>>novia+(OP)
A laudable idea but why restrict it to the protests? There's a problem with police brutality in lots of places and at lots of times (even just the perception of it), perhaps a more standard way to report and record which can be replicated easily and hence, compared better, might be an idea. (As I was writing an issue opened up on this kind of point https://github.com/2020PB/police-brutality/issues/83)

It seems to me that the current set up excludes the vast majority of people (who are unlikely to know markdown, Git, or Github) which limits its effectiveness.

>>_bxg1+S2
The Web App repo is here [0]

0: https://github.com/ubershmekel/2020PoliceBrutality

>>novia+(OP)
There's one from NYC that says: "A police officer forcefully pulls off a protestors face mask and pepper sprays him. The protestor had his hands up in surrender when this happened."

From https://github.com/2020PB/police-brutality/blob/master/repor...

If you look at the video though the guy was pushing towards the officer against the officer's hand. What do you expect to happen when you decide to aggress on an officer instead of back away?

Here's the video they link https://twitter.com/_doreenpt/status/1266994439039455232

How many other incidents are there in this repo that are unfairly listed/described?

>>RcouF1+w5
Many of those white people arrested for said looting have been tied back to white supremacists groups who seem to be trying to discredit the protestors.

This is all happening fast so I can't say this is the best source, but: https://www.courthousenews.com/minnesota-officials-link-arre...

>>kyrra+d5
Wide scale police brutality and a lack of accountability or change over 30 years+. Rodney King. Ferguson. The countless names and incidents in between. In my hometown, there was a young black man shot 17 times in the back that sparked local protests just like these where tear gas was also deployed. That was 15 years ago now. This story has looked the same and nothing has changed, and we are finally seeing it boil over at a national level.

Look at some of the efforts by this organization, who existed before Trump even was on the radar, to understand: https://www.joincampaignzero.org/#vision

>>novia+(OP)
This tweet has a good two minute video of some of these cases, for those who are questioning if this is "valid" as I have seen in many threads.

https://twitter.com/JordanUhl/status/1266917228752056320

>>RcouF1+w5
https://streamable.com/kgvoqv - louis vutton looted

https://streamable.com/kc5hwj - amazon truck stopped and looted

https://streamable.com/jmr7ez - liquor store looted

https://streamable.com/x8rb8h - another liquor store looted

https://streamable.com/2ka2cm - store manniquens looted

https://streamable.com/53l2qd - office looted and trashed

https://streamable.com/x3al2j - target looted 1

https://streamable.com/e706oz - target looted 2

https://streamable.com/d9t0au - target looted - 3

https://youtu.be/hF6mMCwc8GY?t=6961 [Embed] - target looted 4

https://streamable.com/m3n5ju - ohio statehouse broken into

https://streamable.com/z2ffvm - arsonist sets fire to himself (disturbing)

https://streamable.com/2wjxc0 - daytime looting

https://youtu.be/HUptzxyfpgQ?t=285 [Embed] - people pulling cars up to stores to load loot hauls

https://youtu.be/hF6mMCwc8GY?t=1944 [Embed] - drug store looted by mob https://youtu.be/hF6mMCwc8GY?t=4349 [Embed] - back of store looted out onto street

https://youtu.be/hF6mMCwc8GY?t=5077 [Embed] - store mobbed cop car smashed

https://imgur.com/BPPgQu9 - nations most revered science

fiction bookstore and priceless collection torched

https://streamable.com/6710vr - LA's favela like conditions post-riots

https://streamable.com/vqi0vm - minneapolis aftermath warzone

https://streamable.com/94c32c - minneapolis first night pandemonium

https://streamable.com/revv8g - sympathetic protesters get their windows smashed for no reason

How does anyone watch these scenes and perform the mental gymnastics required to believe all the rioting and looting was secretly done by white supremacists?

>>novia+(OP)
Probably a bit of a controversial opinion but in some cases I can sympathize with the police officers. The reality is that the vast majority of them likely condemn the events around George Floyd's death. They are also regular people with families, children and friends they have to provide for. And they have the exact same problems that many of us do. Their daily work involves keeping things in order, which is something I respect. That said, the first video I opened at random[1] shows a small number of people blocking a road in what looks more like a civil war scene rather than a protest. And the authorities are greeted with "F-U" and people tossing objects at them. The people in uniforms are ordinary people. Put yourself in their shoes and tell me: having all the problems you have, seeing all the destruction, which in all cases is no longer a protest, people shouting "f-u" and throwing stuff at you: You can be the most mentally stable human being but everyone has a limit. Many of those men are possibly working overtime, in extreme conditions and I bet they would much rather be with their kids or sick parents for instance. With this idea in mind, I personally can't picture myself being able to remain calm and not overstep my boundaries sooner or later.

