I think it would really help both in terms of outcomes as well as the perception of police if they gave this kind of clear description of what's going to happen. As it stands now, the curfews aren't enforced with any kind of regularity, so they just cause confusion.
As someone who has participated in protests for 5 out of the last 6 days and was tear gassed, I can tell you that protestors are much more peaceful when the cops keep a distance. Once the armor shows up and the tear gassing starts protestors get angry.
I've watched videos of peaceful protestors getting shield bashed by police which causes them to get really angry and then they get a beat down for being angry about it. It's a pretty human response to get angry when someone gets physically aggressive towards you.
Say you have opposing factions protesting each other (let’s say people seeking independence versus those who want to remain a colony somewhere). Should police just allow them to beat each other or instill some order?
Additionally, the essential workers who work overnight hours also tend to be disproportionately minorities—the same people police disproportionately arrest and brutalize.
Curfews are another really misguided attempt to quell otherwise peaceful protests, and only serve to escalate tensions.
Just baffling and terrible.
I think curfews do have a place when there's massive looting happening and the police need the streets clear so they can prevent it, but there hasn't been enough looting in several days to justify curfews.
another thing common language to communicate through the two sides. Police are abusive when clearing the streets, they push and club people, they spray them when they turn around and stop moving. A protester isn't going to know what is happening and it is human nature to turn around and ask, which police respond to by hitting them. It is a bit of insanity.
City leadership doesn't have control. Fired cops get reinstated. When criticized or acted against, they retaliate against civilian leadership.
https://twitter.com/MplsWard3/status/1267891878801915904
> Politicians who cross the MPD find slowdowns in their wards. After the first time I cut money from the proposed police budget, I had an uptick in calls taking forever to get a response, and MPD officers telling business owners to call their councilman about why it took so long.
https://gizmodo.com/nypd-union-doxes-mayors-daughter-on-twit...
> A New York City Police Department union known for its controversial attacks against Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted out the personally identifying information of his daughter on Sunday night, including a residential address and her New York State ID number.
https://www.cityandstateny.com/articles/politics/new-york-ci...
> Lynch’s most infamous comment, the one that many believe set New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio running scared from the cause of police reform, came after a man shot two NYPD officers in Brooklyn in 2014. The slain officers’ “blood on the hands starts at City Hall in the Office of the Mayor,” Lynch said. The PBA president blamed de Blasio because the mayor acknowledged, in the wake of Garner’s death, that racially disparate policing exists in New York City. Cops subsequently turned their back on de Blasio at the slain officers’ funeral, and the mayor has sided with the cops ever since.
> But to understand why the mayor does what he does, one must understand what he’s up against. On Monday, The City reported that since 2015 the PBA has spent upwards of $1.4 million on lobbying and campaign contributions. In addition to conventional political advocacy for their interests, as City & State noted in a 2019 cover story, “the cops also have the power to undermine a mayor by refusing to do their job.” In December 2014, when Lynch blamed the two officers’ murders on de Blasio, NYPD officers made two-thirds fewer arrests and wrote 94% fewer tickets than they had during the same period the year before. The PBA has also moved to block new policies intended to increase transparency and accountability, for example by suing to prevent the release of body camera footage.
That is what they are doing. The theory is that once they put someone through being arrested, that person will not continue coming to protests the following days.
I’m am certainly not agreeing with the tactic, but that is why they are doing it.
Some places have teen curfews and such and I’m not sure they have been struck down everywhere, so I think the lagality varies by jurisdiction.
It is an interesting question with intersectionality with remain in place orders as well. Can the gov keep you from going places? Seems most states have had some shelter in place orders.
They say to never attribute to malice what you can attribute to stupidity, but I just really don't know which way to go on this one.
https://www.pix11.com/news/local-news/manhattan/mayor-blasts...
> Mayor Bill de Blasio spoke out overnight after videos went viral on social media Thursday appearing to show a delivery worker being arrested by police in Manhattan while making a delivery past the city's 8 p.m. curfew.
If only..
You realize that the heart of the issue has nothing to do with rules, conventions, or regulations, right?
You could create all those rules you listed, and then so many police would just ignore them, abuse or harm people (especially people of color), and their colleagues would not intervene.
NYPD is a lot of things, but stupid is not one of them. They know all the tricks and are not afraid of the ethical implications of them.
Imagine this scenario: Maybe 80% of the protesters are totally planning on going home at 8pm. You have 15% who are stubborn and don't like to be told what to do; they'll go home at 9pm if they're asked to insistently, just to show that you're not their boss. And 5% who are downright looking for a confrontation and won't go home until it's clear they won't get one.
What happens when you apply your rubric?
Well, when you apply your force at 8:30, those 15% move from the "stubborn" camp to the "confrontational" camp. In the 80%, there will be people who see the unnecessary violence, and move to the "stubborn" camp; in addition to people who tried to get home by 8:30 but couldn't for whatever reason.
Now you've got 30% of your protesters in the "confrontational" camp. The police get more defensive, and start doing stupid things like shooting people before 7:30. Congrats, now 40% of the people are in the confrontational camp.
