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?
What about american history would lead you to this expectation?
That said, I like the rest of your comment. It’s somewhat disturbing to hear people compare the rage of the crowd with the individual intentions of folk who break windows, raid to bring things home, and set things on fire—you’re allowing one person to derail thousands.
not "I expect". Your parent comment is not expecting this, but hoping for it.
Beyond the general history, this is a big ask of the protesters when one of the primary motivators for this specific protest is distrust of the police.
The right to protest is baked into the first legal document the country as a political entity wrote. For the last 250 years politicians and cops have had the knowledge that Americans care a great deal about their right to stand in front of a statehouse and shout to their heart's content. They should create their own policies to deal with that fact. If that means ensuring no roads go near the statehouses, that there's ample space around popular protest spots, hell that there's guaranteed public restrooms in those areas, so be it. It also means that cops should have 250 years of collective knowledge in how to deescalate... But instead they've always gone the violent route (remember the 60s, when young black people were being shredded by police dogs?)
Now that being said, black lives matter in particular suffers from (in my opinion) a lack of leadership and organization. Over the weekend I wanted to attend protests. I have 100 surplus masks and shitloads of water bottles I wanted to give out. But after a straight hour of searching on every social media platform I could conceive of (as well as Google and just asking on Twitter) I found nothing but out of date websites, with articles from the beginning of the black lives matter movement.
If I want to donate money, I can choose between several different variations of the name "black lives matter," with no way to verify that these are representative organizations, or where the money goes.
During the protest (I just turned up at city hall and hoped for the best - it happened to work out), I didn't see any sort of leadership. Sure some local community leaders turned up, but nobody that represented any sort of modern iteration of a black rights movement.
Far be it from me to tell people how to best accomplish social goals - in my opinion raw, unfettered, and disorganized rage is a perfectly valid outlet for the people against the crimes of the American police system. I just feel like organization could only help.
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.
A universal problem with "leaderless movements" is that they quickly devolve to the lowest common denominator level. Anyone can put out their slate and call themselves an "activist" and it's inevitable that some dim person will come along and try to make a name for themselves by taking things farther. Put that person into a crisis situation with quickly gathering flash mobs, and what should we expect?
Then, on top of that, add on extremist opportunists who decide to exploit the situation, with the goal of destabilizing social order. A "leaderless movement" has all of the biomass of a huge national organization, but none of the immune system and command/control to counter such organized exploiters.
in my opinion raw, unfettered, and disorganized rage is a perfectly valid outlet for the people against the crimes of the American police system.
No. Outside of a protest, the worst actions we've seen would be crimes and qualify the perpetrator as a bad person. Just because they're in a protest doesn't change that. Would you feel that way if they came and burned your house or business down?
Evil is evil. Violence is violence. Another's evil is no excuse to perpetrate your own. Especially if it falls on innocent bystanders.
Yup, and I have the receipts to prove it: my motorcycle was vandalized in Oakland during the protests. A small price to pay for unsung voices being heard.
You say violence is violence, yet I bet you have no problem with criminals being put in jail, i.e. their freedoms being violently removed from them.
These are complex situations that don't follow rules. The mob consists of peaceful protesters, violent protesters and looters. people's membership in any of these groups can be multiple and shift over time.
it's not reasonable for police to make an assessment who is who on the ground because their job is not to be a jury. what is reasonable is that once a gathering crosses the threshold of criminal activity it becomes illegal.
one solution is to just arrest everybody after giving them time to disperse. but to do that you need overwhelming numbers. not always the resources to do that.
you can't just stand there and let people beat you, stab you, lob projectiles at you. you have to respond to that force with force. You also need to protect property again using force.
again unless you have overwhelming numbers you can't engage in hand-to-hand combat or using battons. this strategy cannot be used by itself to bring the crowd under control. so each officer needs a force multiplier some sort of tool that can effect multiple people. it's a given that in such situations any such tool will affect multiple people even those doing nothing violent.
tear gas and rubber bullets are okay tools. but I think there needs to be more. when a patient becomes psychotic and dangerous in a hospital or asylum you don't mace their face. you give them a sedative. instead of CS gas it would be great if there was some sort of sedative gas to just slow people down enough to sap their will to continue.
police have to handle the situations as best they can using the tools they have.
I don't think you can say that big protests are all about the death of one man or the treatment of one group. I think the causes of people's unhappiness here is systemic and this is probably just an outlet where people feel now we can stand up.
the police can't cure the people of their anger no matter what they do.
when I see this chaos, I remember ahow US media lionized what happened in Hong Kong not even 1 year ago, and I can't help thinking of the proverb, people in glass houses....
