52 ms·

Police attacks against journalists across the U.S. since May 28

1125 points by laurex 6y ago

qq11ww22ee33 6y ago
Infighting.
bosswipe 6y ago
I had been heartened by the right's recent upswing in fierce support for the first amendment, but unfortunately I've seen little of that support during the protests as freedom of assembly and freedom of the press have been attacked. For example Rand Paul has not tweeted in a week. Sadly, as always, these kind of principled arguments, on both sides, are a sham to advance whatever the partisan battle of the week is.
- Loughla 6y ago
  I honestly wish there was anyone in Washington who seemed willing or able to lead in a bipartisan manner. Someone who didn't rely on the partisan firestorm of the week to get support. It's all very disheartening, and hard to explain to my children.
  - acid__ 6y ago
    Agreed, but I think it’s perhaps just an unavoidable outcome of human nature. (Apologies for the pessimism.) It’s my view that humans are most moved by emotion, and the easiest way to produce emotion as a politician is to play up a charged partisan issue. Would love to hear alternative takes or solutions if anyone has them.
  - lghh 6y ago
    Justin Amash might be someone to look for.
  - pjc50 6y ago
    Prisoner's dilemma. Bipartisanship is "cooperate", divisiveness is "defect". Cooperating with a defector results in losing badly. The right have worked this out and are playing "defect" continuously. And currently "winning". We have to change the payoff matrix.
    - ashtonkem 6y ago
      The name for this is “asymmetric polarization”. The right polarized and stopped cooperating earlier and more aggressively.
  - dlp211 6y ago
    What does "lead in a bipartisan manner" even mean? In what era of this country did anyone lead in a "bipartisan manner"?
    - rabidrat 6y ago
      Obama did a pretty damn good job.
  - agildehaus 6y ago
    When you have one side that has completely lost touch with reality, being bipartisan is a bad idea.
  - mythrwy 6y ago
    I wish we could ban political parties (pipe dream I know). What positive are they doing for us at this juncture?
    - nitrogen 6y ago
      The first step is encouraging local governments to switch away from first-past-the-post voting, which has been mathematically demonstrated to lead to polarization between two parties that are mostly indistinguishable outside of the core polar issues.
- theplague42 6y ago
  That's because their support was always fake. It's about non-existent "censorship" of conservatives, nothing more.
  - xenospn 6y ago
    They seem to always go silent when they must take an actual stand. Sadly, this looks like a successful strategy.
  - dionidium 6y ago
    This is, of course, ridiculous. There are serious people who genuinely care about that issue. More generally, there is always nearby the temptation to definitionally exclude one's political opponents from serious discussion by the lazy insinuation that they don't really believe what they say they believe, that their side is more opportunistic and cynical than yours, and that, therefore, what work even needs to be done to argue the point? After all, there are only two staked-out positions: those who agree with me already and those who are lying about their motives! Try to resist this. It goes nowhere. It leads to nothing. And I assure you that, whatever the issue, there really are people who see it differently than you. I know that can be hard to accept, but it's almost always true.
    - 3131s 6y ago
      Sure, don't assume malice with regular people, but US politicians are completely disingenuous and they know exactly what they're doing. It is rare for them to "really believe what they say they believe", because saying anything true at all pretty quickly starts to reveal their financial interests.
- Press2forEN 6y ago
  The riots today are driven by the far left and their typical rejection of capitalism and tradition. I don't see the right supporting their message of social authoritarianism any time soon.
  - xenospn 6y ago
    This is verifiably false.
    - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
      Don't just claim it. Supply the verification.
      - apazzolini 6y ago
        The onus to supply verification is on the person making the claim. Hitchen's razor: What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.
        leetcrew 6y ago
        in general yes, but if someone says something is "verifiably false", you might expect them to at least provide some clues as to how that could be verified.
      - wetmore 6y ago
        Why don't you ask the same thing of the person who made the original claim?
        AnimalMuppet 6y ago
        That's fair. Still, "nuh uh" is not an effective rebuttal. Asking for evidence is better than "you're wrong" or "you're a liar". "Here's evidence that you're wrong" is even stronger.
- prudhvis 6y ago
  Aren't most of these happening in majority left wing states and cities run by the left. AFAIK they are still report the Mayors of the cities. Let's not make this a Right vs Left thing any more. The country is already divided as it is, we don't need further division in this country.
  - theplague42 6y ago
    Sure, but the president is a Republican who is relishing the opportunity to violently put down protests.
  - bosswipe 6y ago
    If the first amendment violations are being done by left wing politicians then it should be even easier for the right to attack them, but instead they're silent or encouraging tougher violations.
  - klyrs 6y ago
    Big cities tend to vote democrat, but there are protests in all 50 states.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  That renewed interest in free speech was never genuine. At the same time they were decrying Twitter “censorship” (mostly on Twitter, I will add), they were busy trying to force laws that would forbid people boycotting Israel from ever getting a government contract. The same people who were praising protest against lock downs are now saying that being out past curfew justifies being shot with a rubber baton. It was all partisan.
  - youeseh 6y ago
    Indeed. No one likes it when people disagree with them. And this is precisely why the freedom of speech is so important and has thankfully stood its tests in court. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech
- rpiguy 6y ago
  Because rioting isn’t free speech. All conservatives support peaceable assembly and protest. They also fiercely believe in property rights as inherently tied to the concept of liberty. It is right in the Declaration of Independence. No conservative worth his or her salt will defend theft, property destruction, etc.
  - Barrin92 6y ago
    rioting is indeed not free speech, but surely attacking the press, one of the fundamental institutions in any democracy, is a violation of free speech. And not only have the people in question not spoken up in defense of the press, they've actually routinely declare them the enemy of the people.
    - rpiguy 6y ago
      Fully Agree. The press should not be attacked. There is no excuse for it.
      - Drybones 6y ago
        When everyone has a camera, social media audiences, live streams, YouTube channel, websites, and blogs/micro-blogging, what is the definition of Press and why do Press get to ignore restrictions and closed off areas? Are the only Press allowed to be Press those that are part of a large national news network? Is Alex Jones Press if he shows up to these with a guy with a camera and enters areas civilians are not allowed to be in?
  - mcguire 6y ago
    Anybody remember the Clinton administration, when the popular cry was "Charlton Heston is my president!" and "The purpose of the Right to Bear Arms isn't for hunting, it is so that politicians fear the people!" Yeah, I don't either. Yes, rioting isn't free speech. Unfortunately, nothing short of rioting seems to work---the people in question are poor and already at the bottom of the social pile, so their options seem limited.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- tomjakubowski 6y ago
  To his credit Justin Amash has been very active in speaking out against government and police actions the past week or so.
- panny 6y ago
  >I had been heartened by the right's recent upswing in fierce support for the first amendment, but unfortunately I've seen little of that support during the protests You do see a difference in the protests, right? The protests against lockdowns didn't include looting, arson, rape, murder, and multiple murdered police. Here, have a small sample, Black pawn shop employee murdered by looters for TVs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhG0v9pDycM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhG0v9pDycM "You said black lives matter.. look what you did to my store" https://mobile.twitter.com/Mus1yMustafa/status/1267874483840442368 https://mobile.twitter.com/Mus1yMustafa/status/1267874483840... Destroying store and beating unarmed woman and her husband https://streamable.com/rvrwil https://streamable.com/rvrwil Restaurant manager beaten and stomped for trying to defend his workplace https://streamable.com/ila4dh https://streamable.com/ila4dh Stopping, beating and stomping a truck driver while protesters yell to kill him https://streamable.com/8zk9dq https://streamable.com/8zk9dq Protesters attack a media member and then pummel him https://streamable.com/p4i3jb https://streamable.com/p4i3jb Police officer beaten on the streets https://streamable.com/je4ki5 https://streamable.com/je4ki5 Car runs over a cop https://streamable.com/q4nat7 https://streamable.com/q4nat7 Protesters set homeless man’s belongings on fire https://streamable.com/sdjvfa https://streamable.com/sdjvfa Throwing fireworks at the cops https://streamable.com/7sv4a9 https://streamable.com/7sv4a9 Chasing and beating guy with red had https://streamable.com/rcsmi0 https://streamable.com/rcsmi0 I can keep going. It is utterly dispicable. There's a long long list of videos with these "peaceful protestors" in action. Everyone has a camera, and all of this is available for you to see, if you only choose to see it.
  - pbourke 6y ago
    > Protesters set homeless man’s belongings on fire This was staged by infowars. I cannot be arsed to look at all of your videos. The right wing lockdown protests had a strong smell of AstroTurf about them: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/21/us/politics/coronavirus-protests-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/21/us/politics/coronavirus-p...
    - panny 6y ago
      >I cannot be arsed to look at all your videos Oh well, I guess black lives don't actually matter to you then, because the video I lead with is a real black man who really died. https://fox6now.com/2020/06/02/police-retired-st-louis-police-captain-killed-by-pawn-shop-burglars-amid-unrest/ https://fox6now.com/2020/06/02/police-retired-st-louis-polic...
linsomniac 6y ago
I can imagine animosity from the leadership, for example classifying most journalists as "fake news", contributing to violence from the front line against them.
- gameswithgo 6y ago
  I'm sure that has made things worse but general animosity between the press and police goes back decades.
  - kingkawn 6y ago
    Do not dismiss this new horrifying upswing in brutality with hollow generalizations
    - alexpetralia 6y ago
      > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - morelisp 6y ago
        'kingkawn's response is neither snarky, uncurious, unkind, or demanding. It's pleading against a particularly common kind of cynicism. Whatever else you might think of this situation, it's impossible to deny something has shifted. Appeals to "it's just the same thing" are at best hollow, at worst placative.
- chadlavi 6y ago
  That, and the journalists are literally there to record evidence of their abuse. Police don't like it too much when you record evidence of them, say, beating a peaceful protester, or forcing a weapon into the hands of someone already pinned to the ground.
lostmsu 6y ago
I think it would show more nuanced sentiment to say, that on 110 occasions journalists ended up caught in aggressive police action since May 28. Current wording would have an implication for many people, that journalists were deliberately chosen as targets.
- cryptoz 6y ago
  The current wording is correct. The journalists are in fact being deliberately chosen as targets.
  - lostmsu 6y ago
    This is not the first article claiming that on HN (the previous one was flagged to death). Like the previous one, this one does not show anything objective to support this interpretation.
    - fzeroracer 6y ago
      The last time I linked you multiple objective instances showing journalists being attacked by the police unprovoked, you made some strong efforts to try and ignore the context of those videos. I don't think you're here to actually argue in good faith at all.
      - lostmsu 6y ago
        > ignore the context of those videos Huh? There was no context in most of those videos, which was exactly the problem I was pointing to, and is the same one with this post.
  - iso1631 6y ago