Malcolm Gladwell recently posted a chapter from a book he wrote, concerning The Troubles in Northern Ireland, as a podcast recently; it addresses one of the core assumptions in your suggestion, that people are simple cost-benefit calculators, and so that with enough force, you can make impose your will on people. It never really turns out the way people think it will.
Why do they need to set bail at all? There wasn't even property damage! Just take name and address and issue an appearance ticket for a court date, if one is needed at all.
Meanwhile the Minneapolis killers are out on bail. They committed a violent crime, they are a flight risk, there are concerns about witness intimidation, yet they are out on bail. It's clear that the system is broken.
I think you're getting wires severely crossed there. The National Guard is staying at hotels, but the government'll certainly be paying for that lodging.
https://dcist.com/story/20/06/03/federal-troop-lodging-at-ma...
There's a dispute over who pays (Feds vs DC):
An armed protest without riot-police presence is normally more quiet than a peaceful protest with their presence.
It was a wrong call to send them to a peaceful protest in the first place. They should have published a proper schedule and location for the protest and let people to share their voices.
Police shouldn't guard the protesters. That's a recipe for chaos. They should guard the city, businesses, and take care of safety of protesters.
And it gets worst when the government focus is pushing police harder and harder to end the protest instead of helping them by telling people that their voice has been heard. Police under pressure starts overreacting to protesters instead of taking care of looters which has nothing to do with protesters.
No matter how much they try to control. Often they just get tired, things get messy and overwhelming and they start to beat people.
Now sadly there are also a small number of police force that are just waiting for a day to have an opportunity to enjoy and exercise all the anti-riot trainings they had with their fancy equipment. And that's where you see stupid unnecessary violence from police and no sign that they regret doing that.
https://twitter.com/sunriseon7/status/1267587976986427393
Same incident, different camera angle: https://twitter.com/benyc/status/1267587033783992322 . We can see the first officer shield-bashing the crew unprovoked, and a 2nd officer come in to baton-smack the reporter.
As members of the press, they are morally obligated to be there, recording what is going on. And it is pretty clear that the Police charge and attack the cameracrew in this instance.
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This was the stupid decision of two officers. However, we can bet that this "stupid decision" will go unpunished. Which is the entire point of the protests. The Police do not seem to have any mechanism for feedback in these circumstances, and can do whatever they want.
The protesters now want this officer to be punished. But once again, we have no mechanism to punish police officers in the USA.
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A few more aggravating factors:
* DC has a ton of different police departments due to the confusing structure of the city / not a state / seat of the federal government. Case in point: were these officers Secret Service? DC Park police? Metropolitan Police Department ? Unclear who to blame right now.
* Its unclear because these officers in this instance taped over their badges and identification. We don't know the names of the cops in riot gear, we don't know who they were working for. We don't know the chain of command.
* This happened roughly 45-minutes BEFORE curfew. The President (or really: Attorney General Barr) seemed to want the area cleared for a Press Briefing on Monday, but this fact was not clearly communicated to the protesters, nor to members of the press.
* Given all the advantages Police officers have in the justice system, it is unlikely that if we press charges (even if we managed to get the names of the officers in this incident) that the courts would ever be on our side. The courts overwhelmingly take the side of officers.
I will note: there's clearly one officer who is holding back his colleague in this instance, who provides room for the cameraman and the reporter to escape. There are "good guys" in the police department, but it is increasingly looking like a minority.
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The "Go home before curfew" argument doesn't work in these circumstances. With protesters (and reporters) getting bashed long before the curfew, its only natural for the protesters to not respect the curfew anymore.
Source? All I can find is that bail was set at $750k or more each. I haven't seen anything that said that someone paid it.
All of those full face respirators the cops are wearing would also work great for healthcare workers, who are still dealing with COVID-19. Specifically anything with pink cartridges has a P100 particulate filter, the highest level of filtration (99.97% vs N95 95%). When you see a picture of cops wearing or holding respirators, you should think of the nurses, EMTs, and vulnerable people that have been deprived of that PPE, just so the cops don't have to think about which direction the wind is blowing before they open fire on peaceful protestors.
Who writes that notice? A coalition of the foot soldiers who are doing the actual arrests, or some high-minded politician sitting behind a desk? Because that politician can't actually make promises about the behavior of the police. De Blasio has been denying that well-documented cases of abuse have happened, and saying that if such a thing were to happen, it'd surely be punished. We've yet to see any accountability for NYPD.
Statements are nice. Actions matter.
I don't think you'll find many others that find this to be just.
Cops seem to enjoy beating up protesters, and I think that's the real problem.
You even say "most" and not "all" so you are explicitly acknowledging that violence is occurring to people that are being prevented from complying with law.
- curfew: a curfew is an extreme tactic that deprives many people of their civil liberties without due process. There are legitimate reasons for curfews to exist at times, but dispersing peaceful protest is not one of them.
- use of tear gas: this is (quite literally) prohibited under the Geneva protocol even in times of war.
- "difficult for police to determine": this suggests that because the job is difficult, the police have leeway to indiscriminately punish whomever is nearby.
Again - I understand why you'd make the argument you made, but the fatal flaw is that it is founded on an utterly dystopian premise. The response from police across the country is unjustified, and a rank violation of everything that Americans supposedly hold dear.
But yeah, 100% same page, especially with regard to tear gas.