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.
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 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 It's very hard for me to believe that all of a sudden those people are no longer active in protests, and their place has been taken by (insert your politically-convenient group here).
(shows a video of it happening)
"This isn't widespread"
So how many videos do you need to see? 2? 10? 15???
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.