    Journalists are often targeted by rogue states https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/marie-colvin-syria-killed-journalist-bashar-assad-us-court-paul-conroy-a8757501.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/marie-colv...
- 6y ago
runawaybottle 6y ago
I just want to say that we have to do the things necessary to differentiate ourselves from places like China or Saudi Arabia. Nothing is implicit.
- jdc 6y ago
  While this is very disappointing news, these matters are not black and white. That is that say that even if police attack journalists in two countries, the one where it happens less frequently still outperforms the other.
  - r00fus 6y ago
    Hypocrisy is a problem too. At some point, a mild improvement over totalitarianism becomes an implementation detail.
- curiousgal 6y ago
  I am honestly rejoicing at the sight of Americans discovering they are not really as free or as better than the rest of the world as they think they are. Maybe this will be the kindle that will help make things right for the entire population. I know the majority of HN readers are in the top 10% of the population and don't face the same struggles as others.
  - exclusiv 6y ago
    > I am honestly rejoicing at the sight of Americans discovering they are not really as free or as better than the rest of the world as they think they are Americans are still freer than the rest of the world in general. None of this changes that. "As better" - still hasn't changed either if by better you mean better off. If you're born in the US, in general, you're in a position to be better off than most of the world. These two things also apply to most European countries. We aren't going to apologize for it. I understand if American patriotism and confidence puts off other countries. It's not for everyone. Different cultures have different values. It's ok. Sad we have to address police corruption and brutality, but it's part of the process. Many nations don't have the ability for civilians to enact change. It's core to our foundation. We've done it many times before.
itsspring 6y ago
When "Freedom of the Press" is under attack, newspapers/press/media have had their legal counsel file lawsuits against the government. But with the demise of revenue for many newspapers (and many going out of business), I wonder if they will take those expensive steps.
- jonlucc 6y ago
  If they don't respond in their reporters' interest, they won't have reporters risking arrest and hazard to report for them.
  - viraptor 6y ago
    It's not that clear cut fortunately. There are people who do this because they really believe it should be done. Even without large org support, they'll be out there. See for example https://unicornriot.ninja/ https://unicornriot.ninja/ which was on the ground, live streaming from the early days of the protest in Minneapolis.
- apazzolini 6y ago
  Are you aware of a foundation I can donate to that will explicitly use the money in these types of lawsuits against the government?
  - colejohnson66 6y ago
    ACLU?
    - itsspring 6y ago
      The ACLU has too many objectives, so I don't think defending journalism is their primary goal. This fund is probably better, dollar for dollar: https://www.spj.org/ldf.asp https://www.spj.org/ldf.asp
  - itsspring 6y ago
    https://www.spj.org/ldf.asp https://www.spj.org/ldf.asp
simonw 6y ago
Since this is happening simultaneously in many different cities around the country, I have to wonder if there are private Facebook or WhatsApp or Signal groups where police members are talking about this trend. I'd very much like to see those conversations.
- HarryHirsch 6y ago
  Someone took screenshots of Amber Guyger's Instagram pages before she cleaned up her social media, and it was disgusting. Private cop groups absolutely exist. It would be interesting to subpoena Facebook when the Minneapolis Four go to trial and investigate how deep the rot goes.
- jonlucc 6y ago
  It's possible, but also, there's precedent from 2014 in Ferguson. Several members of credentialed media were arrested and assaulted to various degrees. Pretty much nothing happened by way of punishment other than a settlement from the DoJ saying they couldn't kettle people anymore, enforced by what is now Barr's department. Any officer paying attention would know you won't be punished unless you act particularly egregiously like the one officer in Louisville reassigned to desk duty (big whoop). Add on the amount of animosity stoked by the president toward media for the past 4-5 years, and it really doesn't take a simultaneously coordinated effort to have this outcome.
  - gedy 6y ago
    > you won't be punished unless you act particularly egregiously like the one officer in Louisville reassigned to desk duty (big whoop) Isn't this honestly largely due to the police union rules and contacts, which (unions) are a key part of leftist labor relations?
    - jonlucc 6y ago
      Partially, maybe. But there's also a large role of qualified immunity and poor use of force policies in departments around the country. If an officer isn't required to report every time they threatened lethal force, it doesn't matter what the contract says about what should be done with use of force complaints.
c1b 6y ago
Over 100 upvotes in 20 minutes for something non tech related?
- badrequest 6y ago
  Right now, on the front page, there are posts about the recreation of the first automobile, the archaeological discovery of cannabis residue at a dig site, news articles about meetings between Zuckerberg and civil rights leaders. While this site trends heavily towards tech, it is not so narrow-minded that we cannot discuss things not strictly related to that subject.
  - yters 6y ago
    i bring up this argument when anti ccp topics get flagged or modded, but for some reason the argument does not work in that context
    - dang 6y ago
      The argument does work in that context. It's the same across all topics as far as I know. The moderation question is always: what serves intellectual curiosity? https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20curiosity%20optimiz&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... Once a topic becomes repeated enough, there's a power-law-style dropoff in how interesting it is (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20curiosity%20repetition&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...), except to people who have a strong identification with one side of an argument, and that sort of interest isn't intellectual curiosity, it's loyalty to a cause. That may be an admirable quality in many ways, but it's not a good fit for this site. Nationalistic flamewar, which is the theme you're referring to, definitely falls in this category. That doesn't mean that "anti ccp" stories don't get attention here—they certainly do. Just not enough to satisfy the warriors, and rightly so, since warriors want every story that serves their cause to be on HN's front page. See also https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20%22significant%20new%20information%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... for how we handle major ongoing topics. Edit: it looks like we've had a similar conversation before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22870427 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22870427, which makes me think that your "for some reason" is an insinuation of the sort the site guidelines specifically ask people not to post: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Please don't do that here.
patheticFags 6y ago
Good. Fuck all journalists. If anything, maybe start killing them off. Also, start dismantling these corporations that pay their social media coordinators to grovel on twitter with thoughts and prayers.
xxxtmp123 6y ago
Who's the bully? This attitude is symptomatic of the real problem. The war on cops is nothing more than class warfare; the elite scapegoating people asked to do the hard work. This is college educated, wealthier folks picking on middle class working folks. Our byzantine legal system, that conveniently maximizes revenue for the legal industry, sows a lower class persecuted for mostly victimless crimes then asks the police to bring in the harvest. If you really want to get mad at the malfeasance in civil serice, take a look at your local school system. Unless, of course, you can afford the Catholic schools or a prep school. Frankly, if I were a cop, after watching the wink,wink "it's a peaceful protest" news reports, with clowns screaming and throwing bricks in the background, I might shoot a rubber bullet at the "reporters". Sorry for the anger , folks, but .... look in the mirror ... and at who you voted into local offices.
zubspace 6y ago
Here's another article uncovering the brutality of the police [1]. Some of the scenes are really inhuman [2] and I feel sorry for the poor people trying to make their voices heard. I hope, that both sides, the protesters and police force will find a way, to exit that spiral of violence. But right now it looks like this won't happen. It's a shame. If the state acts harder against protesters, journalists and civilian bystanders it will only fuel their anger. Leading to more violence, used by the state to issue a even worse crackdown than now. And so on and so on. The only hope that I have is, that other politicians from all parties will stand up against that. [1] https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2020/05/31/us-law-enforcement-are-deliberately-targeting-journalists-during-george-floyd-protests/ https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2020/05/31/us-law-e... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Byk2axDVNHE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Byk2axDVNHE
- sixothree 6y ago
  Third party oversight. This country was founded on checks and balances. There are no checks to their power as it stands now.
  - elliekelly 6y ago
    > Third party oversight. Aren't the journalists supposed to be the third party oversight? Showing and telling the rest of us what's happening so that when one side oversteps we as a society can take action to correct it?
    - zacharycohn 6y ago
      That's hard to do when the police open fire on the journalists.
    - throwaway743 6y ago
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model
    - lreeves 6y ago
abolishme 6y ago
Important to note: I have seen not one example of a non-press person claiming to be press and I've been watching all the livestreams constantly.
- colechristensen 6y ago
  Just a piece of data, a cameraman attacked by someone posing as a medic: https://twitter.com/Lucas_Jackson_/status/1267083968513486848 https://twitter.com/Lucas_Jackson_/status/126708396851348684... Any news reports of people posing as reporters might be suppressed by newsrooms themselves as to not encourage copycats or get the idea out there that reporters might not be reporters, that is entirely unsubstantiated conjecture though.
- some-are-better 6y ago
  See here for at least one example (funny that cops even noted to the man that he didn't display the press cred as the others standing right next to him) https://twitter.com/shane_bauer/status/1267669541452017673 https://twitter.com/shane_bauer/status/1267669541452017673
- handoflixue 6y ago
  In at least some states, "internet blogger" qualifies you as a journalist. So, y'know, if you've got a twitter account and you're talking about the protest, congrats: you're press!
lurkmurk 6y ago
"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." HN Guidelines But this is probably just my lurker observation. Not against all news but there should be at least some spark of insight of novelty. Feel free to flag now. Edit: To expand a bit. What I like about HN is not that it's tech but it has plethora of very interesting topics and comments are almost always insightful (unlike this one). This headline is basically the whole article. The comments are therefore not guided by idea, but news. This topic is important but nothing comes out of these threads. This rant is contributing to bad quality of comments, one thing I always try to avoid.
- rsynnott 6y ago
  > unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon Hundreds of journalists brutalised over the last week would seem to qualify, though for 'interesting' substitute 'horrifying'.
- simonw 6y ago
  You don't think police attacks on journalists counts as an "interesting new phenomenon"?
  - dnautics 6y ago
    It's hardly new in the us.
    - staticassertion 6y ago
      It actually is. While the police have often attacked journalists I don't know that it has ever been so blatant, so well documented, and done so broadly across all journalists, even from the larger news networks that often have the clout and means to avoid such abuse.
- ojnabieoot 6y ago
  News stories about freedom of speech and freedom of the press have always been welcome on HN, which is common in tech communities, and the words “most” and “probably” are doing a lot of work there. This rule is fuzzy by design and I really don’t get why some people here are so pedantic about it.
temptemptemp111 6y ago
Journalists deserved to be attacked more often. Their lies are leading to death & destruction - and they have no disincentives.
microcolonel 6y ago