The state should have the monopoly on violence. Then, instead of everyone doing violence, we have certain, appointed people given the responsibility who can then be trained and monitored. This is part and parcel of the Rule of Law. Certainly, this system isn't perfect. But you only have to live in a country or region without Rule of Law to know that it's much preferable to improve the system, than to abandon it.
Yup, and I have the receipts to prove it: my motorcycle was vandalized in Oakland during the protests. A small price to pay for unsung voices being heard
Are you going to speak for the elderly woman who was beaten by a 2x4, or her husband who was beaten when he came to protect her? Are you going to speak for the independent owner of the vintage clothing store in LA who was preparing to re-open and had his windows smashed and his inventory stolen?
Can you determine who will pay, and what "price" they will pay?
Have you ever criticized someone for their callous opinions on these matters, because it doesn't affect them so much? Well, perhaps the tenor of your opinion is connected to your not being affected so much.
Your circumstances just happen to afford you that privilege.
Not seen news come out of people's homes destroyed. If we're going to participate in a damages competition, though, let's do that - the cops shot out a couple people's eyeballs, but only after of course kicking off this whole thing by murdering black people with no consequences. There, that settles that.
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.
When you commit a crime and violate someone's freemdoms (the primary being right to life, liberty, property), you forfeit your own. When you kill someone and take their life, you steal or destroy property, you are now in debt to society. By living in a society you agree to its rules and when the rules are broken a price must be paid to deter others from breaking them.
Just because someone broke the rules, doesn't mean that everyone else gets to. The police officer was in the wrong. He was arrested, and charged. He will pay for what he did.
Be the change you want to see. Protest in a way that doesn't harm others. Many lost business and their livelihoods due to the destruction. What did they do to deserve that?
No. The Gandhi movie termed that, "An eye for an eye, making the whole world blind."
How about we condemn evil, and try to make sure there's less evil in the world? Just because you say you're fighting evil, that doesn't nominate you to commit evil, especially if it's in the name of others without their consent. Especially if it's so you can coerce others into seeing things your particular way.
Isn't that what sparked the protests in the first place? Someone who committed evil, in the name of fighting evil?
For all the obvious, on-the-nose proof that reactive states differ from proactive states, I find it very odd that people are still folding their arms and brandishing smug expressions for their equivalently useless ideas as soon as someone else's idea yields a critical failure.
Critical thinking is not an art, nor a science, nor difficult. It just requires someone to maintain a consistent curiosity and skepticism for the utility of information. If someone tells you cats climb trees, you should automatically think, Not all cats can climb trees and How useful is this to me?. And if you have a cat, you might sequentially think, Do I have any trees that my cat could climb? and How much of a tree should I trim to prevent my cat from climbing it? and maybe Do I have a way to retrieve my cat from one of my trees? and so on and so forth. So, someone please explain why, given the seriousness everyone attributes to the lockdowns, to police brutality, etc. Just... why are you doing the equivalent of hearing that cats can climb trees, and then you think, My cat would never climb my trees, because my trees aren't cat-climbable trees, so that makes my cat, my trees and myself better than other cats, trees, and cat owners?
I have been in the middle of protests when I worked for Reuters and the difference between peaceful and violent is very tiny. I was in the no-man’s land between the KKK and the New Black Panthers in the wake of the James Byrd Jr. lynching and it went from frenetic but peaceful to riot in 8.3 seconds. Actual combat is a a lot less ambiguous and disorienting. Not defending police or condemning them, but when an airborne brick heads your way, it’s a pretty tall order to expect immediate and accurate identification of friend or foe.
It is fascinating to me how left wing protests seem to frequently degrade into violence. Recent case in point was the reopen protesters. I don’t think a single shot was fired by the crowd, nor were any buildings burned or looted. The Charlottesville, VA protest by the extreme right wing however is a counterexample — but it’s an exception that proves the rule. The Tea Party protests were never violent. In almost every large-scale protest that has left and extreme left wing elements, looting, fires, and violence is a foregone conclusion. It’s historical record.
It’s really tragic because pretty much all Americans were outraged about Floyd’s death, but as soon as looting, fires, and violence starts, then a large portion of the population now starts discussing and being angry about that rather than the core issue.
The Police reaction to these protests clearly shows systemic reform is needed. Peaceful protesters and reporters have been tear gassed, shot, and arrested. They don't deserve to be tret like that just because others decided to vandalize and loot.
Can you elaborate? All four of the police officers were immediately fired. The primary officer that was kneeling on him was charged with murder and manslaughter and will go to prison. Likely charges will be brought on the other three.
I appreciate this part a lot. It helps me realize that movements also have brands they need to manage and have similar struggles to companies that are trying to manage brands at various levels of centralization—e.g., the challenge of maintaining brand alignment among distributed franchisees.
