When a 75 year old man is trying to return a police helmet to them, and they push him down causing him to bleed from his head and ears, and they fire two officers who did it, and the rest resign from the riot group in purpose in support of the two who pushed him, what else could you possibly expect?
There's another video of a man who approaches a line of police at a protest, likely exchanging a few words but clearly unnarmed and walking very slowly. One police officer walks up to the man and pepper sprays him. As he turns to avoid it, a second police officer approaches, and fires what appears to be a tear gas canister at the man's head from point blank range.
Even not knowing what happened leading up to this, it's completely unacceptable behavior. The sheer number of videos just like this one make me ashamed that I ever gave the police the benefit of the doubt in the past.
God, actually shooting the guy in the head was just disgusting. Spraying him is bad enough. The final shot is nothing more than the officer saying he can do absolutely anything he wants up to and including murder (a projectile to the head like that could easily kill a person) and there's nothing that can stop him.
And the worst part is he's right.
I've been on the fence about giving up my US citizenship and taking on citizenship in my new home. Seeing the rapid decline in freedom these past two decades, and the absolute mess recently has helped me make up my mind. I can't let myself return to such a place. I can't be happy with myself knowing that my tax dollars are supporting human rights violations. I'm just done with it.
Sorry for ranting, but man, it's just frustrating seeing everything that's been happening these past few weeks, and seeing everything that's been happening for so long but ignored until recently.
> I've been on the fence about giving up my US citizenship and taking on citizenship in my new home.
I can totally understand wanting to do that, but if it's a jurisdiction that doesn't require an official renunciation or something, I'd keep the US one and continue to vote absentee from abroad.
There's only so much voting can do, but I really hope that the people with their heads screwed on straight don't stop any time soon.
I'm actually curious about your thought process. Not trying to be confrontational.
I'm not sure which country you are moving to, but the question is the same. With how much power the US has, and how intertwined the world is, do you believe that you are permanently better off out of the country?
Sure, the US is by no means all-powerful; but if the US joins China and Russia's descent into the throes of outright authoritarianism, what leads you to believe you are safe? In this scenario, you would arguably be better off at the onset, but these three countries would surely take the rest of the world down with them? Not even outright invasions and occupations, but bog-standard bullying and destabilization, a la South China Sea or Iraq?
EDIT: Iraq was invasion and occupation. That maybe wasn't the best example of mere "destabilization" on my part.
In a hypothetical all out war between China, Russia, and America, what place is safe? There's no way to know right now. Maybe all the countries America has invaded in that past decide to ally up and thoroughly pillage the country for all that its worth. Who knows. In a world war scenario, there's no guarantee that anywhere is safe.
What I do know is that looking at the state of the world today, being thousands of miles away is definitely safer. It's been nothing but consistent and rapid decline in liberty in the US and the protests. For every police department that says they've done something wrong, there are five of them out there cheering when an officer is released for brutality.
Maybe there's a chance America will do something someday in the future to my current home, but America is detaining and beating innocent people within its own borders today.
I’m afraid the two cops weren’t even fired, they had only been suspended pending investigation. So the rest of the force wasn’t protesting a result in favor of the protestors, they were protesting against even a review of the situation by their peers.
Yes, but the case is officially in national spotlight. There will be careers made on the way it is handled one way or another. Right now the pendulum is not on the cops'side so average politician's choice is obvious.
It will be hard to sweep it under the rug. Not impossible. Just hard.
The public is weary and between Epstein hitting Netflix and current waves of protests with all the surrounding circumstances ( brick pallets come to mind ), I would not be sure what the result would be.
I won't respond to the debunked claim as I did not read enough on it.
That said, the fact that bricks may have always been there does not take anything from my argument. The perception of the existence of spontaneous bricks appearing is already part of today's audience.
Lie can go around the world faster than truth can put its shoes on.
It's further been reported that the officers that resigned did so not in solidarity but because the union refuses to legally back them [1]. With the caveat:
> “Some of them probably resigned because they support the officer,” said another officer with whom we spoke. “But, for many of us, that’s not true.”
Watched a video of a girl essentially abducted off of the streets last night in San Diego. 3 unmarked minivans pull up to a family walking home from protests and plain clothes cops pull up and grab her right off the street and threaten to shoot the group if they try to follow. It's literally impossible to tell from the video if this person was just grabbed as part of a human trafficking crime or if they really were cops.
It _was_ the cops, in the end, and she was eventually released on bail, but that shit is _nightmarish_. All of these videos that we have been seeing on social media are exposing how this style of policing that we live with today has absolutely no place in our society.
> a human trafficking crime or if they really were cops
It can also be both [1]. Sex while being detained by the police is not illegal in 35 states and this was really only brought to light after two plainclothes NYPD detectives took an 18 year old woman in an unmarked van and took turns having sex while the other drove. She claims it was rape and that she was handcuffed the entire time.
I feel like I can't even process what you're telling me here. Why would it be legal? What is the purpose? How could that _not_ be abused? I do remember hearing / reading about this case but this whole "sex while detained by the police is not illegal in 35 states..." thing is not something that I recall and is beyond disturbing.
I'll have to try and find the comment, but there was a reddit comment I saw linking to several stories from various media outlets describing the 75 year old man as a "violent agitator", which is apparently also the cities story.
Ok apparently the original comment must have been edited, as its now deleted and removeddit shows less content than I remember this morning, but here's an article noting how the mayor framed things:
This article from a local news station claims the real reason for the resignations is because the union said they wouldn't provide free legal defense to that particular units officers any longer and the two accused had to pony up for their own defense.
Doesn't make any of them look better but an interesting wrinkle.
> Doesn't make any of them look better but an interesting wrinkle.
Of course it does. The pragmatic decision not to be without a legal safety net (which even a hypothetical innocent cop would want) is way better than resigning at the first hint of legal accountability.
Not really. It makes it sound like they know that professional misconduct happens with such frequency in their unit that they can't control themselves. It also turns the story from one of misguided support for a colleague to one of craven self interest.
Few if any professions I've ever heard of get blanket legal defense from their union or professional association to defend them against their own blanket misconduct. Soldiers for example manage without it.
> to defend them against their own blanket misconduct.
Do they expect defense from blanket misconduct, or from accusations of misconduct while performing their professional duties? There are plenty of rotten cops, and significant institutional rot in police depts, but it's seems unworkable to suggest that they should be on the hook for legal fees to defend against complaints filed in the line of duty.
Any system that takes seriously legal complaints against police will inevitably have false positives, which means that even a hypothetically-perfect cop who never does anything wrong risks being exposed to legal fees.
> Soldiers for example manage without it.
I'm not sure this is a great example; the limiting of rights that soldiers are subject to is pretty despicable IMO; there are plenty of phenomena we'd consider horrific in civil society that have been the norm for thousands of years of military history (hell, the rape problem in the military was treated with as much apathy as the rape problem in _prison_, of course until women started being victims in non-trivial numbers).
The reality of the situation is the opposite of what you are concerned about. There are large numbers of un-prosecuted police misconduct cases that we've seen happening just this week. You are making the same argument against passing a law to deal with real and current concerns that Sen Rand Paul says the new law against lynching will make it too easy to accuse people of lynching - but the us has a real problem with facing up to lynching as a historical reality. And almost all the other republican and democratic senators and reps don't see it.