Now putting myself in the shoes of the protesters: seeing the same destruction, destroying of properties, cars and businesses, I'll call it a day because this is no longer a protest. I'd go back home and wait for this to be taken care of and join a civilized protest once this has been taken care of. A civilized country should be able to hold a civilized protest. And having spent most of my life in eastern Europe, you can say I know a thing or two about protests. Last large protest I was a part of was in ~2013 irrc and the aftermath was very different. The night after each of those protests, everything was spotless clean, people thew all their garbage in the bins, nothing broken or destroyed. People were coming with their children and pets and being completely comfortable with it. There was a completely unrelated incident of a gas explosion at a Chinese restaurant, which burned a nearby shop. People gathered donations fo the shop owner to recover. Incidents with police? Practically none during ~3 months of daily protest. And we are talking eastern Europe - the police officers are anything but the nicest people on the planet.

[1] https://twitter.com/XruthxNthr/status/1266903223220097024

>>adjkan+K9
This one is from a link further down. I think it tells pretty much everything. https://twitter.com/stephtseo/status/1267680737915924480?s=0...

>>adjkan+N8
> Signs of any organized effort or even participation in the violence were relatively rare. “I have not seen any clear evidence that white supremacists or militiamen are masking up and going out to burn and loot,” said Howard Graves, a research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center who tracks white supremacist and other anti-government extremist groups.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/31/us/george-floyd-protests-...

>>novia+(OP)
Just a heads-up: before you get angry, bear in mind the situation is evolving and that the context and the timing information are very relevant. Here's why: at least in NYC, I know the protest leaders and the NYPD police chief got together just a day or two ago to have a dialog and try to mend things so they can work together instead of against each other. [1] They don't hate each other, and in any case, both sides realize they need the other's support. They just want to be able to work together to keep things peaceful. And it seems like they're giving each other another chance to do things right, and it's important that they get that chance instead of having more tensions flare again as a result of anger from 3 days ago.

So, before you get worked up about what happened, check the date, and try to see if there's any local news in the city that might indicate something might have changed in the meantime. You won't necessarily see these on frontpage headlines, so it might take a bit of digging. (I've found actual videos from local news reporting on the ground much more helpful than textual articles from national outlets here. It seems to me it's just too difficult to capture all the relevant dynamics, emotion, and nuance in text.)

In fact, if anyone's involved, I would suggest putting this information in the repo here as well. You don't want to add fuel onto a fire that was already under control a few days ago, and you want to know when (or whether) good progress is being made. Ultimately the goal is to find a working model that others can hopefully emulate.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJGT06zIUiY&t=2m32s

>>brigan+v3
There's already a few more general repos out there. For example, this one focuses on US attrocities: https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/us_atrociti...

And this one is a general one about America's shit: https://github.com/mikeizbicki/american-shit (disclaimer: it's my repo)

>>DarthG+eb
White supremacists or militiamen (that can be specifically identified as such) no, but there seem to be a suspiciously high number of videos showing masked up young white kids who are cleary instigating destruction, and encouraging others to do so.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/law-enfo...

How true is all this? We'll likely never know, but it seems odd that the media and FBI seem to have very little interest in this very plausible scenario.

>>war102+q6
Long,_hot_summer_of_1967

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long,_hot_summer_of_1967

>>war102+63
Trevor Noah gave an incredibly insightful commentary about this here: https://youtu.be/v4amCfVbA_c

I highly recommend watching it even if you don't like or usually don't agree with him. He frames this as a row of dominoes and the societal contract that black people constantly see violated.

>>eanzen+wa
No:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/fbi-finds-no-evidence-of-antif...

>>mehrda+gc
While coming to the table is important and I think reacting thoughtfully to this is important, I think it's important to note that these incidents of police brutality are being documented a lot more due to the current events and scale but these are far from isolated to these protests. It's simply much easier to avoid being recorded in day to day life while everyone has their cameras out for these.