> A "leaderless movement" has all of the biomass of a huge national organization, but none of the immune system and command/control to counter such organized exploiters.
I wonder how well leaderless movements can create things. 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.
Any thoughts on this?
This is exactly what extremist groups exploiting the protests want. The extremists want to foment violence between the protesters and the police. The situation plays into their hands, because the police have no way of distinguishing who is who.
The circumstances are not normal. Rule of Law has broken down. By continuing the protests, peaceful protesters are creating cover for looters and violent perpetrators. Those protesters who are willfully exploiting this situation to "pressure" the authorities are having evil done for their goals.
There needs to be another kind of lockdown to prevent the spread of the contagion of violence, the contagion of chaos, and the contagion of injustice.
Sure, I will - it's a shame that the cops refused to follow the science on the subject and deescelate protests. Instead they chose to fire on peaceful protesters and kick off a riot.
It's not like this kind of shit isn't studied. What article are we commenting on right now? This information has been available for a very, very long time.
So, to everyone that has been harmed by the police, directly (having their eyes shot out, being choked to death), or indirectly (property damage due to an avoidable riot), I think the police should be held responsible.
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.
I'd also like to see numbers. There are a lot of pride parades, various demonstrations, women's marches etc that aren't met with violence.
Lord forbid nobody caught the murder on video. This happens all over America, all the time. Thread is full of links or a quick hop on google will serve you in this regard.
What would have happened if it was citizens? All four would be in jail immediately, if they even get that far without being shot for "resisting arrest" first. At the very least they'd get a beating somewhere between having cuffs put on them and getting into a squad car. We know this from all the recorded instances of police brutality looking exactly as I've just described.
Lost their jobs. Come on. Would you merely "lose your job" if you watched your buddy murder a guy and stood there throughout the whole thing?
Well shit it isn't, it results every year in people being murdered in cold blood, nobody being arrested for it despite the perpetrators being known, and the majority of the population is apparently utterly fine with this - even you are merely saying that this situation "needs improvement", like you're marking homework. "The police only murdered one person in cold blood today rather than two, have a cookie!"
I've had a friend in an EU country have the police break their bones and leave them locked up without medical treatment for weeks, because they were an Eastern European refugee. This is what "Rule of Law" looks like - it looks like entire populations being utterly terrorised by a sanctioned force that they have absolutely no power to stop.
Law is a bunch of words on a piece of paper, it has no power to rule. We leave that to organisations (the police, prosecutor's office, courts and prisons) with a history and present of institutionalised racism and no accountability to the communities they terrorise.
If true, then it’s sad that loss of property is such an effective distraction to facing down centuries of systemic oppression. 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.
On a separate note, the historical record of protests is mostly disseminated through MSM, which has a profit motive for click/read bait. So it’s truly hard to know the extent of violence occurring in recent protests. The citizen record (captured through Twitter, Instagram, TikTok) seems overrun with police violence against protesters and the media record seems overrun with pictures of looting and burning buildings. How does one truly grasp the extent of either?
That's a pretty bold claim. Do you have any statistics to show police are by and large using disproportionate force?
> Peaceful protest over the years haven't changed the system. Charging that one officer doesn't solve it either.
There are bad people in society. That doesn't mean the whole system is bad. Of course there is room for improvement, and action should be taken to remove those who are not fit to serve.
> The Police reaction to these protests clearly shows systemic reform is needed. Peaceful protesters and reporters have been tear gassed, shot, and arrested. They don't deserve to be tret like that just because others decided to vandalize and loot.
I agree that peaceful protesters don't deserve that. But let's get this clear, it was violent rioting that was occurring. In that situation, how are you to quickly separate the two groups?
He was only arrested and charged because of the protests.
A global pandemic is awful, but it does not alleviate us of our civic responsibility.
Was it uncomfortable and difficult? Yes. Am I glad I went? Hell yes. Black lives matter.
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:
Protest in a way that doesn't harm others.
Also the government might try to go after you legally or kill you even if you do things peacefully. See: COINTELPRO, Aaron Swartz, etc.
The crowd of people slowly marching while getting shot and teargassed or the protesters. Those in the liquor store are the looters. Pretty simple.
If firing indescriminantly into a crowd makes it hard to tell these groups apart it sounds like the police tactics need work.
I feel like that's more coincidence than anything
> This happens all over America, all the time. Thread is full of links or a quick hop on google will serve you in this regard
I bet there is tons of anecdotal data to support any claim. There needs to be aggregated data that shows it's happening in high enough rates to be a "systemic" issue.
> Would you merely "lose your job" if you watched your buddy murder a guy and stood there throughout the whole thing?