Rioters are the competition for police right now, and competition is anything but fierce. When people are driving cars full speed into policemen, executing officers, throwing incendiary devices at people, covering for looters, and major media outlets are bending over backwards to justify it (which I suspect is, at the managerial/editorial level, naked self-preservation). This is not grieving, it's a civil war; many journalists have chosen a side and you know it, and there is no moral principle that you will be able to uphold on that matter from your apartment.
georgeburdell 6y ago
@dang are you making an exception for these posts given the current situation? Although important, I do not see anything of technological interest. Any post about the protests are going to incite flame wars and make HN indistinguishable from any other social website right now.
- yters 6y ago
  i am curious about that too it is the justification given for shutting down anti ccp discussions and articles what makes this situation different? surely not the scale of human atrocity? ccp still has the us gov beat, hands down. maybe us lives just matter more?
- dpbriggs 6y ago
  They get flagged quickly off the front page.
- arianvanp 6y ago
  Though I agree the discussion might turn into flame war. I think this too much of an important flame war to just remove or deprioritise from the homepage ... Just my two cents. Technology has been extremely relevant in this whole ordeal. The fact that we can now create and share videos online that document these human right violations en masse is a thing that technology has allowed us to do. OTOH We as the 'tech world' play a huge role in both how the narrative of "the media is the enemy" came to fruition and how people are radicalised online to actually believe this. It is extremely important to recognise what tech's place is in all this
  - Pils 6y ago
    The poster you are responding to is not making his argument in good faith. He is more than fine posting inflammatory political statements on HN: >The benefits of diversity is the Left’s pseudoscience...I want climate deniers and diversity sycophants alike purged from the scientific apparatus.[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19912265 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19912265
- cwkoss 6y ago
haydenlee 6y ago
Cached: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:c-5hfR5ySHkJ:https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/06/well-try-to-help-you-follow-the-police-attacks-on-journalists-across-the-country/ https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:c-5hfR...
brenden2 6y ago
For anyone who wants to keep an eye on what's going on, the subreddit /r/PublicFreakout is full of videos of police (and rioters) engaging in violence. I haven't found a better source yet. There's sometimes misattributed content, so be sure to wade carefully. Many of these cases have multiple videos from different people from different angles as well. The evidence is quite damning.
- dashundchen 6y ago
  https://www.reddit.com/r/2020PoliceBrutality/ https://www.reddit.com/r/2020PoliceBrutality/ for another source of documented police violence.
  - koheripbal 6y ago
    Unfortunately, that sub only documents one side of the story.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- koheripbal 6y ago
  That sub is great because you really get a good sampling of what's going on. There are peaceful/permitted protests that the police leave alone and occasionally support/join. There are peaceful/not-permitted protests that the police disperse with various uses of non-lethal force. There are Rioters that vandalize and try to blend with protesters but seldom directly confront the police - occasionally confronted by protesters. ...and then there's just tons of rampant looting with little police intervention. Anyone blending these four distinct phenomenon is just doing truth and justice a disservice.
  - margalabargala 6y ago
    Could you clarify your use of "permitted" here? In the sense of "allowed", it seems redundant, since you go on to say that they were or were not forcibly dispersed. The other option, more literal, is "they got a permit to do this protest", but there have certainly been plenty of peaceful grassroots protests that got no sort of official go-ahead and yet were executed perfectly fine on both sides.
colechristensen 6y ago
Some people say police attacking journalists are isolated incidents by a few bad eggs, most of them are doing the right thing. Some people say protestors becoming violent, vandalizing, and looting are isolated incidents by a few bad eggs, most of them are doing the right thing. Really similar thought processes go into those two, usually by people you can sort into camps of opposing worldviews. They're both right and both wrong, but it's surprising how similar the lines of thought are and how people can't see the other side is thinking just the same way.
- Pfhreak 6y ago
  One of those groups has access to military hardware, live ammunition, and legal (or cultural) protections from prosecution. It's dangerously to boil down the arguments from both sides and say, "Look, these two things are the same!" because even if both sides were saying, "It's a few bad apples", the implications of that would be wildly different.
  - colechristensen 6y ago
    It's unfortunately not an easy task, getting people to see a whole issue and not just their own interpretation. Whatever your side, have empathy for the people you oppose and try to understand their failings and mistakes. Without that, progress and improvement are nearly impossible.
  - wnoise 6y ago
    One of these groups could in theory arrest their bad apples. The other cannot.
    - Pfhreak 6y ago
      Or, at the absolute minimum, fire them.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- 6y ago
AaronFriel 6y ago
Hey dang, why was the headline changed from the source's?
- dang 6y ago
  I changed it from the article title to a shortened version of the URL slug (/well-try-to-help-you-follow-the-police-attacks-on-journalists-across-the-country). That's often a legit source title, along with the HTML doc title, and other places that articles tend to reveal what they're actually about (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20url%20html%20doc%20title&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). The reason I changed it is that "U.S. police have attacked journalists more than 110 times since May 28" is more baity. First you've got the aggressive verb "attacked". And then you've got the specific facts and figures (100 times, May 28). Why do these things make a title more baity? I don't know, but they are somehow active ingredients in the psychology of titles, which is why headline writers use them. I think of them as sharp edges. If you throw a spiky thing into a crowd, it gets more attention than a beach ball—but the quality of attention is not conducive to a reflective discussion on the internet (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20reflective%20reflex&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). People react to the sharp bits. It's in HN's interest to rewrite baity titles (indeed the site guidelines request it: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) but this is 1000x more important on inflammatory topics of the moment, like this one. We want HN to discuss this, but we want to support the discussion to stay in the intended spirit of the site: thoughtful, respectful, curious conversation. The material is provocative enough, and a title doesn't need sharp edges to make readers here care about the topic. To clear up a misconception that sometimes arises: I'm not saying the statement in the sharper title is false. Obviously it's legitimate to use an aggressive verb to describe an aggressive action, and if the facts and figures are true then it's obviously legitimate to make a factual statement with them. As a reader I have zero problem with that title. But the moderator perspective is different: the question for a moderator, on HN at least, is always: what is the prospective effect on forthcoming discussion? Or to put it pseudotechnically: given choice A vs. choice B, what is the diff between the probability distribution of threads that A is a prefix of, vs. threads that B is a prefix of? (This is just a metaphor, but it reflects how we think about this. See https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20%22expected%20value%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... for more.) In the case of these two alternative titles, experience has shown that there's a significant difference in probable outcomes, and titles are by far the biggest influence on threads, so it's potentially a big deal.
jascii 6y ago
Disclaimer: I am a bleeding heart liberal and this may filter my observations. I have been to a few rallies/vigils/marches lately and all incidences of violence that I have witnessed either in person or through media has been instigated by the police. As far as I know,every documented case where a formerly peaceful crowd turns into chaos has been started with police shooting pepperspray, teargas, or whatever into the crowd. I find it really hard to not come to the conclusion that the police is desperately trying to set a narrative to justify a history of violence by escalating more violence, but please, someone, restore my faith.
- jwilber 6y ago
  It’s the same here in Seattle as it was while I was in Berkeley during Ferguson. People protest peacefully, and police shoot tear gas into the crowd and attack whomever they can get their hands on. I’ll admit, the outright brutality I saw in-person in Oakland was worse than what I’ve seen here in the recent days. In Oakland, the police would purposely corral protestors into groups and literally beat the shit out of them. I saw this in-person multiple times. In Seattle, I haven’t seen that sort of corral behavior. However, police do shoot tear gas completely unprovoked and fire rubber bullets and mace without concern. In both places, no looting was occurring at the main scene of the protests. In both cases, numerous videos show police breaking windows themselves. In any case, it’s all the same: in a country that parades its freedom, people of color can’t protest without the president calling for them to be roughed up, and without the police willingly complying.
  - SpelingBeeChamp 6y ago
    "numerous videos show police breaking windows themselves" I don't believe you. The umbrella guy breaking the AutoZone window with a hammer has no connection to any police department. Someone made that up on social media and people shared it because that's what people do. The only video I know of showing officers breaking a window is out of Seattle. It shows officers responding to a burglary in progress at a Target store. The officers had to chip away at the already broken glass windows so they could safely get in. (The burglars had broken the glass to get inside.) Once inside, the responding officers found and arrested the three burglars they had come for.
camdenlock 6y ago
Two things can be true here: police overreach, and terrorist violence. Both need to be dealt with. We need law enforcement to keep order and uphold the law, while also not silencing reporters and journalists. Terrorists, we just need them to fuck right off. (In this case, the horizontally-organized “antifa” cells)
ravenstine 6y ago
A reporter at my previous workplace, KPCC, was shot in the neck with a rubber bullet on Saturday. https://laist.com/2020/05/31/reporters_injured_protests_police.php https://laist.com/2020/05/31/reporters_injured_protests_poli... It's unfortunate that it's gotten to this point for people to take police brutality at least somewhat seriously. I'm mistaken for being pro-police and anti-BLM merely because I'm against the looting and rioting. I've always had the stance that the police in their current form are state-sanctioned street gangs.
- pwinnski 6y ago
  I recently read that if you tend to think, "it's a shame that black people are being killed by cops like this, but the rioting and looting MUST stop," perhaps you should consider thinking more like, "it's a shame that there is rioting and looting, but black people being killed by cops like this MUST stop."
  - ravenstine 6y ago
    All ideas should be considered, but yours is not one I subscribe to. More people have been killed and had their lives destroyed as the result of non-protestors taking advantage of the protests to destroy communities. This is before the actual protests themselves have even been given a chance to succeed without violence. To subscribe to your perspective, I would have to believe that rioting and looting is the way to address police violence, and that the protesters and rioters are on the same page. If that were the case, then the country should be set on fire for the number of crimes it commits. Put simply, there's no need for a "but". Once can make both statements without implying that one has precedence over the other.
    - heavyset_go 6y ago
      How many people have these non-protestors killed? Are you talking about police or what you'd describe as rioters?
      - 6y ago
jfoster 6y ago
