8 ms·

People getting their ass beat for trying to set fire to a McDonalds while protesting the high cost of living deserve no tears, I'm sorry. Also, if you're going

by stef25 8y ago

People getting their ass beat for trying to set fire to a McDonalds while protesting the high cost of living deserve no tears, I'm sorry. Also, if you're going to pick a fight with a crew in full riot gear it's best to not get cornered by them.

paganel 8y ago
There's a very good reason why there are even international treaties forbidding an army force to physically molest the opposing side once the latter has surrendered, because that way the conflict doesn't need to escalate to the point of total destruction for both sides. More to the point, the protesters seeing this video will know that surrendering to the police will probably get their arms and feet broken so next time they protest they'll do almost anything in order to not let that happen, i.e. they'll become even more violent or/and they'll come better prepared for physical confrontations (better body-gear, actual weapons).
- stef25 8y ago
  > the protesters seeing this video will know that surrendering to the police will probably get their arms and feet broken The ones getting their limbs smashed weren't protesting, they had destroyed and broken in to property with the probable intent of causing more damage. All of this in a setting where police is massively outnumbered while being pelted with 10 pound rocks, bottles, fire crackers and tear gas. Giving someone a beating to incapacitate them (no time for arrest & paperwork) is fair game in my eyes.
  - paganel 8y ago
    > Giving someone a beating to incapacitate them (no time for arrest & paperwork) is fair game in my eyes. This is a very wrong view to hold, imho. Modern political concepts like the German Rechtsstaat or the English "Rule of law" depend on the police not doing what they're seen doing in videos like this one. If the general populace feels (or even starts to feel) that the police and the powers that be play by no rules then we'll be in a world of hurt and anarchy.
    - stef25 8y ago
      Let's hope the general populace can see the difference between peaceful protestors and people just wanting violence and destruction. Macron's body guard getting filmed (out of context) beating a protestor led to him being arrested, suspended and then demoted and profuse apologies from France's head of state. So I think police is still being held accountable the way they should.
  - iodbh 8y ago
    By all accounts of those events, the people being assaulted by the riot police in this case went inside the restaurant to seek shelter from the tear gas. Restaurant employees were giving them water. Are you deliberately spreading lies or are you just just misrepresenting your wild guess as sound information ?
    - stef25 8y ago
      > "to seek shelter from the tear gas" Of course they would say that. You can clearly see the restaurant wasn't open by the way the sliding doors were being pushed open (0:06), and a "fermé" sign on the door (meaning "closed") at 0:16. No employees visible anywhere. To get away from the gas, why not run down the road the camera man was chased down by the cop? No gas there, no resistance from police and much easier than breaking & entering a restaurant. In fact if you look on a map, the location of that BK is on a roundabout with no less than 10 roads branching off it. But yes, those are my guesses based on the information available and I may be wrong.
      - iodbh 8y ago
        There have been multiple account of what happened as several journalists were present. Here is one of the many articles that have been published, I am linking this testimony by two journalists since liberation is a reputable publication, but you'll find more articles and more witness interviews if you look around. https://www.liberation.fr/checknews/2018/12/05/la-video-des-gilets-jaunes-matraques-dans-un-burger-king-est-elle-vraie_1696063 https://www.liberation.fr/checknews/2018/12/05/la-video-des-... Everybody present has told that the riot police just waltzed inside and starting beating people up, then let people leave but only going through a tunnel of cops beating them up some more. There are also more videos from different angles. Assumptions are dangerous, and so are these stormtroopers.