We have an even bigger problem facing up to police misconduct in the US and the multiple layers of extra protection police get when something violent happens: (1) time to figure out their story before they are questioned, which normal people don't get, often based on union contracts (2) often cities have contracts to keep misconduct hidden, and we see many of these problem officers with multiple misconduct issues over the years until they finally go a bit too far (3) the supreme court and legal doctrine that sets a very high bar especially for convicting police of malfeasance.
I think in part this supports the proposal for officers to have to carry their own liability insurance like doctors instead of relying on near guaranteed liability protection from the unions and ultimately tax dollars.
There is also a theory that a portion of the burnt out cars you see are actually set on fire by tear gas canisters. Those canisters contain a combustable charge which creates the aerosol (from a solid compound).
Since they are being fired everywhere, it's not surprising that some end up underneath parked cars.
Certainly, but the case also illustrates serious issues with policing. During the hunt for Dorner, the LAPD shot up three separate sets of innocent people.
Alllllso, they burned the house down that he was in, so he wouldn't get his day in court to tell everyone the whole thing was over him reporting excessive force.
Police unions are running a protection racket with the cities and municipalities they engage with. I'm at a loss for words for understanding how this even happened. It's a national embarrassment.
What happened to George Floyd has happened to white people too. Tony Timpa was one such victim.[0] Another one was Joseph Hutcheson.[1] Hopefully there can finally be change in the police, so that it doesn't happen again to anyone.
And since the parent is dead, I will add what I was adding there:
Personally, I've claimed it has more to do with socio-economic status. So, while there are plenty of stories about well off !white guy being hassled in his own neighborhood, it happens a lot less to people wearing business attire. OTOH, poor white people get hassled at 2AM too. I had white friends in HS who were routinely stopped and searched for drugs by the police simply because they were driving back from their 2AM fast food jobs in their beater cars while cutting through the nice neighborhoods.
So, the police definitely judge you and if you come across as a well off member of society your much more likely to be treated well. I've gotten pulled over for a fair number of traffic stops in the past ~20 years. Overwhelmingly I've never gotten a ticket driving a higher end vehicle with the wife/kids present. OTOH, driving the old clunker by myself, 100% hit rate.
This. I lived in a small city in Montana where 95% of the population was white. When there are no minorities police will find someone else to target, and usually it's the poor.
This statement seems unfair. It is on par with people pointing out that white people did not start to riot after their guy was killed. It does not help the conversation at all. It is unnecessary race baiting.
According to this the chance of black male being killed by police (over lifetime?) is 1 in 1000. The chance of a white male being killed is 1 in 2000. The chance of a female being killed is 1 in 33000.
I'm not sure what to say here. Are more men getting killed because men behave more violently (well probably)? Or are more men getting killed because of some bias?
Clearly theres a bias against men, even if they’re not violent they’re perceived as more dangerous because they’re potentially stronger. Men are also more likely to be part of a gang, women, not so much. Now add the race to the mix and black and hispanic men are very high on their radar. We’ve been hearing of racial profiling complaints for a while, for at least 15-20, it is a true thing.
Look at the question case by case, instead of statistically. You can see that almost all are killed as a result of their own violent behavior towards police or others.
It appears US police kills more people than police in Russia, or is roughly on par.
Most years police in UK kills zero. Do you want to compete with authoritarian states in number of deaths caused by police?
Do you understand that US police kills people at a rate thats totally unseen outside of dictatorships and bana republics? Not just black people - white people, asians, there is no demographic who's deathrate is acceptable for a developed nation.
Why is that? Either us police is out control, or you have some sort of mass-criminal-psycosis going on over there, and it stops at the canadian border.
Wouldn't it be nice if there were an independent review board to look over mandatory body cam footage from an incident so we don't have to have speculative internet debates over what happened? And fair legal recourse for victims of officers who break the law so that people don't feel the need to seek out justice on their own?
> I'm not sure what to say here. Are more men getting killed because men behave more violently (well probably)? Or are more men getting killed because of some bias?
If you're taking feedback here mine would be to avoid drawing such enormous conclusion from such a minimal, uncontextualized set of data.
Maybe the major point they’re conveying is that in contrast to the George Floyd murder which could be construed to show isolated issues with cops, it’s unavoidable to paint with a broad brush in the Buffalo incident?
But still, feel free to assume their race and prejudices because you’re morally superior or whatever.
This came up on a law enforcement subreddit. Riot police training is that the front line always keeps moving in order to provide a security barrier, the medics behind them will attend to anybody injured. In this case the medic was national guard. Supposedly it took 18 seconds between the time the man fell and the time the medic reached him.
So the initial shove was pretty horrific, but the line movement at least has a plausible explanation.
It wasn't a riot situation, it was a human situation, he was just standing there. Don't forget that also the initial police report (they put it on their twitter even) that someone "had tripped". It was the usual denial of the situation with lies that we see so much now, that actual video can expose. If that video of the old guy going down wasn't taken, we'd never have known.
> they all walk by the guy bleeding on the ground purposefully not looking.
There's another video, slightly longer, which shows that the police stop after a few more seconds and attend to him. I think they were a bit shocked by severe consequences of the shove and uncertain for a moment (even though it was a predictable result of the heavy-handed approach that the police have been taking that somewhere something like this would happen).
What is absolutely not forgivable, though, is lying that he "tripped and fell" on the police report. And it's even more outrageous that dozens of officers are coming together to defend that egregious lie!
I'm trying to understand where the riot was? They pan to the left and there's like 30 people max in the park across the street. This seems totally unjustified given the circumstances. Somehow they managed to easily apprehend the second man in the video without shoving him to the ground. Just disgusting either way.
Either he was severely incapacitated and needed medical attention, or he wasn't and lettit him stay behind the line was tactically dangerous. Either way, they were in the wrong.
Yes after a little research I see that. The use of the word “resign” seems like impressive PR though, like they were actually sacrificing something for principles.
But it's sad that apparently the reason it is "better to comply to law enforcement first" is not because they will arrest you but because they will pummel you.
No, he was standing still talking to the officers in front when the lieutenant saw him and told him to move back, at which point he was pushed by the officers in front.
The police are expecting an extremely stressful day where they will be outnumbered by the protestors; possibly by up to an order of magnitude. There is a high risk of physical violence, there is a high risk that the police are going to be attacked politically whatever happens. There is a mood in the air of "believe no cops". Their mindset will be combative, they will be on edge.
The old man has to shoulder at least some responsibility here. It was wildly imprudent to get all in-the-face of a police in a civil-unrest situation. He shouldn't have been doing what he did.
If that's what we're jumping to, an old man walking up to police, deserves to be pushed to the ground with enough force for him to almost die, then why don't they skip rubber bullets and switch to live ammo? I mean he was just standing there, menacingly right? Think about your grandpa, imagine if he was the one pushed to the ground and now in ICU and tell me again how stressful it must be to stand in full riot gear and have him approach you, alone.
Things happen to people that they don't deserve. Life is profoundly unfair.
I don't know what a US cop looks like on an ordinary day, but that group look like they are expecting trouble. There might be riots or unrest in their recent history. If you approach a group like that, things might happen that you don't deserve.
> Think about your grandpa, imagine if he was the one pushed to the ground and now in ICU and tell me again how stressful it must be to stand in full riot gear and have him approach you, alone.
Police aren't lab technicians, they work in an environment where they routinely have to deal with violent criminals who have no respect for the law.
It would remain a stressful job, even if I don't like the police.
And they should have been stressed; they did the wrong thing and are now in a lot of trouble. If anything, they should have been more stressed.