How & why is this happening? I feel fairly confident that police don't usually attack media, but it seems clear that in the past few days there has been some kind of deliberate choice made to start doing so. Are individual groups of police making the decision to attack media, or is it concerted? Are they just seeing it from other police and copying? I know some people will say it's because Trump has called media "fake news" and such, but is that really all it takes for police to start such gross behaviour? At the same time, I presume there hasn't been a direct order to start targeting media or it would have been leaked.
- viraptor 6y ago
  It all started with the media, as in, police crime was documented. Now when police already uses questionable methods, cameras will point at them. Since they can't be identified in full gear, they can shoot at press without anyone stopping them, so I guess why not? They're already shooting at random people so there's a lot of aggression built up.
  - dntbnmpls 6y ago
    The media didn't document the crime. It was ordinary people with smartphones.
    - viraptor 6y ago
      Maybe I implied this too subtly: If you've got a phone camera pointed at police, there may be a legal definition difference, but effectively you're media or the content provider for them.
  - iso947 6y ago
    Why don’t the police have visible numbers on their uniforms?
    - lm28469 6y ago
      They do, but they put black tape on the numbers or conveniently have some piece of equipment in front of it. It's not like someone is going to punish them for doing that
99_00 6y ago
Is this because of police changing their tactics or is it because of journalists changing their tactics? I don't know the answer, but with the internet and analytics, we've seen media become more sensationalistic to get those clicks and views. So this is a possibility that should be considered.
- augustt 6y ago
  Honestly cannot tell if you're trolling. If journalists are getting roughed up more because of sensationalism (still well within their 1st amendment rights) that is _completely_ the fault of police. One side has cameras. The other side has guns. When violence happens, who's fault do you think it is?
  - 99_00 6y ago
    Do you agree that police have the right to declare a gathering unlawful and can clear the area?
    - colechristensen 6y ago
      The police? Not so much. Police don't make law, they shouldn't get to decide very many things at all. The state (or city, or nation, where appropriate)? Absolutely, but only when absolutely necessary. (like curfew orders which follow widespread disorder and destruction)
      - 99_00 6y ago
        In practice, they do have that right. And they have the right to use reasonable force to enforce that. So arguing that police are always wrong to use force to clear an area, regardless if media are there or not, is an argument against the laws as they are. That's a hard argument to make.
    - augustt 6y ago
      Clear the area how? I think people have forgotten this doesn't need to mean your first step is pulling out the batons. If you tell a journalist they are under arrest, they will always comply. They won't fight back. So yes, still cops' fault.
angel_j 6y ago
It is totally ironic bullshit that mainstream media "journalist" are presumed to get passes to watch police brutalize the actual 1st amendment right to free assembly.
- angel_j 6y ago
  Less speech out of you please.
50ckpuppet 6y ago
Does Assange count?
mrfusion 6y ago
It seems like in a democracy that voting should be able to effect the changes we need. What has gone wrong?
- dlp211 6y ago
  We have a system of Democracy that emphasizes property over people.
- nemothekid 6y ago
  Are you serious? 1. If that were true women would still be unable to vote. Would you tell women in 1905 that "it's a democracy, you don't need to protest, just vote." 2. Even now, we have seen the power that be make it more and more difficult to vote. The current administration is throwing a complete temper tantrum at even the thought of letting people use absentee ballots during a national pandemic, citing the voter fraud boogeyman.
  - rpiguy 6y ago
    Women didn’t shoot cops in the back of the head, burn down city hall, steal and loot stores. These aren’t protests they are riots.
    - SirYandi 6y ago
      Protests and riots aren't mutually exclusive
      - rpiguy 6y ago
        Yes they are. Rioting is not protest. It is criminal activity. Your right to protest, assemble, and speak does not include setting buildings with children inside on fire, murdering pawn shop owners, killing federal officers. I fully support everyone out there marching not committing crimes.
        lm28469 6y ago
dmix 6y ago
This policy introduced into congress sounds like a helpful solution: > "Ending Qualified Immunity Act," which would allow civil lawsuits against police, a recourse that the Supreme Court has all but done away with. https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/06/01/us/politics/01reuters-minneapolis-police-congress.html https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/06/01/us/politics/01reu... That plus the laundry list of obvious issues with criminal justice that any defense attorney could list off hand.
- gruez 6y ago
  Is qualified immunity really the issue? The general impression I have is that PDs/DAs straight up refuse to investigate/prosecute abuses of power. It's not like we have a bunch of cases where the case was airtight, but the officer was being acquitted because of qualified immunity.
  - creaghpatr 6y ago
    Might as well start somewhere.
  - mcguire 6y ago
    Qualified immunity affects civil suits, not criminal prosecution. If the police department or district attorneys refuse to investigate or prosecute, qualified immunity means that cannot sue for recourse (under some qualifications).
  - 1123581321 6y ago
    Civil torts are a check on the criminal prosecution system when it becomes too lenient.
loceng 6y ago
If you haven't seen it yet there's a 2020 Police Brutality subreddit - https://www.reddit.com/r/2020PoliceBrutality/ https://www.reddit.com/r/2020PoliceBrutality/ - that's very active in cataloguing the increasing number of video evidence of police brutality; 35,000 subscribers, up from 12,000 just this morning. Warning: there is a lot of disturbing content there.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
IhateRenoSaveMe 6y ago
I do not agree at least not where I am. I am in Reno Nevada and I witnessed a kid with a skateboard break out the back window of a police car that had 2 police inside the car at the time and the police did nothing, the kid (i say kid but early 20's) walked away after without being arrested, pepper-sprayed, or anything. What I witnessed was a peaceful protest that started mid-morning and did not turn violent until 6 pm when some non-local possibly Antifa idiots ran up to city hall with a baseball bat and started breaking out windows of the building, then a follow the herd mentality took over and people cheering them on and before you know it its a full-blown riot. They even spray painted up the police station and the police did nothing. It was not until the destruction of property at city hall that the heavy police presence showed up but even then most of them were just standing around city hall. They fired some tear gas to push people back and out of the downtown area. I was disappointed at our police and their lackadaisical approach to handling the unrest. So, its neither the protesters nor the police inciting the violence it is these non-local wannabe thugs like Antifa starting it. Someone needs to investigate George Soros for having these people on his payroll to go out and do this very thing.
dzonga 6y ago
in zimbabwe, the police was once put on lockdown. & guess what the protests were peaceful, no looting etc. america needs to do the same. otherwise, this is another pointer show america has been a 3rd world country. i'm sure you know where else journos are harassed.
AGI2725 6y ago
This is what happens when the majority of your country engages in groupthink and divisive labeling. This goes to the police, journalists, rioters, looters and protesters. You all have failed the individual.
davidw 6y ago
It's a pity that some on the left in the past have been so ready with the word 'fascism'. It's a serious word describing a serious problem, and it should not be used casually for "people on the right I disagree with". I believe that the word is appropriate to describe this administration.
- chooseaname 6y ago
  At the very least, fascist-like.
- chillwaves 6y ago
  That's your take-away from all this? You really felt this comment needs to exist? It's interesting what some people's priorities are.
  - non-entity 6y ago
    The irony is that the right seems to be abusing the word more than the left does these day. It seems to be a catch-all for people who are mean to me on the internet for them.
    - davidw 6y ago
      'These days', the word is appropriate to describe the administration, was my point. I don't think it's hyperbole.
  - davidw 6y ago
    Do you have anything substantive to say? Do you disagree that this behavior - assaulting journailsts - is fascist? Calling them the 'enemy of the people'? One of my senators used it as well and that's not the kind of thing they toss around lightly. https://twitter.com/RonWyden/status/1267605801549664256 https://twitter.com/RonWyden/status/1267605801549664256
    - pnako 6y ago
      It's not specifically fascist, in the sense that many groups are doing it, and it's not exactly a central tenet of fascism. Mussolini was himself a journalist.
egberts1 6y ago
Wear a jacket that says Press. Holds up better in US Court when accosted by cops.
mchusma 6y ago
I have been trying to think of good, relatively simple policy decisions that can make a large impact. I have not heard too many proposed besides removing qualified immunity. I would be curious what ideas people have: Ideas include: -Banning police unions -Having a federal agency to discipline police (outside the purview of local politics) I haven't heard this idea elsewhere but I like the idea of us addressing from the top down the fact that we have the highest incarceration rate in the world at 698 per 1,000 currently. This is something like 10x some comparable countries, and at least 3x any country we consider "free" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate#Comparison_with_other_countries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_ra...). We can make a top down decision to change this by making a hard "200 incarcerated per 100,000" cap at the state level. Dec 31st of each year, each state with over 200 per 100,000 prisoners has to release prisoners until they are below the threshold. I am not saying it is a simple problem, but any other solution ideas?
- elihu 6y ago
  Ending cash bail policies wouldn't directly address police violence, but it could reduce the incarceration rate. There are many people in jail waiting trial for crimes they did not commit, simply because they could not afford bail and would not take a plea deal. Ending the use of private prisons and restricting police use of military equipment and weapons are also frequently suggested proposals. In terms of police violence, I think the main thing lacking right now is accountability. There are a lot of ways to impose that. One avenue is to impose accountability from a higher level of government (for instance: the FBI getting involved if local government doesn't act), and the other traditional approach is accountability from voters.
  - mchusma 6y ago
    Thanks! Ending cash bail is a good one. I'm not so well versed on private prisons, but I think I'm general the scale of incarceration is a larger issue than the quality of it. Still a good suggestion for discussion. We have 10x more incarcerated per capital than germany. If the police think 1 in 100 (rounding a bit) belong in jail, it leads to a very different quality of interaction if it is 1 in 1,000. Definitely agree on the issues with accountability.
noirchen 6y ago
You have to outnumber for security. From the videos in Hong Kong, I noticed that the journalists in shiny PRESS vests were usually WAAAAAY more than the number of police, many of them only holding video-taking cell phones.
throwaway43852 6y ago
Now post a compilation of rioter and looter attacks against citizens, especially the poor, elderly, and disabled citizens who can't afford to insulate ourselves from this like you rich SV sociopaths supporting all of this can.
wiseleo 6y ago
I submitted this story about a KPIX reporter detained despite clearly identifying herself as media. https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2020/06/01/tear-gas-rubber-bullets-oakland-protest-george-floyd-kpix-katie-nielsen/ https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2020/06/01/tear-gas-rubber...
novia 6y ago
Here's a repo to collect videos of police brutality during the protests. https://github.com/2020PB/police-brutality https://github.com/2020PB/police-brutality
NicolasBeuzeboc 6y ago
There is video of police discreetly unloading bricks to later bait the unsuspecting protester into using them.

