People protest peacefully, and police shoot tear gas into the crowd and attack whomever they can get their hands on.
I’ll admit, the outright brutality I saw in-person in Oakland was worse than what I’ve seen here in the recent days.
In Oakland, the police would purposely corral protestors into groups and literally beat the shit out of them. I saw this in-person multiple times. In Seattle, I haven’t seen that sort of corral behavior. However, police do shoot tear gas completely unprovoked and fire rubber bullets and mace without concern.
In both places, no looting was occurring at the main scene of the protests. In both cases, numerous videos show police breaking windows themselves.
In any case, it’s all the same: in a country that parades its freedom, people of color can’t protest without the president calling for them to be roughed up, and without the police willingly complying.
I don't believe you.
The umbrella guy breaking the AutoZone window with a hammer has no connection to any police department. Someone made that up on social media and people shared it because that's what people do.
The only video I know of showing officers breaking a window is out of Seattle. It shows officers responding to a burglary in progress at a Target store. The officers had to chip away at the already broken glass windows so they could safely get in. (The burglars had broken the glass to get inside.) Once inside, the responding officers found and arrested the three burglars they had come for.
I mean, we know the black bloc and similar groups engages in these tactics, they've been doing it since Seattle WTO 1999. I've seen it in person to protests I've been to (as a protester). It's very hard for me to believe that all of a sudden those people are no longer active in protests, and their place has been taken by (insert your politically-convenient group here).
(shows a video of it happening)
"This isn't widespread"
So how many videos do you need to see? 2? 10? 15???
Giving your comment the benefit of the doubt, that does not address the fact that a while platoon of police officers witnessed a fellow police officer vandalize public property without any reason or justification, and they didn't even flinched or complained or even frowned upon that brand of unprovoked abuse.
That's pretty much one of the central points of the whole protest.
Two weeks ago a San Diego police deputy was released from jail after serving only six months after sexually assaulting (why forced oral sex is not rape I’m not sure) 16 women that had called the police for help. He does not have to register as a sexual offender.
Protesting is legal and a protest without a disturbance is not a protest, so arresting people causing a disturbance while shutting down non-violent disturbances is disappointing.
https://old.reddit.com/r/2020policebrutality
Are both accumulating quite a lot of evidence that police are using force recklessly and capriciously under the color of law without consequences.
Unfortunately, some senior "dog whistle" politicians have labeled protesters "thugs" and "looters" and have called for "shooting" and "no quarter." These loose words are dangerous and may be unlawful: https://lawandcrime.com/george-floyd-death/republican-senato...
As a result of these statements, some armed enforcers including police, National Guard, and U.S. military may interpret these bellicose pronouncements as a declaration of war or a granting of letters of marque and reprisal against protesters and their property.
Good leadership would call for toning down the rhetoric but leadership appears to be in short supply. Gefickt, we are.
How do you know this? What's the process by which you established this as a known thing?
I have seen dozens if not over a hundred videos of the police acting inappropriately over the last few days. I have only seen a single video in which any of them were stopped or reprimanded by another cop and that one "good cop" was a woman of color. If this inappropriate behavior is done by such a small percentage of the police force and is frowned on by all the other good cops, why is there so little evidence of police policing themselves?
I would also keep an eye on that officer to see if there were more violations.
I would not break formation and try to handcuff another officer in the moment, because it would be strategically unwise.
Or would you correct someone and say that isn’t happening, and when confronted with a video of someone somewhere doing a bad thing, inform them of the fact that a few cherry picked anecdotes do not represent the activity of the broader population?
You don’t have to answer.
I don’t know your view on the matter, but somehow I doubt that seeing videos will do anything to change your view on the matter anyway. I say this because in a thread about police brutality, you cherry-pick an argument counter to what videos have already shown.
I do hope the continuing videos showcasing police brutality, during protests OF police brutality, do something to convince people that it is a very real problem.
You don't have to condone it. The question is whether it's appropriate to escalate to violence to stop it. And it clearly isn't, even from the very narrow perspective of the police. The phone video shot two days ago energized the huge protests yesterday, who ended up getting gassed out of a church in DC so the president could hold up a bible, which is driving literally millions more people into the streets.
Let them do their thing, and everyone will get bored. Yes, it's a dick move to block an intersection. But we don't tear gas routine assholes, right?
Never thought of it this way before, but this train of thought strongly resonates with me and makes sense. Thanks for posting it.
"Despite some "confusion," Lansing police had no complaints about any ambulance being locked in traffic during an emergency, said Robert Merritt, a spokesman for the Lansing Police Department. When ambulances on non-emergency runs were in traffic, "rally participants slowly cleared a path," he said."
[1] https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/0...
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/de-escalation-keeps-pro...
We don't have the right to block traffic to promote our political opinions.
When protestors block traffic, if the city decides they have to go, and they won't - in those situations, it's the protesters who are 'instigating', not the police.
