremacy, you're going to create a white supremacist movement where one did not previously exist.
https://time.com/4779112/police-history-origins/
Edit: Note that this is not a right/left thing. This is just literally history that gets ignored in our schools.
... What? I mean, what?
If merely calling someone or their actions white supremacist makes them suddenly start self-identifying as a white supremacist and they don't see a problem with that, maybe the original accusation wasn't that wrong?
The FBI warned of white supremacist infiltration of police forces over a decade ago.
More importantly, the history of US policing is firmly rooted in white supremacy.
> The press is doing everything within their power to fight the magnificence of the phrase, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! They can’t stand the fact that this Administration has done more than virtually any other Administration in its first 2yrs. They are truly the ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!
Mr President, that's going to need some fact checking.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Whatever else you might think of this situation, it's impossible to deny something has shifted. Appeals to "it's just the same thing" are at best hollow, at worst placative.
In my personal experience, even most written news is junk. It just seems like it's not junk because it uses intellectual language and doesn't feature a man in a suit speaking loudly. All news leaves out key details and editorializes.
But some people don't see it this way, and it's scary that we are this fractured because it's hard to reconcile. If two people are reading the news and come to dipolar conclusions, how do they come to an agreement? For the sake of argument, let's say that one perspective on the news is accurate, and the other is inaccurate; the chances that the more correct person will be able to persuade the person with the less accurate view seems close to nil.
I've started watching foreign news coverage of the US. It seems better, but I can't yet tell how much; all news still love the sensational stuff.
Americans are still freer than the rest of the world in general. None of this changes that. "As better" - still hasn't changed either if by better you mean better off. If you're born in the US, in general, you're in a position to be better off than most of the world. These two things also apply to most European countries. We aren't going to apologize for it. I understand if American patriotism and confidence puts off other countries. It's not for everyone. Different cultures have different values. It's ok.
Sad we have to address police corruption and brutality, but it's part of the process. Many nations don't have the ability for civilians to enact change. It's core to our foundation. We've done it many times before.
The American imperative is that we must do something about it. Our failure is that we have a threshold that needs to be met, but we do have a threshold. In most of the world there is no threshold. You can do anything, indefinitely, with no change.
That’s why Putin is a multi decade President. That’s why China has a multi decade firewall. There’s no threshold.
We are imperfect, but we acknowledge the boiling points, an actual metric we can work with. A number we can improve upon.
This is simply not true. The only things that are rigged are the two party system that spit out bad candidates (seemingly more often than before), has mechanisms to suppress other parties, and no term limit career politicians that are bought out by special interests. But the voting system itself is not the problem.
This goes to the police, journalists, rioters, looters and protesters. You all have failed the individual.
You really felt this comment needs to exist?
It's interesting what some people's priorities are.
Do you disagree that this behavior - assaulting journailsts - is fascist? Calling them the 'enemy of the people'?
One of my senators used it as well and that's not the kind of thing they toss around lightly.
https://twitter.com/RonWyden/status/1267605801549664256
This isn't fascism of the past.
I'm not good at predicting much of anything, but best guess is that the model is something more like Venezuela/Hungary/Turkey/Russia rather than the variety from the 1930ies.
I'm trying to understand why you think it wasn't really warranted. Perhaps it really isn't warranted. But I also think it's possible you are, like you said below, not seeing a bigger picture. I'll take your next sentence in reverse though.
> the model is something more like Venezuela/Hungary/Turkey/Russia rather than the variety from the 1930ies.
I haven't been to Venezuela/Hungary/Turkey/Russia. I did study World War II in early school and a lot of what led up to it though.
> I'm not good at predicting much of anything, but best guess is
I understand not being good at predicting much of anything. Most people are like that!
However, a lot of what our current presidency was doing prior to COVID-19 echoed very strongly about actual events from the late 1920s and early 1930s. And, as a software developer with a strong emphasis on data analysis, I see a lot of differences which make the current situation feel like the 1930s all over again but with liberal amounts of modern technology both overtly and also behind the scenes.
I do think that there are a lot of people who throw words like fascist around just because their emotions are high. That unfortunately happens with any slur. But I also believe that there's a lot of eye-opening moments that make "fascist" less rhetorical than before the current US president was elected.
To be fair, he's built his regime on a lot of laws and court precedent which was established before he was elected. But he's a completely different beast than any previous US president. And I think it's disingenuous to not consider slur in that light and to not combine it with the hidden facets of technology that most people don't think about or understand.
