12 ms·

Tear Gas Is Way More Dangerous Than Police Let On - Especially During COVID

173 points by xenocyon 6y ago

war1025 6y ago
> Especially During COVID Public gatherings are supposedly extremely dangerous right now. The fact that everyone is suddenly all for mass protests suggests we got the severity of Coronavirus wrong and people are using this as a convenient out for backing off shelter in place orders without losing face. In February the "Philly had a parade, St Louis Stayed home" article was being shared by here and everywhere else. From a people placement perspective, a parade and a protest are pretty equivalent.
- locopati 6y ago
  Or it's possible that in 2-3 weeks, we're going to see a spike in cases.
- vore 6y ago
  Or maybe the fact that everyone is suddenly all for mass protests suggests that police brutality is a horrible forever unaddressed injustice that doesn't care if there's a pandemic or not?
  - war1025 6y ago
    > doesn't care if there's a pandemic or not There are many people that don't care if there is a pandemic of not. They were forcibly kept away from their jobs and families for three months.
    - jolmg 6y ago
      I think the point is that addressing police brutality is more important than stopping COVID-19 spread which is more important than going to work and visiting families.
      - war1025 6y ago
        And that's a value judgement they can make. The issue is that ordering was different for millions of people and they didn't get a choice in the matter.
        jolmg 6y ago
        > issue is that ordering was different No, it's not. The ones that are protesting are also being ordered to disperse and go back home. The reason they're not is because they're disobeying. For those that aren't explicitly ordered, it's because it's pointless, given that civil disobedience is in the nature of protests.
        war1025 6y ago
        Good luck disobeying if you are small business owner who was told you can no longer legally do business. On a more personal note, my 98 year old Grandma has been confined to her room at the nursing home for three months. Good luck to her civil disobeying orders.
        jolmg 6y ago
        > Good luck disobeying if you are small business owner who was told you can no longer legally do business. Exactly. The fact that you can't effectively do a sizeable protest around that so goes to show how the population in general prioritizes these issues. > On a more personal note, my 98 year old Grandma has been confined to her room at the nursing home for three months. Good luck to her civil disobeying orders. Yeah, public support for your grandma risking getting sick is going to be even less.
      - mc32 6y ago
        You can’t protest if you’re sick though. So I get it it’s a short term push to get recognition but if the pandemic is as bad as they say it means many people will be hospitalized or worse. Of course it’s a devils bargain, damnned if you do, damnned if you don’t, but it’s still present.
    - JadeNB 6y ago
      I think that 'forcibly' is a bad choice of words for a legal order that people could, and some did, ignore without serious consequence, and definitely without response by force—witness the 'liberate' protests—when compared to the literal and illegal use of force that the current protests are addressing, which have themselves been met in many places with force (as, for example, this very article discusses).
      - koheripbal 6y ago
        Businesses were shut down, by law. Some that stayed open in defiance of the law were fined and shuttered by the government. It most certainly was not optional.
        alpha_squared 6y ago
        And the defiance cost them fines, sometimes, not their lives. The protests are addressing compliance resulting in death for a select portion of the population that has been systematically singled out for centuries because of the pigment of their skin.
    - anigbrowl 6y ago
      Forcibly is being used rather hyperbolically here, don't you think? Some business owners that opened in defiance of local public health orders received fines or license suspensions, that's not equivalent.
      - xwowsersx 6y ago
        It's hyperbolic in one sense, but not in another. Consider the fact that every law is backed by an implicit threat of force. For example, it's easy to say "I'm just asking for everyone to pay their fair share" when referring to taxes. But what happens when you don't pay your taxes? You can be arrested and jailed. That is underlying threat of force. Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence
        anigbrowl 6y ago
        An implicit threat of force is very different from an explicit application of it. Feeling disgruntled (perhaps by proxy) over a small fine is not the same as being actually beaten, gassed, or jailed. You're not teaching me anything I don't already know, so what point are you attempting to make here?
        xwowsersx 6y ago
        They are different, but it's not clear to me that the distinction is significant in the context of OP I was addressing which is the exact point I was making. Not every difference is relevant in every context. As for me not teaching you anything you don't already know, I can't possibly have any idea what you do or don't already know and I think it'd be more productive to leave that kind of snark out of the discussion here.
        anigbrowl 6y ago
        Of course you can have such an idea, by thinking about the context of the thread in which this discussion is taking place and the fact that I acknowledged two examples of state-imposed sanctions that business owners might have been pissed off about. Offering explanations of elementary concepts in the middle of a more advanced discussion is patronizing and unhelpful. Your point that the distinction is not significant speaks to a lack of experience on your part so I will assume your behavior was unintentional.
    - rhacker 6y ago
      That's my theory too. Floyd was a catalyst but not the full reason for the riots. Total aside: Also what's our country's obsession with masks that are designed to make people look creepy - like a dead skeleton. And same truck window art, like skulls with bullets for teeth or something. I don't understand are these people just murdering thousands of people daily or something?
      - stronglikedan 6y ago
        Some people just like to use non-verbal queues to keep others at arm's length.
    - ineedasername 6y ago
      Not caring if there is a pandemic does not absolve people of actions they take that endanger others as a result of their disregard for the situation.
  - koheripbal 6y ago
    Police Brutality isn't a new problem. They should have waited until covid-19 was gone. Now we're likely to see a 2nd peak because of these protests.