NRA 2cnd amendment protestors, pro/anti-abortion protestors, anti-capitalist - whatever we want it doesn't matter. If the protest violates the local or regional ordinance, and the city asks protesters to move (and they do in many cases allow the protesters to stay) - they have to move, if they don't move, it's not the police's fault that they are literally required by us, the community, to move people.
Edit: I would like to invite anyone to define exactly under what conditions people think they have the right to stop traffic at major intersections for hours on end, other than of course signalling to the city beforehand.
Referring to looters as 'looters' is not problematic.
Calling for shootings, using code-words like 'thugs' and referring to peaceful protesters as 'looters' is a problem - but let's not lose context here: there are riots and rioters are bad news.
I think in these ugly times it's even more important to be cool and clear about things.
Oakland has had a Democratic mayor since 1977. California routinely has a super-majority of Democrats in the state legislature, and the last Republican Federal Senator from the state left office almost 30 years ago. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that the second paragraph after mentioning the “fraught” relationship between black residents and the Oakland PD should have something to do with those Democrats who have direct executive and legislative control over the city and state, who are directly in charge of hiring/firing police chiefs and operating the state level internal affairs bureaus, and who set police department budgets and make the laws. And maybe the (admittedly deplorable) coded language a Republican Senator thousands of miles away uses belongs many paragraphs below that.
[1] Interesting fact. Oakland and Louisville are ranked similarly (188 versus 194) on Urban Institute’s “economic inclusiveness” index: https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/97981/...
Also, a lack of media coverage for a thing doesn't mean it doesn't happen, nor does rampant media coverage mean a thing is common. Remember the summer of the shark? [1]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Lee_lane_closure_scandal [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_of_the_Shark
However, when a civilian acts inappropriately there are legal consequences. When a police office acts inappropriately there are few legal consequences and they are very-very-rarely enforced.
I'll ask the question differently,
"Is destruction of property what you expect from rioters?" Yes, 1% or less of rioters are going to be stupid. "Should they be reprimanded?" Sadly yes, and we have specialized government entities that can utilize appropriate-force to reprimand them.
"Is destruction of property what you expect from police?" No, not even from the 1% or less that want to be stupid. That is unacceptable, their job is to protect and serve. Even from each other. "Should they be reprimanded?" Yes! but we as civilians have no legal way to do this, and even the "good cops" have no good way to do this.
What are your answers to these questions lawnchair_larry?
When peaceful protests have failed to affect change and police brutality (especially for POC) is continuing unabated.
Is removing anti-riot barricades ‘looting’ if protesters remove them from the street and out of the control of authorities in order to exercise their right to protest?
Branding someone a rioter empowers the utterer and subjugates the one deemed rioting in your framing. You seem to think it is justified to use violence against someone because of how you perceive their actions, even if they don’t hurt people, only property. There is a subtle but distinct difference. Using force to defend yourself and others has a long precedent and is largely uncontroversial in a public context such as this. However, a citizen in public generally can’t engage someone who is running away from them as they are not in imminent danger. Unless you think they are immediately returning with a weapon, you have to let them go once they get away or chase them and perform a citizen’s arrest. Shooting a fleeing person is frowned upon by the courts. Only police have that authority.
Why then are citizens taking it upon themselves to prevent looting and rioting? Defending businesses and private property from the inside and the entryway is one thing. Chasing fleeing ‘looters’ is a situation for disaster. Besides mistaken identity, which is already causing defenders and protesters who fought looters to be detained by police while actual looters escape, there are problems with armed individuals running into crowds of undifferentiable groups of protesters, looters, and rioters. How will the defenders know when to stop beating people up? How will they know if the protester defending the person next to them from collateral damage isn’t another looter? They will see what they want to see in the situation, on both sides.
Violence is not the way. I just don’t see how property damage is a mortal harm that justifies what I’m seeing. It may not be justified to damage the property, but as an individual or small group of defenders, there is no proportionality of response that makes sense against a large group of people. To start the fight is to lose on all sides. The protest will end when it ends. Lives shouldn’t end through protest, or through its consequences. One was enough to start this one. There’s a reason people do it, even if it may have knock-on effects. That’s the point. To shutdown protest because of its intended and unintended consequences is to make a means test for our constitutional rights. It’s not tolerated well in the streets or in the courtroom.
The defenders are unknowingly or knowingly participating in a counter-protest movement against the current legitimate George Floyd protests. It is being promoted through dog whistles by the right wing. It’s actually really obvious that authoritarians aren’t wasting this crisis. They start as many fires as they put out. I’m including rioters in that last part.
Right. Maybe that's why you aren't a police officer.
> I would not break formation and try to handcuff another officer in the moment
Maybe you should be a police officer.
> because it would be strategically unwise
Things need to change now.
When the police can demonstrate they are able to rein each other in, we can all go home and celebrate.
The “politically convenient group” seems to be anyone being destructive, like ...
https://twitter.com/SARAHKSTUDIO/status/1267371809084567554/...
... white women?