1125 points by laurex 6y ago

Infighting.

I had been heartened by the right's recent upswing in fierce support for the first amendment, but unfortunately I've seen little of that support during the protests as freedom of assembly and freedom of the press have been attacked. For example Rand Paul has not tweeted in a week. Sadly, as always, these kind of principled arguments, on both sides, are a sham to advance whatever the partisan battle of the week is.

Loughla 6y ago
I honestly wish there was anyone in Washington who seemed willing or able to lead in a bipartisan manner. Someone who didn't rely on the partisan firestorm of the week to get support. It's all very disheartening, and hard to explain to my children.
- acid__ 6y ago
  Agreed, but I think it’s perhaps just an unavoidable outcome of human nature. (Apologies for the pessimism.) It’s my view that humans are most moved by emotion, and the easiest way to produce emotion as a politician is to play up a charged partisan issue. Would love to hear alternative takes or solutions if anyone has them.
- lghh 6y ago
  Justin Amash might be someone to look for.
- pjc50 6y ago
  Prisoner's dilemma. Bipartisanship is "cooperate", divisiveness is "defect". Cooperating with a defector results in losing badly. The right have worked this out and are playing "defect" continuously. And currently "winning". We have to change the payoff matrix.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    The name for this is “asymmetric polarization”. The right polarized and stopped cooperating earlier and more aggressively.
- dlp211 6y ago
  What does "lead in a bipartisan manner" even mean? In what era of this country did anyone lead in a "bipartisan manner"?
  - rabidrat 6y ago
    Obama did a pretty damn good job.
- agildehaus 6y ago
  When you have one side that has completely lost touch with reality, being bipartisan is a bad idea.
- mythrwy 6y ago
  I wish we could ban political parties (pipe dream I know). What positive are they doing for us at this juncture?
  - nitrogen 6y ago
    The first step is encouraging local governments to switch away from first-past-the-post voting, which has been mathematically demonstrated to lead to polarization between two parties that are mostly indistinguishable outside of the core polar issues.
theplague42 6y ago
That's because their support was always fake. It's about non-existent "censorship" of conservatives, nothing more.
- xenospn 6y ago
  They seem to always go silent when they must take an actual stand. Sadly, this looks like a successful strategy.
- dionidium 6y ago
  This is, of course, ridiculous. There are serious people who genuinely care about that issue. More generally, there is always nearby the temptation to definitionally exclude one's political opponents from serious discussion by the lazy insinuation that they don't really believe what they say they believe, that their side is more opportunistic and cynical than yours, and that, therefore, what work even needs to be done to argue the point? After all, there are only two staked-out positions: those who agree with me already and those who are lying about their motives! Try to resist this. It goes nowhere. It leads to nothing. And I assure you that, whatever the issue, there really are people who see it differently than you. I know that can be hard to accept, but it's almost always true.
  - 3131s 6y ago
    Sure, don't assume malice with regular people, but US politicians are completely disingenuous and they know exactly what they're doing. It is rare for them to "really believe what they say they believe", because saying anything true at all pretty quickly starts to reveal their financial interests.
Press2forEN 6y ago
The riots today are driven by the far left and their typical rejection of capitalism and tradition. I don't see the right supporting their message of social authoritarianism any time soon.
- xenospn 6y ago
  This is verifiably false.
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    Don't just claim it. Supply the verification.
    - apazzolini 6y ago
      The onus to supply verification is on the person making the claim. Hitchen's razor: What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.
      - leetcrew 6y ago
        in general yes, but if someone says something is "verifiably false", you might expect them to at least provide some clues as to how that could be verified.
    - wetmore 6y ago
      Why don't you ask the same thing of the person who made the original claim?
      - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
        That's fair. Still, "nuh uh" is not an effective rebuttal. Asking for evidence is better than "you're wrong" or "you're a liar". "Here's evidence that you're wrong" is even stronger.
prudhvis 6y ago
Aren't most of these happening in majority left wing states and cities run by the left. AFAIK they are still report the Mayors of the cities. Let's not make this a Right vs Left thing any more. The country is already divided as it is, we don't need further division in this country.
- theplague42 6y ago
  Sure, but the president is a Republican who is relishing the opportunity to violently put down protests.
- bosswipe 6y ago
  If the first amendment violations are being done by left wing politicians then it should be even easier for the right to attack them, but instead they're silent or encouraging tougher violations.
- klyrs 6y ago
  Big cities tend to vote democrat, but there are protests in all 50 states.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ashtonkem 6y ago
That renewed interest in free speech was never genuine. At the same time they were decrying Twitter “censorship” (mostly on Twitter, I will add), they were busy trying to force laws that would forbid people boycotting Israel from ever getting a government contract. The same people who were praising protest against lock downs are now saying that being out past curfew justifies being shot with a rubber baton. It was all partisan.
- youeseh 6y ago
  Indeed. No one likes it when people disagree with them. And this is precisely why the freedom of speech is so important and has thankfully stood its tests in court. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech
rpiguy 6y ago
Because rioting isn’t free speech. All conservatives support peaceable assembly and protest. They also fiercely believe in property rights as inherently tied to the concept of liberty. It is right in the Declaration of Independence. No conservative worth his or her salt will defend theft, property destruction, etc.
- Barrin92 6y ago
  rioting is indeed not free speech, but surely attacking the press, one of the fundamental institutions in any democracy, is a violation of free speech. And not only have the people in question not spoken up in defense of the press, they've actually routinely declare them the enemy of the people.
  - rpiguy 6y ago
    Fully Agree. The press should not be attacked. There is no excuse for it.
    - Drybones 6y ago
      When everyone has a camera, social media audiences, live streams, YouTube channel, websites, and blogs/micro-blogging, what is the definition of Press and why do Press get to ignore restrictions and closed off areas? Are the only Press allowed to be Press those that are part of a large national news network? Is Alex Jones Press if he shows up to these with a guy with a camera and enters areas civilians are not allowed to be in?
- mcguire 6y ago
  Anybody remember the Clinton administration, when the popular cry was "Charlton Heston is my president!" and "The purpose of the Right to Bear Arms isn't for hunting, it is so that politicians fear the people!" Yeah, I don't either. Yes, rioting isn't free speech. Unfortunately, nothing short of rioting seems to work---the people in question are poor and already at the bottom of the social pile, so their options seem limited.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
tomjakubowski 6y ago
To his credit Justin Amash has been very active in speaking out against government and police actions the past week or so.
panny 6y ago
>I had been heartened by the right's recent upswing in fierce support for the first amendment, but unfortunately I've seen little of that support during the protests You do see a difference in the protests, right? The protests against lockdowns didn't include looting, arson, rape, murder, and multiple murdered police. Here, have a small sample, Black pawn shop employee murdered by looters for TVs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhG0v9pDycM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhG0v9pDycM "You said black lives matter.. look what you did to my store" https://mobile.twitter.com/Mus1yMustafa/status/1267874483840442368 https://mobile.twitter.com/Mus1yMustafa/status/1267874483840... Destroying store and beating unarmed woman and her husband https://streamable.com/rvrwil https://streamable.com/rvrwil Restaurant manager beaten and stomped for trying to defend his workplace https://streamable.com/ila4dh https://streamable.com/ila4dh Stopping, beating and stomping a truck driver while protesters yell to kill him https://streamable.com/8zk9dq https://streamable.com/8zk9dq Protesters attack a media member and then pummel him https://streamable.com/p4i3jb https://streamable.com/p4i3jb Police officer beaten on the streets https://streamable.com/je4ki5 https://streamable.com/je4ki5 Car runs over a cop https://streamable.com/q4nat7 https://streamable.com/q4nat7 Protesters set homeless man’s belongings on fire https://streamable.com/sdjvfa https://streamable.com/sdjvfa Throwing fireworks at the cops https://streamable.com/7sv4a9 https://streamable.com/7sv4a9 Chasing and beating guy with red had https://streamable.com/rcsmi0 https://streamable.com/rcsmi0 I can keep going. It is utterly dispicable. There's a long long list of videos with these "peaceful protestors" in action. Everyone has a camera, and all of this is available for you to see, if you only choose to see it.
- pbourke 6y ago
  > Protesters set homeless man’s belongings on fire This was staged by infowars. I cannot be arsed to look at all of your videos. The right wing lockdown protests had a strong smell of AstroTurf about them: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/21/us/politics/coronavirus-protests-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/21/us/politics/coronavirus-p...
  - panny 6y ago
    >I cannot be arsed to look at all your videos Oh well, I guess black lives don't actually matter to you then, because the video I lead with is a real black man who really died. https://fox6now.com/2020/06/02/police-retired-st-louis-police-captain-killed-by-pawn-shop-burglars-amid-unrest/ https://fox6now.com/2020/06/02/police-retired-st-louis-polic...

linsomniac 6y ago

I can imagine animosity from the leadership, for example classifying most journalists as "fake news", contributing to violence from the front line against them.

gameswithgo 6y ago
I'm sure that has made things worse but general animosity between the press and police goes back decades.
- kingkawn 6y ago
  Do not dismiss this new horrifying upswing in brutality with hollow generalizations
  - alexpetralia 6y ago
    > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - morelisp 6y ago
      'kingkawn's response is neither snarky, uncurious, unkind, or demanding. It's pleading against a particularly common kind of cynicism. Whatever else you might think of this situation, it's impossible to deny something has shifted. Appeals to "it's just the same thing" are at best hollow, at worst placative.
chadlavi 6y ago
That, and the journalists are literally there to record evidence of their abuse. Police don't like it too much when you record evidence of them, say, beating a peaceful protester, or forcing a weapon into the hands of someone already pinned to the ground.

lostmsu 6y ago

I think it would show more nuanced sentiment to say, that on 110 occasions journalists ended up caught in aggressive police action since May 28. Current wording would have an implication for many people, that journalists were deliberately chosen as targets.