    - aphextron 6y ago
      >Police Brutality isn't a new problem. They should have waited until covid-19 was gone. This wouldn't be happening in a world with 4% unemployment. But 20 million Americans are now out of work, stuck at home, and pissed off. Not to mention without the usual distractions of sports or live entertainment. When the bread and circuses break down, this is the result.
      - plutonorm 6y ago
        This is the first time I’ve heard this obvious point. There are riots now because people just don’t have the energy left to protest while surviving in hyper capitalism. They’ve got plenty of entertainment at home. This is bout energy and time. Employment supresses protest because it takes time and saps energy.
        csharptwdec19 6y ago
        > Employment supresses protest because it takes time and saps energy. Also protesting in some cases risks employment. A decent portion of these people likely no longer have that as a concern.
        asdff 6y ago
        There are lootings because police resources are tied up showing force against protestors, and people with bad intentions see an opportunity. The violence and property destruction is a separate event from the protest marches with different people engaging in these practices entirely. If I was one of the 70k people living on the street in LA, this would be a great time to stock up on essentials from a CVS on Capital's dime. However, I don't condone the looting of small businesses where owners have very little savings. Many of these immigrant run businesses that make LA unique don't have insurance, and many will fold after this inventory loss coming on the heels of two months of no income.
  - closeparen 6y ago
    Then where were the protests when similar incidents happened dozens of times before COVID? Has there been anything on this scale since Rodney King?
    - a_bonobo 6y ago
      People were busy with their lives. Now that there's mass unemployment (=time and anger), a generally hated administration, and even more videos of police brutality all over the place it's all bubbling up.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - NoSorryCannot 6y ago
      Are you suggesting we shouldn't protest now because we haven't protested at such a scale in a while? There have been protest since King, though not at this scale, no. The current circumstances are Political with a capital P, the class of things that can reshuffle a society. If this isn't the time to protest for redress of grievances, then there is no time. And I disagree if you're arguing that protesting is not essential.
      - closeparen 6y ago
        >doesn't care if there's a pandemic or not I am suggesting that the our reaction to the issue very much depends on whether there is a pandemic or not, and that the vigor of these protests is not despite the pandemic but because of it. I can respect and admire the decision that you personally dying of COVID-19 is worth it in order to express this grievance, but the nature of infectious disease is it's not just yourself that you're sacrificing here.
    - coredog64 6y ago
      Ferguson. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferguson_unrest https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferguson_unrest
  - missingcolours 6y ago
    To quote arguments that were thrown at people who wanted to do things like hold funerals for loved ones, visit dying relatives, protest against destroying the life's work of small business owners, etc: - You can do this over Zoom / online - Just because this is important to YOU does NOT give you the right to sacrifice the lives of the others who will be denied hospital care because of your selfishness - You really can't wait a couple months until this LITERAL PANDEMIC is over?
    - dagnabbit 6y ago
      You've been on team "let the virus rip through the population" from the start. As such, it is unsurprising that you are taking policies created thoughtfully to try to minimize overall harm and unnecessary deaths, and instead of framing them that way, are pretending that those policies were the result of their least tactful defenders.
    - alpha_squared 6y ago
      > You really can't wait a couple months until this LITERAL PANDEMIC is over? Where does "a couple months" come from?
      - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
        The pandemic won't go away in a few months, but cases are trending significantly downwards. I think it's fair to predict that mass gatherings will be much safer in August than they are today.
        alpha_squared 6y ago
        As far as I'm aware, and I'd certainly welcome any information otherwise, super-spreader events are unpredictably random. Coupled with the incubation period, that still sounds like another wave.
        second--shift 6y ago
        > but cases are trending significantly downwards I don't mean to nitpick, as I wish to uphold the high community standards here, but this is false when compared to the worldwide data in aggregate. New cases are actually spiking, higher than during the lockdown. See [1] , at the bottom right, "daily cases" tab. The record for 'total daily new cases' of ~130k was set 2 days ago, on 3 June. Making individual (or collective) decisions based on the false premise of "cases are trending significantly downwards" is very dangerous. [1] https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.h...
  - asdff 6y ago
    110k Americans cannot be understated. That is a stupidly huge number in a year. For comparison: the entire Vietnam war saw the loss of ~70k, 9/11 saw the loss of 3500 which was enough loss of life to give justification for a nearly 20 year war, and the LAPD killed 12 people last year (1). The sentiment is absolutely correct and any loss of life is too much, but we have to put this pandemic first until it burns out or there is a vaccine, then we can talk about mass gatherings again. This energy is much better spent crafting ballot initiatives that are capable of enacting real change, gathering signatures, registering voters, and getting people to the polls. Protesting alone doesn't solve anything. We saw the further militarization of police after Rodney King, and we saw nothing change after occupy wall street. Protests give people an outlet to vent but they don't enact real change. Laws and votes do. I worry too that even if people vote in the presidential election, they will continue to leave their local elections by the wayside and these races are what really decides how your community is governed and policed, and have a far more real affect on your life than whoever sits in the white house. 1. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-05-12/lapd-use-of-force-report https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-05-12/lapd-use...
