Seattle Chief of Police: http://www.seattle.gov/police/about-us/about-the-department/...
St Louis Chief of Police: http://www.slmpd.org/chief_of_police.shtml
Atlanta Chief of Police: https://www.projectq.us/atlanta/atlanta_police_chief_erika_s...
Chicago Chief of Police: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Brown_(police_officer)
Oakland Chief of Police: https://climaterwc.com/2019/07/17/san-mateo-police-chief-sus...
People on HN seem to have a cartoon villain view of police, so I thought I'd share a few faces of police leadership in effected communities.
I'm certainly no expert in police budgeting, but when you see some police forces literally buying tanks, at least in some cases there must be room for money to be better spent. John Oliver did an interesting story on police militarization after the Ferguson riots following the shooting of Michael Brown.
Above, they cherry-picked a few cops that just happen to be the chief of police. It's not that simple.
You don't understand the institutions involved if you highlight these examples. Police, police unions, district attorneys, etc. It's not simple.
Baseless accusation. The protests are mostly in the blue-voting cities, and the GP's list is representative.
[edit]
Here is how it works:
Minneapolis, Chief of Police: nominated (...) by the Mayor of Minneapolis (Betsy Hodges) [1]
Seattle, Chief of Police: [n]ominated by Mayor Jenny Durkan [2]
St Louis, Comissioner of Police: appointed as the 35th Commissioners of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department on December 28, 2017 by Mayor Lyda Krewson [3]
Atlanta Chief of Police: Mayor of Atlanta Kasim Reed announced on December 1, 2016, that he had chosen Shields [4]
Chicago Superintended of the Chicago Police Department: The City Council on Wednesday voted 50-0 to appoint former Dallas Police Chief David Brown to lead the Chicago Police Department [5]
Oakland Chief of Police: Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf announced Monday that she has appointed former San Mateo Police Chief Susan Manheimer as Oakland’s interim police chief [6]
--
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medaria_Arradondo
[2] https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/carmen-be...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hayden_Jr.
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erika_Shields
[5] https://news.wttw.com/2020/04/22/david-brown-confirmed-chica...
[6] https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Oakland-Mayor-ap...
What could possibly give people that impression?
https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/gu3s6j/poli...
I share your concerns over Qualified Immunity (and other problems). The relevant discussions are here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23379910 ("As Qualified Immunity Takes Center Stage, More Delay from SCOTUS")
and here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23386260 (a subthread of this discussion)
[edit]
>It focuses on race of one part of police leadership >Highlighting police chief race
Excuse me? Where are you going with this?
I've updated my post with clear, sourced information on how the police leadership got put in their respective roles, to clearly indicate how it works.
The examples are mostly appointment by the (locally elected) major or by the (locally elected) city council.
I think you may be underestimating how much cities dedicate their budgets to police spending:
"Mayor Eric Garcetti's 2020-2021 city budget gives police $3.14 billion out of the city's $10.5 billion. That's the single biggest line item, dwarfing, say, emergency management ($6 million) and economic development ($30 million)." (In fact, LAPD is getting pay raises while LA teachers are getting a pay decrease)
"New York City spends more on policing than it does on the Departments of Health, Homeless Services, Housing Preservation and Development, and Youth and Community Development combined."
"A whopping 39 percent of Chicago's 2017 budget went to police, and still the department got even more money, peaking in 2020 with a 7 percent increase to nearly $1.8 billion."
Note, this is, to the best of my knowledge, solely police, not even adjacent forces like e.g. fire departments or ambulances.
https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-proacti...
https://old.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/gu3qq1/cop_just_ca...
How would you describe the sheriff casually tossing the tear gas grenade as anything but cartoonishly evil? How would you describe his co-workers, holding the line, without even looking twice at his behaviour?
> Security force abuses and the social upheaval caused by collateral damage from combat can be major escalating factors for insurgencies.
----
Last night I went into uptown at around 7:00 p.m. to do my part to help keep the peace.
Our city had already had a peaceful and powerful protest earlier that afternoon with a message of love and justice and it was important that the evening protest stayed safe and civil.
At the beginning there were roughly 1,500 people. That’s about half the number who were at the afternoon protest. The evening group was also much younger. I’d put the average age at about 24.