cryptoz 6y ago
The current wording is correct. The journalists are in fact being deliberately chosen as targets.
- lostmsu 6y ago
  This is not the first article claiming that on HN (the previous one was flagged to death). Like the previous one, this one does not show anything objective to support this interpretation.
  - fzeroracer 6y ago
    The last time I linked you multiple objective instances showing journalists being attacked by the police unprovoked, you made some strong efforts to try and ignore the context of those videos. I don't think you're here to actually argue in good faith at all.
    - lostmsu 6y ago
      > ignore the context of those videos Huh? There was no context in most of those videos, which was exactly the problem I was pointing to, and is the same one with this post.
- iso1631 6y ago
  Journalists are often targeted by rogue states https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/marie-colvin-syria-killed-journalist-bashar-assad-us-court-paul-conroy-a8757501.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/marie-colv...
6y ago

runawaybottle 6y ago

I just want to say that we have to do the things necessary to differentiate ourselves from places like China or Saudi Arabia. Nothing is implicit.

jdc 6y ago
While this is very disappointing news, these matters are not black and white. That is that say that even if police attack journalists in two countries, the one where it happens less frequently still outperforms the other.
- r00fus 6y ago
  Hypocrisy is a problem too. At some point, a mild improvement over totalitarianism becomes an implementation detail.
curiousgal 6y ago
I am honestly rejoicing at the sight of Americans discovering they are not really as free or as better than the rest of the world as they think they are. Maybe this will be the kindle that will help make things right for the entire population. I know the majority of HN readers are in the top 10% of the population and don't face the same struggles as others.
- exclusiv 6y ago
  > I am honestly rejoicing at the sight of Americans discovering they are not really as free or as better than the rest of the world as they think they are Americans are still freer than the rest of the world in general. None of this changes that. "As better" - still hasn't changed either if by better you mean better off. If you're born in the US, in general, you're in a position to be better off than most of the world. These two things also apply to most European countries. We aren't going to apologize for it. I understand if American patriotism and confidence puts off other countries. It's not for everyone. Different cultures have different values. It's ok. Sad we have to address police corruption and brutality, but it's part of the process. Many nations don't have the ability for civilians to enact change. It's core to our foundation. We've done it many times before.

itsspring 6y ago

When "Freedom of the Press" is under attack, newspapers/press/media have had their legal counsel file lawsuits against the government. But with the demise of revenue for many newspapers (and many going out of business), I wonder if they will take those expensive steps.

jonlucc 6y ago
If they don't respond in their reporters' interest, they won't have reporters risking arrest and hazard to report for them.
- viraptor 6y ago
  It's not that clear cut fortunately. There are people who do this because they really believe it should be done. Even without large org support, they'll be out there. See for example https://unicornriot.ninja/ https://unicornriot.ninja/ which was on the ground, live streaming from the early days of the protest in Minneapolis.
apazzolini 6y ago
Are you aware of a foundation I can donate to that will explicitly use the money in these types of lawsuits against the government?
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  ACLU?
  - itsspring 6y ago
    The ACLU has too many objectives, so I don't think defending journalism is their primary goal. This fund is probably better, dollar for dollar: https://www.spj.org/ldf.asp https://www.spj.org/ldf.asp
- itsspring 6y ago
  https://www.spj.org/ldf.asp https://www.spj.org/ldf.asp

simonw 6y ago

Since this is happening simultaneously in many different cities around the country, I have to wonder if there are private Facebook or WhatsApp or Signal groups where police members are talking about this trend. I'd very much like to see those conversations.

HarryHirsch 6y ago
Someone took screenshots of Amber Guyger's Instagram pages before she cleaned up her social media, and it was disgusting. Private cop groups absolutely exist. It would be interesting to subpoena Facebook when the Minneapolis Four go to trial and investigate how deep the rot goes.
jonlucc 6y ago
It's possible, but also, there's precedent from 2014 in Ferguson. Several members of credentialed media were arrested and assaulted to various degrees. Pretty much nothing happened by way of punishment other than a settlement from the DoJ saying they couldn't kettle people anymore, enforced by what is now Barr's department. Any officer paying attention would know you won't be punished unless you act particularly egregiously like the one officer in Louisville reassigned to desk duty (big whoop). Add on the amount of animosity stoked by the president toward media for the past 4-5 years, and it really doesn't take a simultaneously coordinated effort to have this outcome.
- gedy 6y ago
  > you won't be punished unless you act particularly egregiously like the one officer in Louisville reassigned to desk duty (big whoop) Isn't this honestly largely due to the police union rules and contacts, which (unions) are a key part of leftist labor relations?
  - jonlucc 6y ago
    Partially, maybe. But there's also a large role of qualified immunity and poor use of force policies in departments around the country. If an officer isn't required to report every time they threatened lethal force, it doesn't matter what the contract says about what should be done with use of force complaints.

c1b 6y ago

Over 100 upvotes in 20 minutes for something non tech related?

badrequest 6y ago
Right now, on the front page, there are posts about the recreation of the first automobile, the archaeological discovery of cannabis residue at a dig site, news articles about meetings between Zuckerberg and civil rights leaders. While this site trends heavily towards tech, it is not so narrow-minded that we cannot discuss things not strictly related to that subject.
- yters 6y ago
  i bring up this argument when anti ccp topics get flagged or modded, but for some reason the argument does not work in that context
  - dang 6y ago
    The argument does work in that context. It's the same across all topics as far as I know. The moderation question is always: what serves intellectual curiosity? https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20curiosity%20optimiz&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... Once a topic becomes repeated enough, there's a power-law-style dropoff in how interesting it is (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20curiosity%20repetition&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...), except to people who have a strong identification with one side of an argument, and that sort of interest isn't intellectual curiosity, it's loyalty to a cause. That may be an admirable quality in many ways, but it's not a good fit for this site. Nationalistic flamewar, which is the theme you're referring to, definitely falls in this category. That doesn't mean that "anti ccp" stories don't get attention here—they certainly do. Just not enough to satisfy the warriors, and rightly so, since warriors want every story that serves their cause to be on HN's front page. See also https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20%22significant%20new%20information%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... for how we handle major ongoing topics. Edit: it looks like we've had a similar conversation before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22870427 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22870427, which makes me think that your "for some reason" is an insinuation of the sort the site guidelines specifically ask people not to post: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Please don't do that here.

patheticFags 6y ago

Good. Fuck all journalists. If anything, maybe start killing them off. Also, start dismantling these corporations that pay their social media coordinators to grovel on twitter with thoughts and prayers.

xxxtmp123 6y ago

Who's the bully? This attitude is symptomatic of the real problem. The war on cops is nothing more than class warfare; the elite scapegoating people asked to do the hard work. This is college educated, wealthier folks picking on middle class working folks. Our byzantine legal system, that conveniently maximizes revenue for the legal industry, sows a lower class persecuted for mostly victimless crimes then asks the police to bring in the harvest. If you really want to get mad at the malfeasance in civil serice, take a look at your local school system. Unless, of course, you can afford the Catholic schools or a prep school. Frankly, if I were a cop, after watching the wink,wink "it's a peaceful protest" news reports, with clowns screaming and throwing bricks in the background, I might shoot a rubber bullet at the "reporters". Sorry for the anger , folks, but .... look in the mirror ... and at who you voted into local offices.

zubspace 6y ago

Here's another article uncovering the brutality of the police [1]. Some of the scenes are really inhuman [2] and I feel sorry for the poor people trying to make their voices heard. I hope, that both sides, the protesters and police force will find a way, to exit that spiral of violence. But right now it looks like this won't happen. It's a shame. If the state acts harder against protesters, journalists and civilian bystanders it will only fuel their anger. Leading to more violence, used by the state to issue a even worse crackdown than now. And so on and so on. The only hope that I have is, that other politicians from all parties will stand up against that. [1] https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2020/05/31/us-law-enforcement-are-deliberately-targeting-journalists-during-george-floyd-protests/ https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2020/05/31/us-law-e... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Byk2axDVNHE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Byk2axDVNHE

sixothree 6y ago
Third party oversight. This country was founded on checks and balances. There are no checks to their power as it stands now.
- elliekelly 6y ago
  > Third party oversight. Aren't the journalists supposed to be the third party oversight? Showing and telling the rest of us what's happening so that when one side oversteps we as a society can take action to correct it?
  - zacharycohn 6y ago
    That's hard to do when the police open fire on the journalists.
  - throwaway743 6y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model
  - lreeves 6y ago

abolishme 6y ago

Important to note: I have seen not one example of a non-press person claiming to be press and I've been watching all the livestreams constantly.

colechristensen 6y ago
Just a piece of data, a cameraman attacked by someone posing as a medic: https://twitter.com/Lucas_Jackson_/status/1267083968513486848 https://twitter.com/Lucas_Jackson_/status/126708396851348684... Any news reports of people posing as reporters might be suppressed by newsrooms themselves as to not encourage copycats or get the idea out there that reporters might not be reporters, that is entirely unsubstantiated conjecture though.
some-are-better 6y ago
See here for at least one example (funny that cops even noted to the man that he didn't display the press cred as the others standing right next to him) https://twitter.com/shane_bauer/status/1267669541452017673 https://twitter.com/shane_bauer/status/1267669541452017673
handoflixue 6y ago
In at least some states, "internet blogger" qualifies you as a journalist. So, y'know, if you've got a twitter account and you're talking about the protest, congrats: you're press!

lurkmurk 6y ago

"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." HN Guidelines But this is probably just my lurker observation. Not against all news but there should be at least some spark of insight of novelty. Feel free to flag now. Edit: To expand a bit. What I like about HN is not that it's tech but it has plethora of very interesting topics and comments are almost always insightful (unlike this one). This headline is basically the whole article. The comments are therefore not guided by idea, but news. This topic is important but nothing comes out of these threads. This rant is contributing to bad quality of comments, one thing I always try to avoid.

rsynnott 6y ago
> unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon Hundreds of journalists brutalised over the last week would seem to qualify, though for 'interesting' substitute 'horrifying'.
simonw 6y ago
You don't think police attacks on journalists counts as an "interesting new phenomenon"?
- dnautics 6y ago
  It's hardly new in the us.
  - staticassertion 6y ago
    It actually is. While the police have often attacked journalists I don't know that it has ever been so blatant, so well documented, and done so broadly across all journalists, even from the larger news networks that often have the clout and means to avoid such abuse.
ojnabieoot 6y ago
News stories about freedom of speech and freedom of the press have always been welcome on HN, which is common in tech communities, and the words “most” and “probably” are doing a lot of work there. This rule is fuzzy by design and I really don’t get why some people here are so pedantic about it.