As far as rational, controlled, and motivated anger goes, what day these events happen on should not stand in the way. This needs to be harnessed to enact massive structural change of course, not online flame wars or unproductive methods of protest. Still, that very anger you see is also able to be used to motivate many people to add in ways they may not have before. White people are starting to understand that they can be used as literal shields [1] against police brutality, and that should not be lost in this. There is much to be gained in a positive way from this anger.

I do appreciate your general sentiment here, I just wanted to underscore that the anger here, particularly that felt by POC, has deep roots beyond these incidents and can be used positively. I think that caveat is where we agree - how to harness that anger.

[1] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EZJ5P_gWAAADwpQ.jpg https://twitter.com/michellebhasin/status/126747635543387750...

>>pstuar+9h
100% agreed, I tried to highlight that with the + but I think this nit is helpful and will hopefully flag this for people who might not think back to that type of history, like how sheriffs were originally created to track down runaway slaves. Perhaps this showing of true colors is just underscoring their original purpose and how little the system and culture within it has changed.

https://plsonline.eku.edu/insidelook/brief-history-slavery-a...

>>asiach+li
> that video.

First of all, it's two videos. Watch the aerial view in the immediate reply. (If you didn't see it, you can find it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/gv0ru3/this_is_the...)

> I see a policeman grab

You see an attempted robbery resulting in the destruction of someone's private property.

> I see then someone else reach

You see a person trying to hold onto their property as they're pulled over the fence because a cop just assaulted them.

> I see the police then react

You see the police immediately start spraying and bombing and gassing, with the flimsiest excuse, an entire crowd of people who are literally just chanting.

This coordinated initiation of violence is extremely typical from the police playbook. Watch this third video from 26:30 as the filmer explains the meaning of a "posture" change when the police swap in gasmask brutes in place of the bicycle cops who were standing there before, showing that they planned to escalate from the beginning. https://www.facebook.com/omarisal/videos/10220021035848747/

>>novia+(OP)
Here's a thread by T. Greg Doucette, a public defender and 1st amendment litigator who is white and conservative-leaning but who also attended an HBCU.

https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1266752393556918273

The thread was at 185ish at last count. It has been growing since he started it on May 30.

>>arel+hb
Or just go here: https://old.reddit.com/r/2020PoliceBrutality

>>boolea+p7
Maybe they should do that, but make sure to exclude the ones that are insured. Because that's not a net loss.

Also be sure to include the ones that police are responsible for like this car that the Riverside Sherrif busted out for no reason: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_XERvsXvSU

>>novia+(OP)
You can also contribute to the press freedom tracker. https://pressfreedomtracker.us/

>>novia+(OP)
See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23393914, which is still on the front page.

>>robert+Cp
No, this guy was left to die in the street. His killers weren't caught.

He was a cop for 38 years before becoming chief of Moline Acres, Mo: https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/500839-retired-st-l...

This is what anti police hatred brewing in this country leads to. Gang violence. You embolden true criminals.

>>adjkan+Ss
We downweighted it as a follow-up submission [1]. Follow-ups are by definition repetitive, and repetition goes against curiosity which is the root principle here [2].

I'm sorry, because this seems like a good project, and as a reader I approve. But as a moderator, the perspective is different—the quesiton is always, is there enough SNI (significant new information [3]) to support a significantly different discussion? in this case vis-à-vis https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23393914, which has been on the front page all day? The answer seems to be no, because the comments in this thread aren't about the specifics of the repository—they're just about the general topic of police brutality. In other words this thread just gets sucked into the stronger gravitational field of the more generic topic, which unfortunately is what happens to most posts that fly too close to a large hot planet (i.e. a hot ongoing thread).

All that said, I'm tempted to contradict myself ("very well then I contradict myself") and dump the other thread in favor of this one, because I can feel there's something interesting here. So how about a compromise: if someone still feels like this post is interesting after, say, two weeks have gone by, they can email hn@ycombinator.com and we can arrange a repost. I was originally going to say one week, but that's sort of on the cusp between now and the future. Two weeks is more on the future side.