That meant the tone was audibly different. The conversations I had were different. It was a more personal perspective from people who weren’t just marching for others - they were also marching for themselves. There were more people in this crowd who felt that this issue directly concerned them and their friends, and you could hear that in their voices.
The leaders of the protest had met earlier that day with CMPD to discuss how to ensure the event was safe. As a result, the leaders placed experienced activists at the front of the march, in the middle, and in the rear. They kept the march moving, occasionally stopping for a few minutes to let people re-group, but not letting too much heat build in any one spot.
Alongside real anger and frustration were constant displays of compassion. Lots of people brought water bottles and were handing them out. I saw a woman trip and hurt her leg and the crowd immediately stopped and tended to her.
Law enforcement was present in various ways. There were some officers in regular uniform walking among the crowd, answering questions and chatting. There were also several officers on bicycles and motorcycles. Most of the police presence was blocking certain streets to keep the march from heading certain directions.
By the time the march got to the police station it had been going for over two hours and it had shrunk to maybe 300 people. About 10 officers stood outside the front door, motionless. The protesters got as close as they could to the police without making contact. One officer raised his fist in solidarity and was greeted with loud applause and cheering from the crowd. At one point someone threw a water bottle at the police and everyone turned around and yelled at him. There were some very tense moments near the police station, but after about 30 minutes the march headed back uptown.
Now it was about 10:40 p.m. The march had been going for over three hours. It wasn’t a coherent group anymore. There were less than 200 people. It had splintered into lots of little groups and there wasn’t any organization that I could see. I thought it was basically over so I started to head back to my car.
At 10:50 p.m. I heard the first flashbang. Then I saw the tear gas. I was two blocks away so I couldn’t tell what, if anything, precipitated its use (although I later read a CMPD statement that bottles and rocks were being thrown).
But the flashbang had a catalyzing and organizing effect on the remaining protesters, who instantly re-formed.
This marked the point of a clear shift in police tactics. Officers lined up shoulder-to-shoulder and walked block by block, toward the protesters, who similarly lined up shoulder-to-shoulder and waited for the police to move toward them.
Officers would then proceed down one block, wait five minutes, use a loudspeaker to tell the crowd to disperse, and then start walking toward the crowd. Then they would use tear gas and pepper bullets, which would cause the crowd to retreat one block.
This continued for several blocks, until eventually the remaining protesters scattered. Nine arrests were made.
I’m not aware of any injuries. As far as property damage, I heard a few reports of a few broken windows, but nothing extensive.
It’s really easy to see one picture or hear a snippet on the news and draw a conclusion about an event like this. What I saw was much more complex, much more human. If it’s one thing we all owe each other right now, it’s looking past the surface and trying to learn a little more about what’s really going on underneath.
What I learned last night is that the tenor of these events can change on a dime. But you can feel it when it happens. I also learned that the vast, vast majority of protesters were there to engage in peaceful, safe protest. Although many of them felt genuine anger, they understood what it meant to channel it productively and what type of conduct would undercut their message.
My thanks to the leadership of this event for working hard to keep everyone as safe as possible.
- Sen. Jeff Jackson
https://mbasic.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=13209956114...
Chicago: 88% of police live in city
St Louis: 59%
Atlanta: 14%
Minneapolis: 10% (white officers: 5%)
Seattle: 12%
Oakland: 9%
Also, certainly in Minneapolis—and likely elsewhere—the police chief doesn't seem to have nearly as much control over rank and file officers as the union head does. This story gives more texture: https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2020/05/minneapoli...
This guy: https://youtu.be/b6cJQ1XBH8M who fits the cartoon villain side of things
https://www.instagram.com/p/CAqt_gHgAxk/?utm_source=ig_embed
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/new-video-appears-show-...
[0]: https://twitter.com/sbkaufman/status/1267271423527022592
He mentions how society is at its core a contract on how to engage with one another. Everything we do is in some form conforming to that contract and when this contract is violated (like the stores being looted and vandalized), it angers you.
However, to the people who're really affected by this issue at the very bottom of the society - they feel they're being ripped off in the contract and are being cheated every single day. After a breaking point they can feel like they don't really have to adhere to the contract anymore themselves when no one else sticks to it in their oppressed world.