I think 45 and company are fascists, or fascist-curious or adjacent or something like that.
In the past. Say, GHWB, people would call him a fascist because they didn't like some bit of policy. I didn't care for his policies by and large, but I also do not think he was a fascist.
Is that clearer?
Perhaps. I think I did read what you wrote. Let me look (again) at your top-level flagged post. I've now vouched for it, by the way.
> It's a pity that some on the left in the past have been so ready with the word 'fascism'. It's a serious word describing a serious problem, and it should not be used casually for "people on the right I disagree with". I believe that the word is appropriate to describe this administration.
Let me dissect this a little further.
> It's a pity that some on the left in the past have been so ready with the word 'fascism'
Now after our discussion, it's clear that you're not meaning "past today but in the context of Trump in general". I'd assumed that meaning since in general that's the context I've seen the word used. And indeed, Trumps election is in the past.
> I believe that the word is appropriate to describe this administration.
I don't remember this part being in your comment in my first reply. HN doesn't let me see edits or edit history or that a comment was edited. I'd like to think my memory's good enough to remember what I replied to, and there's also in general a netiquette of calling out substantial edits to messages. If you didn't edit your top level post then you are right; I didn't read it and I'm sorry for the confusion!
Edit to add:
> In the past. Say, GHWB, people would call him a fascist because they didn't like some bit of policy. I didn't care for his policies by and large, but I also do not think he was a fascist.
I was under ten for the entire duration of GHWB's presidency so I don't have that experience to draw upon. My experience is almost solely on reading history books and following politics since around Bush Jr's election with the "hanging chads of Florida" being the most prominent political memory I have other than being in polling lines waiting for my mom to vote.
Indeed, I can see how use of the slur during previous presidencies has significantly watered down its meaning today such that people skip over its use thinking it's political rhetoric.
> Is that clearer?
Yes, thank you!
The Wikipedia page on 'Definitions of fascism' is almost as long as the page on fascism itself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism
Today, it's used by both the left and the right to just mean "bad people", as far as I can tell.
When people are driving cars full speed into policemen, executing officers, throwing incendiary devices at people, covering for looters, and major media outlets are bending over backwards to justify it (which I suspect is, at the managerial/editorial level, naked self-preservation).
This is not grieving, it's a civil war; many journalists have chosen a side and you know it, and there is no moral principle that you will be able to uphold on that matter from your apartment.
Technology has been extremely relevant in this whole ordeal. The fact that we can now create and share videos online that document these human right violations en masse is a thing that technology has allowed us to do.
OTOH We as the 'tech world' play a huge role in both how the narrative of "the media is the enemy" came to fruition and how people are radicalised online to actually believe this.
It is extremely important to recognise what tech's place is in all this
>The benefits of diversity is the Left’s pseudoscience...I want climate deniers and diversity sycophants alike purged from the scientific apparatus.[1]
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19912265
This is incredibly uncharitable to HN. Yes, the discussion on average is far from ultra-rationalistic, but it's also far, far, far from "any other social website right now".
These matters strike very close to home.
edit: I wanted to add that I have a lot of respect for most of the people in this community and the diversity of perspectives it provides. I'm very interested in hearing what people have to say here.
it is the justification given for shutting down anti ccp discussions and articles
what makes this situation different? surely not the scale of human atrocity? ccp still has the us gov beat, hands down. maybe us lives just matter more?
This attitude is symptomatic of the real problem.
The war on cops is nothing more than class warfare; the elite scapegoating people asked to do the hard work.
This is college educated, wealthier folks picking on middle class working folks.
Our byzantine legal system, that conveniently maximizes revenue for the legal industry, sows a lower class persecuted for mostly victimless crimes then asks the police to bring in the harvest.
If you really want to get mad at the malfeasance in civil serice, take a look at your local school system. Unless, of course, you can afford the Catholic schools or a prep school.
Frankly, if I were a cop, after watching the wink,wink "it's a peaceful protest" news reports, with clowns screaming and throwing bricks in the background, I might shoot a rubber bullet at the "reporters".
Sorry for the anger , folks, but .... look in the mirror ... and at who you voted into local offices.
1. If that were true women would still be unable to vote. Would you tell women in 1905 that "it's a democracy, you don't need to protest, just vote."
2. Even now, we have seen the power that be make it more and more difficult to vote. The current administration is throwing a complete temper tantrum at even the thought of letting people use absentee ballots during a national pandemic, citing the voter fraud boogeyman.
