WTF Baltimore?

[running_coach]

So, doorhinge, does that mean your solution is to eliminate the right to assemble and protest?

Or do you have a plan to separate the rioters from the protesters beforehand?

[Soylent_Juicy]

Does anybody know if there has been any damage to the Inner Harbour?

[BobLibDem]

@Omar_Little

CNN raised the possibility that her misspoken comment could have led rioters to believe they had tacit permission.

So sayeth CNN reporters. I want to know what the actual rioters had to say.

[Omar_Little]

@BobLibDem

Do you think a single rioter even gave a thought to the mayor’s words before rioting?

@Omar_Little

CNN raised the possibility that her misspoken comment could have led rioters to believe they had tacit permission.

@BobLibDem

So sayeth CNN reporters. I want to know what the actual rioters had to say.

Are you now assuming that Doorhinge was an actual rioter? Because you asked him what he thought.

You asked it in a way that it would be incredulous for anyone to think that the rioters might have considered the Mayor’s statements. So when I point out that CNN thought the very thing, you now want actual statements from rioters.

Keep changing the goal posts?

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

Did CNN actually say that occurred? Or were they idly speculating the way 24 hour news organizations do?

[doorhinge]

@BobLibDem

Do you think a single rioter even gave a thought to the mayor’s words before rioting?

I have no idea what the looters, thugs, arsonists, and terrorists were thinking when they decided to punish CVS by looting and burning it’s store, or punishing other residents by stealing and wrecking their cars, or punish media-types by physically assaulting them for attempting to video and report the violence taking place in Baltimore.

Are you suggesting that none of the looters, thugs, arsonists, and terrorists could possibly have heard the Rawlings-Blake comment?

Or that none of the looters, thugs, arsonists, and terrorists could have taken Rawlings-Blake at her spoken word that they would have space to destroy?

[Terr]

@running_coach

So, doorhinge, does that mean your solution is to eliminate the right to assemble and protest?

Or do you have a plan to separate the rioters from the protesters beforehand?

This stupid assertion again. I will repeat then - the right to “peacefully protest” ends when people around you are throwing rocks at police, burning cars and looting stores. The people who violated that right are not the police. It’s the people committing the violent acts. Once the police catch/arrest/disperse the violent thugs, your right to peacefully protest resumes. So the police, in stopping the violence, is in fact upholding your right to peacefully protest.

[Fallen]

@Leaffan

What in the hell is going on in Baltimore, and why?

You may want to be more specific about the first part of the question (seems self-evident). The why is more complicated, but I think it boils down to the fact that there’s a price to be paid for ignoring despair and distress, pretending it’s someone else’s problem, reactively dealing with effects and not causes, etc.

[BobLibDem]

@Omar_Little

Are you now assuming that Doorhinge was an actual rioter? Because you asked him what he thought.

You asked it in a way that it would be incredulous for anyone to think that the rioters might have considered the Mayor’s statements. So when I point out that CNN thought the very thing, you now want actual statements from rioters.

Keep changing the goal posts?

I do find it incredulous to think that the rioters assumed that the mayor had given them permission. The boiling point had been reached long before the mayor said a word. I for one do not think the rioters are as stupid as the right wingers who took the mayor’s comments so badly out of context.

[doorhinge]

@running_coach

So, doorhinge, does that mean your solution is to eliminate the right to assemble and protest?

Or do you have a plan to separate the rioters from the protesters beforehand?

I have no idea what you’re talking about? Did you intend to address me, or some other poster?

My position is that the Mayor said what she said. And that the Mayor later issued a clarification.

[running_coach]

@Terr

This stupid assertion again. I will repeat then - the right to “peacefully protest” ends when people around you are throwing rocks at police, burning cars and looting stores. The people who violated that right are not the police. It’s the people committing the violent acts. Once the police catch/arrest/disperse the violent thugs, your right to peacefully protest resumes. So the police, in stopping the violence, is in fact upholding your right to peacefully protest.

So you’re depending on the police to decide that it’s alright to resume protesting. And you still haven’t said how you’ll stop the rioting in the first place.

How do you arrest the rioters and leave the protesters alone/ How do you identify the two groups in the chaos?
if the right to protest is suspended, then that makes the protesters present law-breakers. Do you arrest them too? Do you allow them time to leave the area or do you establish a safe zone where they can wait until the all-clear is sounded?

Again, how do you establish beforehand, who is there to protest and who is there to riot?

[running_coach]

@doorhinge

I have no idea what you’re talking about? Did you intend to address me, or some other poster?