PS - Please note, he's obviously not justifying the lootings, mainly tries to make sense of it and how we got to where we are right now.
I am not in favor of rioting/looting but historically, it has been proven effective in some cases to get changes made.
[1] https://www.vox.com/2015/1/6/7501953/nypd-mayor-arrests-unio...
On a more conspiratorial note, this seems like a good
counter strategy for the people who ostensibly would
rather the masses focus on property damage than laws,
statutes and police training.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_provocateur
There's a lot of direct and circumstantial evidence pointing toward exactly that sort of thing happening during this current time of unrest.
There are plenty of incidents during the current protests that, and I'm going phrase this very mildly for HN's sake, certainly invite... uh... speculation as far as whether or not there are agents provocateur at play.
Moving away from speculation and into the realm of hard facts, this sort of escalation is an explicitly stated goal of some movements. Example:
Normalized for population, in the US the rate is 3X for black people, and a white person's expectation to be killed by police is less than the average.
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/08/police-officer-shooti...
> "Mayor Eric Garcetti's 2020-2021 city budget gives police $3.14 billion out of the city's $10.5 billion. That's the single biggest line item, dwarfing, say, emergency management ($6 million) and economic development ($30 million)." (In fact, LAPD is getting pay raises while LA teachers are getting a pay decrease)
The Los Angeles Unified School District boundaries don't match the Los Angeles city boundaries, so comparison is tricky, but the most recent budget available (2018-2019) was $13.8 billion. [1]
In California, school districts are not connected to city government, despite like all the mayors ever always talking about them. Zero of the LA city budget goes to LA schools, because school districts get their money from the counties they're in and the state. I don't know if San Francisco has a county government separate from its city government, so it may be an exception.
[1] http://ssr.lausd.net/BudgetTransparencyDistrictGrp1.aspx?Fis...
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/08/police-officer-shooti...
Just some starter insight to reading about police violence. Police in US use disproportionate force compared to any other country.
Showing an avg. 50% fatality rate on police shootings. You can compared this to other countries, which have the same statistic at something like 5-10% and it's not like these countries are overrun by mass shootings or terrorists. Some might actually says its the reverse :D
This American Life did a story about a new chief trying to reform the Firehouse culture in Amsterdam in order to combat discrimination:
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/684/transcript
Spoiler alert: he failed. It's hard to turn an organization around.
"‘Paw Patrol’ Writers Defend Episode Where German Shepherd Cop Shoots Unarmed Black Lab 17 Times In Back"[1]
[1]: https://entertainment.theonion.com/paw-patrol-writers-defend...
Regardless, as far as policing goes, NYC's 5 borough/county/city system is _much_ more complicated, which proponents might say justifies their (imo insane) $6 Billion(!) annual budget allocation, but if you compare that to NYC's $34 Billion [1] education budget, it looks a little more reasonable than LA's $3 Billion LAPD budget compared to LAUSD's $7 Billion [2] education budget.
[1] https://www.schools.nyc.gov/about-us/funding/funding-our-sch...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Unified_School_Dis...
As you say, social change movements face many of the same struggles as companies, including maintaining brand alignment and quality control across a network of distributed actors. For this reason, social change movements often adopt (and adapt) the same management tools and techniques that large companies have developed for their operations.
But there is a bunch of literature about managing these challenges specifically for social change movements. One reasonably concise and approachable example is: https://www.citizenshandbook.org/network-campaigns.pdf
>It seems as organizations and movements become less coordinated, less structured in how to resolve internal conflicts and align, that they would be more suited to attacking things or ideas, rather than building them.
I'm not sure this is true. Leaderless movements can be well coordinated and structured (it's just hard). And poorly coordinated and structured movements aren't really suited to doing anything well, even just attacking things and ideas.
Gregg Popovich expressed a similar thought in his interview with The Nation: [1]
”[Protests] are very necessary, but they need to be organized better. It’s frustrating. When Dr. King did a protest, you knew when to show, when to come back the next day. But if you’re just organizing protests and everyone is coming and going in every direction, it doesn’t work that way. If it was nonviolent, they knew to be nonviolent, but this is muddled. More leadership would be very welcome so these incredible mass demonstrations can’t be used by people for other means. We can limit the bad, but only if things are organized better.“
[1]: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/gregg-popovich-geo...
"Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
"Eschew flamebait."
If you consider the rest of this page, you'll notice that most of the commenters support the protests (though of course they are divided, just as people at large are divided) and doing so without breaking the site guidelines. It's actually a surprisingly not bad discussion—at least relative to the extremeness of what's going on right now.
And how many by the protestors?
> As far as I can tell no one was killed at the hands of the police (after protests started)
https://www.npr.org/2020/06/01/867281529/louisville-police-c...
Note that shooting someone isn't the only form of violence possible. Escalating by firing rubber bullets or tear gassing or driving your car into peaceful protestors are all violence, and I've seen tens, maybe a hundred examples of that at this point.
There was no looting, no vandalism, no riot, no burnt cars in that area. Nobody was behaving violently. It took ten seconds for a peaceful protest to turn into an assault on the public.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/gv0ru3/this_is_the...
Local news ran this video, cutting the first 20 seconds out, and blamed the crowd on starting violence.
In 2018, 150 US law enforcement officers died due to work related reasons. There were about 690,000 officers employed in America at that time. This means 21.7 out of every 100,000 officers died due to a work related reasons.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that about 25 out of every 100,000 driver/sales workers died due to work related reasons.
For both jobs, most of the deaths were accidental.
Sources: https://www.odmp.org/search/year?year=2018 https://www.statista.com/statistics/191694/number-of-law-enf... https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cfoi.pdf
After the photo op was done, the police started macing and tear-gassing the crowd. The news then ran this video [1], but with the first 20 seconds cut out, and blamed the protesters on initiating violence.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/gv0ru3/this_is_the...
Mostly flashbangs, fireworks, tear gas and mace.
A couple of videos associated with incidents in Seattle from tonight are here:
- https://twitter.com/izaacmellow/status/1267679820600668161
- https://twitter.com/jxyzn/status/1267684722341064704 (same incident, higher angle)
- https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1267673936659021830
The general characterization I would give is that there have been calm periods, and then moments of intense chaos. In the chaos, protestors have often been throwing projectiles (mostly plastic bottles, occasionally firecrackers; some have claimed bricks have been thrown in Seattle, but I haven't seen it myself).
However, in general I would say that the SPD has repeatedly been the party to _instigate_ the chaos, by launching a round of flashbangs, mace, and pepper spray.
https://twitter.com/s_Allahverdi/status/1267240521052946432
Many protest organizers are constantly trying to identify troublemakers and stop them.
Considering the vast, vast amount of footage of excessive force from the police in the last few days, I think it's likely the police want a riot. If they don't then they're beyond incompetent since they keep causing riots regardless.
There's precedent for this. In the 60s the black panthers open carried in California to protest, of course, police misconduct. Reagan signed in the Mulford Act [1], banning open carry in CA.
If BLM want stricter gun control laws (not sure if they do), all they need to do is arm themselves at protests.
Why no riots and street violence then?
And they were told to "shut up and dribble" and the president said they were sons of bitches and should be fired? [1]
There's your peaceful leadership right there.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._national_anthem_protests_...
I am not sure because "this content is not available in your region".
Also this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LTeTUtbKvo
cops unloading bricks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTA0N3kkPaE
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/fatal-police-s...
However, the overall trend in police killings is flat.
https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/nationaltrends
Interestingly:
“White Police Officers Are Not More Likely To Shoot Minority Suspects”
https://www.npr.org/2019/07/26/745731839/new-study-says-whit...
We have aggregated data. We in fact have been building the aggregated data over years. Black people are disproportionately killed by police.0,1.
0. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/polic...
Police are, in the aggregate, racist. They are more violent towards people of color. The marches are led by POC, include large numbers of POC, and are all about calling the police out for their own biases and illegal behavior.
This is simply a fact. It's not only intuitively true based on astute observation of current affairs, but the data trends towards supporting it.
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/08/police-officer-shooti...
Apparently they were let in, then arrested, then released without charge and their guns returned as they hadn't broken the law. However, they were there protesting against the 'Mulford Act' that intended to disarm them, and it was subsequently passed. So they didn't get shot, but they didn't get what they wanted either, and they did get banned from doing it again.