And they have special training, rules, equipment and they still act like petulant children. It was hard to believe all these police actions until i saw them this week. Are they really like that, the answer is yes. I get that it's hard.
Public perception of the police degrading is a first good sign.
What is important are the next steps: the police needs accountability, police misbehaviour must be investigated independently. Not by the police, not by the prosecutor they work with every other week. The police must be made to understand they are being watched, very closely, by technical, legal and human means. Only then will they think twice before stepping out of line. And each misstep needs to have proportionate consequences that take into account the misuse of power as well as the crime itself, so punishment must be harsher than for mere mortals, not the usual slap on the wrist.
Changes in training or authorized uses of force are useless smoke and mirrors without proper accountability.
It may seem obvious, but I think this needs to be repeated over and over again. Otherwise nothing will come from this mess, just warm words and symbolic measures
Yeah, random riots whenever they are prepared the least. Im so angry at how cops can legally hit, punch, injure, shoot and how they use their power and do so indiscriminately on whoever they are angry at the moment and face no repercussions. And when repercussions are possible they hide their badges...
A lot of people are talking about changing the laws so that officers aren't protected by qualified immunity or unions, but as far as I understand, one of the main problems is prosecutors.
Prosecutors require police to bring them people to prosecute. If a prosecutor starts going after cops, they've now pissed off a group of people they rely on the get their job done, so most prosecutors won't prosecute cops.
I imagine this could be fixed by states having a special prosecutor specifically for those that are now considered protected by qualified immunity, which is more than just police. Also we should get rid of qualified immunity, which is an insult to the constitution.
> A lot of people are talking about changing the laws so that officers aren't protected by qualified immunity or unions, but as far as I understand, one of the main problems is prosecutors.
It's all connected. The police unions push back hard against reforms in the prosecutors' office that might subject them to more scrutiny.
> In St. Louis, when Kim Gardner was elected the top prosecutor four years ago, she set out to rein in the city’s high rate of police violence. But after she proposed a unit within the prosecutor’s office that would independently investigate misconduct, she ran into the powerful local police union.
> The union pressured lawmakers to set aside the proposal, which many supported but then never brought to a vote. Around the same time, a lawyer for the union waged a legal fight to limit the ability of the prosecutor’s office to investigate police misconduct. The following year, a leader of the union said Ms. Gardner should be removed “by force or by choice.”
I don't think making police unions illegal is the solution, unions play an important role in preventing the employer from taking advantage of employees. What we need to do is limit the scope of unions. Unions making sure their members have decent pay, benefits, safe working conditions, etc - GREAT! Unions protecting corrupt, abusive, dangerous members from facing punishment - BAD! This is true for any profession.
I’d settle for 1x the sentence of a normal citizen. Right now they can literally get away with murder. Not to mention infractions like drinking and driving and speeding, that they let each other off for.
I'm not sure that increasing the punishment would help. They need to actually be punished for breaking the rules. Not sometimes, but every time they break those rules.
I advocate we make a specific law that witnessing a felony action by a fellow police officer and not reporting it become a chargeable offense on its own. We also make it illegal to not make the officer investigations private after some threshold, like 5 diff cases. I get that there are false accusations but they have too much power and we need to go the other way.
My 10 year old son keeps saying, "I thought the police were our friends?" Frankly he is traumatized by the actions of the police he is seeing on the news. Yesterday we were driving to the pharmacy to get some medicine and he suddenly started crying and freaking out. It turned out that he saw a police car and was convinced we were going to be pulled over and killed.
Thankfully my state has just passed a law making it illegal for police to enter elementary or secondary school grounds except in the case of an emergency. At least he will probably be safe from the police at school.
Why would he think "police are our friends?" I did not think that at 7 let alone 10, but I grew up in a place where being mistaken about the reality of police could get you or your family arrested or killed. So a place not much different than America. Why is your son so delusional? Why not teach him to know better? Then he won't be afraid, he'll be informed and cautious.
I'm black, got my license to drive the year Rodney King got assaulted by cops that got exonerated by an all white jury. Glad some of my fellow Americans woke up to my reality.
We knew about your reality but were as powerless as you were. Look who became president in 2016 because we had the nerve to vote a black president. And I really do wonder what they’re up to next. After Bush I thought it cannot go lower but it did. I really want to be positive but am still shocked by whats been happening
You'd be shocked if you looked into how little (read: nothing) Obama did about police overreach and lack of oversight. Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump... when it comes to police brutality they're all the same.
This isn't a partisan issue, the color of your tie does not wash your hands of blame here.
The Dem party's marketing dept should all get raises, though. For some reason you seem to believe that having a black president who did absolutely nothing for black people was better for black people than Trump. When it comes to policy or enforcement changes, this could not be further from the truth.
In the Federal jury that later convicted Koon and Powell of Federal civil rights violations, there were likewise 9 of 12 white jurors.
Modern American jurors don't inherently judge on race. For another example, the jury that convicted congressman Mel Reynolds on all charges was half black:
It is a difficult watch, but the past days brought up a lot of videos that probably would not be more than a blip on a regular day. It is possible that what we are seeing is a straw that broke the camel's back.
As I may have disclosed before, I have some cops in my family and I do think they have too much power compared to Europe.
[EDIT: For context, this was detached from post_break's comment: "When a 75 year old man is trying to return a police helmet to them, and they push him down causing him to bleed from his head and ears, and they fire two officers who did it, and the rest resign from the riot group in purpose in support of the two who pushed him, what else could you possibly expect?"]
You can only have one absolute moral principle; everything else must ultimately be contingent on not violating that core principle.
I am usually bringing this up on HN in the context of free speech, because I think free speech is a poor choice to make your absolute moral principle.
In this context, there's another example of a poor choice for an absolute principle.
Brotherhood, fraternity, loyalty to your group is frequently a good thing. Many things only work with trust.
But this is what it looks like when brotherhood -- loyalty to your fellow police officers, in this case -- is your absolute moral principle. Upholding the law and protecting the innocent come second to protecting your own.
They didn't say there is one global unique absolute moral principle that anyone can hold. They're saying you can only hold one, because necessarily everything else must be compromised in favor of it.
Right. Value pluralism says that's not true. That you can (and do) hold many. And that we make compromises between our different values all day long every day -- within ourselves.
There certainly exist people who in their last moments sacrifice everything for something greater than themselves. If that's not an absolute sacrifice then no, there probably isn't.
But in the small we are always compromising on some things in favor of others. A principle can be upheld at great cost until it finally gives way. One principle can crumble away in favor of others very suddenly.
Then those values are not truly absolute by definition if they are being compromised on if absolute is to be held to mean what it is conventionally held to mean when used in the context of values. That definition of being inviolable.
Indeed. There is no absolute moral principle, or absolute policy, or absolute form of government, or absolute ideology. The presumption is that people want to get to that absolute end of history, but every indication says they don't.
I agree with your characterization of the police choosing brotherhood. But that setup is a bit of a straw man factory. One can have zero "absolute" moral principles, and weigh between them all with judgment and wisdom.
To me, the cops quitting in solidarity is a far worse problem than the cops pushing the old man.
We need to grasp that in a national eruption of 1000's of interactions, some of them will be bad. There will be emotions, stupidity, even racism and true bad acting. I fully expect that even in a highly professional and well-trained police force ... that stupid will happen.
BUT - the cops quitting ... this is 1) not a decision made 'in the moment of passion in the blink of an eye' and 2) as you say, it arguably contradicts the very nature of their oath.