In most countries bystanders are not obligated to assist. So nothing would happen to you?
All of the videos from the last few days is still being sorted, but from what I've seen the violence from police against protesters far outstrips that of protesters against random people or cops. I'm in fact only aware of several incidents, and all of which were easily justifiable - a man firing a bow at protesters, an idiot screaming the n-word at protesters, and a man charging at protesters with a sword.
So whenever people say "but riots!" I can't help but question the priorities - can't that wait until after we figure out the police brutality thing? You're only hurting our efforts here, and helping the cops justify the unjustifiable.
Ooooor you'd be an accessory to murder.
You're not to quickly do anything. Most countries claim to have the right an assumption of innocence for a reason - they believe, very strongly, that committing violence towards an innocent person is worse than letting a guilty person get away with whatever they were doing. Property can be rebuilt, for the most part; people's lives, not so much.
To put it bluntly - if a group of people robs a bank in the middle of the business day, you don't tear gas and shoot at everyone inside it.
It's not any kind of exception. Protests involving the klan and the Nazis have often been extremely dangerous.
Aside from that, the point you're making is trivial in an obvious way that you really ought to understand. Violent right wingers are not typically on the protesters' side in American demonstrations, Nazis and KKK notwithstanding, because they are on the side of the police.
Think about what these ideological categories mean for a moment and you wouldn't normally expect leftists to put on riot gear and bust heads for the man, or for conservatives to go out and violently oppose the status quo.
Are you suggesting shooting rubber bullets is an appropriate means to enforce social distancing?
The political class had collectively decided they understood protests, that people would turn up peacefully, shout some slogans and then go home.
But that's not what a protest is. A protest is a clear and specific message "this is how many people took time out of their day, free time, time off work to come and represent themselves for an issue - do you think it's wise to ignore them?"
I think that's an important distinction to make between such a place, and a place of anarchy or a commune, which aren't necessarily places that don't have "rule of law" and aren't necessarily hubs of raw violent chaos.
Can you spot the difference between an African and European swallow? I bet you can't. But a professional bird watcher could tell them apart in a second.
Same thing with protestors. When I was active I could easily tell the difference between someone potentially violent and someone peaceful. Woman with a stroller - probably peaceful. Person in all black with a large backpack - potentially violent. Admittedly, this was many years ago but I don't think rioters are any harder to spot these days.
Thing is, most riots are planned and not spontaneous events. Troublemakers infiltrate the crowds and try to cause confrontations with the police. The police reacts with heavy handedness causing those who are peaceful to sympathize with the troublemakers. More of them join the troublemakers side causing more confrontations and eventually it spirals out of control.
The simple solution to this problem is for the police to target the troublemakers and to let the peaceful protestors be. It actually is that easy because organizers almost always knows who the troublemakers are and would share that info with the police. But the police isn't interested. I suspect that is because by and large they love riots just as much as the rioters.
Oh well, the liquor store is getting looted. Sucks that you can't deal with that because there are protests because you are murdering black people. Fix the bigger problem before worrying about property.
I have a feeling that would have happened regardless. Do you have a source that shows there wasn't an intent to charge him before the protests?
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.
Sure, but that's not what you asked.
I believe the other three will be charged and convicted. At least that what I hope will happen.
Thanks.
monopoly on violence exists because people are evil and violent
without a lawful monopoly on violence you get much of what you see in the rest of the world
anarchist want to destroy the current system flaws and all for a vacuum of justice
The protests haven’t worked though for the last 20 years or so. IMO it’s more important to vote and promote change than to block traffic.
People remember how you made them feel more easily than what you actually said. Preventing them from getting somewhere is a great way to just piss people off.
You're comparing protests about systemic racism and murder to protests getting hair cuts and lowering taxes.
Of course one side's protests usually break out in violence. They are protesting the very fact that they are inordinately subject to widespread state-sanctioned violence.
I guess my point was that at a police brutality protest, you have protestors facing police which is instantly adversarial and a form of counter protest if cards are played poorly. If you have a reopen rally per the example up-thread, you're (very generally speaking) not going to have quite the animosity between them and those securing the area. And combine that with the fact that someone not wanting to rush and reopen is likely to stay at home per state instructions.
> between 90 percent and 95 percent—of the civilians shot by officers were actively attacking police or other citizens when they were shot”
Sounds like the vast majority used exactly the amount of force required.
Also, does not anywhere state the types of crimes being committed which would be relevant.
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
I'm sure there was things the police could do better, but no one died at the hands of the police (after protesting started). The same can't be said for the protestors/rioters.