Of course, there's a lot more detail than I've put into this post, and society was pretty different at the time. Reagan supporting gun control? The NRA as a sporting organisation that supported gun control? And the panthers were Marxist? So I'm not sure it's a very instructive example about how the same thing would go today.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_Party#Protest_at...
> "Ich weiß, dass wir bei brisanten Großdemos verdeckt agierende Beamte, die als taktische Provokateure, als vermummte Steinewerfer fungieren, unter die Demonstranten schleusen. Sie werfen auf Befehl Steine oder Flaschen in Richtung der Polizei, damit die dann mit der Räumung beginnen kann.
Translation: "I know that we insert undercover agents as tactical provocateurs, as hooded(disguised) stone throwers, among the protesters during large controversial protests. They throw stones or bottles at our command towards the police so it can begin the evacuation".
> And how many by the protestors?
We don't know if they were all "protestors" but at least not the police: https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/16-dead-at-least-30-pe...
From your article: "the police and National Guard were shot at first and that the shots that killed McAtee were fired in response", and that they weren't part of the protests.
It seems rioters exhibited a disproportionate amount of violence compared to police though.
Sadly, "belief and hope" hasn't worked for entire swaths of the population. If "belief and hope" worked, we could just "hope" there wont be riots and everything would be merry.
In reality, every two months something horrible happens happens and gets on the news. It probably happens much more than that and isn't on the news. And if it wasn't on video -- it is like it didn't happen.
It is rare to have video. It is even more rare for a charge. Even more for a conviction. I dont think looting is the answer here, but i seriously question the judgement of people who actually think there is no problem of police violence.
Even if you think that police violence is rare, there is the added problem of no consequence. I grew up with case after case, the most memoriable wones were https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Amadou_Diallo and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_King#Beating
"He will pay for what he did." You seem to have certain knowledge of the future. Dismissively saying everything will be OK does not actually make it happen.
I'm only going from past experience: If anything is learned from the many times this story has played out in the past, the cops wont wont pay. In fact, until an independent investigation: the cops were well on their way to freedom:
"The criminal complaint said that the autopsy “revealed no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation.” Mr. Floyd, the complaint said, had underlying health conditions, including coronary artery disease and hypertensive heart disease."
https://www.nytimes.com/article/george-floyd-autopsy-michael...
These are things people are protesting:
0. That a video has to exist
1. That nationwide protests need to happen before an officer is charged
2. That when it happens, many non-PoC say "oh he probably did something wrong [thus i dont care if the alleged criminal was killed]"
3. That when it happens, non-PoC say "oh it will be OK" knowing full well their own children will never be subject to this type of treatment.
People are not angry about this incident only they are angry about it happening over and over and over w/o any real systemic change.
It’s already happening in India and China. I’m sure it’s happening here too, with an added startup component with the example of Clearview AI. The big companies get in on the action too:
‘There are many companies that offer facial recognition products and services, including Amazon, Microsoft and FaceFirst. Those companies all need access to enormous databases of photos to improve the accuracy of their matching technology. But while most facial recognition algorithms are trained on well-established, publicly circulating datasets — some of which have also faced criticism for taking people’s photos without their explicit consent — Ever is different in using its own customers’ photos to improve its commercial technology.‘[2]
'In the 1998 Hollywood thriller Enemy of the State, an innocent man (played by Will Smith) is pursued by a rogue spy agency that uses the advanced satellite “Big Daddy” to monitor his every move. The film — released 15 years before Edward Snowden blew the whistle on a global surveillance complex — has achieved a cult following.'
It was, however, much more than just prescient: it was also an inspiration, even a blueprint, for one of the most powerful surveillance technologies ever created. So contends technology writer and researcher Arthur Holland Michel in his compelling book Eyes in the Sky. He notes that a researcher (unnamed) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California who saw the movie at its debut decided to “explore — theoretically, at first — how emerging digital-imaging technology could be affixed to a satellite” to craft something like Big Daddy, despite the “nightmare scenario” it unleashes in the film. Holland Michel repeatedly notes this contradiction between military scientists’ good intentions and a technology based on a dystopian Hollywood plot.'
