zlacker

>>oftenw+(OP)
We should expect police to us less use violence and improve their crowd management and deescalation skills. The increasing militarization of police is a trend that must be reversed. However, we should not neglect the other side of the equation either. This article is, in large part, about just that.

The article points out that many protests in the U.S. went smoothly through the practice of police and protest organizers meeting and jointly managing protests, but that this practice fell into disuse after the 1999 Seattle WTO meeting in which protesters violated the negotiated terms and police responded with violence.

While some recent (and ongoing) protests have turned violent, many didn't. In the coming months we'll have time to do a postmortem. I strongly suspect spontaneous protests without organization will be found to have the most potential for violence, while those with organizers committed to self-policing and, ideally, cooperating with police will be found to have fared much better.

Individual people may be intelligent and responsible, but crowds have their own rules of behaviour and need to be managed. Protests are more dangerous when unplanned or when their organizers give no thought to self-policing.

There will always be organizers who want violence because it reliably brings press coverage and attention to their protests, but social media is also creating new problems. Coordinating a large number of people to show up at the same time and place used to take considerable planning and effort. When you have to work hard just to get the even to happen, why wouldn't you plan how it will unfold as well? Now a couple of tweets or posts on the right reddit subs will suffice. How can police meet with the organizer of a protest when it's really just some dude who had a lot of social media followers and might not even bother showing up himself?

>>beloch+uc
I've been on a few demos that turned violent. Among them the famous one when George Bush decided to pay a visit. In all cases, the organizers wanted to cooperate with the police. They knew who were in the "autonomous bloc" (troublemakers) and would have gladly helped the police zone in on them. In all cases the police didn't care and charged peaceful and violent demonstrators alike.

I find it very odd that the police still cannot after all these years and with all development in surveillance tech distinguish between peaceful demonstrators and rioters. One could almost believe that they have no interest in making that distinction.

>>bjourn+dg
Insightful reply. I marched yesterday and police fired rubber bullets into a peaceful crowd because we were blocking a non-essential intersection. On a Sunday.

We refused to leave and fortunately they left and let us have a peaceful march.

There doesn’t seem to be an interest in separating out the extreme minority that protest violently. There had been zero violence or destruction that day. A very well-behaved crowd exercising peaceful civil disobedience met by violence from police. In 2020.

>>idealb+4k
Was everyone wearing masks and practicing social distancing of at least 6 feet? Weren’t we told that the reopen protesters were putting people at risk by protesting from their cars? I don’t disagree with the reason for protest, but if a church can’t be open, even outdoors, and an extended family picnic is illegal in a public park, then I am not sure the rationale for allowing protests now. The first amendment isn’t conditional on the reasons for gathering or speaking. The mayor of Oakland even supported the protests held there while just recently maintaining that “non-essential” businesses couldn’t open. I am just trying to reconcile why a small restaurant in Oakland can’t be open, but thousands of people marching in a massive group is somehow allowed. And it seems, politically speaking that a similar demographic that was just days ago telling everyone to stay home to protect us from the plague suddenly changed their public health tune as soon as something they care about was the issue.

Are the lockdowns optional now? Are they situational depending on the politics of the event? Because it sure seems like it. Georgia got hammered for reopening too early, but nobody had much to say about Atlanta having massive protests over the past days. Either the lockdowns are unnecessary or they are necessary and people are putting public health at serious risk with these “large gatherings.”

I wish we could reboot 2020. It’s a g-damned mess.

>>briand+rm
> Was everyone wearing masks and practicing social distancing of at least 6 feet?

Are you suggesting shooting rubber bullets is an appropriate means to enforce social distancing?