> Sure, I will
Easy for you to say. You are in the privileged position of only having lost some body work on your motorcycle. Do you really think they'd consent to your "speaking for them?"
it's a shame that the cops refused to follow the science on the subject and deescelate protests. Instead they chose to fire on peaceful protesters and kick off a riot.
The bad people here are the extremists who are egging on the violence, while creating the devious tactical position of making it very hard for the police to distinguish who is who.
So, to everyone that has been harmed by the police, directly (having their eyes shot out, being choked to death), or indirectly (property damage due to an avoidable riot), I think the police should be held responsible.
Yes. And how about someone speaks for you, as you say you would for others? You are going to pay for the inventory of the shop. You are going to pay for the medical bills of the shop owner and his wife, plus pain and suffering. How about that?
How? As far as I can tell no one was killed at the hands of the police (after protests started). Just in Chicago at least 17 people were killed during the protests.
After the George Floyd incident, everyone was in agreement that this should stop. What's happening with the violence and the vandalism is just muddying the waters. It's almost as if the purpose isn't to make things better, but to foment a race war to destabilize the USA.
That sounds an awful lot like a dictatorship, not democracy. In a democracy, it's the citizens' job to keep their Government accountable - when the population says that the right to a presumption of innocence is paramount, they create a Government to ensure that right.
What you are suggesting is that the population does not believe that the right to a presumption of innocence is paramount - that it is ok to risk life, liberty and limb of innocent people to go after a criminal. That's maybe fine (although I'd argue ethically wrong), but stop teaching the opposite to your children. If you taught your children that the police and courts were out to kill them or lock them up indefinitely for nothing they have any control over, maybe they'd correctly be a little more terrified from an early age - and maybe they'd campaign to change that. Funnily enough, one demographic does get taught that, and others the opposite - because that's how it works out in practice.
The police have literally blinded people, including journalists, permanently, by the way. And potentially have killed people - "In Louisville, David McAtee, 53, the owner of a well-known barbecue business, was shot and killed early Monday. The authorities said that officers from the Louisville Metro Police Department and National Guard soldiers opened fire in response to a gunshot as they tried to disperse a large crowd after a curfew had gone into effect. It was not immediately clear if Mr. McAtee had been killed by the police or someone in the crowd, the authorities said." Of course, as always when the police kill people, body cameras were not on.
No, they really weren't - or at least not in any way that might lead to actionable results, like building systems that do not give cops the power to murder people without accountability. The same as all the other times the police have murdered people. It's not like this is a new thing that people are just waking up to.
So, yes, context matters. I would absolutely argue the value in the being part of the strongest push against police brutality in decades, that just might result in systemic change, is incredibly more worthy than virtually any other activity. It does not mean there is no public health cost. It does mean it is a tragic choice to have to make.
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.
Can you substantiate that, or is it just your opinion? You can justify the imposition of your opinion on everyone? (Through violent intimidation?)
like building systems that do not give cops the power to murder people without accountability
This has happened, incrementally. Can you design a system, ground-up that will work as well as the current one? I suspect that's far more likely than iterating on the current one. That's also an opinion.
That doesn't sound too bad to me.
> people are evil and violent
It seems that isn't the really the case, it seems only a small minority of people are, but unfortunately violence allows aggregation of power which allows more violence which allows...
> anarchist want to destroy the current system flaws and all for a vacuum of justice
Not aware of any anarchists that want whatever a "vacuum of justice" is.
In fact, note that the concept of a jury is intended to work this way (although is missing many elements, and exists under the permanent organisation of the court) - a temporary organisation gathering to find justice, then dispersing.
Unfortunately it's difficult to tell the exact outcome of implementing any of it on a wider scale, as the times leftism has actually been in power have largely been during times of war where a lot of theory was thrown out the window, or using leftist messaging to implement something closer to a dictatorship. All we know is that a lot of it works when implemented in our own communities.
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...
The notion that peaceful protest will be respected? The president and vice president have asserted it. Yet both of them castigated Colin Kaepernick's peaceful protests. They don't have any respect for peaceful protest. Kaepernick was subject to ridicule, his livelihood destroyed, and threatened with ejection from his own country, for his peaceful protest, by the sitting POTUS.
Amy Cooper insists she's not a racist. But used her whiteness as a weapon, and a black man's blackness as a deficit, knowing full well with her threat against him that this same racial animus would be applied by the police. That's why she made the threat. What's more striking about the story? Her lie about the events that were to have transpired? Or her truth? White power. White power. White power.
There is no good reason for thinking people to respect American rule of law from an ethical or moral standpoint. Only respect it the same way black Americans, minorities, poor have come to: fear of its power.
The system isn't just imperfect. It isn't what it purports to be. And it isn't accountable. Why defend it? Where's even the pride in defending it? Where could legitimacy even come from?