    - 013a 6y ago
      "Give me Liberty, or Give me death" - Patrick Henry "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Ben Franklin Everyone falls on one of two sides of this coin, and its startlingly difficult to understand the thought process behind those on the other side: That people are willing to, gladly, risk their lives and die in the cause of something greater. My parents wanted me to travel home a month or so ago. They're about 80 years old. I told them it was too risky; that its not about me, its about them, I could have the virus and not know it, they're incredibly high risk, I live in a dense metropolitan area with roommates... They didn't care. Seeing me was more important to them. That's not being stupid: Its being Human. There's no cause worth fighting for greater than human liberty, and that's what the black community, and along with them many Americans, are fighting for right now. We're all going to die one day. Sacrificing your life, and ability to live without freely, without fear, to delay your death is never a trade one should make.
- JadeNB 6y ago
  > The fact that everyone is suddenly all for mass protests suggests we got the severity of Coronavirus wrong and people are using this as a convenient out for backing off shelter in place orders without losing face. Wait a minute, who is suddenly for mass protests? Well, the protestors are, obviously, at least in the sense that they think that they are necessary, but they're not the ones who issued the shelter-in-place orders or who can repeal them. Those orders (now lifted in many places) were issued by governors and mayors, and I have not heard any statement from those officials indicating support for the act of the protests. I have heard support for the cause of the protest, and I have heard them urging people to use masks and respect social distancing as much as possible while protesting, but those seem to fall short of being 'for' the protests themselves.
  - war1025 6y ago
    Among others, former director of the CDC [1]. [1] https://twitter.com/DrTomFrieden/status/1267796218496901121 https://twitter.com/DrTomFrieden/status/1267796218496901121
  - zaroth 6y ago
    For example, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has been very strictly enforcing the shutdown and social distancing in her State, but yesterday was out with protestors in dense crowds.
    - dashundchen 6y ago
      Has she? It seems there was no attempt to stop the lock down protests either and those were quite a crowd.
      - zaroth 6y ago
        She has been quite strict in policies and enforcement overall. As far as denouncing protesters, this is what she was saying on May 13th about the shutdown protesters, and yet was herself participating in densely populated BLM protests yesterday [2]; > Question: Governor, you said this morning in The View that the protests that we’ve been seeing at the capital could be potentially adding to the spread of COVID-19 as people not listen to the stay at home orders and congregate. What proof do you have to show that that’s happening? And as well as … have to show that that’s happening and as well as COVID-19 spreading into rural areas because of that. > Governor Gretchen Whitmer: Yeah. So I think that I saw one report. I don’t have proof. I’m not following everybody home and taking their temperatures and watching them for two weeks. But here’s what we know. When COVID-19, the way that it spreads is person-to-person contact, that it can stay in the air for a while, that it is when you’re closer than six feet, not wearing masks, it is when you’re touching one another. We saw a lot of that at these protests at the Capitol. That’s how COVID-19 spreads. We know it’s incredibly contagious and there are a lot of people who get COVID-19 who are asymptomatic and so they’re conducting life as though they’re healthy because they honestly think they’re healthy, but they’re carrying it and spreading it. That’s the insidious nature of this virus. > So that is always been a concern. When people congregate, they take it back to their communities. We’ve seen that over and over again. There was a group that did a report that they had put up a geo fence around the Capitol and then monitored cell phone data and that it translates where we are seeing hotspots in rural parts of Michigan. I don’t know the group, I have not vetted the data. I can’t vouch for it, but I think that that would not be a surprising outcome if that was the case. > That’s why I think it’s so important that, if people are determined to protest, I ask that they do right on their own, by themselves, by their own health, by everyone who lives in their household, everyone that they are around and take precautions to protect themselves, wear the mask, stay six feet away from other people. And that they do it on behalf of our first responders too, the police that are onsite, the nurses and doctors who are stressed out because they’re treating COVID patients, their local hospitals, which if they are from a more rural community do not have capacity to meet the need of an outbreak. Now that she agrees with the aims of the protestors, she not only does not denounce them for violating social distancing orders, she actively participates. This is not to say anything about the relative merits of the individual protests themselves, which I think should be irrelevant when it comes to public health orders that claim to be necessary to control the spread of a dangerous pathogen. If mandatory health orders can be suspended, or in fact actively defied by the head politician who has enacted them, based on the particular cause being deemed worthy or not, I think this is a breach of the public trust, which sacrificed 40 million jobs and trillions of dollars in the name of these shutdown orders. [1] - https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/michigan-governor-gretchen-whitmer-press-conference-transcript-may-13 https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/michigan-governor-gretc... [2] - https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2020/06/04/gov-whitmer-mayor-duggan-join-unity-march-through-detroit-in-honor-of-george-floyd/ https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2020/06/04/gov-whi...
- colechristensen 6y ago
  Or, people aren't rational and do whatever feels most right to them at any specific moment.
  - minikites 6y ago
    Someone should tell the economists.
- stefan_ 6y ago
  Is this peak HN? People are protesting outside at great risk to themselves because they secretly hated Coronavirus restrictions and want to party? What level of deranged unawareness would ever make you say that?
  - minikites 6y ago
    It's what happens when someone is privileged and insulated from nearly all consequences for their words and actions.
  - nostromo 6y ago
    While I don't think it's a conspiracy, I am convinced that the civil unrest was directly tied to the lockdowns. Floyd's death is the acute cause for the protests, but we've had these protests before and they were much milder. Add mass unemployment, economic uncertainty, closed bars, closed parks, shelter-in-place orders, zero entertainment, no sports, etc., and you suddenly have an explosive situation.
    - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
      I agree. That isn't to diminish the protests at all or say they're unnecessary, but I think COVID has added to the fervor. People feel cooped up and on edge right now
    - jrs95 6y ago
      It's related to the media reaction to the initial backlash as well. I personally dont think events like this are ever purely grassroots, someone powerful decided they would benefit from it and helped push it forward.
    - ineedasername 6y ago
      It also means a lot of people don't have to worry about missing work to attend protests. In a way, we may be seeing the actual, truthful level of outrage that has always been inflamed by such events, when the expression of that outrage is not held back economic concerns.
  - 6y ago
- Sevaris 6y ago
  It's not like you can postpone protests. It either happens now directly after Floyd's death, or another injustice goes ignored by basically everybody and police brutality as people know it continues unabated. I'm not really sure what you're saying here. It sounds like you're against protests and you believe Covid19 was totally exaggerated.
  - closeparen 6y ago
    Do you think it's somehow not an injustice when people die as a result of your decision to participate in a crowd?
- beamatronic 6y ago
  > "everyone is suddenly all for mass protests" Do you have a source for this?
- pgrote 6y ago
  >From a people placement perspective, a parade and a protest are pretty equivalent. Correct. Regardless of which one is more important, the effects will be long lasting. You won't be able to use public health as a justification for forcing Americans to stay home or shutter businesses in the future. You have a constitutional right to assemble.
- pmorici 6y ago
  I don't think the warnings about the nature of COVID are wrong the pandemic is just unevenly distributed and people have a hard time contextualizing their personal risk when they aren't directly effected. 110,000 Americans have died in only 4 months. If this continues it will easily be the number 3 cause of death and has a chance at eclipsing cancer at number 2. There are reports of second waves in some place that have lifted restrictions [0] Media reporting is one way to get people to focus on an issue and right now something else has taken priority in the news cycle. [0] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8391325/Iran-country-report-second-wave-coronavirus.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8391325/Iran-countr...
- xeeeeeeeeeeenu 6y ago
  https://babylonbee.com/news/scientists-confirm-coronavirus-only-spreads-at-conservative-protests https://babylonbee.com/news/scientists-confirm-coronavirus-o...
- jrs95 6y ago
  At this point we need herd immunity so young people gathering and getting infected is probably a net gain. More people will die due to economic damage than the virus if we maintained quarantine until vaccination.
- bleachedsleet 6y ago
  COVID is still dangerous and protesting during a pandemic is still equally dangerous as well. It's just that in a cost benefit analysis the public has collectively decided that risking their own health is less important than the prolonged abuses of an unhinged police system.
- ineedasername 6y ago
  It hardly suggest we got the corona virus response wrong. That borders on deliberate obtuseness. First-- it doesn't me we got it wrong, it simply means that some levels of outrage are sufficient to override the fear of getting infects. Second, it will be a few weeks before we see the impact these gatherings have on infection rates.
- mnm1 6y ago
  No, it suggests the masses are idiots. Nothing more and certainly nothing new.
EarthIsHome 6y ago
There's a reason tear gas is prohibited in warfare by the Geneva Protocol of 1925 right up there with the other chemical weapons. I got an extremely diluted dose of it while in my apartment with a window cracked, and I had to immediately close the window and leave to another room. I can't believe they're subjecting their own domestic population with chemical weapons.
- danielbln 6y ago
  The reason for that is not necessarily its direct harm though, but to avoid combating parties one-upping each other with chemical warfare, e.g starting with teargas and escalating to sarine gas or whatever. This post explains it better: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/gwtj89/the_chemical_weapons_convention_1993_has/fsy1d9g/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/gwtj89/the_c...
  - frompdx 6y ago
    > but to avoid combating parties one-upping each other with chemical warfare That policy makes sense and seems applicable to protests to prevent peaceful protests from escalating and becoming violent.
    - ggreer 6y ago
      How? There's no risk of escalation in the chemical weapons regime from the protestors, nor is there any chance of the police using lethal chemical weapons such as sarin gas. The logic around chemical weapons in the Geneva conventions was specific to escalation around chemical weapons. It wasn't a fully general argument about the use of force. Any force used by police could cause escalation, but we do allow the police to use force.
      - ineedasername 6y ago
        It's not about escalating use of chemical weapons, it's about escalating the use of violence. It's not hard to see that the same tit-for-tat mentality in chemical weapons escalation could easily apply to any form of violence. Sure, protesters don't have chemical weapons like tear gas, but they could start with bleach, or a mixture or bleach & ammonia, or Molotov cocktails. It's not like the list of home-made destructive devices is a short list.
mindslight 6y ago
Every full face respirator you see riot (-causing) police wearing or holding has a P100 particulate filter and could have instead been used by a nurse, EMT, or an at-risk person for protection from COVID-19. And to have so many ready to go, the cops were likely just sitting on their stockpiles throughout that period of dire PPE shortage. If that PPE had been used for healthcare as it should have, the cops would have had to think twice before adding tear gas to the air during a respiratory pandemic.
- AWildC182 6y ago
  If they had gone to the nurses it would have saved a lot of lives. There have been about 300 medical personnel deaths due to covid already.
  - timbit42 6y ago
    600 medical personnel deaths globally.
werber 6y ago
I was tear gassed once and it was hell, I have nothing to compare it to. But it should be illegal, it was torture.
