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That looks very suspicious, but if this were really a widespread technique by the police, I'm assuming there would be more than a single video taken. I mean, w

That looks very suspicious, but if this were really a widespread technique by the police, I'm assuming there would be more than a single video taken. I mean, we know the black bloc and similar groups engages in these tactics, they've been doing it since Seattle WTO 1999. I've seen it in person to protests I've been to (as a protester). It's very hard for me to believe that all of a sudden those people are no longer active in protests, and their place has been taken by (insert your politically-convenient group here).

vb6sp6 6y ago
"This doesn't happen" (shows a video of it happening) "This isn't widespread" So how many videos do you need to see? 2? 10? 15???
- lawnchair_larry 6y ago
  Would you find it acceptable to shoot some footage of a handful of looting/arsonist incidents and proclaiming “protesters are doing X”, just like we are complaining that “police” are doing X? Or would you correct someone and say that isn’t happening, and when confronted with a video of someone somewhere doing a bad thing, inform them of the fact that a few cherry picked anecdotes do not represent the activity of the broader population? You don’t have to answer.
  - yazaddaruvala 6y ago
    No one disagrees that in any group only a small number of bad actors are causing this issue. However, when a civilian acts inappropriately there are legal consequences. When a police office acts inappropriately there are few legal consequences and they are very-very-rarely enforced. I'll ask the question differently, "Is destruction of property what you expect from rioters?" Yes, 1% or less of rioters are going to be stupid. "Should they be reprimanded?" Sadly yes, and we have specialized government entities that can utilize appropriate-force to reprimand them. "Is destruction of property what you expect from police?" No, not even from the 1% or less that want to be stupid. That is unacceptable, their job is to protect and serve. Even from each other. "Should they be reprimanded?" Yes! but we as civilians have no legal way to do this, and even the "good cops" have no good way to do this. What are your answers to these questions lawnchair_larry?
    - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
      Aha, but the analogy that you made with those questions has a critical error. The correct analogy would be questions that read: Is destruction of property what you expect from civilians? Yes, sadly, 1% or less[1] of civilians are are going to be stupid and riot instead. And that is unacceptable. Should they be reprimanded? Absolutely. And we have specialized government entities that can utilize appropriate-force to reprimand them. Is unwarranted destruction of property what you expect from police? Yes, sadly, 1% or less[1] of police are going to be stupid and abusive. That is unacceptable, their job is to protect and serve. Even from each other. Should they be reprimanded? Yes! but we as civilians have no legal way to do this, and even the "good cops" have no good way to do this. [1] We do not have data for either of these figures, so 1% is being used as a placeholder, and is not meant literally. I suspect that the percentage of criminals in the general population is far bigger than the number of police who destroy property for no reason, but I admit that I have no data for that.
      - yazaddaruvala 6y ago
        From what I can tell your only change was to add the word “unwarranted” before destruction. Could you please help us understand your position on “Should abusive officers be reprimanded?” And if we agree they should be reprimanded, what are your thought on how we build that system? The system where we the civilians who witness or are victims of the abuse and other “good cops” who witness the abuse, can get legal ways to highlight and reprimand those few abusive police officers[0]? [0] such that the person/people accusing (with evidence) the abusive police without worrying other police officers will “hold it against” the accuser.
        bigiain 6y ago
        He seems happy to accept that 1% (as a placeholder) of cops are murderers, and there's nothing we can do about that. (He claimed that in the context of property damage, which hides the actual implications of that carelessness, because it wasn't police property damage that triggered this current unrest...) I _strongly_ disagree. A cop committing assault or murder, while on the job, is a thing society needs to take great care does not happen. It's abhorrent to me to take a "shit happens" attitude to cop killings.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
    Perhaps you missed the note that got passed around that said something like: "The police have been acting, and continue to act, with impunity. This needs to change ASAP". If you genuinely missed that, then we're letting you know this is the problem. And it's a widespread problem across many countries. If you're intentionally being dishonest, then piss off.
  - ardy42 6y ago