In what timeline are you talking about? Women's Suffrage definitely had protests turn violent. Here[1] is source about documenting this violence, and I went through the trouble of finding a source published 2 years ago in order to counter any narrative that it's "convenient" for today's issues. History has a way of whitewashing and romanticizing what were difficult fights for rights.
Large protests turn violent, and I'm not surprised that, with record unemployment as well, that looting is being amplified as well.
Besides, in any case, it's long established that peaceful protests don't even work. A man can't even kneel during a sports game without his protest being diminished.
[1] https://www.bl.uk/votes-for-women/articles/suffragettes-viol...
I fully support everyone out there marching not committing crimes.
Nothing of importance is accomplished peacefully when the other side doesn't have to follow the law and is making the rules on the fly. "B-bu-but the rioters, they're bad =(" yes they are, but they're not the root cause, we have to stop shifting the blame on the very last link of the chain.
> Your right to protest, assemble, and speak does not include setting buildings with children inside on fire, murdering pawn shop owners, killing federal officers.
So what ? What's the biggest issue here ? A system rotten to the very core or people burning stuff because they are fed up of being fucked over and over again. People don't go out and get beat, shot at or tear gassed for fun, if you think they're the issues YOU are the issue. You play the exact same card as most medias, hiding the insanely huge systemic issue behind a "hey look there people are breaking stuff, how dare they!".
The US is turning into a Turkey or Egypt and a lot people seem fine with that, can't wait to read the history books in 50 years.
I don't know the answer, but with the internet and analytics, we've seen media become more sensationalistic to get those clicks and views. So this is a possibility that should be considered.
One side has cameras. The other side has guns. When violence happens, who's fault do you think it is?
When and where did this happen? The first step is verbally telling people to clear the area.
>If you tell a journalist they are under arrest, they will always comply. They won't fight back. So yes, still cops' fault.
Given the fact that the police are always outnumbered in these situations, and vehicles, jails and officers have limited capacity, arresting everyone who doesn't comply is impossible. So they are first asked to leave. If they don't they are pushed out of the area by force.
If reporters are too close to the police line that is pushing people they will get pushed along with everyone else. Breaking the line weakens it and hampers the police's efforts.
The state (or city, or nation, where appropriate)? Absolutely, but only when absolutely necessary. (like curfew orders which follow widespread disorder and destruction)
That's a hard argument to make.
The next night their tactics changed, for the better, a similar after-curfew protest group was warned, given time, and everybody remaining was encircled by a close knit line of police and every single person was arrested. The second tactic had a much better outcome, it seemed.
There were reporters stationed on the outskirts of the crowd but between the crowd and police, and I saw some of them get teargassed. In that case it had more to do with wind and proximity than being targeted. Much different than police actively going after reporters, but sources like this one don't seem to differentiate between collateral damage from proximity and direct targeting of media teams.
Also, police in gas masks, partially for tear gas protection, partially for covid protection, facing crowd who at times have attacked police, they can't see very well, they are under enormous amounts of stress, and few of them have experience doing anything like this... if you pull back from the blame, talking about rights and duties, and just focus for a minute on the humanity... ask yourself how are these people going to fail? You'd probably come up with a lot of the ways the police indeed are failing. Now in the same context think of how those failures could be reduced without thinking about blame... and it's hard. It's a hard problem.
Just like failures in a tech stack and a team of programmers, blame is not the path to solving problems. You don't go find the guy who wrote the bug and shout at him or send him to jail or fire him or string him up in the public square, you write unit tests, you write post-mortems, you make backups, you make new monitors... in short you find the sources of problems, you investigate them, and you solve them. That sort of thought about failure needs to happen more in software, and it needs to happen more in the rest of life too. Recognizing failures, having empathy for those who fail, realizing the source of those failures is systematic, and working on systematic solutions.
Some people say protestors becoming violent, vandalizing, and looting are isolated incidents by a few bad eggs, most of them are doing the right thing.
Really similar thought processes go into those two, usually by people you can sort into camps of opposing worldviews. They're both right and both wrong, but it's surprising how similar the lines of thought are and how people can't see the other side is thinking just the same way.
It's dangerously to boil down the arguments from both sides and say, "Look, these two things are the same!" because even if both sides were saying, "It's a few bad apples", the implications of that would be wildly different.
Whatever your side, have empathy for the people you oppose and try to understand their failings and mistakes. Without that, progress and improvement are nearly impossible.