The sum of causing unnecessary damage and turning a blind eye to vandalism at least gives me confidence that there is a desire by many police officers to see property destroyed.
From that I can only guess at what the reasoning might be, but given that we’ve seen this method of undermining protests in the past, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume racist intent until there is evidence that begins to support an alternative conclusion.
Social media is clogged with live footage from the protests. Can you find a single video of an ambulance being stopped by protests?
The irony of your comment is that the likelihood of an ambulance being close to a protest is linked to the extreme violence that the police is using to attack and repress protests against police violence.
"The police have been acting, and continue to act, with impunity. This needs to change ASAP".
If you genuinely missed that, then we're letting you know this is the problem. And it's a widespread problem across many countries.
If you're intentionally being dishonest, then piss off.
If people don't want their intersections blocked by crows of people day after day, then they should consider the extent to which their interests are compatible with the interests of the protesters, and if necessary and reasonable, consider joining the protesters to help them achieve their goal sooner. If seventy percent of the US population were protesting, the protests wouldn't last that long - unlike in Hong Kong.
Is destruction of property what you expect from civilians?
Yes, sadly, 1% or less[1] of civilians are are going to be stupid and riot instead. And that is unacceptable.
Should they be reprimanded?
Absolutely. And we have specialized government entities that can utilize appropriate-force to reprimand them.
Is unwarranted destruction of property what you expect from police?
Yes, sadly, 1% or less[1] of police are going to be stupid and abusive. That is unacceptable, their job is to protect and serve. Even from each other.
Should they be reprimanded?
Yes! but we as civilians have no legal way to do this, and even the "good cops" have no good way to do this.
[1] We do not have data for either of these figures, so 1% is being used as a placeholder, and is not meant literally. I suspect that the percentage of criminals in the general population is far bigger than the number of police who destroy property for no reason, but I admit that I have no data for that.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "Branding someone a rioter empowers the utterer and subjugates the one deemed rioting in your framing" - a 'riot' is not a 'framing' - it's for the most part an objective fact. People trying to protest are not rioters, people smashing stores are rioters.
No doubt the press and various people will try to 'frame' in one direction or the other, but there's no escaping reality.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "Chasing fleeing ‘looters’ is a situation for disaster" of course it is, it's crazy irrational, and I hope that would be illegal everywhere, though I'm not sure. I also would hope that nobody would frame that as 'defending one's property' because it's not.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "I just don’t see how property damage is a mortal harm that justifies what I’m seeing."
Now this is a really meaty question. I agree with you, and I think most people would agree - however - in these cases the police are not using mortal aggression. There are literally riots and looting all over the country, and the police are using pepper spray, shields etc. - there were lethal responses where shots were fired (and FYI police and civilians have died amidst the riots). Also - things like rubber bullets can kill, but that's due to a probabilistic problem, not any kind of intention. Maybe the police should not use those things, but it's more of a very specific question about safety.
>>>>>>>>> "The defenders are unknowingly or knowingly participating in a counter-protest movement against the current legitimate George Floyd protests. "
There are a few things to unpack here:
'The defenders' if you mean police, then they are very lawfully authorized by you and I, the community, to move the rioters and looters out of the area, arrest them etc.. We should not for a second confuse them with some crazy folks with guns or weapons attacking protestors, that's clearly immoral and illegal. And we should also not confuse 'protesters' with 'rioters'.
As far as 'right-wing narrative' - although that is true, if anyone can't see that that there is a massive and systematic 'social narrative' (left wing?) being driven by millions of participants, even those who should be neutral, is living in a bubble.
Most importantly - there is rioting and looting. This is not being done by the police, or by some secret Russians, this is being done by people within the protest movement and it's clearly wrong. It's definitely happening and it's absolutely reasonable to point that out, and to do so is not to necessarily support some kind of narrative.
In fact, to not characterize rioters and looters as such, would be an offense against the truth, just as characterizing protesters standing on a corner with signs as 'rioters' would be as well.
Because there are a lot of people driving narratives of some kind or another (pretty much every political force and most in the press), doesn't mean we're entitled to just 'go with it', we have a responsibility to try to stay 'clear-eyed', perhaps more than ever.
Could you please help us understand your position on “Should abusive officers be reprimanded?”
And if we agree they should be reprimanded, what are your thought on how we build that system?
The system where we the civilians who witness or are victims of the abuse and other “good cops” who witness the abuse, can get legal ways to highlight and reprimand those few abusive police officers[0]?
[0] such that the person/people accusing (with evidence) the abusive police without worrying other police officers will “hold it against” the accuser.
> "To see this - traffic blocking the main intersection of a level 1 trauma centre, blocking the entrance and exit to our hospital. Blocking patients from receiving care that they need, makes me angry. It hurts. It hurts a lot," said one healthcare worker on Facebook.
> WLNS reports another posting: "You are currently blocking ambulances, physicians and caregivers from making it to work to care for the sick and relieve the exhausted workers.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
Quotes a local news story: https://www.wlns.com/news/health/coronavirus/capitol-protest...