- dirtydroog 6y ago
  I believe they're working on tickle gas.
grawprog 6y ago
My girlfriend worked in eye care for years, she's seen a lot of pretty bad injuries over the years one of the worst stories though was a teenage girl who was pepper sprayed in the face at close range. It basically disintegrated her eye balls. One of them was nearly completely gone and the other one had about 30% of its tissue remaining. She permanently lost her vision and had to undergo multiple surgeries and rehabilitation for months. The damage was worse than a patient she seen who was shot in the face with a shotgun. His vision was able to be partially restored.
- dominotw 6y ago
  any idea why this happened to her in particular. Was there anything special about this pepper spray.
  - grawprog 6y ago
    No, normal pepper spray at point blank, about an inch from her face, from a police officer arresting her.
    - dekhn 6y ago
      there's got to be some relevant detail missing here, pepper spray wouldn't cause your eyes to disintegrate in the way you described.
      - influx 6y ago
        I wonder if it's just from the force of the propellant at too close a range. Can't be good for the eye.
        grawprog 6y ago
        This probably had a lot to do with it, I wasn't implying the tear gas itself can melt eyes. But used that way, at close range it can be more damaging than a firearm. She also ended up with some respiratory problems, but I don't know much about that, it wasn't part of my girlfriend's work.
gentleman11 6y ago
If used properly, tear gas is less dangerous than at least some of the alternatives. Imagine actual riots, not peaceful protestors. The alternatives might be literally deafening sound, rubber bullets, tasers, batons, water cannons, and real guns; all of these can hurt people.
- ineedasername 6y ago
  With the exception of sound & water cannons, all of these other methods have been used in the last two weeks, with many recorded usages on peaceful protesters.
- joshribakoff 6y ago
  If governed properly, populations tend to not riot in the first place, so I see this as a moot point.
- jadell 6y ago
  The alternatives would be the government not giving people a reason to riot. If we're at the point of debating which weapons are or are not allowed to be used on a civilian population, then the government has already failed in its most basic responsibilities.
oyra 6y ago
No worries. Soon police will have no funds to buy tear gas. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackbrewster/2020/06/04/la-mayor-slashes-lapd-budget-as-calls-to-defund-police-slowly-pick-up-steam/#26be50061ba3 https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackbrewster/2020/06/04/la-mayo... That's good. I'd love to see Beverly Hills turns South Central. It should teach some lessons those Hollywood morons who support riots, 'antifa' brown-shirts and alikes

173 points by xenocyon 6y ago

> Especially During COVID Public gatherings are supposedly extremely dangerous right now. The fact that everyone is suddenly all for mass protests suggests we got the severity of Coronavirus wrong and people are using this as a convenient out for backing off shelter in place orders without losing face. In February the "Philly had a parade, St Louis Stayed home" article was being shared by here and everywhere else. From a people placement perspective, a parade and a protest are pretty equivalent.

locopati 6y ago
Or it's possible that in 2-3 weeks, we're going to see a spike in cases.
vore 6y ago
Or maybe the fact that everyone is suddenly all for mass protests suggests that police brutality is a horrible forever unaddressed injustice that doesn't care if there's a pandemic or not?
- war1025 6y ago
  > doesn't care if there's a pandemic or not There are many people that don't care if there is a pandemic of not. They were forcibly kept away from their jobs and families for three months.
  - jolmg 6y ago
    I think the point is that addressing police brutality is more important than stopping COVID-19 spread which is more important than going to work and visiting families.
    - war1025 6y ago
      And that's a value judgement they can make. The issue is that ordering was different for millions of people and they didn't get a choice in the matter.
      - jolmg 6y ago
        > issue is that ordering was different No, it's not. The ones that are protesting are also being ordered to disperse and go back home. The reason they're not is because they're disobeying. For those that aren't explicitly ordered, it's because it's pointless, given that civil disobedience is in the nature of protests.
        war1025 6y ago
        Good luck disobeying if you are small business owner who was told you can no longer legally do business. On a more personal note, my 98 year old Grandma has been confined to her room at the nursing home for three months. Good luck to her civil disobeying orders.
        jolmg 6y ago
        > Good luck disobeying if you are small business owner who was told you can no longer legally do business. Exactly. The fact that you can't effectively do a sizeable protest around that so goes to show how the population in general prioritizes these issues. > On a more personal note, my 98 year old Grandma has been confined to her room at the nursing home for three months. Good luck to her civil disobeying orders. Yeah, public support for your grandma risking getting sick is going to be even less.
    - mc32 6y ago
      You can’t protest if you’re sick though. So I get it it’s a short term push to get recognition but if the pandemic is as bad as they say it means many people will be hospitalized or worse. Of course it’s a devils bargain, damnned if you do, damnned if you don’t, but it’s still present.
  - JadeNB 6y ago
    I think that 'forcibly' is a bad choice of words for a legal order that people could, and some did, ignore without serious consequence, and definitely without response by force—witness the 'liberate' protests—when compared to the literal and illegal use of force that the current protests are addressing, which have themselves been met in many places with force (as, for example, this very article discusses).
    - koheripbal 6y ago
      Businesses were shut down, by law. Some that stayed open in defiance of the law were fined and shuttered by the government. It most certainly was not optional.
      - alpha_squared 6y ago
        And the defiance cost them fines, sometimes, not their lives. The protests are addressing compliance resulting in death for a select portion of the population that has been systematically singled out for centuries because of the pigment of their skin.