Do you have statistics that show that? Are more cops charged and imprisoned after murdering unarmed people every year, or does the number of unarmed murdered people go down, at all? People who die mysteriously in custody?
Many of these issues were reversed in an attempt to be tough on crime again with a big push from the AG in 2017. Tensions have been stoked by things like a pardon dealt out to a sheriff who violated a court order relating to racial profiling. I have a hard time believing these acts aren't having their intended effects.
Yeah. My house and business would be insured. No amount of insurance can revive a man, woman or child murdered by police. I'm OK with personal sacrifices in service of justice.
I would happily burn all of my earthly possessions if it meant babies like Bou Bou Phonesavanh were no longer at risk of being critically injured by flashbangs or murdered by stray gunfire.
The problem is not de-escalation, is that the police is behaving in a criminal manner.
"The Women’s March on Washington was likely the largest single-day demonstration in recorded US history" and entirely free of violence.
> all Americans were outraged about Floyd’s death
"Outraged" is a strong term. "One more tragic item in the news which is quickly forgotten" is more accurate for most of white America.
> as soon as looting, fires, and violence starts
No longer forgotten, is what that achieves.
There's a big difference in protesting because you're being taxed too much (in you opinion) and protesting because people with your same skin colour are being systematically targeted by police and killed for no reason.
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.
I find it very saddening as the victims of these crimes end up being victims that are ignored by "privacy" advocates and proponents, as if "privacy" is a bigger concern than violent crimes.
thats very interesting. The difference seems to be in initial reactions of the police to peaceful protests. With lockdown protesters, police showed up in soft clothes and didn't initiate violence on the protestors.
Regarding the much more serious issue of police brutality, police responded very violently to the initially peaceful protests. They were the ones that escalated things. Very interesting overall, and I think the obvious answer is that left wing causes seem to offer critiques that are much more incisive and dangerous to the government.
However, mayors or governors could. Tell AGs to have compulsory investigations of all policce shootings. Charge police officers who don't report corruption or violence with conspiracy charges. Bust police unions which arehelping criminal cops and charge them under RICO statutes.
Is this a good faith interpretation of what you honestly think they were saying?
Actually, what I was trying to say, and I did not say clearly...was I don't think the anger that is driving this unrest is only a result of police violence.
I think it's a lot of anger from multiple causes, economic, the lockdown, and so on. That's why I said, no matter what police do, they cannot cure that.
Hopefully I made it clear now.
FWIW, German police regularly used undercover, black-clad, violent agents as a pretext for breaking up peaceful protests. It's probably an established tactic. But the situation in the USA looks very different (from here), violent protesters appear to be a small minority of the problematic people, most of which are just criminals using the opportunity to loot.
You just don’t like the priorities of everyone else so you’re claiming it hasn’t worked.
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.
There are a lot of bad actors that win with choatic protests.
https://twitter.com/s_Allahverdi/status/1267240521052946432
Many protest organizers are constantly trying to identify troublemakers and stop them.
What if those people don't do it according to the law or in a just manner? We just all say: "oh well, they have a monopoly on force, so nothing to be done"?
You probably think it was quite rude to separate from the British at all. Perhaps we should go back to being a colony, since the separation was actually a complete violation of the crown's monopoly on violence!
That is the most casually delivered fucked up dystopian line I've seen on HN.
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
> 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.
The thing is that they can. That's a very deliberate tactic, down to planting of provocators.
If you been watching what's going on around the world, the allegations of that, including provocator planting, followed pretty much every major demonstration event.
It's naive, if not silly, to use that "hey, he started it first!" argument at the time when the fact of confrontation happening is already obvious.
The talk now should not be who started the violence, but how to end it, a peace treaty to say.
This way of thinking, looking at it as a war-like situation and vocabulary, is what leads to escalation. On the other hand, neither is a completly off-hands approach. Tough call, right? Funny thing, when white guys with masks, tactical vests and AR-15s stormed official government buildings, e.g. in Minisota, police didn't intervene.
And seriously, hand-to-hand combat? Hope you're not a cop.
Decade? More like century. The labour demonstrations in the 19th and 20th century were ignored until they got militant. Nothing's changed since then in the US.
Wait for it...
> The simple solution to this problem is for the police to target the troublemakers and to let the peaceful protestors be.
You are suggesting that the police should profile individuals based on their appearance?
Well, because one is made by enemies, vs friends of the power? One expects retaliations, and prepares to counterattack, and another don't because they don't even know why they should?
Every time when the revolution happens, and the power is toppled, its topped by a greater power, which means one with bigger guns, and heavier fists.