No one is condoning looting - in fact, it's just as frustrating for me in that it's distracting from the message. But let's not forget what the (much, much) bigger problem is. I also believe that various bad-faith actors (police, conservatives) are using the looting to distract from the fact that the police have systematically deprived us of our rights with no recourse.
But this is probably just my lurker observation. Not against all news but there should be at least some spark of insight of novelty. Feel free to flag now.
Edit: To expand a bit. What I like about HN is not that it's tech but it has plethora of very interesting topics and comments are almost always insightful (unlike this one). This headline is basically the whole article. The comments are therefore not guided by idea, but news. This topic is important but nothing comes out of these threads. This rant is contributing to bad quality of comments, one thing I always try to avoid.
This topic is fundamentally about freedom of information and what level we are comfortable (or uncomfortable) limiting that freedom in certain situations.
Hundreds of journalists brutalised over the last week would seem to qualify, though for 'interesting' substitute 'horrifying'.
This rule is fuzzy by design and I really don’t get why some people here are so pedantic about it.
While this site trends heavily towards tech, it is not so narrow-minded that we cannot discuss things not strictly related to that subject.
The moderation question is always: what serves intellectual curiosity? https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... Once a topic becomes repeated enough, there's a power-law-style dropoff in how interesting it is (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...), except to people who have a strong identification with one side of an argument, and that sort of interest isn't intellectual curiosity, it's loyalty to a cause. That may be an admirable quality in many ways, but it's not a good fit for this site.
Nationalistic flamewar, which is the theme you're referring to, definitely falls in this category. That doesn't mean that "anti ccp" stories don't get attention here—they certainly do. Just not enough to satisfy the warriors, and rightly so, since warriors want every story that serves their cause to be on HN's front page.
See also https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... for how we handle major ongoing topics.
Edit: it looks like we've had a similar conversation before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22870427, which makes me think that your "for some reason" is an insinuation of the sort the site guidelines specifically ask people not to post: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Please don't do that here.
i am not really sure how you make that determination, i personally find accounts of what the ccp does to exploit its citizens intellectually interesting when it is not widely reported
so, given you exponential drop off comment, i assume that means a small number of highly voted protest posts are allowed, and then past that point they will get modded. is that correct?
and yes, we had this discussion before, and i became confused in this context since protest topics also seem prone to intellectually uninteresting flamewars hn wishes to avoid
it seems there is an exception in this kind of case where a controversial topic is allowed if it is new
technically, police brutality and protesta are not new topics, but i suppose this exception is the current national impact?
I tried to explain that above, and linked to past explanations of the same points. If you want to take a look at those past explanations, and still have a question that isn't answered there, I'd be curious to know what it is. Perhaps it would be helpful to describe what these links contain more explicitly:
(1) We try to optimize HN for intellectual curiosity: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
(2) Curiosity and repetition don't go well together: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
(3) With submissions on a MOT (major ongoing topic), the main thing we look for is SNI (significant new information): https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
As far as I can tell, the complete answer to your question follows from those three points.
On the question of political topics on HN, see https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu.... Some good threads to start with might be https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21607844 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22902396. Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869, if you think HN has gotten more political lately. The principles haven't changed in 10+ years, although we've learned to do a better job of applying them.
It's our democracy. And we want to hope for the best. But damn if this isn't worrisome.
EDIT: Hehe, well. Sorry you got piled on. For what it's worth, I was very much on the side of the police about three days ago, so I had to do some soul searching. In case you're in the same boat: I urge you to go seek out and find some of the videos that people are upset about. It's not propaganda; it can't be. It's just footage from citizens.
That's how law generally works. It does not matter who violates it. If you see a problem with the law - change the law. Do not bash police officers for enforcing it.
The police have gone beyond the law in these cases, and their handling of protesters (not to mention the cases which precipitated this present set of protests). The law doesn't need to be changed, the way police behave does.
Change or remove that law, and things will absolutely change as you see families taking officers to court for felony murder, assault and battery, and other felony charges.
> https://study.com/academy/lesson/unlawful-assembly-failure-t...
Maybe it's in the full-text, but where does it say police can attack non-violent bystanders? Because I'm not seeing it in there.
> However, the second element is more difficult because it concerns gathering for lawful purposes and only becomes a violation when the gathering turns violent, boisterous, or tumultuous.
After it turns violent, police generally issues an order to disperse, and then proceeds to anti-riot measures. If you don't disperse after that lawful order, you are violating the law, which even most educated people don't seem to understand.
But anyway, to respond to your statement -----
>but where does it say police can attack non-violent bystanders? Because I'm not seeing it in there.