  - anigbrowl 6y ago
    Forcibly is being used rather hyperbolically here, don't you think? Some business owners that opened in defiance of local public health orders received fines or license suspensions, that's not equivalent.
    - xwowsersx 6y ago
      It's hyperbolic in one sense, but not in another. Consider the fact that every law is backed by an implicit threat of force. For example, it's easy to say "I'm just asking for everyone to pay their fair share" when referring to taxes. But what happens when you don't pay your taxes? You can be arrested and jailed. That is underlying threat of force. Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence
      - anigbrowl 6y ago
        An implicit threat of force is very different from an explicit application of it. Feeling disgruntled (perhaps by proxy) over a small fine is not the same as being actually beaten, gassed, or jailed. You're not teaching me anything I don't already know, so what point are you attempting to make here?
        xwowsersx 6y ago
        They are different, but it's not clear to me that the distinction is significant in the context of OP I was addressing which is the exact point I was making. Not every difference is relevant in every context. As for me not teaching you anything you don't already know, I can't possibly have any idea what you do or don't already know and I think it'd be more productive to leave that kind of snark out of the discussion here.
        anigbrowl 6y ago
        Of course you can have such an idea, by thinking about the context of the thread in which this discussion is taking place and the fact that I acknowledged two examples of state-imposed sanctions that business owners might have been pissed off about. Offering explanations of elementary concepts in the middle of a more advanced discussion is patronizing and unhelpful. Your point that the distinction is not significant speaks to a lack of experience on your part so I will assume your behavior was unintentional.
  - rhacker 6y ago
    That's my theory too. Floyd was a catalyst but not the full reason for the riots. Total aside: Also what's our country's obsession with masks that are designed to make people look creepy - like a dead skeleton. And same truck window art, like skulls with bullets for teeth or something. I don't understand are these people just murdering thousands of people daily or something?
    - stronglikedan 6y ago
      Some people just like to use non-verbal queues to keep others at arm's length.
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    Not caring if there is a pandemic does not absolve people of actions they take that endanger others as a result of their disregard for the situation.
- koheripbal 6y ago
  Police Brutality isn't a new problem. They should have waited until covid-19 was gone. Now we're likely to see a 2nd peak because of these protests.
  - aphextron 6y ago
    >Police Brutality isn't a new problem. They should have waited until covid-19 was gone. This wouldn't be happening in a world with 4% unemployment. But 20 million Americans are now out of work, stuck at home, and pissed off. Not to mention without the usual distractions of sports or live entertainment. When the bread and circuses break down, this is the result.
    - plutonorm 6y ago
      This is the first time I’ve heard this obvious point. There are riots now because people just don’t have the energy left to protest while surviving in hyper capitalism. They’ve got plenty of entertainment at home. This is bout energy and time. Employment supresses protest because it takes time and saps energy.
      - csharptwdec19 6y ago
        > Employment supresses protest because it takes time and saps energy. Also protesting in some cases risks employment. A decent portion of these people likely no longer have that as a concern.
      - asdff 6y ago
        There are lootings because police resources are tied up showing force against protestors, and people with bad intentions see an opportunity. The violence and property destruction is a separate event from the protest marches with different people engaging in these practices entirely. If I was one of the 70k people living on the street in LA, this would be a great time to stock up on essentials from a CVS on Capital's dime. However, I don't condone the looting of small businesses where owners have very little savings. Many of these immigrant run businesses that make LA unique don't have insurance, and many will fold after this inventory loss coming on the heels of two months of no income.
- closeparen 6y ago
  Then where were the protests when similar incidents happened dozens of times before COVID? Has there been anything on this scale since Rodney King?
  - a_bonobo 6y ago
    People were busy with their lives. Now that there's mass unemployment (=time and anger), a generally hated administration, and even more videos of police brutality all over the place it's all bubbling up.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - NoSorryCannot 6y ago
    Are you suggesting we shouldn't protest now because we haven't protested at such a scale in a while? There have been protest since King, though not at this scale, no. The current circumstances are Political with a capital P, the class of things that can reshuffle a society. If this isn't the time to protest for redress of grievances, then there is no time. And I disagree if you're arguing that protesting is not essential.
    - closeparen 6y ago
      >doesn't care if there's a pandemic or not I am suggesting that the our reaction to the issue very much depends on whether there is a pandemic or not, and that the vigor of these protests is not despite the pandemic but because of it. I can respect and admire the decision that you personally dying of COVID-19 is worth it in order to express this grievance, but the nature of infectious disease is it's not just yourself that you're sacrificing here.
  - coredog64 6y ago
    Ferguson. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferguson_unrest https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferguson_unrest
- missingcolours 6y ago
  To quote arguments that were thrown at people who wanted to do things like hold funerals for loved ones, visit dying relatives, protest against destroying the life's work of small business owners, etc: - You can do this over Zoom / online - Just because this is important to YOU does NOT give you the right to sacrifice the lives of the others who will be denied hospital care because of your selfishness - You really can't wait a couple months until this LITERAL PANDEMIC is over?
  - dagnabbit 6y ago
    You've been on team "let the virus rip through the population" from the start. As such, it is unsurprising that you are taking policies created thoughtfully to try to minimize overall harm and unnecessary deaths, and instead of framing them that way, are pretending that those policies were the result of their least tactful defenders.