My cousin, a Marine, said to me that a common creed is 'Unit, Corps, God, Country'. I don't know if that's official, colloquial, or even widely true ... but ... I found it really deeply wrong to put 'unit and corps' above 'god and country'. But I never got the chance to discuss it with him.
I feel obligated to point out that, based on what I read thus far, they did not quit the force; just that particular unit ( supposedly over union not covering legal fees -- but no idea how true that is ).
> Unit, Corps, God, Country'. I don't know if that's official, colloquial, or even widely true ... but ... I found it really deeply wrong to put 'unit and corps' above 'god and country'. But I never got the chance to discuss it with him.
I'm pretty sure "unit corps God country" is from A Few Good Men, and the Marine motto is God Country Corps, which makes more sense.
That minor point aside, I agree with you. The "bad apples" defense doesn't stand up to the mass resignation in support of these cops.
I think a lot about how so many police officers are Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. How much has this experience altered departments perception of what it means to police? Or influenced to baddest actors to behave like they do?
There is an episode of Behind the Bastards[0] that covers David Grossman, the creator of Bulletproof Training which has trained thousands of police. Grossman’s training involved instilling a sense of fear in the officers which promotes a mentality of fearing for their safety even when it is apparent the officer isn’t in danger. Using made up phrases such as “killology” which Grossman claims to study and using false data (saying it is more dangerous to be a cop now than ever before despite evidence of the contrary). The training materials even use bible verses to justify why it is ok for an officer to kill, even when the situation wouldn’t necessarily warrant even a draw of the gun.
I don't think so if anything veterans of those conflicts probably have way more restraint because half the crap police have been shown doing wouldn't be allowed by the military. If soldiers shot and abused people as routinely and willnilly as police do it would be a major scandal.
If you go read through US military documents about the use of force and rules of engagement you will find things like it requires _presidential approval_ to use riot control agents like pepper spray and tear gas. You aren't allowed to use non-lethal weapons like rubber bullets and bean bag guns without special training because they are dangerous if use improperly. It's against the law of war to target noncombatants (police have been specifically targeting journalists in a number of high profile incidents)
edit: I agree with the sister comment that the faulty police mentality largely comes from really bad training that instills the mind set that there is danger behind every corner.
Afaik the pepper spray and tear gas approval requirement stem from the fact that those are classified as chemical weapons in international treaties. Shows that the police treat their own population worse than the military does enemies and the rest of the world...
Honestly, when I was in the Navy training in a security squadron, we were basically taught to deescalate, use the lowest force we could, be it hands, mace, a baton, a pistol, the machine gun, etc. We were drilled never to use deadly force unless it was very clear we were in danger, were told to shoot second, because it's better to risk ourselves than risk killing an innocent person, that our backup would ensure the security of the ship or base so we didn't need to get trigger happy. I remember, strongly, the great fear I had about accidentally hurting the wrong person whenever we had live security events and i had to unholster my pistol.
I just don't get the way police are trained, they are there to risk themselves to ensure others are safe, even the criminals. Instead, they're trained to treat them worse than i was trained to treat literal terrorists.
The parent post was censored. I "vouched" it so it becomes visible again.
The censorship that HN readers bring to the forum disgusts me. To those responsible for censoring the parent post: get bent. You cowards have no place here.
So after all of that, still 61% of white americans stands by the side of the police? As a normal european citizens, americans what is your problem? Something like that here would have been considered unacceptable by everyone, beside some stupid neo fascist parties that fortunately are a small minority: not only killing a person for nothing, but then using violence against peaceful protesters.
The issue runs deeper. America is really divided amongst the political lines. People either identify as Democrats or Republican. The Racial injustice and protests are seen as Democratic and mostly happening in coastal states that vote blue most of the time.
The inner states (which are mostly white) vote the opposite.
This really doesn’t surprise me. America like its political polarization is also quite divided racially.
Our president further propagates this with Xenophobia.
We’re quite backwards compared to Europe like that.
Stupid neo fascist parties make up at least half of America and currently hold the presidency and Senate. That is the problem. Europe is racist as fuck but America's racism is on a whole new level. It's so ingrained into American culture, we have monuments glorifying it. Many Americans are proud of it. It's a core part of their identity. The entire society is based upon it. Entire industries depend on it (police, prison, etc.). And this goes back hundreds of years. That's the problem. It's hard to be a normal person in the US and denounce this history and stand up for what's right. So half are not and do not.
This situation reminds me of an interesting series on the first UK police force, how basically it grew out of robber gangs and went back and forth between a force for good and a force for consolidating power at the cost of ordinary citizens. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvMQY_y4qx8
Versus what though? Outnumbered 25:1, rampant looting and mayhem all around, and seeing your mates hit with bottles of water filled with quikcrete, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to me.
Just because something makes you feel bad for society doesn’t mean the actions at an individual basis are purely malicious or unreasonable.
Police being unable to do their job in the face of a mob doesn't justify police violence against mobs, it justifies a reform of the law enforcement system sufficient to satisfy society and restore order. The alternative is to suppress civil liberties, which will violate the Constitution. We have had many peaceful days in the past; they can return.
Police are, in fact, given far too many duties. They deal with traffic violations, drunkenness, domestic violence, homelessness, property crimes, public emergencies, and many more things. Most of their time is spent on systemic problems in society that they cannot usefully intervene in, but only obscure with fines, arrests, and talking-to. These are tasks that call for more specialization, and therefore a more stratified set of enforcement tools than the average cop gets.
The system makes the cops bad. We spend a lot on them; several U.S. cities spend more on their police than entire countries do on their military. Spending hasn't changed the outcomes. This is why the term "police abolishment" has come into parlance; a full reform of enforcement requires a larger set of concepts than "police".
I don't know about the USA but in Ireland the original standing police force ( the RIC ) was responsible for census duties, farm inspections, tax collection and many other rural duties up until the 1920s. What police forces do now, focused on crime, is only a subset of their original conception as servants of the polis ( society ).
When the mob burns down your city a few nights in a row, the least bad options for breaking up the mob may sometimes be called for. Shit like this can take affected areas decades to recover from.
And yes sometimes cops are just dicks on a power trip.
There have been numerous videos recorded of police brutally assaulting peaceful protestors without any kind of provocation. Just look at Buffalo PD shoving an elderly man to the ground and creating a distraction as the cameras start turning on, or the bystander in Austin who was watching away from any crowds and was sniped with a bean bag round that fractured his skull.
There’s been an unbelievable amount of violence perpetrated by police these last few weeks. You cannot stand by this argument if you’ve been watching the footage.
> There’s been an unbelievable amount of violence perpetrated by police these last few weeks. You cannot stand by this argument if you’ve been watching the footage.
There’s no way you can say with a straight face that the police have committed more acts of violence and destruction than the rioters.
So police violence is OK as long as it’s less than what the protestors do? That’s an absurd argument.
Our taxes pay their salaries, and our taxes also pay their legal settlements and fees when they get caught up killing unarmed black men and women. They live in a system fundamentally devoid of accountability. They deploy tools like tears gas and poorly tested “less lethal” ammunition that still has the ability to permanently and critically injure targets. No amount of violence against peaceful protestors should be tolerated. The police exist to protect the public, not treat them like enemy combatants.
Anyone that showed up to an 11pm “protest” the day after looters and rioters commandeered the previous night’s gathering knows exactly what they’re enabling and and the risks involved. At that point you’re aiding and abetting the actions of the small minority that are directly causing the damage and in doing so you can’t complain to be caught in the literal crossfire.