temptemptemp111 6y ago

Journalists deserved to be attacked more often. Their lies are leading to death & destruction - and they have no disincentives.

microcolonel 6y ago

Rioters are the competition for police right now, and competition is anything but fierce. When people are driving cars full speed into policemen, executing officers, throwing incendiary devices at people, covering for looters, and major media outlets are bending over backwards to justify it (which I suspect is, at the managerial/editorial level, naked self-preservation). This is not grieving, it's a civil war; many journalists have chosen a side and you know it, and there is no moral principle that you will be able to uphold on that matter from your apartment.

georgeburdell 6y ago

@dang are you making an exception for these posts given the current situation? Although important, I do not see anything of technological interest. Any post about the protests are going to incite flame wars and make HN indistinguishable from any other social website right now.

yters 6y ago
i am curious about that too it is the justification given for shutting down anti ccp discussions and articles what makes this situation different? surely not the scale of human atrocity? ccp still has the us gov beat, hands down. maybe us lives just matter more?
dpbriggs 6y ago
They get flagged quickly off the front page.
arianvanp 6y ago
Though I agree the discussion might turn into flame war. I think this too much of an important flame war to just remove or deprioritise from the homepage ... Just my two cents. Technology has been extremely relevant in this whole ordeal. The fact that we can now create and share videos online that document these human right violations en masse is a thing that technology has allowed us to do. OTOH We as the 'tech world' play a huge role in both how the narrative of "the media is the enemy" came to fruition and how people are radicalised online to actually believe this. It is extremely important to recognise what tech's place is in all this
- Pils 6y ago
  The poster you are responding to is not making his argument in good faith. He is more than fine posting inflammatory political statements on HN: >The benefits of diversity is the Left’s pseudoscience...I want climate deniers and diversity sycophants alike purged from the scientific apparatus.[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19912265 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19912265
cwkoss 6y ago

haydenlee 6y ago

Cached: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:c-5hfR5ySHkJ:https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/06/well-try-to-help-you-follow-the-police-attacks-on-journalists-across-the-country/ https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:c-5hfR...

brenden2 6y ago

For anyone who wants to keep an eye on what's going on, the subreddit /r/PublicFreakout is full of videos of police (and rioters) engaging in violence. I haven't found a better source yet. There's sometimes misattributed content, so be sure to wade carefully. Many of these cases have multiple videos from different people from different angles as well. The evidence is quite damning.

dashundchen 6y ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/2020PoliceBrutality/ https://www.reddit.com/r/2020PoliceBrutality/ for another source of documented police violence.
- koheripbal 6y ago
  Unfortunately, that sub only documents one side of the story.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
koheripbal 6y ago
That sub is great because you really get a good sampling of what's going on. There are peaceful/permitted protests that the police leave alone and occasionally support/join. There are peaceful/not-permitted protests that the police disperse with various uses of non-lethal force. There are Rioters that vandalize and try to blend with protesters but seldom directly confront the police - occasionally confronted by protesters. ...and then there's just tons of rampant looting with little police intervention. Anyone blending these four distinct phenomenon is just doing truth and justice a disservice.
- margalabargala 6y ago
  Could you clarify your use of "permitted" here? In the sense of "allowed", it seems redundant, since you go on to say that they were or were not forcibly dispersed. The other option, more literal, is "they got a permit to do this protest", but there have certainly been plenty of peaceful grassroots protests that got no sort of official go-ahead and yet were executed perfectly fine on both sides.

colechristensen 6y ago

Some people say police attacking journalists are isolated incidents by a few bad eggs, most of them are doing the right thing. Some people say protestors becoming violent, vandalizing, and looting are isolated incidents by a few bad eggs, most of them are doing the right thing. Really similar thought processes go into those two, usually by people you can sort into camps of opposing worldviews. They're both right and both wrong, but it's surprising how similar the lines of thought are and how people can't see the other side is thinking just the same way.

Pfhreak 6y ago
One of those groups has access to military hardware, live ammunition, and legal (or cultural) protections from prosecution. It's dangerously to boil down the arguments from both sides and say, "Look, these two things are the same!" because even if both sides were saying, "It's a few bad apples", the implications of that would be wildly different.
- colechristensen 6y ago
  It's unfortunately not an easy task, getting people to see a whole issue and not just their own interpretation. Whatever your side, have empathy for the people you oppose and try to understand their failings and mistakes. Without that, progress and improvement are nearly impossible.
- wnoise 6y ago
  One of these groups could in theory arrest their bad apples. The other cannot.
  - Pfhreak 6y ago
    Or, at the absolute minimum, fire them.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
6y ago

AaronFriel 6y ago

Hey dang, why was the headline changed from the source's?

dang 6y ago
I changed it from the article title to a shortened version of the URL slug (/well-try-to-help-you-follow-the-police-attacks-on-journalists-across-the-country). That's often a legit source title, along with the HTML doc title, and other places that articles tend to reveal what they're actually about (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20url%20html%20doc%20title&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). The reason I changed it is that "U.S. police have attacked journalists more than 110 times since May 28" is more baity. First you've got the aggressive verb "attacked". And then you've got the specific facts and figures (100 times, May 28). Why do these things make a title more baity? I don't know, but they are somehow active ingredients in the psychology of titles, which is why headline writers use them. I think of them as sharp edges. If you throw a spiky thing into a crowd, it gets more attention than a beach ball—but the quality of attention is not conducive to a reflective discussion on the internet (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20reflective%20reflex&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). People react to the sharp bits. It's in HN's interest to rewrite baity titles (indeed the site guidelines request it: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) but this is 1000x more important on inflammatory topics of the moment, like this one. We want HN to discuss this, but we want to support the discussion to stay in the intended spirit of the site: thoughtful, respectful, curious conversation. The material is provocative enough, and a title doesn't need sharp edges to make readers here care about the topic. To clear up a misconception that sometimes arises: I'm not saying the statement in the sharper title is false. Obviously it's legitimate to use an aggressive verb to describe an aggressive action, and if the facts and figures are true then it's obviously legitimate to make a factual statement with them. As a reader I have zero problem with that title. But the moderator perspective is different: the question for a moderator, on HN at least, is always: what is the prospective effect on forthcoming discussion? Or to put it pseudotechnically: given choice A vs. choice B, what is the diff between the probability distribution of threads that A is a prefix of, vs. threads that B is a prefix of? (This is just a metaphor, but it reflects how we think about this. See https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20%22expected%20value%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... for more.) In the case of these two alternative titles, experience has shown that there's a significant difference in probable outcomes, and titles are by far the biggest influence on threads, so it's potentially a big deal.

jascii 6y ago

Disclaimer: I am a bleeding heart liberal and this may filter my observations. I have been to a few rallies/vigils/marches lately and all incidences of violence that I have witnessed either in person or through media has been instigated by the police. As far as I know,every documented case where a formerly peaceful crowd turns into chaos has been started with police shooting pepperspray, teargas, or whatever into the crowd. I find it really hard to not come to the conclusion that the police is desperately trying to set a narrative to justify a history of violence by escalating more violence, but please, someone, restore my faith.

jwilber 6y ago
It’s the same here in Seattle as it was while I was in Berkeley during Ferguson. People protest peacefully, and police shoot tear gas into the crowd and attack whomever they can get their hands on. I’ll admit, the outright brutality I saw in-person in Oakland was worse than what I’ve seen here in the recent days. In Oakland, the police would purposely corral protestors into groups and literally beat the shit out of them. I saw this in-person multiple times. In Seattle, I haven’t seen that sort of corral behavior. However, police do shoot tear gas completely unprovoked and fire rubber bullets and mace without concern. In both places, no looting was occurring at the main scene of the protests. In both cases, numerous videos show police breaking windows themselves. In any case, it’s all the same: in a country that parades its freedom, people of color can’t protest without the president calling for them to be roughed up, and without the police willingly complying.
- SpelingBeeChamp 6y ago
  "numerous videos show police breaking windows themselves" I don't believe you. The umbrella guy breaking the AutoZone window with a hammer has no connection to any police department. Someone made that up on social media and people shared it because that's what people do. The only video I know of showing officers breaking a window is out of Seattle. It shows officers responding to a burglary in progress at a Target store. The officers had to chip away at the already broken glass windows so they could safely get in. (The burglars had broken the glass to get inside.) Once inside, the responding officers found and arrested the three burglars they had come for.

camdenlock 6y ago

Two things can be true here: police overreach, and terrorist violence. Both need to be dealt with. We need law enforcement to keep order and uphold the law, while also not silencing reporters and journalists. Terrorists, we just need them to fuck right off. (In this case, the horizontally-organized “antifa” cells)

ravenstine 6y ago

A reporter at my previous workplace, KPCC, was shot in the neck with a rubber bullet on Saturday. https://laist.com/2020/05/31/reporters_injured_protests_police.php https://laist.com/2020/05/31/reporters_injured_protests_poli... It's unfortunate that it's gotten to this point for people to take police brutality at least somewhat seriously. I'm mistaken for being pro-police and anti-BLM merely because I'm against the looting and rioting. I've always had the stance that the police in their current form are state-sanctioned street gangs.

pwinnski 6y ago
I recently read that if you tend to think, "it's a shame that black people are being killed by cops like this, but the rioting and looting MUST stop," perhaps you should consider thinking more like, "it's a shame that there is rioting and looting, but black people being killed by cops like this MUST stop."
- ravenstine 6y ago
  All ideas should be considered, but yours is not one I subscribe to. More people have been killed and had their lives destroyed as the result of non-protestors taking advantage of the protests to destroy communities. This is before the actual protests themselves have even been given a chance to succeed without violence. To subscribe to your perspective, I would have to believe that rioting and looting is the way to address police violence, and that the protesters and rioters are on the same page. If that were the case, then the country should be set on fire for the number of crimes it commits. Put simply, there's no need for a "but". Once can make both statements without implying that one has precedence over the other.
  - heavyset_go 6y ago
    How many people have these non-protestors killed? Are you talking about police or what you'd describe as rioters?
    - 6y ago

jfoster 6y ago

How & why is this happening? I feel fairly confident that police don't usually attack media, but it seems clear that in the past few days there has been some kind of deliberate choice made to start doing so. Are individual groups of police making the decision to attack media, or is it concerted? Are they just seeing it from other police and copying? I know some people will say it's because Trump has called media "fake news" and such, but is that really all it takes for police to start such gross behaviour? At the same time, I presume there hasn't been a direct order to start targeting media or it would have been leaked.

