breaking windows - not with guns or tear gas.
tearing down fences and barricades - No, don’t bother. Fences and barricades are no big deal and not worth a fight.
throwing things at police - Do those things explode? If not, no. Back up and hold up riot shields if you have them. And either way, not with tear gas or guns.
shooting fireworks at police - Oh look, these things explode. But since most fireworks are basically harmless, still do nothing, other then deal with any fires they start.
shining lasers at police eye’s - do nothing. Shade your eyes. Grow up.
lighting fires - not with tear gas or guns.
looting - not with tear gas or guns.
You sound like you’re digging for excuses for cops to start attacking and maiming people. This is not a video game or an action movie, and the cops are not good guys when they go looking for a fight.
Is there some other link or a title f the news report I can google? That link doesn’t work for me, it says “this video is unavailable”
[Bolding mine] Yeah, completely not an option now–after tear gassing the mayor the City Council voted unanimously to bar the PPB from cooperating in any way with the feds.
And once again for the devoid of comprehension–YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT AND YOU SHOULD SHUT UP AND LISTEN TO WHAT THE PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY LIVE HERE ARE TELLING YOU ABOUT WHAT’S HAPPENING. Those people in the videos are our friends and coworkers and neighbors and their (and our) direct lived experience completely overshadows any and all armchair quarterbacking from across the country.
Is it not possible to have a debate without projecting bad-intentions on other posters?
Did you see me doing the same to you?
Not the same one, but here’s an article about Greg Doucette, a lawyer who has been compiling police brutality videos in the George Floyd aftermath.
Some of them aren’t directly related to the protests, but over 90% are.
Link: Activists create public online spreadsheet of police violence videos.
All of those things call for a police response against the perpetrator only. Not indiscriminately firing wildly into the crowd. Not picking up people off the street hours later “pretending” they recognized a perpetrator. Amazing how not one of them actually got charged.
No, they should document such things, and if appropriate, charge the individuals with the crimes they have committed later.
If the problem is what protesters are doing is towards the police, then the police presence is the problem, not the protesters.
Assaulting the peaceful protesters because someone else somewhere is committing “violence” is just an excuse to assault the peaceful protesters, it is not in an attempt to prevent or even to respond to the acts taken by those individuals.
In general, or here specifically. In general, of course, I can point to Lafayette square. Here specifically, well, it’s hard to make out what is happening all the time, but I have seen videos of police going after people who were not posing any sort of threat of violence to anyone or even to property.
And if the police use “pushed over a fence” as a reason, then they are not looking to keep the peace, they are looking for an excuse to assault protesters.
What is purely one sided is that the police are attacking peaceful protesters. The excuse that there are some protesters who are pushing on a fence, or lighting a small fire, and that is the reason that they have to attack the peaceful ones is just that, it’s an excuse, a rationalization to do what they wanted and intended to do all along.
Also, law enforcement always needs to use discretion and weigh the severity of the crime and the level of danger to the public to the rights of both the accused an innocent bystanders. If a murderer is on the loose and the police have an extreme response it’s more justified because of the risk that the killer could kill more people. If someone knocks over a barricade and you have to choose between indiscriminate use of potentially lethal force on a crowd of people or letting them get aay, letting them get away is not the end of the world.
Odd, it works just fine for me.
try this
(hashtag) Police brutality/aggression during nationwide George Floyd/BlackLivesMatter protests May 26-30 2020
that’s the title. (Sorry, I guess hashtags make it big, or something.)
But I’m sure you will find ways of justifying the actions of the police. For instance, one of them, they were just clearing the streets of criminals. They were out past 9pm curfew, so using batons and tear gas seemed like it was justified.
Well, what are you trying to do, then? What are you arguing, if not that when a crowd engages in misdemeanors and vandalism that the cops are justified in cutting loose the big guns against the crowd in general, or possibly an unrelated group of innocent people?
There’s actually logic to attacking the innocent people, by the way - the only possible justification for the use of rubber bullets and tear gas is if the cops are literary terrified that the mob is about to attack and murder them. It’s an argument from fear - you can use extreme force in self-defense if you are in extreme fear of harm.
And if you’re afraid of harm, it’s way more safe to attack innocent grannies than actual looters, who may punch you.
And of course, if the cops are employing crowd suppression tactics not in self-defense, but as a way of asserting state authority, that is quite literally fascism.
What I see is that @begbert2 wrote out a pretty long and detailed analysis, which you entirely ignored because they also mentioned the perception that they were getting from your arguments.
To be honest, entirely ignoring the meat of another’s post in order to jump on a perceived slight does seem as though it is not the meat of the matter that is interesting you in this discussion.
Pop quiz–cop slaps a phone out of someone’s hand, it flies behind him and breaks a window. Cops declare window breaking justifies a riot response. Who goes to jail for THIS broken window? Spoiler alert–the cop is not charged with destruction of property
Extra credit question–does the cop get in trouble for breaking someone’s expensive phone?