  - alpha_squared 6y ago
    > You really can't wait a couple months until this LITERAL PANDEMIC is over? Where does "a couple months" come from?
    - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
      The pandemic won't go away in a few months, but cases are trending significantly downwards. I think it's fair to predict that mass gatherings will be much safer in August than they are today.
      - alpha_squared 6y ago
        As far as I'm aware, and I'd certainly welcome any information otherwise, super-spreader events are unpredictably random. Coupled with the incubation period, that still sounds like another wave.
      - second--shift 6y ago
        > but cases are trending significantly downwards I don't mean to nitpick, as I wish to uphold the high community standards here, but this is false when compared to the worldwide data in aggregate. New cases are actually spiking, higher than during the lockdown. See [1] , at the bottom right, "daily cases" tab. The record for 'total daily new cases' of ~130k was set 2 days ago, on 3 June. Making individual (or collective) decisions based on the false premise of "cases are trending significantly downwards" is very dangerous. [1] https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.h...
- asdff 6y ago
  110k Americans cannot be understated. That is a stupidly huge number in a year. For comparison: the entire Vietnam war saw the loss of ~70k, 9/11 saw the loss of 3500 which was enough loss of life to give justification for a nearly 20 year war, and the LAPD killed 12 people last year (1). The sentiment is absolutely correct and any loss of life is too much, but we have to put this pandemic first until it burns out or there is a vaccine, then we can talk about mass gatherings again. This energy is much better spent crafting ballot initiatives that are capable of enacting real change, gathering signatures, registering voters, and getting people to the polls. Protesting alone doesn't solve anything. We saw the further militarization of police after Rodney King, and we saw nothing change after occupy wall street. Protests give people an outlet to vent but they don't enact real change. Laws and votes do. I worry too that even if people vote in the presidential election, they will continue to leave their local elections by the wayside and these races are what really decides how your community is governed and policed, and have a far more real affect on your life than whoever sits in the white house. 1. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-05-12/lapd-use-of-force-report https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-05-12/lapd-use...
  - 013a 6y ago
    "Give me Liberty, or Give me death" - Patrick Henry "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Ben Franklin Everyone falls on one of two sides of this coin, and its startlingly difficult to understand the thought process behind those on the other side: That people are willing to, gladly, risk their lives and die in the cause of something greater. My parents wanted me to travel home a month or so ago. They're about 80 years old. I told them it was too risky; that its not about me, its about them, I could have the virus and not know it, they're incredibly high risk, I live in a dense metropolitan area with roommates... They didn't care. Seeing me was more important to them. That's not being stupid: Its being Human. There's no cause worth fighting for greater than human liberty, and that's what the black community, and along with them many Americans, are fighting for right now. We're all going to die one day. Sacrificing your life, and ability to live without freely, without fear, to delay your death is never a trade one should make.
JadeNB 6y ago
> The fact that everyone is suddenly all for mass protests suggests we got the severity of Coronavirus wrong and people are using this as a convenient out for backing off shelter in place orders without losing face. Wait a minute, who is suddenly for mass protests? Well, the protestors are, obviously, at least in the sense that they think that they are necessary, but they're not the ones who issued the shelter-in-place orders or who can repeal them. Those orders (now lifted in many places) were issued by governors and mayors, and I have not heard any statement from those officials indicating support for the act of the protests. I have heard support for the cause of the protest, and I have heard them urging people to use masks and respect social distancing as much as possible while protesting, but those seem to fall short of being 'for' the protests themselves.
- war1025 6y ago
  Among others, former director of the CDC [1]. [1] https://twitter.com/DrTomFrieden/status/1267796218496901121 https://twitter.com/DrTomFrieden/status/1267796218496901121
- zaroth 6y ago
  For example, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has been very strictly enforcing the shutdown and social distancing in her State, but yesterday was out with protestors in dense crowds.
  - dashundchen 6y ago
    Has she? It seems there was no attempt to stop the lock down protests either and those were quite a crowd.
    - zaroth 6y ago
      She has been quite strict in policies and enforcement overall. As far as denouncing protesters, this is what she was saying on May 13th about the shutdown protesters, and yet was herself participating in densely populated BLM protests yesterday [2]; > Question: Governor, you said this morning in The View that the protests that we’ve been seeing at the capital could be potentially adding to the spread of COVID-19 as people not listen to the stay at home orders and congregate. What proof do you have to show that that’s happening? And as well as … have to show that that’s happening and as well as COVID-19 spreading into rural areas because of that. > Governor Gretchen Whitmer: Yeah. So I think that I saw one report. I don’t have proof. I’m not following everybody home and taking their temperatures and watching them for two weeks. But here’s what we know. When COVID-19, the way that it spreads is person-to-person contact, that it can stay in the air for a while, that it is when you’re closer than six feet, not wearing masks, it is when you’re touching one another. We saw a lot of that at these protests at the Capitol. That’s how COVID-19 spreads. We know it’s incredibly contagious and there are a lot of people who get COVID-19 who are asymptomatic and so they’re conducting life as though they’re healthy because they honestly think they’re healthy, but they’re carrying it and spreading it. That’s the insidious nature of this virus. > So that is always been a concern. When people congregate, they take it back to their communities. We’ve seen that over and over again. There was a group that did a report that they had put up a geo fence around the Capitol and then monitored cell phone data and that it translates where we are seeing hotspots in rural parts of Michigan. I don’t know the group, I have not vetted the data. I can’t vouch for it, but I think that that would not be a surprising outcome if that was the case. > That’s why I think it’s so important that, if people are determined to protest, I ask that they do right on their own, by themselves, by their own health, by everyone who lives in their household, everyone that they are around and take precautions to protect themselves, wear the mask, stay six feet away from other people. And that they do it on behalf of our first responders too, the police that are onsite, the nurses and doctors who are stressed out because they’re treating COVID patients, their local hospitals, which if they are from a more rural community do not have capacity to meet the need of an outbreak. Now that she agrees with the aims of the protestors, she not only does not denounce them for violating social distancing orders, she actively participates. This is not to say anything about the relative merits of the individual protests themselves, which I think should be irrelevant when it comes to public health orders that claim to be necessary to control the spread of a dangerous pathogen. If mandatory health orders can be suspended, or in fact actively defied by the head politician who has enacted them, based on the particular cause being deemed worthy or not, I think this is a breach of the public trust, which sacrificed 40 million jobs and trillions of dollars in the name of these shutdown orders. [1] - https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/michigan-governor-gretchen-whitmer-press-conference-transcript-may-13 https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/michigan-governor-gretc... [2] - https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2020/06/04/gov-whitmer-mayor-duggan-join-unity-march-through-detroit-in-honor-of-george-floyd/ https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2020/06/04/gov-whi...