None of you have provided any reasonably objective definition of what could constitute an otherwise illegal, and sometimes violent protest.
These responses sound a lot like right-wing NRA 2cnd Amendment people barricading in buildings with guns and police surrounding them kind of rhetoric.
All three of the responses (at the time of my response) purport arbitrary definitions of self-determined, extra-judicial action - essentially vigilantism.
Literally, people inventing some cause and then taking over public property, sometimes causing damage, or worse.
If you accept your own definitions of 'legitimate cause' - I'm afraid you're really not going to like what a lot of other Americans would like to protest, just as violently.
If people are going to protest, especially when things can get violent, they're going to have to do so in a way that's not entirely disruptive -> like gather in a park, otherwise, it's just not going to work out.
We don't get to invent the law, no matter how passionate we are about something.
There are just a ton of better ways to create change that are totally within civil and legal framework, and there are many good examples to follow. And especially the rioting is probably counter-productive in almost every sense of the terms.
> Sparrow spokesperson John Foren said there are no access problems and ambulances can “get in and out. There’s no problem.”
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/0...
The justice dept definition as updated in 2012 would include this. I don’t know how that plays out in state law, but what I’ve read points to that being the definition for state charges too. Doesn’t help when it’s not enforced, which is clearly the case here since the officer didn’t have to register as a sex offender either.
https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/blog/updated-definition...
Primary, by power of observation. But OK, I'll make this as vague and 100% foolproof as I can, to start: there are people who dress in black, and masks, and destroy stuff and commit violence at protests. That's from actual observation. It's not just 1-2, there are groups of them. That's my personal observation from being at 2 protests with such groups.
Now, combine that with all the sources references in this Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_bloc
Along with many, many, many dozens of media reports like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mr0i6piW_ak
I'm able to discern a certain pattern.
I'd like to see about 4-5 of such videos. The more the merrier. I'm totally open to changing my mind.
Yes, in almost all but the most extreme of cases. (And the people who make that determination are called "judges" not "cops".)
Should reprimanded cops continue to be cops?
No, in all but the most trivial and excusable cases. (And the people who make that determination should also be called judges not cops.)
If you get given a badge and a gun, and job that demand people to people to respect your authority, you not only get held to a higher standard than those of us without, but you also put your livelihood at stake if you choose to behave in a "stupid or abusive" manner.
It's abundantly clear to people outside the US that the cop who killed George Floyd needs to be fired and prosecuted for murder, the three cops who stood there and let him do it need to be fired and prosecuted for accessory to murder, and those four cops chain of command also needs to be investigated for culpability and almost certainly fired if not prosecuted as well. It seems unbelievable that some US citizens think otherwise. I expect that from cop unions, who've proven themselves time and time again to be completely devoid of humanity or morals, but find it unthinkable that anyone else can't see it clearly as evil thuggery from people who society has to demand better from. All four need to never be in any position of authority again. At least one of them needs to be in jail for life.
(He claimed that in the context of property damage, which hides the actual implications of that carelessness, because it wasn't police property damage that triggered this current unrest...)
I _strongly_ disagree. A cop committing assault or murder, while on the job, is a thing society needs to take great care does not happen. It's abhorrent to me to take a "shit happens" attitude to cop killings.
By your definition, black people using or destroying a whites-only bathroom as a form of protest would be off limits. I'd recommend some time away from the keyboard and do some reading about protest and the cultural history of same. As a very basic starting point, you might consider reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protest in its entirety.
Hard to evaluate the accuracy of that story.
But it's also hard to dismiss it out of hand, given known true police behaviour. A very common view from the public is that cops are totally capable of that kind of behaviour. And whether the story about the cop setting the first fire is true our not, the believability of the story is as much a problem as the possible truth of the story.
https://eurweb.com/2020/05/29/jacob-pederson-minneapolis-pol...
Yeah, I smell a pattern too...
1. Rubber bullets kill when they are used in the exact opposite way they were intended. They are not meant to be fired at people's heads. If used, they should be fired at the legs to incapacitate. This is covered in training. I very much doubt it's an accident that they wind up hitting someone in the temple.
2. I did not explicitly authorize escalation between my city police and protestors. If you want to know what works when it comes to preventing riots and looting, read: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/de-escalation-keeps-pro... I watched in my city as protestors were turned into rioters because the police reaction to the middle finger and some naughty language was riot gear and tear gas.
3. You're very confused. You explicitly say we should not confuse protestors with rioters, and then go on to say that rioting and looting is being done by people "within the protest movement". You can't have it both ways. What you don't seem to understand is that it can simultaneously be the case that there are people who are committing "crimes" to have their voices heard, and people who are committing crimes because it's an opportune time to commit them. What you fail to recognize, is that we may disagree about what a crime even is societally. And to wit, that is exactly what we're disagreeing about right now. By strict legal definition, looting is a crime. However, the motivation for the crime colors it. If someone was starving and stole a loaf of bread it would be a crime, but the motivations for that crime color it. I would not, for instance, tear gas a starving person for stealing a loaf of bread.