That's the general point of police. They do not only attack violent people, but anyone, who violates the law. In this case it is the law of unlawful assembly.
Let's turn the discussion, as I think you have some predispositions there. How do you think police should prevent looting and damage to property on the street (like parked cars, shop windows, etc) during 95% peaceful protests, when the protestors form a crowd, and the peaceful folk refuse to disperse, because "they are just peaceful bystanders"?
P.S. Regarding the paywall. It seems to cut at your screen height, so the more vertical space you have, the more text is available.
I am impressed so many people on HN do not seem to understand the concept and reasoning behind it.
The first amendment speaks nothing about who can be where. It just denies government the right to prosecute people for making statements.
"just" free speech? Might want to check your pocket constitution again. The first amendment also protects the free press- and the freedom to assemble. (Not to mention religion and to petition for redress of grievances)
Besides, you completely ignore the "who can be where" point.
/done with HN for today
What the reality is is they are literally forcing themselves onto cameramen, pushing them into walls or other obstacles, hitting them.
That sounds pretty targeted to me.
Multiple reporters have been shot at directly. The cops have shot into the cameras themselves to break them.
192 total press freedom violations
—31+ arrests
—131 assaults (108 by police, 23 by others)
—30 equipment or newsroom damage.
Assault category breakdown:
45 physical attacks (30 by police)
30 tear gassings
17 pepper sprayings
46 rubber bullet/projectiles
https://twitter.com/uspresstracker/status/126787802436572365...
Wikipedia shows >5,000 arrests overall: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd_protests. Which I bet means journalists were arrested way less, than an average protesting folk.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/29/cnn-reporters-cover...
Another case where a reporter shows his credentials and gets arrested anyway. Attorney General acknowledges that the action was improper.
https://www.app.com/story/news/local/how-we-live/2020/06/01/...
The second one does not seem like a major problem to me, as the police might not know a random filming guy showing some piece of paper to be an actual reporter, rather than just a friend of the rioters filming their action for YouTube. It seems it also was resolved.
Unless there's an easy way for police to make a credible determination if the media badge is valid, I would count it as an honest mistake with no major consequences.
Again, this does not support the implication of the title, that police picked journalists intentionally, and more supports my point that journalists were caught in the process.
There's 110 cases mentioned in this article. Instead of demanding that we spoon-feed you evidence, please continue looking into the evidence. Because there's tons of it and you know how to find it.
> The first one is concerning, but the incident appears to be resolved now (?).
Sure. Call it resolved. That does not mean that it didn't happen the way that it's being described.
> Again, this does not support the implication of the title, that police picked journalists intentionally...
This is a really weird point to get hung up on, given that the title of the original article is "U.S. police have attacked journalists more than 120 times since May 28". Where does it say "intentional"? I can't decide if this is a strawman or goalpost shifting, but either way your approach to this conversation is odious.
Source:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zk9oFDJ3Ocbz80Z1ISSW...
https://twitter.com/uspresstracker
I am not arguing if the events are misstated. I will continue calling it resolved, as crew took the apology and does not seem to want anything else. So why bring it up again?
> This is a really weird point to get hung up on, given that the title of the original article is "U.S. police have attacked journalists more than 120 times since May 28". Where does it say "intentional"? I can't decide if this is a strawman or goalpost shifting, but either way your approach to this conversation is odious.
This whole discussion is a subthread of a comment, that the title might be misleading, because for many it will imply intent to attack journalists specifically.
> Officials are acknowledging that these are wrongful arrests, why can't you?
If you want a serious talk, we should use proper legal terms. "Wrongful arrest" definitely does not apply to the second of two cases, and in the official statement that wording was not used. They did apologize for making a mistake, which happens. But it is a mistake permitted by the law due to special circumstances (e.g. a riot).
> please continue looking into the evidence. Because there's tons of it and you know how to find it.
I am not making extraordinary statements, to which I consider "police intentionally focus journalists".
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=isPkpZehssY
Police did not single them out because they are reporters.
Legality I am unaware, but why would you assume police knew that matter worse than the reporters?
> Unless there's an easy way for police to make a credible determination if the media badge is valid, I would count it as an honest mistake with no major consequences.
https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1267449066947932163?s...
https://twitter.com/JordonLee/status/1267600319522971649?s=2...
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/marie-colv...
I don't think you're here to actually argue in good faith at all.
Huh? There was no context in most of those videos, which was exactly the problem I was pointing to, and is the same one with this post.