My position is that the Mayor said what she said. And that the Mayor later issued a clarification.

Which you continue to ignore.

[up_the_junction]

@doorhinge

My position is that the Mayor said what she said. And that the Mayor later issued a clarification.

Thank you for that. And thank you so much for that extensive earlier post which was so painstakingly proffered.

[doorhinge]

@BobLibDem

I do find it incredulous to think that the rioters assumed that the mayor had given them permission. The boiling point had been reached long before the mayor said a word. I for one do not think the rioters are as stupid as the right wingers who took the mayor’s comments so badly out of context.

I also find it incredulous to think that the rioters assumed that the mayor had given them permission. AFAIK, the Mayor didn’t give the looters, thugs, arsonists, and terrorists permission to riot, loot, steal, and burn.

The Mayor originally did say they would be given space to destroy. How the looters, thugs, arsonists, and terrorists responded, or why they responded the way they did is still under investigation but that doesn’t change the Mayor’s original statement.

[doorhinge]

@running_coach

Which you continue to ignore.

I actually posted the clarification. Which you continue to ignore. So what?

[Terr]

@running_coach

So you’re depending on the police to decide that it’s alright to resume protesting.

When there is no violence, it’s alright to resume protesting.

How do you arrest the rioters and leave the protesters alone/ How do you identify the two groups in the chaos?

That’s police work. If police are not hobbled by city leaders who are ok with giving space those who want to destroy.

if the right to protest is suspended, then that makes the protesters present law-breakers. Do you arrest them too?

You go in and you arrest the violent offenders. If the “peaceful protesters” interfere with your work, however peacefully, you arrest them too.

Again, how do you establish beforehand, who is there to protest and who is there to riot?

You don’t establish beforehand. When the violence starts, the “right to peacefully protest” ends. Until violence stops.

[Malthus]

@Fallen

You may want to be more specific about the first part of the question (seems self-evident). The why is more complicated, but I think it boils down to the fact that there’s a price to be paid for ignoring despair and distress, pretending it’s someone else’s problem, reactively dealing with effects and not causes, etc.

Another concerned northern neighbour here.

From what I’ve seen and read, the immediate problem appears to be a police force that is riddled with thuggishness and corruption; the larger problem - a horrific level of poverty and all the ills that go with it.

My concern is that these problems appear linked and devoid of easy solutions. One can, and indeed one must, reform the police - but no doubt they got that way because they are policing an area remarkable for its high levels of crime (and consequently low tax base). Plus the ruinious ‘War on Drugs’, which has lead to both corruption and brutality.

Merely having a Black mayor isn’t going to solve these problems, even if she was super competent. Indeed, allegedly the commissioners in charge of the cops and nearly half of the department are Black - but apparently, this hasn’t changed the fraught relationship between police and public:

Currently, the department is administered by Commissioner Anthony Batts and Deputy Commissioner of Patrol Garnell Green, both of whom are African American. [24]

During Martin O’Malley’s administration as mayor, the department had become 43% African American.[25] While progress has been made to improve the department’s relationship with Baltimore’s now majority African American community, improvements are still being made to the department which for several years has been subject to criticism for its treatment of African American citizens. Police community relations have remained strained with the war on drugs that has plagued several African American neighborhoods in East and West Baltimore and coincidentally enough, many of the most despised officers in several of Baltimore’s African American neighborhoods are also African American.

Baltimore Police Department

[doorhinge]

@up_the_junction

Thank you for that. And thank you so much for that extensive earlier post which was so painstakingly proffered.

You’re welcome.

[Revenant_Threshold]

@Terr

This stupid assertion again. I will repeat then - the right to “peacefully protest” ends when people around you are throwing rocks at police, burning cars and looting stores. The people who violated that right are not the police. It’s the people committing the violent acts. Once the police catch/arrest/disperse the violent thugs, your right to peacefully protest resumes. So the police, in stopping the violence, is in fact upholding your right to peacefully protest.

So what about the violence that’s already taken place? Someone throws a rock from a crowd. The police go in to get them and stop them from throwing any more. That’s still a rock thrown, isn’t it? Why aren’t the police ensuring that no rocks can be thrown at all?

[Terr]

@Revenant_Threshold

So what about the violence that’s already taken place? Someone throws a rock from a crowd. The police go in to get them and stop them from throwing any more. That’s still a rock thrown, isn’t it? Why aren’t the police ensuring that no rocks can be thrown at all?

Because mind control has not been invented yet.