-- In the end, your version of "clear-eyed" is code for "whatever I deem to be the valid laws of this society", not necessarily what is truly just.
Just today, an interstate was shut down unexpectedly because of protesters. What about everyone who was trapped on that highway and could not move, let alone reroute?
Not surprisingly, your straw man is just as bad. Nobody said or implied anything remotely close to a “shit happens” attitude. Did you just not read the next sentence or something?
Actually, there are dozens of different videos showing police being badly beaten as they attempt to stop vandalism. They just don't make the news as this isn't "progressive".
https://abcnews.go.com/US/small-town-police-chief-killed-off...
https://www.insider.com/george-floyd-protests-violence-again...
I urge HNers to read that article you posted and decide for themselves if it's credible.
Then, read the wikipedia article I posted, refer to the sources at the end, google around, and decide for yourself.
And yeah, I read (and just reread) your next sentence, and it still reads as a "shit happens" attitude to me.
As I read it, you're saying there's nothing we can possibly do to ensure that rate of "stupid and abusive" cops is any lower than the rate of "stupid and rioting" civilians. (Or the most optimistic reading of it I can see is that you think we can't do any better a job of ensuring a lower rate of stupid and abusive cops than we have now.)
I think we need to do a _way_ better job of screening cop applicants before giving them a badge and gun, and hold them to a way higher standard that is currently the case.
An agent provocateur will always, except where it is physically impossible such as when no one of the right race is available for a group distinguished by race, outwardly appear as a textbook member of the targeted group. That's kind of central to the idea.
Why would anyone make a video of stopped traffic?
I'm pointing out that _cops_ do it.
And they absolutely need to be held to a higher standard than "the public", because we give them guns and state sanctioned use-of-force. They cannot do their job without respect of their authority, and they do not have that respect, and they are doing the exact opposite thing of winning it back.
While not condoning the "textbook black bloc" actions, I can see why 2 centuries of systematic oppression might lead some people in some sections of society to think there are no other options.
I have no explanation for the current police behaviour that's more sympathetic than cynical South Park quotes. And if _that's_ how they want to be portrayed? Well, I guess they're achieving it...
(And as I pointed out elsewhere in this thread, I too have doubts about the veracity of that article I posted - but it's at least in mu mind, more than plausible. And _that_ is a serious problem. I too urge HNers to decide for themselves if they trust their local police force to think none of them would ever use unnecessary force, or go agent provocateur. If you have any doubt, you have a big problem.)
(Fascinating trivia: California allowed open carry until the Mulford Act in 1967 restricted it -- directly in response to the Black Panthers practicing it. The Act was signed into law by Ronald Reagan, with the explicit support of the National Rifle Association.)
Anyways, if you're trapped in traffic and not moving, there's not much else for you to do besides get out your phone and take some video.
It's very easy to attribute actions to the police, since they very commonly wear easy-to-identify uniforms and it's illegal to impersonate them. The video above was of a uniformed police officer in the company of maybe a hundred others. It's the literal job of police to stop crimes, so if you see an officer commuting a crime and his colleagues see and don't intervene, you can assume some level of assent to the officer's criminal activity.
Even if you found a video of a looter/arsonist, how do you know they're a protester at all? If they are a protester, how do you establish what their faction is (BLM, anarchist anti-capitalist, Neo-nazi agitator, etc.)? How do you judge the attitudes of the other protesters to to their actions, given protesters aren't equipped to enforce the law and don't have the mandate to do so?
This was your hypothetical, but it’s actually reality. Protest is protest. It’s for the whole society to decide what are valid forms of it, at every level.
[1] https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2020/05/27/the-boogaloo-move...
For example it is not up to the government to define what constitutes an acceptable peaceful protest.
When you get to the point where the government defines what is and what is not an acceptable protest then you no longer have a free democracy society.
If you believe these looters are doing so for justice, then know that the people who killed Floyd will be tried for their crimes and that you can not cast all law enforcement officers with the same stone. The people that pinned down Floyd all should be punished, but if you believe all of america’s officers are the same, isn’t that like condemning all blacks when one commits murder? However, if you believe that there is systematic racism in law enforcement, wouldn’t it be healthier to petition for change peacefully and specifically instead of fucking up the city because someone was murdered?
People are more important than property, I‘m sure you‘ll say, so then I can rob you and torch your home? Of course not. If these recent flashes of theft and vandalism can be justified, please enlighten me.
Also, a new bill is being introduced to end Qualified Immunity. What are the reasons for protest at the moment?
Everyone now considers general violence and looting as legitimate actions in response to a crime committed by one police officer.
Floyd's death was a tragedy and Derek (the police officer) responsible must pay heavily for it - a 2nd or 3rd degree murder conviction should be handed down to set an example. That case should be scrutinised heavily - and it will be.