    > Would you find it acceptable to shoot some footage of a handful of looting/arsonist incidents and proclaiming “protesters are doing X”, just like we are complaining that “police” are doing X? It's very easy to attribute actions to the police, since they very commonly wear easy-to-identify uniforms and it's illegal to impersonate them. The video above was of a uniformed police officer in the company of maybe a hundred others. It's the literal job of police to stop crimes, so if you see an officer commuting a crime and his colleagues see and don't intervene, you can assume some level of assent to the officer's criminal activity. Even if you found a video of a looter/arsonist, how do you know they're a protester at all? If they are a protester, how do you establish what their faction is (BLM, anarchist anti-capitalist, Neo-nazi agitator, etc.)? How do you judge the attitudes of the other protesters to to their actions, given protesters aren't equipped to enforce the law and don't have the mandate to do so?
  - Thorrez 6y ago
    It's well known that some people in society are crazy, so an occasional video of someone acting crazy doesn't really mean much. Police though need to be held to a higher standard. So a video of police doing something bad is much more impactful. And this isn't just a police officer doing something all alone, there are a ton of officers surrounding him and not stopping him.
- monoideism 6y ago
  Yeah, at least 5. I've seen >50 videos of rioters destroying and looting, maybe 5 of them engaging in violence, and maybe 10 of police engaging in excessive force, so I feel pretty comfortable having established that there's a pattern in those activities. I'd like to see about 4-5 of such videos. The more the merrier. I'm totally open to changing my mind.
  - therealcamino 6y ago
    There's no point in telling us how many videos you've watched in those categories, because "number of videos someone personally watched in each category" tells us more about that person's viewing preferences than the prevalence of those incidents. For example, here's a twitter thread of 170 (so far) videos of police excessive force. If you watch all of these then your updated statement has a different tone. https://mobile.twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1266751520055459847 https://mobile.twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/126675152005...
    - monoideism 6y ago
      I wasn't providing those numbers to prove "my side", or any side. I was providing them as a benchmark for how many instances of an event became a pattern in my mind. If you had read the comment carefully instead of rapidly responding with a "rebuttal" based on your ideology, you might have realized that.
rumanator 6y ago
> That looks very suspicious, but if this were really a widespread technique by the police Giving your comment the benefit of the doubt, that does not address the fact that a while platoon of police officers witnessed a fellow police officer vandalize public property without any reason or justification, and they didn't even flinched or complained or even frowned upon that brand of unprovoked abuse. That's pretty much one of the central points of the whole protest.
- slg 6y ago
  > they didn't even flinched or complained or even frowned upon that brand of unprovoked abuse I have seen dozens if not over a hundred videos of the police acting inappropriately over the last few days. I have only seen a single video in which any of them were stopped or reprimanded by another cop and that one "good cop" was a woman of color. If this inappropriate behavior is done by such a small percentage of the police force and is frowned on by all the other good cops, why is there so little evidence of police policing themselves?
  - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
    Have you seen dozens or hundreds of videos of civilians acting inappropriately? If a “woman of color” was seen starting a fire, would you be comfortable saying things like “black women start fires”? I sure hope not. Even if you had dozens of examples, it would still be wrong to make such a statement.
    - slg 6y ago
      >Have you seen dozens or hundreds of videos of civilians acting inappropriately? Yes. I have also seen countless videos in which civilians were reprimanded by other citizens for acting inappropriately. They are trying to police themselves. Why can't the police police themselves? >If a “woman of color” was seen starting a fire, would you be comfortable saying things like “black women start fires”? I sure hope not. Even if you had dozens of examples, it would still be wrong to make such a statement. I don't know what you are trying to insinuate with this comment. I was not making any blanket statements about anyone beyond the general group of "police".
Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
https://old.reddit.com/r/actualpublicfreakouts https://old.reddit.com/r/actualpublicfreakouts https://old.reddit.com/r/2020policebrutality https://old.reddit.com/r/2020policebrutality Are both accumulating quite a lot of evidence that police are using force recklessly and capriciously under the color of law without consequences.
RangerScience 6y ago
> we know the black bloc and similar groups engages in these tactics How do you know this? What's the process by which you established this as a known thing?
- monoideism 6y ago