        stef25 8y ago
        I'm not going to argue with journalists from la Liberation and have no doubt their testimonials are true. It's still not clear why they would enter a BK (full of tear gas, according to the journalist) while at least some of the surrounding roads were free. If they really were beating innocent bystanders then they should be punished to the full extent of the law, while at the same time I understand the violent reaction of the police after having been pelted with rocks for hours just for wearing a uniform. I've been in these kind of protests before, you can tell well in advance that things are going to get ugly. When you have police being attacked from all sides and you intend no harm, you know it's time to gtfo because you will get caught up in the violence.
village-idiot 8y ago
I’d also recommend not picking a fight with people in riot gear.
PavlovsCat 8y ago
It's not the job of the police to administer "punishment" like that on the spot.
- stef25 8y ago
  It's called riot control
  - PavlovsCat 8y ago
    How so? Is it just "France is not a totalitarian nation", so it's riot contol by definition? Or is it because "the other side" also rioted in other instances and/or previously in that scene, and you think collective punishment is a thing -- while talking about the "full extent of the law" at the same time no less? Just by all the stuff you brought up to excuse and distract from it, by how bankrupt it is to just go "France is not a totalitarian nation, if you think that you're stupid bai" -- I would guess you know what this is. When I saw this a few months ago https://twitter.com/SeinUndSeid/status/1045656778342629376 https://twitter.com/SeinUndSeid/status/1045656778342629376 which is so cute and harmless in contrast, I was called all sorts of names for saying this is totally uncalled for, unaccetable. Everybody else in that thread was super righteous about protecting the upstanding police blah blah blah. (When in fact the opposite is true, being spineless and excusing this stuff is supporting thugs, and stabbing ALL professional police in the back.) They called it riot control, too. Self-defense, even, someone understandably snapping at their poor colleagues being so horribly mistreated by the crowd, so kicking at a guy who is already held down by 500 guys is obviously normal. Just like you, they mentioned what "the other side" was doing. NO TEARS for someone resisting arrest near an angry crowd! How principled they were, what upstanding, well educated, democratic, intelligent citizens they were, and what a little hoodlum I was for talking back. The most hilarious plot twist there was it turned out it was civilians that stopped other civilians from throwing bottles, the police with their liberal use of pepper spray, and kicking that guy, achieved jack shit in that regard. Anyway, the Berliner Polizei saw it more like me rather than the people who had defended the abuse. Their press release actually was amended with something about an officer "arriving and kicking at the fixated person", and started an investigation about that. It sounded serious too, they didn't use any euphemisms at all. They made no effort to call police brutality anything but that, in total contrast to the posts that had defended it. I don't know how good or bad the French police is, but I know potential for denazification when I see it. Which has nothing to do with whole nations, but by definition with individuals and individual actions. Cops like that need to be punished period, if the law shields them, then the law needs to be changed.