But I really don't understand why other people must suffer for one person's crime. The larger focus should be on the US police needing remedial training. Call up congressmen, call up senators. Rioting on the streets doesn't solve anything.
"Urban riots must now be recognized as durable social phenomena. They may be deplored, but they are there and should be understood. Urban riots are a special form of violence. They are not insurrections. The rioters are not seeking to seize territory or to attain control of institutions. They are mainly intended to shock the white community. They are a distorted form of social protest. The looting which is their principal feature serves many functions. It enables the most enraged and deprived Negro to take hold of consumer goods with the ease the white man does by using his purse. Often the Negro does not even want what he takes; he wants the experience of taking. But most of all, alienated from society and knowing that this society cherishes property above people, he is shocking it by abusing property rights. There are thus elements of emotional catharsis in the violent act. This may explain why most cities in which riots have occurred have not had a repetition, even though the causative conditions remain. It is also noteworthy that the amount of physical harm done to white people other than police is infinitesimal and in Detroit whites and Negroes looted in unity.
A profound judgment of today’s riots was expressed by Victor Hugo a century ago. He said, ‘If a soul is left in the darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.’
The policymakers of the white society have caused the darkness; they create discrimination; they structured slums; and they perpetuate unemployment, ignorance and poverty. It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes; but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society. When we ask Negroes to abide by the law, let us also demand that the white man abide by law in the ghettos. Day-in and day-out he violates welfare laws to deprive the poor of their meager allotments; he flagrantly violates building codes and regulations; his police make a mockery of law; and he violates laws on equal employment and education and the provisions for civic services. The slums are the handiwork of a vicious system of the white society; Negroes live in them but do not make them any more than a prisoner makes a prison. Let us say boldly that if the violations of law by the white man in the slums over the years were calculated and compared with the law-breaking of a few days of riots, the hardened criminal would be the white man. These are often difficult things to say but I have come to see more and more that it is necessary to utter the truth in order to deal with the great problems that we face in our society."
Edit: I mean, come on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eVPKpBKGCE
I believe that's the case already, Ergo, racism.
If peaceful placards and singing kumbaya really did work effectively , for black people in particular all over the world, we'd have a very different discussion. Police brutality is an extension of the governments very existence - "legitimate" violence - which is turned up to war-time levels when minorities are concerned. All this is smoke an mirrors to the contempt of a man being killed by law enforcement officer in a way that would make Ted Bundy blush.
It seems whenever black people protest, the narrative seems to be of barbarians storming the city gates. An "over-reaction" if you will. Is it? The message of the protest is clear, if a tree falls - the ground will shake. Is that unreasonable?
People have done tests with white people and black people open carrying in exactly the same way. Black open carriers got a very different police response.
I agree. But that's not the whole story; perhaps not even the main story here. "Police act like laws don't apply to them because of Qualified Immunity": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23373329
Thanks to HN commenter @yyyk ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23382006 ), we learn that in 1967, the Supreme Court held that:
- "Few doctrines were more solidly established at common law than the immunity of judges from liability for damages for acts committed within their judicial jurisdiction... "
- "This immunity applies even when the judge is accused of acting maliciously and corruptly... " and - "... the immunity of legislators for acts within the legislative role was not abolished. The immunity of judges for acts within the judicial role is equally well established... "
- "The common law has never granted police officers an absolute and unqualified immunity" but "... a police officer is not charged with predicting the future course of constitutional law... " and "the defense of good faith and probable cause... available to the officers in the common-law action for false arrest and imprisonment, is also available to them in the action under § 1983 [Civil action for deprivation of rights]."
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Pierson_v._Ray/Opinion_of_the...
After which followed a cascade of case law that granted police officers, and others similarly anointed, a "qualified immunity" to trials (including pre-trial discovery): https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/qualified_immunity
Oakland lies within the ambit of the U.S. Supreme Court so, as long as qualified immunity remains the law of the land, local officials have limited ability to change a long-standing police culture of impunity.
> coded language a Republican Senator thousands of miles away uses belongs many paragraphs below that.
I disagree. Thanks to telecommunications, social media, and other new-fangled technologies, powerful and influential persons can cause action at a distance of thousands of miles. "Thousands of miles away" is meaningless in instances in which powerful persons can transmit or impose effects tens of thousands of miles away.
Edit: formatting
Protests and looting are a symptom of much deeper ills.
Also,
> you would be hard pressed to find a law that oppresses anyone by race. Racist laws? No. Classicist laws? Yes.
With all due respect, this position exposes a lack of understanding of US history, and I'm not just talking about slavery or the civil rights act.
Some things to Google if you want to open that Pandora's jar:
- Redlining
- Poll taxes
- Nixon starting "War on Drugs" to target black communities
- Federal exclusion of black families from New Deal homebuying programs
Many of the laws and policies that have targeted black people specifically are also classist through a certain lens, but when you look closer it's usually targeting poor people because poor Americans are disproportionately black.
