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But here we are in the middle of ongoing riots discussing the role of the police. Maybe the comparison is not so inappropriate after all.

Netcob 6y ago
Then maybe the fact that the riots have been caused by the police in the first place should be considered too.
- cheesecracker 6y ago
  The triggering cause was the act of one policeman and his three colleagues who stood by (which might indicate the constriction was perhaps a kind of standard procedure that went wrong - or not. Personally I am waiting for an official verdict). That's not "the police". If you say that's "the police", you can also say "that's black people" if a black person murders somebody. In any case, there is no excuse for riots.
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    Hmm, I've seen current USA riot footage where the police seemingly got spooked (by an umbrella), and proceeded to gas a couple of hundred peaceful protestors. Some riots and current outbreaks have certainly been caused by police. In other incidents riot police have been filmed purposefully and willfully attacking already subdued members of the public; looking around first to check for observers of course! One of the cases the policeman put a weapon in the have of a subdued arrestee as a precursor to beating them. These sorts of actions inflame the public and cause ongoing rioting. It's been interesting witnessing quite measured, in relative terms, vigilante justice against some rioters too.
    - cheesecracker 6y ago
      Not sure how to get from being gassed by the police to looting shops, though. I haven't seen that footage, but of course I have heard of cases of violence against protesters. Doesn't really prove a deliberate approach to me. Maybe some police officers are also just human and get angry when people hurl stones at them and spit at them. If it's an excuse for the protesters, why not for the police. Sure, you'd hope they'd be trained in restraint, but at the end of the day, they are humans. Also some footage may not tell the whole story. And maybe those cops were legitimately spooked by the umbrella. Better safe than sorry. I can't really blame them, wouldn't want to do their job. In general, I think it would be wise not to provoke the police (or people with guns in general), don't wave around with objects that could be mistaken for guns, stuff like that? They should teach that in US schools, but every action movie teaches it, too. There is always that scene where a suspect reaches for their ID and then pauses because he realizes police might think he reaches for a weapon.
      - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
        >Maybe some police officers are also just human and get angry when people hurl stones at them and spit at them. // Yes, I've much sympathy with this. Police are human too - but just as if I get angry and lash out at someone in the street, without appropriate mitigations, I will be charged with assault - so too should police. That's rule of law in operation. If you can stomach it then look on Reddit, the riot footage is illuminating IMO (of course remember the inherent selection and PoV biases).
        cheesecracker 6y ago
        Of course police officers who assault people should be charged with assault. I don't think anybody says otherwise. But then charge the individual officers, not "the police".
  - nikofeyn 6y ago
    you are intentionally diminishing the issues at hand. the police, yes "the police", have increasingly been militarized, abuse their power, and seen a general lack of repercussions when they do something wrong, even heinous crimes. this is systemic. whether you think that this was "just" a bad egg with three other bad eggs standing around or not, which in itself requires jumping through hoops, these issues are well discussed and documented and are systemic. now, couple that with systemic issues of rascim throughout all of american society, of which the police are part of, you have a terrible mix of rascism, power, lack of worry of consequences, and a general bad attitude of their role in society in "the police". that leaves the general public at risk and people of color at a substantially greater risk. the point is that this isn't just a one off case. it happens time and time again. i have seen video after video of it, and that's just the ones captured on film! (still don't face any consequences.) i have seen a video of a black emt who had a patient inside pulled over and choked by a police officer because the police officer felt he hadn't yielded properly to his lights even though the call he was on was obviously less important than choking an emt with a patient. there's just countless other videos and documented cases. so please, take your false rhetoric elsewhere. these are actual problems. if you think it's just a couple bad eggs, then think about what happens when there's bad eggs spread throughout the country. that's what systemic issues are. riots and particularly looting are not great. but consider what they generally represent. they represent pent up anger of those at the bottom who feel they don't have any other recourse. some do indeed want to incite violence, but that doesn't invalidate the huge line of events that got us here. i would also ask that you view the police as an active participant in the rioting. i have seen video of police actively destroying property without a protester in site. the media is also a participant because we cannot trust what they report as truth.
    - cheesecracker 6y ago
      I'd rather look at such issues by data, rather than emotional responses to singular incidents. I'm not even saying that the police has no issues. But it certainly can't be inferred from that one incident, or even from, say, a dozen incidents over a couple of years. That's nothing compared to the millions of police interactions with the public every year. I think incidents like this murder or what it was, should be treated like a bug in the system, and protocols should be adjusted to prevent such accidents. If it was a murder, I would still call it an accident in terms of the system, but the accident then was hiring a murderer, which surely isn't deliberate by the system. I've read (but can't confirm) that kneeling on suspects to constrain them is outlawed in many places in the US already, but wasn't yet in Minnesota. So maybe some places have learned that it is a risky approach, and others haven't. From afar US police looks scary and brutal. On the other hand, the criminals they encounter may also be more brutal and dangerous than in other countries. So I'd first like to hear some of their side before making a judgement. Other problems are not so easy to solve, like lack of consequences. It sounds easy, but I would guess you can not make the job too risky for police officers. I don't know enough details about policing in the US, but one example that may illustrate what I mean: here in Germany, midwives now have the problem that they can not get insurance anymore, because of huge liabilities should anything go wrong during birth. Unfortunately, nobody can guarantee a safe birth, so many midwives can not continue their jobs. Not saying police officers shouldn't be liable for anything, just that I can imagine it is not easy to find a good balance. As for "PoC are at greater risk", I'd like to see the data supporting that thesis. Especially since many police officers are PoC themselves, and apparently they kill more PoC than white police officers. For whatever reason (I imagine they are more often on duty in predominantly black neighborhoods), but it at least challenges the hypothesis that the police is inherently racist.