That’s the sort of thing that should result in discipline. It would nice for the police to be trained to act in a professional manner.
I’m trying to find it, but I saw a video a while back where one cop (I think fed LEO) grabs a protester and shoves him into another LEO. That LEO takes it as assault and starts beating the living shit out of him.
Here’s a first-hand account from a journalist covering the protests. Note - this was a clearly identified journalist, not a protester. Also, I won’t quote this part, but be aware that the full article references a past sexual assault.
I think it highlights the futility in hoping the individual officers will find their morality and refuse to engage. These people either truly believe their lives are threatened after hearing the lies spouted by their superiors, or they just plain enjoy the power.
After hours of peaceful protest, Portland police and federal officers with the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Marshals Service rushed a crowd of a few hundred demonstrators, shooting off deafening flash bangs and round after round of tear gas. They lined up across the street, running shoulder to shoulder at the crowd. Their batons were aloft, ready for anyone who couldn’t run fast enough. Some held guns that could shoot rounds of rubber bullets, pepper balls, or tear gas canisters — which a federal cop used on June 11 to shoot a protester in the face, putting him in critical care after facial reconstructive surgery.
At one point Friday night, a line of cops sprinted behind the protesters I was following for five or six blocks straight. They didn’t stop until well past the street they’d announced earlier was the boundary of the part of downtown they’d just deemed “closed.”
…On Friday night, during hours of cat-and-mouse, I was often unsure which police force was on our tails. After a while I was with a handful of others near the MAX light-rail tracks. It was 3 a.m. and I was tired. A police van appeared, the kind with runner boards on either side and a dozen riot cops riding, ready to leap off and arrest, beat or pepper spray anyone who doesn’t run. My group split and veered around different corners near I-405, where downtown turns more residential, as the van pursued and I fell behind. Momentarily alone, I ran as I heard the van accelerate behind me.
“We’re gonna get you,” a couple of them yelled in singsong voices. I hid behind a big concrete pillar. “We still see you!” another yelled as the van sped past.
Reporter who tweeted video of mayor being gassed got shot in the hand last night while shooting more video.
@begbert2
breaking windows - not with guns or tear gas.
I think it depends on the size of the crowd that are breaking windows. Just one person, pepper spray should be ok. Crowd larger than police, tear gas ok.
tearing down fences and barricades - No, don’t bother. Fences and barricades are no big deal and not worth a fight.
I don’t think people should be allowed to do this.
throwing things at police - Do those things explode? If not, no. Back up and hold up riot shields if you have them. And either way, not with tear gas or guns.
This one I have a serious problem with. People throwing things at police that can harm them should be arrested.
shooting fireworks at police - Oh look, these things explode. But since most fireworks are basically harmless, still do nothing, other then deal with any fires they start.
I strongly disagree with this. Those mortars are dangerous (neighbor kid lost his hand) and even if not a mortar it’s dangerous (my son got a chunk of an exploding firework in his eye, it ended up being ok, it just gauged some of the surface layer that heals quickly)
shining lasers at police eye’s - do nothing. Shade your eyes. Grow up.
I don’t think you are aware of the damage those things can do.
And I disagree entirely that individual acts of property damage needs to be prioritized over the rights of the peaceful protesters. You want to get the guy for breaking a window, but instead you shoot someone else in the face with “less lethal” munitions. Oops, right? What you are advocating for here is the definition of collective punishment.
I also think that if cops are putting themselves into a situation where they are endangered, then they are better off removing themselves from that danger, rather than assaulting peaceful protesters.
“But they were throwing rocks” has been used time and time and time and time and time again as an excuse to go in and start busting heads in any number of autocratic nations.
And here’s the rub: There are two hundred people. There are fifty police. There are five people breaking windows.
Unleash the hounds! On everyone! They’re a crowd of criminals now and they deserve literally anything and everything we might do to them!
Let’s be clear - the barricades and fences here are not valuable ones. They don’t matter.
There is a difference between “arrested” and “hit with toxic gas and then shot in the face”. If a cop can’t manage to do the former that is not license to do the latter.
And I don’t think that anybody really thinks the cops are in any credible physical danger, so no, attacking the crowd is not justified.
Was your neighbor kid wearing body armor?
Has any cop -ANY cop- actually been maimed during these protests?
Let’s be clear here, if the crowd starts actually maiming cops, then the police have license to retaliate only against the members of the crowd maiming the cops. This is, of course, not possible for them to do, so the only MORAL thing for the police to do is retreat.
And if a cop does get maimed, well, guess what? They’re cops. There’s risk involved, and they knew that when they signed up.
Tell me about the damage those HAVE done, then. How many cops are in the hospital for holes burned through the backs of their skulls?