It's that blocking traffic is a material, aggressive escalation of a protest that could have very negative ramifications to the cause. Not only does it really really piss people off, it puts human bodies in direct conflict with vehicles and could potentially block travel to someone that needs urgent medical attention.
If that's your jam then go for it. For my part, if i am in a vehicle with family and we are in a traffic jam due to a protest, i'm going to be in an agitated state...not because of the delay but because of the inability to escape. I'll wait it out, but if people start attacking my car and breaking windows, i'm hitting the gas till i see daylight. That innate sense of how i would respond and is why i think people should approach blocking traffic with caution.
But I feel compelled to object to your seeming attitude that things would work themselves out without the need to protest.
I strongly believe that two wrongs don't make a right. But one wrong observed in silence is tragic.
You question the reason for protest when there is some bill being introduced. I posit that the bill would not exist without the protests. I also remind you that a horrible, terrible war was fought to end inequality over 150 years ago. I remind you that the civil rights movement was more than 50 years ago. Why protest when those already solved all the problems?
We must always be willing to step up against injustice. It is not a one and done proposition.
This in no way excuses people who are just taking the opportunity to steal a TV. Or who mistakenly channel their emotions by destroying or injuring.
But more to my point, police are not judges, lawyers, or most important, juries. They don’t decide what is just. They just deliver those suspected of lawbreaking to the judicial system, which determines guilt or innocence under the law. As far as the legal system is concerned, everyone has presumption of innocence. The way you are characterizing people as looters or rioters is to say that what they are doing is unlawful, but that’s just like your opinion, man. One person’s rioter is another person’s edgy protesting neighbor. It’s for the courts to decide which behavior is law-abiding. If they aren’t convicted, they were not found to be in violation of the law, yet. It’s strange for you to presume they would found guilty just because you disagree with their actions. Sounds authoritarian to me and not in step with our justice system or the times.
Because people like you are hell bent on smearing the protests, resorting even to come up with made-up accusations like ambulances stuck in traffic, and any evidence would provide some support to those claims.
But apparently even that is hard to come by. So here we are, stuck with fabrications and imaginary "what if" scenarios.
Work is an escalation that could literally cost lives..
If you think this is one man, think again. Give me a city and I can give you the unarmed black person killed by police - Dallas, it's Botham Jean. Miami, it's Trayvon Martin. New York, it's Dwayne Brown. Years and years and so little done.
And now, people are now in the streets in reaction to police violence against people in the streets. If you see protesters being shot with tear gas for the crime of kneeling and shouting, people are going to come out and make their voices heard.
And this is working. Minneapolis Ward 3's district commissioner is calling for police abolition. For once, for absolute once, the media is actually on the side of the protesters, because once they got over the shock, they saw their own being attacked by police just as much. So before you say it doesn't solve anything, look at what it's already accomplished, and look what it can accomplish soon.
And I didn't hear anyone make the argument any of those things should be banned to prevent the potential loss of life from someone trying to get to a hospital while not in an ambulance.
It really seems like an isolated demand for safety.
side comment: Loving the downvotes for a legitimate point. When did hacker news turn into reddit?
But police abolition is not going to solve anything for you folks. It will mean an extraordinary increase in crime. I have lived in multiple nations and a strict police is better than police who do nothing. You will be at the mercy of crime lords. And no business store owner will open a shop in a police-free district.
All these rioters for freedom and dignity are fine on the TV. When people are on the wrong side of the mob, they change their minds pretty quick.
https://mobile.twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/126675152005...
What I advocate for is a series of measures where trained members of the community, as a job, are in charge of primarily, defusing conflict, secondarily, preventing crime, and as a last resort, enforcing community standards and laws. No arrest quotas, limited jail, no cash bail, no mandatory minimum sentencing. This sounds like what I hear police are like in other places, but existing police power structures are powerful and resistant to reform, so wholesale replacement appears to be the best tactic.
Maybe you think all this won't happen. I have lived in poor and powerless communities earlier in life and seen all these things happen without a proper police presence. I had my sister assaulted when I was young and was unable to do anything about it. I despise 'community policing'. The cliques it creates is far worse than the full hammer of the full armed forces.
Anyways, I wish USA the best of luck. I really hope the looting and rioting in NY stops soon.
He's isn't "firing [himself] up.." as you say, he's thinking out what could possibly happen and considering what his options are.
If you wait until you're in such a situation (people are breaking into your car and threatening to harm the occupants) you simply don't have sufficient time to think out those options - you must think and prepare ahead of time. For those who live in places where riots or firefight break out regularly, this is the proper and usual way to prepare.
FWIW in most of the USA it isn't homicide if you kill an attacker(s), provided you are defending life or limb of yourself, others and/or your property.
- https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/services/law-enforcement/perm....
Theoretical grandstanding over an unlikely hypothetical scenario to condemn protesters is being obtuse.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23398553
Thank you either way.
This looting causes a lot of personal damage, people are losing their life savings and livelihoods, and nobody seems to care.