viraptor 6y ago
It all started with the media, as in, police crime was documented. Now when police already uses questionable methods, cameras will point at them. Since they can't be identified in full gear, they can shoot at press without anyone stopping them, so I guess why not? They're already shooting at random people so there's a lot of aggression built up.
- dntbnmpls 6y ago
  The media didn't document the crime. It was ordinary people with smartphones.
  - viraptor 6y ago
    Maybe I implied this too subtly: If you've got a phone camera pointed at police, there may be a legal definition difference, but effectively you're media or the content provider for them.
- iso947 6y ago
  Why don’t the police have visible numbers on their uniforms?
  - lm28469 6y ago
    They do, but they put black tape on the numbers or conveniently have some piece of equipment in front of it. It's not like someone is going to punish them for doing that

99_00 6y ago

Is this because of police changing their tactics or is it because of journalists changing their tactics? I don't know the answer, but with the internet and analytics, we've seen media become more sensationalistic to get those clicks and views. So this is a possibility that should be considered.

augustt 6y ago
Honestly cannot tell if you're trolling. If journalists are getting roughed up more because of sensationalism (still well within their 1st amendment rights) that is _completely_ the fault of police. One side has cameras. The other side has guns. When violence happens, who's fault do you think it is?
- 99_00 6y ago
  Do you agree that police have the right to declare a gathering unlawful and can clear the area?
  - colechristensen 6y ago
    The police? Not so much. Police don't make law, they shouldn't get to decide very many things at all. The state (or city, or nation, where appropriate)? Absolutely, but only when absolutely necessary. (like curfew orders which follow widespread disorder and destruction)
    - 99_00 6y ago
      In practice, they do have that right. And they have the right to use reasonable force to enforce that. So arguing that police are always wrong to use force to clear an area, regardless if media are there or not, is an argument against the laws as they are. That's a hard argument to make.
  - augustt 6y ago
    Clear the area how? I think people have forgotten this doesn't need to mean your first step is pulling out the batons. If you tell a journalist they are under arrest, they will always comply. They won't fight back. So yes, still cops' fault.

angel_j 6y ago

It is totally ironic bullshit that mainstream media "journalist" are presumed to get passes to watch police brutalize the actual 1st amendment right to free assembly.

angel_j 6y ago
Less speech out of you please.

50ckpuppet 6y ago

Does Assange count?

mrfusion 6y ago

It seems like in a democracy that voting should be able to effect the changes we need. What has gone wrong?

dlp211 6y ago
We have a system of Democracy that emphasizes property over people.
nemothekid 6y ago
Are you serious? 1. If that were true women would still be unable to vote. Would you tell women in 1905 that "it's a democracy, you don't need to protest, just vote." 2. Even now, we have seen the power that be make it more and more difficult to vote. The current administration is throwing a complete temper tantrum at even the thought of letting people use absentee ballots during a national pandemic, citing the voter fraud boogeyman.
- rpiguy 6y ago
  Women didn’t shoot cops in the back of the head, burn down city hall, steal and loot stores. These aren’t protests they are riots.
  - SirYandi 6y ago
    Protests and riots aren't mutually exclusive
    - rpiguy 6y ago
      Yes they are. Rioting is not protest. It is criminal activity. Your right to protest, assemble, and speak does not include setting buildings with children inside on fire, murdering pawn shop owners, killing federal officers. I fully support everyone out there marching not committing crimes.
      - lm28469 6y ago

dmix 6y ago

This policy introduced into congress sounds like a helpful solution: > "Ending Qualified Immunity Act," which would allow civil lawsuits against police, a recourse that the Supreme Court has all but done away with. https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/06/01/us/politics/01reuters-minneapolis-police-congress.html https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/06/01/us/politics/01reu... That plus the laundry list of obvious issues with criminal justice that any defense attorney could list off hand.

gruez 6y ago
Is qualified immunity really the issue? The general impression I have is that PDs/DAs straight up refuse to investigate/prosecute abuses of power. It's not like we have a bunch of cases where the case was airtight, but the officer was being acquitted because of qualified immunity.
- creaghpatr 6y ago
  Might as well start somewhere.
- mcguire 6y ago
  Qualified immunity affects civil suits, not criminal prosecution. If the police department or district attorneys refuse to investigate or prosecute, qualified immunity means that cannot sue for recourse (under some qualifications).
- 1123581321 6y ago
  Civil torts are a check on the criminal prosecution system when it becomes too lenient.

loceng 6y ago

If you haven't seen it yet there's a 2020 Police Brutality subreddit - https://www.reddit.com/r/2020PoliceBrutality/ https://www.reddit.com/r/2020PoliceBrutality/ - that's very active in cataloguing the increasing number of video evidence of police brutality; 35,000 subscribers, up from 12,000 just this morning. Warning: there is a lot of disturbing content there.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

IhateRenoSaveMe 6y ago

I do not agree at least not where I am. I am in Reno Nevada and I witnessed a kid with a skateboard break out the back window of a police car that had 2 police inside the car at the time and the police did nothing, the kid (i say kid but early 20's) walked away after without being arrested, pepper-sprayed, or anything. What I witnessed was a peaceful protest that started mid-morning and did not turn violent until 6 pm when some non-local possibly Antifa idiots ran up to city hall with a baseball bat and started breaking out windows of the building, then a follow the herd mentality took over and people cheering them on and before you know it its a full-blown riot. They even spray painted up the police station and the police did nothing. It was not until the destruction of property at city hall that the heavy police presence showed up but even then most of them were just standing around city hall. They fired some tear gas to push people back and out of the downtown area. I was disappointed at our police and their lackadaisical approach to handling the unrest. So, its neither the protesters nor the police inciting the violence it is these non-local wannabe thugs like Antifa starting it. Someone needs to investigate George Soros for having these people on his payroll to go out and do this very thing.

dzonga 6y ago

in zimbabwe, the police was once put on lockdown. & guess what the protests were peaceful, no looting etc. america needs to do the same. otherwise, this is another pointer show america has been a 3rd world country. i'm sure you know where else journos are harassed.

AGI2725 6y ago

This is what happens when the majority of your country engages in groupthink and divisive labeling. This goes to the police, journalists, rioters, looters and protesters. You all have failed the individual.

davidw 6y ago

It's a pity that some on the left in the past have been so ready with the word 'fascism'. It's a serious word describing a serious problem, and it should not be used casually for "people on the right I disagree with". I believe that the word is appropriate to describe this administration.

chooseaname 6y ago
At the very least, fascist-like.
chillwaves 6y ago
That's your take-away from all this? You really felt this comment needs to exist? It's interesting what some people's priorities are.
- non-entity 6y ago
  The irony is that the right seems to be abusing the word more than the left does these day. It seems to be a catch-all for people who are mean to me on the internet for them.
  - davidw 6y ago
    'These days', the word is appropriate to describe the administration, was my point. I don't think it's hyperbole.
- davidw 6y ago
  Do you have anything substantive to say? Do you disagree that this behavior - assaulting journailsts - is fascist? Calling them the 'enemy of the people'? One of my senators used it as well and that's not the kind of thing they toss around lightly. https://twitter.com/RonWyden/status/1267605801549664256 https://twitter.com/RonWyden/status/1267605801549664256
  - pnako 6y ago
    It's not specifically fascist, in the sense that many groups are doing it, and it's not exactly a central tenet of fascism. Mussolini was himself a journalist.

egberts1 6y ago

Wear a jacket that says Press. Holds up better in US Court when accosted by cops.

mchusma 6y ago

I have been trying to think of good, relatively simple policy decisions that can make a large impact. I have not heard too many proposed besides removing qualified immunity. I would be curious what ideas people have: Ideas include: -Banning police unions -Having a federal agency to discipline police (outside the purview of local politics) I haven't heard this idea elsewhere but I like the idea of us addressing from the top down the fact that we have the highest incarceration rate in the world at 698 per 1,000 currently. This is something like 10x some comparable countries, and at least 3x any country we consider "free" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate#Comparison_with_other_countries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_ra...). We can make a top down decision to change this by making a hard "200 incarcerated per 100,000" cap at the state level. Dec 31st of each year, each state with over 200 per 100,000 prisoners has to release prisoners until they are below the threshold. I am not saying it is a simple problem, but any other solution ideas?

elihu 6y ago
Ending cash bail policies wouldn't directly address police violence, but it could reduce the incarceration rate. There are many people in jail waiting trial for crimes they did not commit, simply because they could not afford bail and would not take a plea deal. Ending the use of private prisons and restricting police use of military equipment and weapons are also frequently suggested proposals. In terms of police violence, I think the main thing lacking right now is accountability. There are a lot of ways to impose that. One avenue is to impose accountability from a higher level of government (for instance: the FBI getting involved if local government doesn't act), and the other traditional approach is accountability from voters.
- mchusma 6y ago
  Thanks! Ending cash bail is a good one. I'm not so well versed on private prisons, but I think I'm general the scale of incarceration is a larger issue than the quality of it. Still a good suggestion for discussion. We have 10x more incarcerated per capital than germany. If the police think 1 in 100 (rounding a bit) belong in jail, it leads to a very different quality of interaction if it is 1 in 1,000. Definitely agree on the issues with accountability.

noirchen 6y ago

You have to outnumber for security. From the videos in Hong Kong, I noticed that the journalists in shiny PRESS vests were usually WAAAAAY more than the number of police, many of them only holding video-taking cell phones.

throwaway43852 6y ago

Now post a compilation of rioter and looter attacks against citizens, especially the poor, elderly, and disabled citizens who can't afford to insulate ourselves from this like you rich SV sociopaths supporting all of this can.

wiseleo 6y ago

I submitted this story about a KPIX reporter detained despite clearly identifying herself as media. https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2020/06/01/tear-gas-rubber-bullets-oakland-protest-george-floyd-kpix-katie-nielsen/ https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2020/06/01/tear-gas-rubber...

novia 6y ago

Here's a repo to collect videos of police brutality during the protests. https://github.com/2020PB/police-brutality https://github.com/2020PB/police-brutality

NicolasBeuzeboc 6y ago

There is video of police discreetly unloading bricks to later bait the unsuspecting protester into using them.