- Wintamute 6y ago
  Let's be more accurate. The protests are caused by the police. But the riots, violence and looting is caused by opportunists and criminals, in many cases instigated and enflamed by white revolutionary anarchists and/or white supremacist cells more than willing to sacrifice minorities and their neighbourhoods to their insane political projects, i.e. blood soaked revolution or race war.
  - Beltiras 6y ago
    There are multiple reports of agent provocateurs being police agents.
    - cheesecracker 6y ago
      Who were then immediately stopped by the peaceful other people in the protest crowd, hopefully? And it would also explain the killing of black policemen, right? Must have been racist white agent provocateurs seizing their chances? But damn those stupid rightwing people who believe every crappy conspiracy theory that is thrown their way, right?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - pvaldes 6y ago
      The problem is that here we have a totally new factor in the mix. People is being freely dossed with tear gas, in the middle of a pandemic that kills attacking lungs. We don't know how a disease that attack lungs could interact with exposure to a lung irritant but probably will not help. We will have an answer, we want it or not, in two weeks. They are creating a flow of air directly towards the face of people. We don't know if a virus standing in the air could be collected and dragged into the nose, but it seems possible. Being paranoid, we don't even know with what substance are all of those people being gassed. Who controls that tear gas canisters contain only tear gas? Are those canisters refillable? Are being refilled? By who? We don't know. The goal of racist people has been always domination of the other races. Selective killings and birth control are not new strategies. Every single racist in the planet has fantasized about killing as many as possible without consequences. In the end is the same if you kill with a bullet, a hug or provoking a mosh pit / covid party. Except that the later are, unfortunately, untraceable. So increasing the provocation could be seen as a desirable strategy if you are a racist policeman or governor. And of course from now on, COVID is not the Trumps fault anymore. People had choosen freely to take more risks. Is like an experiment designed carefully to create thousands of new cases in a part of the population.

Netcob 6y ago

Then maybe the fact that the riots have been caused by the police in the first place should be considered too.

cheesecracker 6y ago
The triggering cause was the act of one policeman and his three colleagues who stood by (which might indicate the constriction was perhaps a kind of standard procedure that went wrong - or not. Personally I am waiting for an official verdict). That's not "the police". If you say that's "the police", you can also say "that's black people" if a black person murders somebody. In any case, there is no excuse for riots.
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  Hmm, I've seen current USA riot footage where the police seemingly got spooked (by an umbrella), and proceeded to gas a couple of hundred peaceful protestors. Some riots and current outbreaks have certainly been caused by police. In other incidents riot police have been filmed purposefully and willfully attacking already subdued members of the public; looking around first to check for observers of course! One of the cases the policeman put a weapon in the have of a subdued arrestee as a precursor to beating them. These sorts of actions inflame the public and cause ongoing rioting. It's been interesting witnessing quite measured, in relative terms, vigilante justice against some rioters too.
  - cheesecracker 6y ago
    Not sure how to get from being gassed by the police to looting shops, though. I haven't seen that footage, but of course I have heard of cases of violence against protesters. Doesn't really prove a deliberate approach to me. Maybe some police officers are also just human and get angry when people hurl stones at them and spit at them. If it's an excuse for the protesters, why not for the police. Sure, you'd hope they'd be trained in restraint, but at the end of the day, they are humans. Also some footage may not tell the whole story. And maybe those cops were legitimately spooked by the umbrella. Better safe than sorry. I can't really blame them, wouldn't want to do their job. In general, I think it would be wise not to provoke the police (or people with guns in general), don't wave around with objects that could be mistaken for guns, stuff like that? They should teach that in US schools, but every action movie teaches it, too. There is always that scene where a suspect reaches for their ID and then pauses because he realizes police might think he reaches for a weapon.
    - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
      >Maybe some police officers are also just human and get angry when people hurl stones at them and spit at them. // Yes, I've much sympathy with this. Police are human too - but just as if I get angry and lash out at someone in the street, without appropriate mitigations, I will be charged with assault - so too should police. That's rule of law in operation. If you can stomach it then look on Reddit, the riot footage is illuminating IMO (of course remember the inherent selection and PoV biases).
      - cheesecracker 6y ago
        Of course police officers who assault people should be charged with assault. I don't think anybody says otherwise. But then charge the individual officers, not "the police".