  > What's the process by which you established this as a known thing? Primary, by power of observation. But OK, I'll make this as vague and 100% foolproof as I can, to start: there are people who dress in black, and masks, and destroy stuff and commit violence at protests. That's from actual observation. It's not just 1-2, there are groups of them. That's my personal observation from being at 2 protests with such groups. Now, combine that with all the sources references in this Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_bloc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_bloc Along with many, many, many dozens of media reports like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mr0i6piW_ak https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mr0i6piW_ak I'm able to discern a certain pattern.
  - bigiain 6y ago
    People who dress in black and destroy stuff like this guy? https://eurweb.com/2020/05/29/jacob-pederson-minneapolis-police-officer-accused-of-starting-minneapolis-riot-watch/ https://eurweb.com/2020/05/29/jacob-pederson-minneapolis-pol... Yeah, I smell a pattern too...
    - monoideism 6y ago
      OK, so what was the group dressed like that in black who were doing it in the video I posted, in the Trump inauguration? That guy is textbook black bloc. There are hundreds of mainstream media videos showing guys dressed like him burning and destroying in prior protests, from Seattle WTO 1999, to Occupy, to more recent protests. I urge HNers to read that article you posted and decide for themselves if it's credible. Then, read the wikipedia article I posted, refer to the sources at the end, google around, and decide for yourself.
      - 6y ago
jascii 6y ago
"Agent Provocateurs" are an old and well documented technique with examples varying from history through the civil rights era to the current day protests.
- lawnchair_larry 6y ago
  That is not what they do though. On the other hand, it is what black bloc rioters do.
- bigiain 6y ago
  https://eurweb.com/2020/05/29/jacob-pederson-minneapolis-police-officer-accused-of-starting-minneapolis-riot-watch/ https://eurweb.com/2020/05/29/jacob-pederson-minneapolis-pol... Hard to evaluate the accuracy of that story. But it's also hard to dismiss it out of hand, given known true police behaviour. A very common view from the public is that cops are totally capable of that kind of behaviour. And whether the story about the cop setting the first fire is true our not, the believability of the story is as much a problem as the possible truth of the story.
skoskie 6y ago
I find the bigger issue to be the videos of police doing nothing to thwart blatant vandalism, and the contrast of those videos with the unprovoked attacks on what appear to be peaceful protesters. The “politically convenient group” seems to be anyone being destructive, like ... https://twitter.com/SARAHKSTUDIO/status/1267371809084567554/video/1 https://twitter.com/SARAHKSTUDIO/status/1267371809084567554/... ... white women? The sum of causing unnecessary damage and turning a blind eye to vandalism at least gives me confidence that there is a desire by many police officers to see property destroyed. From that I can only guess at what the reasoning might be, but given that we’ve seen this method of undermining protests in the past, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume racist intent until there is evidence that begins to support an alternative conclusion.
- lenkite 6y ago
  Considering that police are being beaten badly and some killed attempting to stop "protestors", I think it's not surprising that many have chosen to do nothing. Better safe than sorry. Actually, there are dozens of different videos showing police being badly beaten as they attempt to stop vandalism. They just don't make the news as this isn't "progressive". https://abcnews.go.com/US/small-town-police-chief-killed-officers-cities-wounded/story?id=71017820 https://abcnews.go.com/US/small-town-police-chief-killed-off... https://www.insider.com/george-floyd-protests-violence-against-nypd-bronx-videos-2020-6 https://www.insider.com/george-floyd-protests-violence-again...
  - freeone3000 6y ago
    So is this how we've decided it's going to be? We have all protesters on one side, and if any protesters do anything bad, all get punished? (I also find some moderate irony in you claiming something doesn't make the news, then linking a news website.)
    - lenkite 6y ago
      I can link a dozen twitter videos showing all kinds of people getting badly beat up by protestors - none of which ever made the news as it doesn't fit the progressive narrative - but I don't think its worth it. And frankly, it's not hard to find these by yourself. Everyone now considers general violence and looting as legitimate actions in response to a crime committed by one police officer. Floyd's death was a tragedy and Derek (the police officer) responsible must pay heavily for it - a 2nd or 3rd degree murder conviction should be handed down to set an example. That case should be scrutinised heavily - and it will be. But I really don't understand why other people must suffer for one person's crime. The larger focus should be on the US police needing remedial training. Call up congressmen, call up senators. Rioting on the streets doesn't solve anything.

