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.
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.