[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

[3] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

p.s. People who say "hope that doesn't come off as confrontational or accusatory" are the least of our worries :)

>>johnny+mr
https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1268071090389053440

>>Dyslex+nn
In NYC, many looters are coming down from their residences in Harlem and the Bronx, many brazenly by car, often with fake or covered plates, and raiding stores in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens. There is no logistical targeting of large corporate properties. Everything from the corner store to local eateries is being smashed, grabbed, and burned. Many local store owners had their safes stolen.

The looters are motivated by selfish greed and clearly have an affinity for the most expensive commodities ie. Nike, Apple, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and Rolex. But they still aren't surgically striking - the picture you falsely paint.

Many are even dumb enough to indiscriminantly destroy their own local neighborhoods, targeting both small and large businesses.[1,2]

Now, why would any outside investor, or even a poor entrepreneur who lives in the area, invest in the area, knowing that this infantile us vs them, poor vs businesses is going to be dominant narrative and zeitgeist of that area's people?

Investors wont take the same chances again if they are unappreciatively and scornfully seen as "rich man building a starbucks where it doesn't belong."

The people from these areas claim they want prosperity but deface and burn down anything with a mediocrum of betterment. By process of elimination, they want a poor uninvested area. Their message rang loud and clear in the last week: do not build nice things because then you are a "no-face corporate capitalist."

[1] https://youtu.be/hkW4yasOBtY

[2] https://www.foxnews.com/us/looters-run-wild-in-bronx-as-vide...

>>johnny+Uu
https://www.mercurynews.com/killing-of-federal-security-offi...

I heard about this from the Tim Pool podcast. Possibly they simply used the protests as cover to do this.

>>ebg13+Ni
The aerial video doesn't help at all. If you're being unkind to the protesters then the ground level video shows a protester shoving an umbrella in a policeman's face which is the start of the entire thing. The policeman reacts as anyone would when someone shoves something in their face, they grab/bat it away. That causes others to reach over the fence which would appear threatening and then the spray starts.

If you're assuming good intentions on the part of that protestor then the umbrella being over the fence and in the face of an officer was just an accident of being too close the fence so that their umbrella ended up in the police officer's face. The result is the same, the protester is crossing the line like the "I'm not touching you" meme. The officer has an umbrella shoved in their face and they react.

https://www.slideshare.net/Matthewthig/4-11-am-im-not-touchi...

From the officer's POV this (https://pasteboard.co/Jbm1UXn.jpg) is a protester trying to intentionally block their view or just annoy them.

I know you won't accept that interpretation as remotely valid because you've already decided there is only one correct way to see it.

I'm not placing blame and I'm not defending the police. I'm just pointing out your interpretation of what happened is just that, an interpretation. There is at least one other perfectly valid interpretation.

>>asiach+bw
Here's another incident with 2 interpretations

https://twitter.com/EDDIFUL/status/1267338642617364481?s=20

1) The simple police brutality

2) Kid grabs policeman, policeman reacts

You can see the kid reach for the officer. The officer reacted. Whether it was actually a threat I have no idea. The officer is trying to pass. The kid effectively corners him into a wall, intentionally or not, and then reaches toward the officer. Maybe it was supposed to be a friendly tap on the upper arm but in the middle of such a situation it's not hard to believe whatever the kid reached for felt like a threat to the officer.

Again I'm not trying to defend the police but if you want people to come together, if you want that 1/2 of the nation that's on the wrong side to support your cause, then you need less ambiguous examples. Otherwise it's just easy to dismiss it.

Other than taking the kid down there is no visible brutality in that video.

>>mehrda+gc
Update: and it indeed seems things have now started taking a positive turn:

> The eighth night of protests saw less violence, fewer police clashes and more acts of civil disobedience.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/03/us/us-protests-wednesday-geor...

>>novia+(OP)
While we're on the topic, here is another useful program that removes metadata from images on github, of anyone can take the time to look over the source code and verify it does what it says that would be super useful:

https://everestpipkin.github.io/image-scrubber/

>>ebg13+J71
I'm not trolling and dang should have banned banned your message for name calling.

There is no brutality in that video. The officers wraps his arm around the kid and pulls him to the ground slowly and safely. There is no evidence in that video the kid got a single scratch or bruise. If there is evidence of actual violence it's not in that video.

There are videos of actual violence.

https://twitter.com/vantaepedia/status/1266055700515520512

no need to use the ambiguous videos that don't actually help change minds but only preach to the choir.

Black Lives Matter!