vb6sp6 6y ago

"This doesn't happen" (shows a video of it happening) "This isn't widespread" So how many videos do you need to see? 2? 10? 15???

lawnchair_larry 6y ago
Would you find it acceptable to shoot some footage of a handful of looting/arsonist incidents and proclaiming “protesters are doing X”, just like we are complaining that “police” are doing X? Or would you correct someone and say that isn’t happening, and when confronted with a video of someone somewhere doing a bad thing, inform them of the fact that a few cherry picked anecdotes do not represent the activity of the broader population? You don’t have to answer.
- yazaddaruvala 6y ago
  No one disagrees that in any group only a small number of bad actors are causing this issue. However, when a civilian acts inappropriately there are legal consequences. When a police office acts inappropriately there are few legal consequences and they are very-very-rarely enforced. I'll ask the question differently, "Is destruction of property what you expect from rioters?" Yes, 1% or less of rioters are going to be stupid. "Should they be reprimanded?" Sadly yes, and we have specialized government entities that can utilize appropriate-force to reprimand them. "Is destruction of property what you expect from police?" No, not even from the 1% or less that want to be stupid. That is unacceptable, their job is to protect and serve. Even from each other. "Should they be reprimanded?" Yes! but we as civilians have no legal way to do this, and even the "good cops" have no good way to do this. What are your answers to these questions lawnchair_larry?
  - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
    Aha, but the analogy that you made with those questions has a critical error. The correct analogy would be questions that read: Is destruction of property what you expect from civilians? Yes, sadly, 1% or less[1] of civilians are are going to be stupid and riot instead. And that is unacceptable. Should they be reprimanded? Absolutely. And we have specialized government entities that can utilize appropriate-force to reprimand them. Is unwarranted destruction of property what you expect from police? Yes, sadly, 1% or less[1] of police are going to be stupid and abusive. That is unacceptable, their job is to protect and serve. Even from each other. Should they be reprimanded? Yes! but we as civilians have no legal way to do this, and even the "good cops" have no good way to do this. [1] We do not have data for either of these figures, so 1% is being used as a placeholder, and is not meant literally. I suspect that the percentage of criminals in the general population is far bigger than the number of police who destroy property for no reason, but I admit that I have no data for that.
    - yazaddaruvala 6y ago
      From what I can tell your only change was to add the word “unwarranted” before destruction. Could you please help us understand your position on “Should abusive officers be reprimanded?” And if we agree they should be reprimanded, what are your thought on how we build that system? The system where we the civilians who witness or are victims of the abuse and other “good cops” who witness the abuse, can get legal ways to highlight and reprimand those few abusive police officers[0]? [0] such that the person/people accusing (with evidence) the abusive police without worrying other police officers will “hold it against” the accuser.
      - bigiain 6y ago
        He seems happy to accept that 1% (as a placeholder) of cops are murderers, and there's nothing we can do about that. (He claimed that in the context of property damage, which hides the actual implications of that carelessness, because it wasn't police property damage that triggered this current unrest...) I _strongly_ disagree. A cop committing assault or murder, while on the job, is a thing society needs to take great care does not happen. It's abhorrent to me to take a "shit happens" attitude to cop killings.
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
  Perhaps you missed the note that got passed around that said something like: "The police have been acting, and continue to act, with impunity. This needs to change ASAP". If you genuinely missed that, then we're letting you know this is the problem. And it's a widespread problem across many countries. If you're intentionally being dishonest, then piss off.
- ardy42 6y ago
  > Would you find it acceptable to shoot some footage of a handful of looting/arsonist incidents and proclaiming “protesters are doing X”, just like we are complaining that “police” are doing X? It's very easy to attribute actions to the police, since they very commonly wear easy-to-identify uniforms and it's illegal to impersonate them. The video above was of a uniformed police officer in the company of maybe a hundred others. It's the literal job of police to stop crimes, so if you see an officer commuting a crime and his colleagues see and don't intervene, you can assume some level of assent to the officer's criminal activity. Even if you found a video of a looter/arsonist, how do you know they're a protester at all? If they are a protester, how do you establish what their faction is (BLM, anarchist anti-capitalist, Neo-nazi agitator, etc.)? How do you judge the attitudes of the other protesters to to their actions, given protesters aren't equipped to enforce the law and don't have the mandate to do so?
- Thorrez 6y ago
  It's well known that some people in society are crazy, so an occasional video of someone acting crazy doesn't really mean much. Police though need to be held to a higher standard. So a video of police doing something bad is much more impactful. And this isn't just a police officer doing something all alone, there are a ton of officers surrounding him and not stopping him.
monoideism 6y ago
Yeah, at least 5. I've seen >50 videos of rioters destroying and looting, maybe 5 of them engaging in violence, and maybe 10 of police engaging in excessive force, so I feel pretty comfortable having established that there's a pattern in those activities. I'd like to see about 4-5 of such videos. The more the merrier. I'm totally open to changing my mind.
- therealcamino 6y ago
  There's no point in telling us how many videos you've watched in those categories, because "number of videos someone personally watched in each category" tells us more about that person's viewing preferences than the prevalence of those incidents. For example, here's a twitter thread of 170 (so far) videos of police excessive force. If you watch all of these then your updated statement has a different tone. https://mobile.twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1266751520055459847 https://mobile.twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/126675152005...
  - monoideism 6y ago
    I wasn't providing those numbers to prove "my side", or any side. I was providing them as a benchmark for how many instances of an event became a pattern in my mind. If you had read the comment carefully instead of rapidly responding with a "rebuttal" based on your ideology, you might have realized that.