- nikofeyn 6y ago
  you are intentionally diminishing the issues at hand. the police, yes "the police", have increasingly been militarized, abuse their power, and seen a general lack of repercussions when they do something wrong, even heinous crimes. this is systemic. whether you think that this was "just" a bad egg with three other bad eggs standing around or not, which in itself requires jumping through hoops, these issues are well discussed and documented and are systemic. now, couple that with systemic issues of rascim throughout all of american society, of which the police are part of, you have a terrible mix of rascism, power, lack of worry of consequences, and a general bad attitude of their role in society in "the police". that leaves the general public at risk and people of color at a substantially greater risk. the point is that this isn't just a one off case. it happens time and time again. i have seen video after video of it, and that's just the ones captured on film! (still don't face any consequences.) i have seen a video of a black emt who had a patient inside pulled over and choked by a police officer because the police officer felt he hadn't yielded properly to his lights even though the call he was on was obviously less important than choking an emt with a patient. there's just countless other videos and documented cases. so please, take your false rhetoric elsewhere. these are actual problems. if you think it's just a couple bad eggs, then think about what happens when there's bad eggs spread throughout the country. that's what systemic issues are. riots and particularly looting are not great. but consider what they generally represent. they represent pent up anger of those at the bottom who feel they don't have any other recourse. some do indeed want to incite violence, but that doesn't invalidate the huge line of events that got us here. i would also ask that you view the police as an active participant in the rioting. i have seen video of police actively destroying property without a protester in site. the media is also a participant because we cannot trust what they report as truth.
  - cheesecracker 6y ago
    I'd rather look at such issues by data, rather than emotional responses to singular incidents. I'm not even saying that the police has no issues. But it certainly can't be inferred from that one incident, or even from, say, a dozen incidents over a couple of years. That's nothing compared to the millions of police interactions with the public every year. I think incidents like this murder or what it was, should be treated like a bug in the system, and protocols should be adjusted to prevent such accidents. If it was a murder, I would still call it an accident in terms of the system, but the accident then was hiring a murderer, which surely isn't deliberate by the system. I've read (but can't confirm) that kneeling on suspects to constrain them is outlawed in many places in the US already, but wasn't yet in Minnesota. So maybe some places have learned that it is a risky approach, and others haven't. From afar US police looks scary and brutal. On the other hand, the criminals they encounter may also be more brutal and dangerous than in other countries. So I'd first like to hear some of their side before making a judgement. Other problems are not so easy to solve, like lack of consequences. It sounds easy, but I would guess you can not make the job too risky for police officers. I don't know enough details about policing in the US, but one example that may illustrate what I mean: here in Germany, midwives now have the problem that they can not get insurance anymore, because of huge liabilities should anything go wrong during birth. Unfortunately, nobody can guarantee a safe birth, so many midwives can not continue their jobs. Not saying police officers shouldn't be liable for anything, just that I can imagine it is not easy to find a good balance. As for "PoC are at greater risk", I'd like to see the data supporting that thesis. Especially since many police officers are PoC themselves, and apparently they kill more PoC than white police officers. For whatever reason (I imagine they are more often on duty in predominantly black neighborhoods), but it at least challenges the hypothesis that the police is inherently racist.
Wintamute 6y ago
Let's be more accurate. The protests are caused by the police. But the riots, violence and looting is caused by opportunists and criminals, in many cases instigated and enflamed by white revolutionary anarchists and/or white supremacist cells more than willing to sacrifice minorities and their neighbourhoods to their insane political projects, i.e. blood soaked revolution or race war.
- Beltiras 6y ago
  There are multiple reports of agent provocateurs being police agents.
  - cheesecracker 6y ago
    Who were then immediately stopped by the peaceful other people in the protest crowd, hopefully? And it would also explain the killing of black policemen, right? Must have been racist white agent provocateurs seizing their chances? But damn those stupid rightwing people who believe every crappy conspiracy theory that is thrown their way, right?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - pvaldes 6y ago
    The problem is that here we have a totally new factor in the mix. People is being freely dossed with tear gas, in the middle of a pandemic that kills attacking lungs. We don't know how a disease that attack lungs could interact with exposure to a lung irritant but probably will not help. We will have an answer, we want it or not, in two weeks. They are creating a flow of air directly towards the face of people. We don't know if a virus standing in the air could be collected and dragged into the nose, but it seems possible. Being paranoid, we don't even know with what substance are all of those people being gassed. Who controls that tear gas canisters contain only tear gas? Are those canisters refillable? Are being refilled? By who? We don't know. The goal of racist people has been always domination of the other races. Selective killings and birth control are not new strategies. Every single racist in the planet has fantasized about killing as many as possible without consequences. In the end is the same if you kill with a bullet, a hug or provoking a mosh pit / covid party. Except that the later are, unfortunately, untraceable. So increasing the provocation could be seen as a desirable strategy if you are a racist policeman or governor. And of course from now on, COVID is not the Trumps fault anymore. People had choosen freely to take more risks. Is like an experiment designed carefully to create thousands of new cases in a part of the population.