I think I know what you want to imply, but did you note the complete absence of race or colour in OPs comment? And alos the completely different circumstances, crowd control vs. standard law enforcement?
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...
Correct from your perspective.
I don't think it was used when the gathering was peaceful unless it was area denial. I think there's some or all of property damage, arson, looting, arming and throwing, before they use those tools.
Interested to see a video with context from the current unrest where that's not the case.
By hand to hand, I mean the stuff that happens when police and gatherers engage at close quarters.
There's lots of these scenes from the HK unrest. it basically is hand-to-hand combat with batons like I said.
Most of the bigger conspiracies about police being behind everything are usually wrong and show similarities to all conspiracies (they take tiny seeds of truth and amplify it 1000x fold into far bigger schemes).
There was a video of that one agent provocateur cop with an umbrella breaking windows with a hammer, then there were a bunch of 100k tweets blaming them for burning down all the buildings.
I get police use an awful tactic to stir up violence to try to end large unsanctioned with protests quickly before worse damage happens - for some cynical ends justify the means. But it amazes me that people don’t realize just how many people show up to cause violence and simply steal things.
And not even just the anarchists and Black bloc who use property damage and vandalism as a tactic since they despite private property, that’s been proven thousands of times and those groups exist in every city, but just the average mob will always have trouble makers and opportunists.
There was even tweets from DSA groups prompting the burning and destruction of property.
Yet everyone is so quick to blame police for everything. It’s seems to strange and cynical to not only take zero responsibility for the wider group but to completely blame their it on outsiders when it’s so obviously not just police.
The only real solution is isolating and dismissing the radical groups as a policy. Just like right wing groups telling Nazis they aren’t welcome, the unions and powerful left wing groups should refuse to protest with black bloc and other violent protestors. I don’t believe they need to actually physically stop them but they need to denounce them early and often, and organizers need to put real efforts in warning people not to engage in violence, theft, and vandalism.
The other half is police cause as much problems as they prevent at almost every single protest I’ve ever been to. Mayors and leaders need to put pressure on police to change their tactics to deescalation and middle managers who don’t stop their lower ranking cops from provoking fights and high ranking police who allow agent provocateurs need to be fired.
None of these get more coverage than property violence. None of these got a response from political leadership.
It’s a bad look for the country that the only time our leadership is willing to punish law enforcement relatively mildly (currently the police officer in question is charged for only up to 35 years in prison with his accomplices merely losing their jobs, something statistically has been borne out that they get hired for more law enforcement work in neighboring districts) for killing someone in a terrible and slow manner is when disruption on property happens.
Do you have any sources for that? I can't seem to find any references for that. According to some reports on the incident, the police at one point went into the store not sure what they did there though.
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...
1. Should there be police at all?
2. If so, can an institution staffed by these particular people ever function correctly?
The more effectively the protesters self-police, the more powerful an argument they make that you could improve society by disbanding urban police departments and letting the protest organizers assume de facto responsibility for maintaining the social order.
Of course, the other end of the violence spectrum is an effective argument, as well.
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...
I did notice the absence of race or color and you will note my comment does not include any notion of race. You added race. I did note judging by appearance. You added age, out of nowhere.
Using appearance to treat people differently is profiling, though not always racial profiling. Should non-racial profiling be okay? To your inclusion of age, should we treat gatherings of youth differently than gatherings of the elderly?
The GP says "...for the police to target...". No distinction is made between crowd control and standard law enforcement.
Many people have died at the hands of other rioters as a result of the protests.
I'm not saying that people needed to loose their eyes, but they were out after curfew which was enacted because they wanted people to go home due to the violence.
Why the "government"? I don't think the police automatically defend the interests of the currently-elected politicians. In the absence of distinguishing evidence, I assign much higher priors to them defending their own interests.
> "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".
Then, people who are complacent complain no one is trying.
> 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.
That bit is correct. Yes, it does work -- for some. But the masses that are angry are whom it didn't work for. When it starts working for the other 90% people wont be as angry.
On the one hand, the latter avoid the weaknesses of the former, in that they can neither easily be 'taken over' by outside forces nor provide a single point of weakness for their enemies to target.
And that's useful for both software and protest movements, since it leave a single target for the opposition to go after, whether that's through legal threats, harassment, arrest or assault/murder.
At the same time, it also makes the system prone to abuse by bad actors, since there's no one able to either get rid of them or distance the group from them in general.
Hence the extremists taking over political movements and protests, and the trolls/extremists/criminals becoming an increasingly prominent part of any decentralised community or social network setup online.
This in turn leaves both open to attack from their opponents and the media, who can point at the worst elements and say "See? These people are all evil/sociopathic/crazy/whatever' based on it.