rumanator 6y ago

> That looks very suspicious, but if this were really a widespread technique by the police Giving your comment the benefit of the doubt, that does not address the fact that a while platoon of police officers witnessed a fellow police officer vandalize public property without any reason or justification, and they didn't even flinched or complained or even frowned upon that brand of unprovoked abuse. That's pretty much one of the central points of the whole protest.

slg 6y ago
> they didn't even flinched or complained or even frowned upon that brand of unprovoked abuse I have seen dozens if not over a hundred videos of the police acting inappropriately over the last few days. I have only seen a single video in which any of them were stopped or reprimanded by another cop and that one "good cop" was a woman of color. If this inappropriate behavior is done by such a small percentage of the police force and is frowned on by all the other good cops, why is there so little evidence of police policing themselves?
- lawnchair_larry 6y ago
  Have you seen dozens or hundreds of videos of civilians acting inappropriately? If a “woman of color” was seen starting a fire, would you be comfortable saying things like “black women start fires”? I sure hope not. Even if you had dozens of examples, it would still be wrong to make such a statement.
  - slg 6y ago
    >Have you seen dozens or hundreds of videos of civilians acting inappropriately? Yes. I have also seen countless videos in which civilians were reprimanded by other citizens for acting inappropriately. They are trying to police themselves. Why can't the police police themselves? >If a “woman of color” was seen starting a fire, would you be comfortable saying things like “black women start fires”? I sure hope not. Even if you had dozens of examples, it would still be wrong to make such a statement. I don't know what you are trying to insinuate with this comment. I was not making any blanket statements about anyone beyond the general group of "police".

Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago

https://old.reddit.com/r/actualpublicfreakouts https://old.reddit.com/r/actualpublicfreakouts https://old.reddit.com/r/2020policebrutality https://old.reddit.com/r/2020policebrutality Are both accumulating quite a lot of evidence that police are using force recklessly and capriciously under the color of law without consequences.