'In 2006, the cinematically inspired research was picked up by DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is tasked with US military innovation (D. Kaiser Nature 543, 176–177; 2017). DARPA funded the building of an aircraft-mounted camera with a capacity of almost two billion pixels. The Air Force had dubbed the project Gorgon Stare, after the monsters of penetrating gaze from classical Greek mythology, whose horrifying appearance turned observers to stone. (DARPA called its programme Argus, after another mythical creature: a giant with 100 eyes.)'[3]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouroboros
[2] https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/millions-people-upload...
How many videos, at this point, are out in public of police taking out tasers at routine, non-violent traffic stops? Of chemical spraying non-violent protestors? And of shooting unarmed people? The famous photo of the UC Davis photo casually spraying seated students at a campus protest makes the case more eloquently than I can: that was not a person in fear of their life, and we've created a system where that person avoided criminal prosecution (https://humansarefree.com/2014/04/the-cop-who-pepper-sprayed...). When that happens, it seems an offense to logic to reach to "well, our police are more violent because our criminals are more violent." It may be true, but it's outright offensive to their victims not to pause, first, at "...and because their violence goes unpunished." Pointing out the risk they are exposed to is less plausible when we see violence undertaken in non-violent situations, and where they do not see criminal prosecution for wildly disproportionate responses.
How many events have we learned of where unarmed people providing no violent resistance were killed by officers who didn't suspect violence? The death of Eric Garner in NYC involved an unarmed man, stopped by the police for selling single cigarettes, who was pinned down and choked to death, while his hands were up and he was wheezing and begging for air. Those officers were neither permanently removed from duty, nor prosecuted. It's difficult to interpret "slowly choked an unarmed and unresisting man to death" as "acting in response to fears of the violence possible in the situation." Situations like that make it highly unlikely that violent police are a simple correlation to violent criminals, because that would at least suggest that the police violence is constrained to violent and reasonably-possible-to-escalate-to-violence situations. Which isn't what we see riots breaking out over.
https://theconversation.com/police-officers-accused-of-bruta...
2. Which particular part of this smells like horseshit to you? The news cutting the clip before airing it? The SPD twitter claiming that the police retaliated to an attack by rocks and bottles? Do you see any rocks or bottles thrown in the first 20 seconds of this video? Who are you going to believe - a cop trying to defend his violent outburst, or your own two eyes? In what universe is what you are observing a defense to an attack? Did you even look at the video?
3. Do you deny the neighbourhood being in good shape prior to this? I can confirm this one in person, by the way. Nothing was looted, windows weren't broken, no cars were burning.
4. Here's a first person video account of that, too. https://twitter.com/izaacmellow/status/1267679820600668161?s...
https://facebook.com/fox11la/videos/2620823021579078/
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Z9Al_OCpYFk
Consider why you are so unwilling to admit that bad cops who murder innocents are also the problem.
I actually really like the guidelines of this site. @dang and the other administrators do a good job at keeping the conversation mostly civil and the guidelines are great principles and rules to aim for that end.
Maybe if you assume bad faith of a post (anywhere on social media), it might be time to skip over it or take a break.
I'm listening to the RabbitHole podcast[1] right now which is a pretty interesting analysis by the NYTimes of how social media / online content fuels impactful psycho/social impact on participants. I hope you find it interesting.
Did you look at either of the videos? Do you believe your anecdotal experience, or your eyes? What kind of evidence do you need at this point, to convince you that yes, the police do, in fact, gas people unprovoked?
Would you like another one from Seattle?
https://old.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/gu3qq1/cop_just_ca...
Did that sheriff look like was being attacked? Like anyone was throwing rocks or bottles at him? Like anyone was setting police cars on fire?
> I'd hope that you would agree that the Government cannot unilaterally execute people, and that just sitting there while it does so is... completely immoral.
No of course I don't want the government executing people. But the death of George Floyd was the result of actions from one man, not of the entire government. I think you would be hard-pressed to find any member of the government that didn't see an issue with what happened.
[0] https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-chicago-gun-...
/https://cdn.citylab.com/media/img/posts/2019/08/vice_table/original.png){kind=link}