It's like to some degree, avoiding bad actors and running a robust and uncensorable system are fundamentally incompatible with one another, in the same way as usability and security are.
How do you know? Do you have an alternate timeline of history to compare it to?
How is it sustainable that nationwide protests need to happen before an officer is charged for murder? Does that not seem like a broken system?
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
The police have loads of leaders, and they've devolved pretty fast too. I'm not sure if leadership is really a decisive factor.
How does the "pursuit of happiness" become "property?"
"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.
There exists an asymmetry in the dynamics of protesters vs police during a protest. Very simple:
Anyone can be 'planted' in a group of protesters to start stirring up trouble (agent-provocateur). Then the police have 'justification' to use whatever amount of force they think is required.
On the other hand, it's practically impossible for a regular citizen to be embedded into a riot police response unit.
Add to that the police have practically no real oversight and investigate themselves (assuming internal affairs counts as police).
One side can't fail (except morally), while the other side always will end up with the shorter end of the stick.
You can. As far as I know, the US is still a democratic country with elections.
Exactly how is destroying low income housing, small businesses (many of them minority owned) and peoples places of employment going to persuade "the elites"?
I believe that property rights are a core principal of American freedoms. Otherwise there would not be 'just compensation' for it in the constitution.
It's called food. If the price of food hadn't just doubled (no sales, low unit prices sold out), and urban supermarkets didn't continue to have bare shelves, we wouldn't be seeing the same level of unrest.
I'm certainly not trying to downplay the longstanding grievances behind these protests. But there are orthogonal reasons causing them to happen at such scale.
> We don't know if they were all "protestors" but at least not the police
In fact, we don't know if any of them were protestors, so your insistence to relate the two groups is odd.
If not, please explain how you having a mutual fund means that "the elites" who control Apple aren't impacted by lost revenue.
This is just you being selective in how you view things due to your personal politics. I live in Portland and for the last couple summers we had to deal with Joey Gibson and his band of goons repeatedly attempting to incite violence at protests. It's a core view among modern white supremacists that they will rise to power atop a race war that they instigate. And let's not even start talking about the 2A crowd that shows up to everything armed in an attempt to intimidate people.
It's a bit much to ignore all that just because you wanna take a jab at left leaning politics you disagree with.
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...
Going by the praise he had for his organization and the people helping him, MLK had something like this.
And poorly coordinated and structured movements aren't really suited to doing anything well, even just attacking things and ideas.
When exploited by organized outside forces, they do one thing really well: Create disorder, chaos, and disdain.
I believe it was Thomas Carlysle who said something like, "Revolutions are started by idealists, prosecuted by fanatics, and co-opted by scoundrels."
Tim Pool recently quipped in one of his videos that some copies of the Antifa handbook have explicit instructions to "pretend to be BLM" for cover.
In situations where mob mentality can take over and chaos can create a "fog of war" this is not true! Even though most of the protesters want to remain peaceful, the amplitude of sowing chaos, and its potential to spark additional chaos within mass rally situations, are providing extremists that "single point of weakness."
Basically, against an organized opponent that wants to create chaos, mass rallies are kind of like packing together certain isotopes of uranium atoms. Even if most of the units are "inert" (in that most of the people want peace,) if enough individuals with activation potential are densely packed enough, you can still get the chain reaction.
How many organizers are there compared to participants? How are the participants supposed to know the police intrusion has been agreed to? How do you know there aren't participants who would choose to align themselves with the "autonomous bloc" over the police? Assuming all "good"(work with organizers) demonstrators work together, how would you give notice without giving the "autonomous bloc" ample time to disappear into the crowd? It isn't like the demonstrators are surrounding the rioters and/or opening a path for the police.
As for using tech to track rioters, perhaps it is far from good enough in protest situations. I imagine it is hard to get a hold of enough data to train for that situation. Perhaps the police have been prevented from using it. I know Clearview AI tech has already been banned in a number of places.
Did you ever go to the police to find out what you could have done differently to prevent the indiscriminate charge?
There's a lot of energy being put into making this sound like it's more violent than it is, again, so that you agree with it and stay compliant. When the Government does something violent that goes against the reasons it was created, you should not be compliant. 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.
So if you can't understand how hurting the pocket books of "the elite" can encourage them to compromise, you haven't been paying attention to history.
History says that mob violence is probably more likely to lead to a dictatorship than to another new deal, but you're being willfully ignorant if you don't acknowledge the existence of a potential chain of consequences that starts with "damaging companies' bottom lines" and ends with policy change.
Any time a person is killed or treated wrongly is terrible and police should be held accountable. But I believe it is more to do with rotten people than it is a rotten system.
> 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}