RangerScience 6y ago

> we know the black bloc and similar groups engages in these tactics How do you know this? What's the process by which you established this as a known thing?

monoideism 6y ago
> What's the process by which you established this as a known thing? Primary, by power of observation. But OK, I'll make this as vague and 100% foolproof as I can, to start: there are people who dress in black, and masks, and destroy stuff and commit violence at protests. That's from actual observation. It's not just 1-2, there are groups of them. That's my personal observation from being at 2 protests with such groups. Now, combine that with all the sources references in this Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_bloc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_bloc Along with many, many, many dozens of media reports like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mr0i6piW_ak https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mr0i6piW_ak I'm able to discern a certain pattern.
- bigiain 6y ago
  People who dress in black and destroy stuff like this guy? https://eurweb.com/2020/05/29/jacob-pederson-minneapolis-police-officer-accused-of-starting-minneapolis-riot-watch/ https://eurweb.com/2020/05/29/jacob-pederson-minneapolis-pol... Yeah, I smell a pattern too...
  - monoideism 6y ago
    OK, so what was the group dressed like that in black who were doing it in the video I posted, in the Trump inauguration? That guy is textbook black bloc. There are hundreds of mainstream media videos showing guys dressed like him burning and destroying in prior protests, from Seattle WTO 1999, to Occupy, to more recent protests. I urge HNers to read that article you posted and decide for themselves if it's credible. Then, read the wikipedia article I posted, refer to the sources at the end, google around, and decide for yourself.
    - 6y ago

jascii 6y ago

"Agent Provocateurs" are an old and well documented technique with examples varying from history through the civil rights era to the current day protests.

lawnchair_larry 6y ago
That is not what they do though. On the other hand, it is what black bloc rioters do.
bigiain 6y ago
https://eurweb.com/2020/05/29/jacob-pederson-minneapolis-police-officer-accused-of-starting-minneapolis-riot-watch/ https://eurweb.com/2020/05/29/jacob-pederson-minneapolis-pol... Hard to evaluate the accuracy of that story. But it's also hard to dismiss it out of hand, given known true police behaviour. A very common view from the public is that cops are totally capable of that kind of behaviour. And whether the story about the cop setting the first fire is true our not, the believability of the story is as much a problem as the possible truth of the story.

skoskie 6y ago

I find the bigger issue to be the videos of police doing nothing to thwart blatant vandalism, and the contrast of those videos with the unprovoked attacks on what appear to be peaceful protesters. The “politically convenient group” seems to be anyone being destructive, like ... https://twitter.com/SARAHKSTUDIO/status/1267371809084567554/video/1 https://twitter.com/SARAHKSTUDIO/status/1267371809084567554/... ... white women? The sum of causing unnecessary damage and turning a blind eye to vandalism at least gives me confidence that there is a desire by many police officers to see property destroyed. From that I can only guess at what the reasoning might be, but given that we’ve seen this method of undermining protests in the past, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume racist intent until there is evidence that begins to support an alternative conclusion.

lenkite 6y ago
Considering that police are being beaten badly and some killed attempting to stop "protestors", I think it's not surprising that many have chosen to do nothing. Better safe than sorry. Actually, there are dozens of different videos showing police being badly beaten as they attempt to stop vandalism. They just don't make the news as this isn't "progressive". https://abcnews.go.com/US/small-town-police-chief-killed-officers-cities-wounded/story?id=71017820 https://abcnews.go.com/US/small-town-police-chief-killed-off... https://www.insider.com/george-floyd-protests-violence-against-nypd-bronx-videos-2020-6 https://www.insider.com/george-floyd-protests-violence-again...
- freeone3000 6y ago
  So is this how we've decided it's going to be? We have all protesters on one side, and if any protesters do anything bad, all get punished? (I also find some moderate irony in you claiming something doesn't make the news, then linking a news website.)
  - lenkite 6y ago
    I can link a dozen twitter videos showing all kinds of people getting badly beat up by protestors - none of which ever made the news as it doesn't fit the progressive narrative - but I don't think its worth it. And frankly, it's not hard to find these by yourself. Everyone now considers general violence and looting as legitimate actions in response to a crime committed by one police officer. Floyd's death was a tragedy and Derek (the police officer) responsible must pay heavily for it - a 2nd or 3rd degree murder conviction should be handed down to set an example. That case should be scrutinised heavily - and it will be. But I really don't understand why other people must suffer for one person's crime. The larger focus should be on the US police needing remedial training. Call up congressmen, call up senators. Rioting on the streets doesn't solve anything.