If a crowd of 1000 people has one person throw a brick at the police. I think it’s well within their rights to tear gas the entire group to disperse them.
If by 'our' you mean the Public at Large, it is within your rights to defund them all.
The main counterargument is how would that help? The violent cop would still be violent. If the police were abolished they'd sign up as a violent gang member, and if a new not-police body is created they'd sign up to that instead.
There is always a most-violent gang on the streets; we just call them the police if they are state-sponsored and ask them to follow the law rather than their own opinions. Defunding the police won't help that dynamic.
> If a crowd of 1000 people has one person throw a brick at the police. I think it’s well within their rights to tear gas the entire group to disperse them.
This is exactly what far right provocateurs want, to embed themselves inside legitimate protests and misbehave so that all are punished. Does that seem appropriate?
Also, both cases of brutality I described above happened in broad daylight. Please tell me how this specific incident[0] represents appropriate conduct by the police.
> If a crowd of 1000 people has one person throw a brick at the police. I think it’s well within their rights to tear gas the entire group to disperse them.
This is an utterly unethical and immoral point of view. If one person commits a crime, a group should never be punished for it. This is collective punishment, and it (along with tear gas) is prohibited under the Geneva conventions.
It isn't so clear it is a 'punishment'. Conceptually the role of the police isn't to punish anyone, they mainly compel presence, absence of people or action of people.
The tear-gassing specifically isn't to punish anyone. It is because their commanders think the situation is unsafe and that order needs to be restored. The crowd, by its presence, is creating a safety hazard where people might assault the police.
There are very fine lines involved, but there is a point where there isn't a reasonable expectation that the police should break ranks and move into a potential violent mob to arrest an individual. That would be asking them to take on too much risk. It isn't going to violate the Geneva Conventions.
I don’t think getting lost in their conceptual roles in society, or what the “mean” to do when gassing, is particularly helpful.
At the end of the day, their actions are what matters, not their intent. If they harm you, someone not participating in the action they intend to lawfully suppress, then their action was an overreach.
What if we were talking about bullets, instead of gas? We’d never assert that indiscriminately firing into a crowd is warranted. Just because tear gas isn’t (often) lethal doesn’t really make it different; it’s an indiscriminate, unjustified use of force against arbitrary groups of people.
You’re right, of course, that there are limits and we wouldn’t expect the police to take on unlimited amounts of risk, but don’t get too lost in the theoretical here - the protests are not unruly mobs and are not anywhere near they hypothetical levels you’re talking about.
The police are doing a job. They are doing that job in a risky, high-stress, lots-of-ways-to-fail environment. They are dealing with profoundly uncooperative people. They have a totally reasonable expectation of being treated with respect and to go home safely at the end of the day, an expectation shared by all workers.
If someone in a crowd is throws a brick at them, and the crowd has up to that point been a united slogan-chanting sign-waving entity I am on board with the police treating the entire crowd as hostile. It is not acceptable to throw a brick at the police. Or anything else for that matter.
I can see a good argument that if someone throws a brick the police should be as targeted as possible in responding. But it could easily be the point where a crowd disintegrates into an unruly mob and the police would have my total support for not being optimistic and trying to push into the crowd hoping it works out OK. Once a brick is in the air, the crowd is an unruly mob. Bricks are not a civilised tool of discourse.
> They are dealing with profoundly uncooperative people
Yes, you're correct. But they're far from the only people who have jobs dealing with profoundly uncooperative people, and we do not accept violence from other professionals regardless of what they encounter from the public. I believe that police work is something of an exception, but only a limited exception: by and large I expect (and demand!) that they handle stressful situations without resorting to violence whenever possible, even if that is uncomfortable or stressful to them.
> I can see a good argument that if someone throws a brick the police should be as targeted as possible in responding. But it could easily be the point where a crowd disintegrates into an unruly mob and the police would have my total support for not being optimistic and trying to push into the crowd hoping it works out OK.
This is important to talk about - I think what myself and others are calling for is a targeted response by police, and what we've seen over the past few days in America is that the responses are overwhelmingly not targeted, nor are the appropriate. (Not to mention the fact that there is now ample video evidence of police responding with force when there was absolutely no danger whatsoever).
Essentially, it seems as though the police are taking the second part of your assertion to heart - that it's okay to just be indiscriminate when there's danger - but vastly over-applying it and labeling completely benign interactions as "dangerous", and using that to justify their use of force.
Again - I invite you to consider this through less of a theoretical framework, but through the lens of what we're seeing unfold in front of us: police aren't treating legitimately dangerous mobs with justified violence; rather they are treating all protestors as if they are an unruly mob and applying violence indiscriminately. And that is a very large problem.
> If someone in a crowd is throws a brick at them
As a parting note, there is really not much brick-throwing going on. And given the demonstrated propensity of the police in America to lie (despite video evidence), please treat their claims that people are throwing bricks with extreme suspicion.
Look, I'm on your side, but what you said is just wrong. The GC prohibits poison gas, not tear gas. And if the safety of the officers and/or the "mob" is in danger, dispersing the crowd if perfectly reasonable. Because the right of humans to not get hurt is of higher priority than their right to assemble. Obviously, that should be done only when required, and with care.
> At that point you’re aiding and abetting the actions of the small minority that are directly causing the damage and in doing so you can’t complain to be caught in the literal crossfire.
By not showing up you're aiding and abetting the actions of the small minority of corrupt police officers who murder minorities in the street because they know they can get away with it.
> They deploy tools like tears gas and poorly tested “less lethal” ammunition
Let's stop using abstract passive words like "deploy", and say what the police are actually doing - opening fire on crowds of protestors. I guess they're being nice by using ammo other than lead bullets like at Kent State, but fundamentally they're still shooting projectiles and innocent people are still being killed and maimed.
Nobody made that claim. Your straw man cannot stand.
There are many examples of unprovoked police violence nationwide. No amount of looting and rioting justifies unprovoked attacks on peaceful protesters.
One side is state sanctioned, you don't see why that might be important? And I'm absolutely willing to bet that more _people_, not property have been injured by police than protesters.
If an individual wants to be violent and doesn't care much about the repercussions, there are many avenues to be violent that don't involve waiting for a protest. If an individual wants to be violent and avoid repercussions, there aren't many opportunities besides joining the police.
That narrative doesn't fit the sheer number of videos showing a violent response to peaceful protest. It's an avalanche of evidence showing hostility, if not outright violence, towards peaceful, legal protests and journalists with press passes covering the situation. What’s shocking to me is the callous disregard the police have towards the very people they’ve sworn to protect right, even as the nation watches. When coupled with the fact that there is almost no accountability except in the most egregious cases that draws enough public outcry to make a politician uncomfortable.
Not only that, they should hold themselves to a higher standard, they have training for this type of situations and am sure exerting violence is not a point on a slide. In addition they are theoretically being paid by the protesters as well. There is a problem with the police culture in general that the op you’re respinding to seems to be blind to. There is weird tendency to militarize the police which I hope will start changing soon
How many cops does it take to realize that their bullying would eventually backfire? How many judges doesn it take to realize that killer cops getting scott free is going to eventually backfire badly? I hope that they learn their lesson this time and hope it’s going to sting badly
Has it backfired? To my knowledge the cops are all about fine? They're not worried that people are going to kill them in the street with no consequences like black people are
I think it did backfire. Too much negative attention to police lately. I hear it on the radio, it’s on TV, it’s all over the internet.