by stef25 8y ago

paganel 8y ago

There's a very good reason why there are even international treaties forbidding an army force to physically molest the opposing side once the latter has surrendered, because that way the conflict doesn't need to escalate to the point of total destruction for both sides. More to the point, the protesters seeing this video will know that surrendering to the police will probably get their arms and feet broken so next time they protest they'll do almost anything in order to not let that happen, i.e. they'll become even more violent or/and they'll come better prepared for physical confrontations (better body-gear, actual weapons).

stef25 8y ago
> the protesters seeing this video will know that surrendering to the police will probably get their arms and feet broken The ones getting their limbs smashed weren't protesting, they had destroyed and broken in to property with the probable intent of causing more damage. All of this in a setting where police is massively outnumbered while being pelted with 10 pound rocks, bottles, fire crackers and tear gas. Giving someone a beating to incapacitate them (no time for arrest & paperwork) is fair game in my eyes.
- paganel 8y ago
  > Giving someone a beating to incapacitate them (no time for arrest & paperwork) is fair game in my eyes. This is a very wrong view to hold, imho. Modern political concepts like the German Rechtsstaat or the English "Rule of law" depend on the police not doing what they're seen doing in videos like this one. If the general populace feels (or even starts to feel) that the police and the powers that be play by no rules then we'll be in a world of hurt and anarchy.
  - stef25 8y ago
    Let's hope the general populace can see the difference between peaceful protestors and people just wanting violence and destruction. Macron's body guard getting filmed (out of context) beating a protestor led to him being arrested, suspended and then demoted and profuse apologies from France's head of state. So I think police is still being held accountable the way they should.
- iodbh 8y ago
  By all accounts of those events, the people being assaulted by the riot police in this case went inside the restaurant to seek shelter from the tear gas. Restaurant employees were giving them water. Are you deliberately spreading lies or are you just just misrepresenting your wild guess as sound information ?
  - stef25 8y ago
    > "to seek shelter from the tear gas" Of course they would say that. You can clearly see the restaurant wasn't open by the way the sliding doors were being pushed open (0:06), and a "fermé" sign on the door (meaning "closed") at 0:16. No employees visible anywhere. To get away from the gas, why not run down the road the camera man was chased down by the cop? No gas there, no resistance from police and much easier than breaking & entering a restaurant. In fact if you look on a map, the location of that BK is on a roundabout with no less than 10 roads branching off it. But yes, those are my guesses based on the information available and I may be wrong.
    - iodbh 8y ago
      There have been multiple account of what happened as several journalists were present. Here is one of the many articles that have been published, I am linking this testimony by two journalists since liberation is a reputable publication, but you'll find more articles and more witness interviews if you look around. https://www.liberation.fr/checknews/2018/12/05/la-video-des-gilets-jaunes-matraques-dans-un-burger-king-est-elle-vraie_1696063 https://www.liberation.fr/checknews/2018/12/05/la-video-des-... Everybody present has told that the riot police just waltzed inside and starting beating people up, then let people leave but only going through a tunnel of cops beating them up some more. There are also more videos from different angles. Assumptions are dangerous, and so are these stormtroopers.
      - stef25 8y ago
        I'm not going to argue with journalists from la Liberation and have no doubt their testimonials are true. It's still not clear why they would enter a BK (full of tear gas, according to the journalist) while at least some of the surrounding roads were free. If they really were beating innocent bystanders then they should be punished to the full extent of the law, while at the same time I understand the violent reaction of the police after having been pelted with rocks for hours just for wearing a uniform. I've been in these kind of protests before, you can tell well in advance that things are going to get ugly. When you have police being attacked from all sides and you intend no harm, you know it's time to gtfo because you will get caught up in the violence.

village-idiot 8y ago

I’d also recommend not picking a fight with people in riot gear.

PavlovsCat 8y ago

It's not the job of the police to administer "punishment" like that on the spot.

stef25 8y ago
It's called riot control
- PavlovsCat 8y ago
  How so? Is it just "France is not a totalitarian nation", so it's riot contol by definition? Or is it because "the other side" also rioted in other instances and/or previously in that scene, and you think collective punishment is a thing -- while talking about the "full extent of the law" at the same time no less? Just by all the stuff you brought up to excuse and distract from it, by how bankrupt it is to just go "France is not a totalitarian nation, if you think that you're stupid bai" -- I would guess you know what this is. When I saw this a few months ago https://twitter.com/SeinUndSeid/status/1045656778342629376 https://twitter.com/SeinUndSeid/status/1045656778342629376 which is so cute and harmless in contrast, I was called all sorts of names for saying this is totally uncalled for, unaccetable. Everybody else in that thread was super righteous about protecting the upstanding police blah blah blah. (When in fact the opposite is true, being spineless and excusing this stuff is supporting thugs, and stabbing ALL professional police in the back.) They called it riot control, too. Self-defense, even, someone understandably snapping at their poor colleagues being so horribly mistreated by the crowd, so kicking at a guy who is already held down by 500 guys is obviously normal. Just like you, they mentioned what "the other side" was doing. NO TEARS for someone resisting arrest near an angry crowd! How principled they were, what upstanding, well educated, democratic, intelligent citizens they were, and what a little hoodlum I was for talking back. The most hilarious plot twist there was it turned out it was civilians that stopped other civilians from throwing bottles, the police with their liberal use of pepper spray, and kicking that guy, achieved jack shit in that regard. Anyway, the Berliner Polizei saw it more like me rather than the people who had defended the abuse. Their press release actually was amended with something about an officer "arriving and kicking at the fixated person", and started an investigation about that. It sounded serious too, they didn't use any euphemisms at all. They made no effort to call police brutality anything but that, in total contrast to the posts that had defended it. I don't know how good or bad the French police is, but I know potential for denazification when I see it. Which has nothing to do with whole nations, but by definition with individuals and individual actions. Cops like that need to be punished period, if the law shields them, then the law needs to be changed.