I see a lot of rhetoric and populism trying to side-step the issue and it really needs to be clear - there's a very wide gap between 'protesting' and 'looting' and they are not 'shades of the same thing'.
Also, I'm not sure if it's legal or appropriate to even 'protest' out in the open, on highways or streets - I think these things need to move to controlled ares, like in front of city hall or in parks, but that's a slightly different matter.
I'm also not entirely condemning people 'caught up in a riot' as I understand these things happen in social waves, and people would be doing things they might not otherwise. It's not a big moral condemnation, it's an articulation of reality.
I'm actually sympathetic to the protesters overall, but I lose sympathy quickly when I see it out of hand. I also think we need to be sympathetic to the police, and accept that we, as citizens are giving them a nary impossible task - which is to use force to move people out of an area, and then somehow remain within perfect contraints at all times. Some of the police actions are beyond unreasonable and they should go to jail, but I'm not even sure that it's systematic. What can we expect by sending 5000 officers in to physically move aggressive, often violent people out of the way. Punches will fly in some cases. Batons, purposeful harm with weapons, irresponsible use of fire arms - this is too much obviously and has to be punished.
I'm really happy to show support for reforming police actions, but I'm not going to take sides in a 'civic street war'.
What's happening now is just shameful for almost every party.
If you had read the comment carefully instead of rapidly responding with a "rebuttal" based on your ideology, you might have realized that.
I think that we should publish short-sleeve mug photos of all these groups, because both anarchists and white supremacists often have identifying tattoos. Let there be light. The more transparency the better.
But unless I manage to convince myself that, somehow, police agent provocateurs or white supremacists were staging riots and destruction at Trump's inauguration (see video below[1], there are many others from those riots by mainstream media outlets), then my prior is currently that most of the people engaging in these tactics are the same people who have done it for the past 2-3 decades, which I've witnessed in person.
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mr0i6piW_ak
To clarify, are you suggesting that all this the riots, looting, and assaults are being done by agents provocateurs? Most of them? Some of them? Just that one autozone?
Protest and looting are shades of the same idea. If you don't care about us taking up space in your streets, maybe you may care about being deprived of your corporate assets. Corporations aren't people. People are people. If harming corporations leads to an increase in human rights, that is a net gain for society. To question whether the cost is too high like you do shows you care more for property, capital, and the people who wield these asset classes, than you do for those who have cause to protest. Just because you don't share their cause célèbre does not invalidate it.
Reasonable people can disagree. It's impossible to be reasonable or disagree if you're killing someone or being killed. The police actions up to this point have been unreasonable, and so the response of the public is currently outside the scope of actions that can have a reasonableness standard applied to them. Protest is inherently justified by the Constitution. The response to police brutality and lack of internal reform proves the police think they are right to kill people and don't need to change. That's why the protests continue. To stop protesting now would be to negotiate with terrorists. The protests must continue as long and until the police come to the table with protesters and stakeholders, and they all negotiate a solution.
And planning does matter, because when events are planned, proper detours can be set up with signage.
This is not theoretical grandstanding, this is recognizing a potential threat.
jcims didn't say that he would be "Driving a car into a crowd..." as you state.
Clearly, if rioters begin beating a car and breaking windows the driver has the option of surviving by driving to preserve life, limb and property.
jascii says>"mentally training yourself to make that a "valid option" can be extremely dangerous."<
Have you ever been surrounded by a mob or mobs while driving a vehicle? We're discussing it here, so you've now at least considered (and possibly once experienced) such a situation: otherwise how could you claim that such an option can be, as you state, "extremely dangerous"?
Tell us your valuable experiences, please.
BTW there's plenty on this topic previously on the innertubes:
https://urbansurvivalsite.com/caught-riot-driving/
https://www.quora.com/What-are-my-legal-options-if-my-car-is...
That's just lawlessness.
There's not way to make up the rules as we go along, using the 'winds of the day' and what's happening on the news to determine what's a legit protest and what is not.
We do decide collectively what's what by using laws and policies. We make those, we make them clear, and then we apply them.
It seems as though you can't block traffic at a busy intersection 'because' - and so whatever the protest is today, it's not right.
We can't make up as we go along, that's chaos.
People can protest in parks, in front of city hall etc. - that works, it's peaceful and within civil framework.
You haven’t responded to my legal arguments and justifications. You are moving the goalposts and doubling down. Please keep on point or I will not have any substantial points to respond to.
My main point is protest is what protest does: force the issue. The methods of protest are varied and of disproportionate impact to society. If protest is to succeed, social impact must be calibrated to the received response to protester demands. If no response or negative response is received, increase social impact to belligerent parties and the general public, if necessary. Protest without corresponding social impact is ineffectual at forcing the issue but can be effective in virtue-signaling, which can create a virtuous loop of increasing awareness and support, and increasing numbers of protesters.
I replied "I don't believe you."
You responded by showing one video. I'm still waiting.