I think police will see some funding decreases is some places and lots of discussions about police demilitarization are currently taking place. That can have consequences.
I think their morale is also affected and it’s horrible that because of some bad/unprofessional officers other good ones have to suffer the bad image. This may help some good internal change as well. One can hope at least
The police often aren't under anyone's control, Republican or Democrat. (Side note: The claim that MN has been under Democratic control "for decades" is simply false. They had a Republican governor as recently as 2011; their current Senate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/91st_Minnesota_Legislature) is Republican-controlled; the previous legislature (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/90th_Minnesota_Legislature) was entirely Republican controlled.) They successfully resist oversight and efforts at reform in a variety of ways.
> 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.
> 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.
> 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.
I agree. But since policy is set at the local level, isn't the governor or mayor the more logical choice? Why should the article mention the president, but not the governor or mayor?
The person in charge isn’t in charge of the cities or their police forces. We could ask what prior presidents did to help solve the problem. Under years of a Democrat congress and presidency, there was exactly zero reform.
The cynic in my thinks that certain politicians actually like these sorts of problems so they can string together some words that convinces people that they have to vote for them. If everything was great, there wouldn’t be much incentive to vote for the opposition.
> Pattern-or-practice cases — which are separate from individual incidents of alleged wrongdoing involving officers — were a significant pillar of the Obama administration. The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division during those years opened 25 investigations into local law enforcement agencies across the country, and enforced 14 court-approved consent decrees mandating reforms. A Washington Post review in 2015 of such interventions found that they led to modernized policies, equipment and training, but produced mixed results on the use of force. Civil rights leaders say they are a necessary tool — and one that Trump’s Justice Department has essentially abandoned.
Trump and former Senator Sessions hit the brakes on the police reform efforts that Obama initiated with 26 departments. Please do a modicum of research before posting vague pablum.
If anything that demonstrates that the Executive branch's power and authority are excessive. Police reforms should be handled at the state and local levels.
Not blaming on Trump and Republicans? When the first round of peaceful BLM protests were going on, Trump went on rally after rally and called out BLM protestors thugs, conservative leaders pushed blue lives matter, Trump personally ensured that NFL root out any kneeling by players, he tied BLM protests as “against the flag”, he went after Kapernick, effectively ending is career in NFL, Pence made a whole show of attending an NFL game and leaving when players were kneeling. Trump has been the leading voice in neutralizing BLM movements, dismissing police brutality, rolling back police reforms, and creating the environment where conservatives feel empowered to dismiss any anti police grievance
So the keyword here is 'perception' - which is ultimately a game of populism, which dry realists may loathe a little bit.
There are some very good arguments for 'critical masses of sentiment' necessary to effectuate actual change, at the same time, populism is a war for 'hearts and minds' and the first casualty in every war is of course the Truth.
Personally, I'm far more interested in real nature of every day policing, which is a complex and nuanced subject, not likely suitable for the narrative-driven vignettes proposed to use every night on cable news.
I believe that 'narrative and populist driven change' is usually not the best way forward. We've seen this very poignantly with the rise of the 'doctors and bureaucrats' to the fore of public display during the Covid epidemic. It's been mostly heartwarming to hear from the dry, mundane, secular, academic mandarins managing our pandemic responses behind the scenes.
Dr. Bonnie Henry managing British Columbia's COVID response as a fairly good example; we're now getting actually charts and data to explain and validate the inherently complex nature of COVID, and the impetus for the resulting action.
On TV, the narrative-drivers and those trying to make big statements completely drown out a much-need opportunity for dispassionate discussion about this issue. I feel that people are being highly misled one way or another to the point that when real facts and hard evidence don't align with a narrative, they become anthemic to the presentation, and anyone proposing to discuss them becomes a heathen to the cause. A lot of people are spending a lot of time, decades even, in bubbles of 'very incomplete information'.
America has made huge strides in all sorts of areas, and in most ways 'it's better than it's ever been'. I wouldn't for a second give Trump (or any incumbent president) credit for this but as avg. Black income, wage-gap, and unemployment-gaps become historically low even during his tenure, this is saying a lot. If you look at the broad measures of ostensible progress, they don't really jump at points of social contention, really, it looks mostly good over broad units of time. Progress is mostly a steady grind, made by a lot of thoughtful people.
Particularly disturbing is the entrance of major brands, deciding to participate in the situation - though sometimes it's hard to see how earnest intention may be exploited ... it definitely is. Master marketers don't sell you products really on the basis of function, rather an aspiration - and if that aspiration has moved off the court onto the streets, you can be sure that someone hustling you shoes because of a deeply held political or social conviction ... it's a huge red flag.
It takes a real kind of mindfulness to 'see something bad in a video or tweet' as a data point, instead of an emblem. A quick gander through Pew polling, actual police stats, victimization reports, and decent research paints a totally different picture than one would form from reading headlines or drowning in Tweets.
> A quick gander through Pew polling, actual police stats, victimization reports, and decent research paints a totally different picture than one would form from reading headlines or drowning in Tweets.
The percentage of blacks who have a favorable view of police hasn't changed since the 1970s and is significantly lower than for whites. A majority of blacks worry about the police using violence on them or their families. The percentage of unarmed blacks shot by police versus unarmed whites paint a clear picture of racial targeting (and as we've seen the last week, police will lie about someone being armed so the real stats are probably even worse).
What you are saying does not go against what people are complaining about. No one is out in the streets complaining that the economy sucks or that their education opportunities are too limited (although every single metric says that blacks are very unfairly disadvantaged here across all walks of life) - they’re saying that black people in America are still not treated as equals in one-on-one interactions and in particular when the police are involved. A black kid playing in the street shouldn’t be shot because the cop thought he was a gangbanger. Finding a counterfeit twenty on someone that probably had no clue it was counterfeit in the first place should not result in their execution. And the chances that a cop would ignore a dozen people screaming at them to stop literally killing someone just are not the same when the individual in question is black instead of white.
The fact is, while all the other metrics may have improved, the police force in lots of major cities are still White Boys Clubs, police unions are bastions of corruption, racism is the norm, and incidents are constantly swept under the rug.
You've helped demonstrate my point: 'populism and press-driven narratives lead to false views of reality'.
Your statement: " lots of major cities are still White Boys Clubs, police unions are bastions of corruption, racism is the norm," - is false, and almost bigoted.
The vast majority of PD's in America, the Police themselves generally reflect the racial reality of the communities they manage.
Chicago PD is about 50% White, 25% Black, and 25% Latino. [1] Black and Latino police are overrepresented those forces. This is not uncommon.
Why don't you have a look at the actual data - all the PD ethnic composition is right there for you to see.
It's false to suggest that these PDs are 'a bunch of White Boy Clubs' - when they literally are not, but not only that, just the opposite, fairly multicultural and excellent examples of 'functional diverse workforces'.
Ironically, the police are considerably better than hight tech at demonstrating how representation and getting along matters.
The fact that Police forces generally well reflect the ethnicity of the people they manage is probably something most people wouldn't necessarily know, and it's 'real-world information' that adds nuance to the situation. Unfortunately, since this reality doesn't fit the narrative, it doesn't get talked about.
Even this incident in Minnesota: we have 'assailants' who are diverse: two white cops, an Asian cop, and a cop 'of Colour' (possibly Black?) - does that fit the 'Team Racist Redneck' narrative? No.
It's ridiculous to suggest 'racism is the norm' on teams that are overwhelmingly diverse, wherein partners, managers, chefs, officials are of every stripe and creed. Also, it's kind of insulting.
So how could it be that people have this view of PD's when the data shows that this would be highly unlikely? Why is this kind of information not made part of the discussion on various media outlets? There's a lot more where this came from.
Populism leads to misinformation, poor analysis, and crude thinking. The situation is far more nuanced. We need dispassion and reason.
> Chicago PD is about 50% White, 25% Black, and 25% Latino. [1] Black and Latino police are overrepresented those forces. This is not uncommon.
Chicago is 32% non-Hispanic white, 32% black, and 28% hispanic. So, no, white cops outnumbering black cops 2:1 is not black cops being overrepresented. (This is as of the latest census.)
Why is this even on HN? Leave this stuff to google news. The great part of HN is that it’s an amazing space for tech news, rather than political, sociological, or world news.
Deviations like this just bring down the original purpose and integrity of going to HN.
So don't click on it? I respect your opinion, it's a common one on this site, but I don't see how it's any different than a post about a technology you're not interested in.
As per guidelines, wouldn’t this be considered “off topic”?
“ Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.”
graph is like unemployment. Several deviations drop from mean. Expert's models say they are rare, but they are always wrong. Now the anger is toward those experts whose models always break because they don't handle the extremes, while they are drinking coffee in their ivory towers.
I won't deny that there are corruption and accountability problems among US police forces, but I also can't help but feel like many people, especially now, don't appreciate the fact that American police deal with people who are violent, disrespectful, and frequently mentally ill on a sometimes daily basis.
These are humans too and they're watching society (and especially media) totally dehumanize them. To some degree their anger is arguably justified.
I feel like it's impossible to get an accurate feel for how many people are protesting and what proportion of the population supports the protests. But I have a feeling it's a minority, maybe 10-30% of the population, in which case you cannot let a fraction of your population hold your entire city hostage, especially when opportunists are simultaneously looting and burning, though that seems to have calmed down recently.
Point being, if the protestors won't listen when asked to leave, and if they are disrupting the lives and livelihoods of 70-90% of the population, I don't see any option other than gradual escalation, which typically precedes gas and rubber bullets.
The police in a city in Canada went on strike in the late 1960s[1]. Things didn't go well. And we've already seen that American demographics are willing to burn and loot even with police present...so I don't mean to defend police but I really don't see anything good coming from police standing down or refusing to use force.
Edit: Downvotes are intended for discouraging low effort or otherwise poor comments, not to shame people for disagreeing. Whether you like it or not at least half the country supports police, they play an important role in society, and that makes this a discussion worth having.
> don't appreciate the fact that American police deal with people who are violent, disrespectful, and frequently mentally ill on a sometimes daily basis.
Lots of people have difficult stressful jobs dealing with people who don’t have much respect for them. That’s not an excuse for criminality, though. Take medical professionals. In the public mind, there are few things more horrifying and reprehensible than the doctor or nurse who deliberately kills or neglects their patients. There’s pretty much universal agreement that this is not okay, and that it is in fact a morally worse crime than normal murder or neglect, as it is done by someone in a position of trust. It should be the same for police.
In defense of the OP the interaction between doctor and patient is not at all like the interaction between police officer and criminal.
There has to be a way forward when it comes to police reform, but it is a valid question to ask whether or not policing itself takes a particular toll.
I've wondered over the last week whether a strategy to fighting the perverse psychological changes that seem to settle in the minds of many police officers would be term limits? An "up or out" mentality like in the armed forces[1]?
It seems like many of the worst offenders have been mostly stagnant at their posts for many years - surely getting in fresh faces that have had a chance for more modern training would help break some of this mentality of "corps over country".
Them too, but I think medical professionals are a better comparison because they’re in a position of trust and authority, like police are (supposed; obviously the ‘trust bit’ is dubious) to be.
It's not surprising that Americans feel 'anger is justified' however, that's very different from saying for example that 'riots' or 'protests past curfew' are supported.
"And by the way, the point of protests is not to leave when people ask you to."
No - it is absolutely not.
Neither you nor I get to decide what is lawful and what is not.
The 'rules' are a 'social contract' that we all get a say in, you don't get more of a say because you want to hold a sign up past 10 pm or block a street.
It's disturbing to read this because I don't think people grasp the real variety in American opinion out there, and what some others might want to 'protests beyond what the community wants them to'. You might find yourself on the other side of the fence.
Not only this - it's counterproductive. Things like 'million man march' do a lot more good than the Watts riots, which are both directly damaging to the community, and probably very damaging to the movement.
If the point is to 'make change' - people are losing tons of allies by stepping outside the bounds of civility. Everyone is fine with signs in parks, and possibly a march through town - beyond that, it's just bad.
Ok you're right, let me just go back to the 60s and inform people doing sit-ins that they have it all mixed up.
> Everyone is fine with signs in parks ...
Yes! You're getting it! The point is for people to NOT be fine with it. The point is to turn heads, to inconvenience, to get people talking, and to demand that attention is placed on injustice.
All I see is a bunch of emotionally triggered adults throwing a tantrum. Inconveniencing me and suggesting reckless ideas like defending the police doesn't earn any of my respect.
It's ok, from the figures it looks like we don't really need your respect. Continue ignoring the pain and fear that your fellow US citizens live in, and continue defending the actions of the stormtroopers who beat them to death in our streets.
If you don't want to help, just get out of the way.
The US constitution includes a bill of rights in part because social contracts are created by the majority to oppress the minority. That's basically human nature. Certain rights are outside the ability of any social contract to restrict to allow minorities protection.
"Certain rights are outside the ability of any social contract to restrict to allow minorities protection."
This is a bold oxymoron:
"The law is the law, except where it is not the law because you have other constitutionally guaranteed laws that enable you to break said laws"
This misunderstanding underlies a lot of the commentary here lamenting police breakup of ostensibly 'legal' protests which are actually, totally illegal.
If the city has a curfew for protesting, that's literally quite lawful in every sense, and you don't have a legal or constitutional right to protest at that point.
I will say that law is not given to us by deity, but rather by the society itself. The protests suggest that the law is no longer within acceptable range for society, but the administrators of the law, for whatever reason, chose not to address it.
Add to that the protests appear to have popular support and the issue of curfew becomes largely irrelevant. I am not arguing legality here.
"I will say that law is not given to us by deity, but rather by the society itself. "
Yes, that is what a social contract means, we already have that.
"The protests suggest that the law is no longer within acceptable range for society, but the administrators of the law, for whatever reason, chose not to address it."
The 'administrators' are we the voters - not the protestors.
You're advocating anarchy: the protestors get to decide what is lawful and what is not, for whatever arbitrary reason.
It's incredibly naive for people to support extra-judicial action, a lot of which is disruptive and a total transgression of other people's rights, and is sometimes violent.
Consider the next time there is a protest you don't agree with, and they decide that 'the law is not relevant in that case because it's not what the protestors deem appropriate'.
It's the total civil breakdown.
The thread of the 'protesters are above the law logic' is totally unwound and nonsensical.
<<Yes, that is what a social contract means, we already have that.
Yes and a time seems to have come to renegotiate that contract.
<<The 'administrators' are we the voters - not the protestors
It is possible I did not communicate this clearly. By administrators I meant 'law givers'( senators, congressmen and so on ). You are right that voters ultimately decide what is the law. Note that protesters is a subset of voters. Note that I already pointed out the popular support for protesting.
<<You're advocating anarchy: the protestors get to decide what is lawful and what is not, for whatever arbitrary reason.
I am not. The system does not break, because one law is broken ( if it did the system would have collapsed already ).
<<It's incredibly naive for people to support extra-judicial action, a lot of which is disruptive and a total transgression of other people's rights, and is sometimes violent.
I do not believe in dura lex sed lex. There is a point at which governed can say: fuck it. We are not there yet, but we are slowly getting there. It is scary, but it is not unexpected. I do not want to go on a rant here, but I will start by saying that total transgression may be overstating it.
<<Consider the next time there is a protest you don't agree with, and they decide that 'the law is not relevant in that case because it's not what the protestors deem appropriate'.
Sigh, I live in Chicagoland. That is not an argument you want to present to me. I am considering it. The moment there was a whiff of protests moving to suburbs, my neighbours were considering it too. Is it scary? Yeah, but change tends to be. You do not know what may follow.
<<It's the total civil breakdown
Eh, its not total. Consider that if it was total you would not posting on social media, but rather foraging for essentials at night. You are overstating your case.
<<The thread of the 'protesters are above the law logic' is totally unwound and nonsensical
You seem to believe that law and order is the US highest value. I do not think it is. And when multiple values clash, one of them has to give way. Surprise, arbitrarily enforced rules gave way.
Peaceful protests and rallies are generally legally protected by the first amendment. Just because you don't like what some group is saying doesn't mean the police get to illegally attack and disperse them. These rights exists so that minorities can protect themselves from the tyranny of the majority which is exactly what is happening right now.
You do not have the right to block traffic, march down the street etc. as an expression of your 1st amendment rights. You literally need a permit for most of that.
If the city puts down a curfew, you don't have any '1st Amendment rights' there either.
"doesn't mean the police get to illegally attack and disperse them."
Much of what we are seeing is not a legal expression of 1st Amendment rights at all, in which case breaking it up is not remotely illegal.
>"doesn't mean the police get to illegally attack and disperse them."
>Much of what we are seeing is not a legal expression of 1st Amendment rights at all, in which case breaking it up is not remotely illegal.
Think about what you're doing right now. You're responding to someone saying that cops shouldn't be killing people in the streets for blocking traffic. Your response isn't "cops shouldn't kill people!". It's "what they are doing is illegal".
Downvoting for disagreement has always been ok on HN (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16131314), and a lot of people disagree with police right now, so downvotes are probably to be expected.
> Edit: Downvotes are intended for discouraging low effort or otherwise poor comments, not to shame people for disagreeing. Whether you like it or not at least half the country supports police, they play an important role in society, and that makes this a discussion worth having.
The reason this is low effort is that your feelings on what the facts might be do not suffice for facts. Why would we want to know your personal guess about how many people support the protests if you have no new information to add? why not just do a Google search?
Your feelings are all wrong. Poll numbers say the majority of Americans support the protests. It’s definitely a low effort and poor comment seeing as you can’t even hit google up.
In Total War: Rome II, you can commission the training of "spy" agents with multiple abilities that can be exercised against opposing faction cities.
One of these abilities is "incite unrest". Across several turns, this can enable a war of attrition ( a turn represents a year or a season I cannot remember). Death by 1000 cuts is a way to reduce the morale and economic output of a city in order to eventually conquer it.
Here is an excerpt from a forum dialogue about the game:
"Incite Unreast give "X" public order penality, depending on your agent skills and traits.
Army gives "X" public order boost depending on army size and general traits and skills.
So yes.
The best tactic would put as many agents as you can get into far positions, champions can decrease public order as a passive, spy like you already know they pay for it, armies can raid, which decrease their upkeep and steal some of their income for youself."
“It is an open secret,” he said, “that secret services of imperialist powers and foreign anti-Soviet centers actively join extremist nationalistic actions. Later on, they start playing the part of open instigators of hostile actions aimed at kindling hostility among nations. One should not underestimate the danger of this method of subversive activity.”
(a red flag here is that the word "secret" is repeated rapidly in succession. Timeless "click" bait before Jobs ever visited Xerox).
We must first consider credibility of a dot com site. LA times does not represent vast majority. But this is from 1988. Fear mongering conspiracies can get tongues flapping. This is also before digital proliferation of media injection into cultures (click).
Behind "video games" are 20-50 year old minds digesting their environment and historical records made available to them by their coordinated government(s). My "real life" has not been affected by rioting and widespread respitory pandemic (destroyed storefronts are not selling things I want, economic furlough gifts me spare time and empty streets to hone new skills and more quickly traverse new domains). I am interested in the Phoenix that rises from this reset (dust is still in the air and must settle).
From the wikipedia article for Principle of Charity:
"The first to state this hermeneutic principle was Rabbi Meir ... 'A person does not say things without reason'."
The video game designers are steadily sculpting their audience's perception of "real life" via their own art form.
Imagine isolated anectdata determining people's opinions of police! One of the first rules of understanding the world is to not let emotionally charged anecdotes, isolated events and individual mistakes determine how you judge groups, trends and collectives.
What's happened in the last week is that targeted propaganda has flooded people with a few isolated examples of bad things happening and letting people's emotional response mechanisms do the rest.
Did you know that tens of thousands of people die from medical malpractice and medical errors each year? There are many thousands fewer people suffering from police brutality, yet somehow the police have an infinitely worse reputation than doctors and surgeons yet your chances of being killed by a surgeon is far higher than being killed by a cop.
The police do one of the hardest jobs in the country, dealing with the worst elements of society every single day. It's shocking to me that there isn't far more "brutality" every year than there is, and I commend the police for keeping us safe while having to deal with people that hate them and want them dead every day.
The judgement callously meted out on police on HN and elsewhere is completely unjustified.
Doctors have their own personal liability insurance, if they make too many mistakes they literally cannot afford to continue working in medicine (or have to move to a lower risk sub-field that have lower base premiums).
If police held their own individual liability insurance, and it too could become uneconomical for them to continue to practice law enforcement, I'd consider that a huge improvement over the status quo.
If you want law enforcement to be comparable to medicine, then oversight is going to raise tenfold.
Police act in a hostile environment which can't be compared to the environment in which surgeons and doctors operate. Where their lives are not at risk. Mistakes are more understandable and more likely in hostile environments, which makes it a wonder that there are not more instances of police making serious errors given all the interactions police have with hostile and combative people.
Literally isolated anecdata shared by social media mobs who have a bad opinion of police because they were pulled over that one time or they didn't like how an officer spoke to them once.
European police are just better at hiding murders as accidential self-immolation and the like. Google Ouri Jalloh.
To the downvote-brigades: Yes, this is embarrassing and not well-known, but that doesn't excuse further attempts at suppression. If you have something to say, say it, don't just press a button.
Are you implying that doctors are intentionally making these errors? Further, their work is typically to try to help the people they are interacting with, and usually the interactions are consensual. I don't think that is a really good comparison.
I support what the police are doing to handle the protestors, but if I speak out against that I'm labeled as a racist or a bootlicker or any other deriding comment the protestors want to label me. It's fine, I can take the behavior, I'll hold space while they let out their rage and then I'll embrace them again just like I would my own child. And one day they'll look back at themselves and wonder why it was so easy for them to be emotionally triggered.
https://twitter.com/WBFO/status/1268712530358292484?s=20