colechristensen 6y ago
Or, people aren't rational and do whatever feels most right to them at any specific moment.
- minikites 6y ago
  Someone should tell the economists.
stefan_ 6y ago
Is this peak HN? People are protesting outside at great risk to themselves because they secretly hated Coronavirus restrictions and want to party? What level of deranged unawareness would ever make you say that?
- minikites 6y ago
  It's what happens when someone is privileged and insulated from nearly all consequences for their words and actions.
- nostromo 6y ago
  While I don't think it's a conspiracy, I am convinced that the civil unrest was directly tied to the lockdowns. Floyd's death is the acute cause for the protests, but we've had these protests before and they were much milder. Add mass unemployment, economic uncertainty, closed bars, closed parks, shelter-in-place orders, zero entertainment, no sports, etc., and you suddenly have an explosive situation.
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    I agree. That isn't to diminish the protests at all or say they're unnecessary, but I think COVID has added to the fervor. People feel cooped up and on edge right now
  - jrs95 6y ago
    It's related to the media reaction to the initial backlash as well. I personally dont think events like this are ever purely grassroots, someone powerful decided they would benefit from it and helped push it forward.
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    It also means a lot of people don't have to worry about missing work to attend protests. In a way, we may be seeing the actual, truthful level of outrage that has always been inflamed by such events, when the expression of that outrage is not held back economic concerns.
- 6y ago
Sevaris 6y ago
It's not like you can postpone protests. It either happens now directly after Floyd's death, or another injustice goes ignored by basically everybody and police brutality as people know it continues unabated. I'm not really sure what you're saying here. It sounds like you're against protests and you believe Covid19 was totally exaggerated.
- closeparen 6y ago
  Do you think it's somehow not an injustice when people die as a result of your decision to participate in a crowd?
beamatronic 6y ago
> "everyone is suddenly all for mass protests" Do you have a source for this?
pgrote 6y ago
>From a people placement perspective, a parade and a protest are pretty equivalent. Correct. Regardless of which one is more important, the effects will be long lasting. You won't be able to use public health as a justification for forcing Americans to stay home or shutter businesses in the future. You have a constitutional right to assemble.
pmorici 6y ago
I don't think the warnings about the nature of COVID are wrong the pandemic is just unevenly distributed and people have a hard time contextualizing their personal risk when they aren't directly effected. 110,000 Americans have died in only 4 months. If this continues it will easily be the number 3 cause of death and has a chance at eclipsing cancer at number 2. There are reports of second waves in some place that have lifted restrictions [0] Media reporting is one way to get people to focus on an issue and right now something else has taken priority in the news cycle. [0] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8391325/Iran-country-report-second-wave-coronavirus.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8391325/Iran-countr...
xeeeeeeeeeeenu 6y ago
https://babylonbee.com/news/scientists-confirm-coronavirus-only-spreads-at-conservative-protests https://babylonbee.com/news/scientists-confirm-coronavirus-o...
jrs95 6y ago
At this point we need herd immunity so young people gathering and getting infected is probably a net gain. More people will die due to economic damage than the virus if we maintained quarantine until vaccination.
bleachedsleet 6y ago
COVID is still dangerous and protesting during a pandemic is still equally dangerous as well. It's just that in a cost benefit analysis the public has collectively decided that risking their own health is less important than the prolonged abuses of an unhinged police system.
ineedasername 6y ago
It hardly suggest we got the corona virus response wrong. That borders on deliberate obtuseness. First-- it doesn't me we got it wrong, it simply means that some levels of outrage are sufficient to override the fear of getting infects. Second, it will be a few weeks before we see the impact these gatherings have on infection rates.
mnm1 6y ago
No, it suggests the masses are idiots. Nothing more and certainly nothing new.

EarthIsHome 6y ago

There's a reason tear gas is prohibited in warfare by the Geneva Protocol of 1925 right up there with the other chemical weapons. I got an extremely diluted dose of it while in my apartment with a window cracked, and I had to immediately close the window and leave to another room. I can't believe they're subjecting their own domestic population with chemical weapons.

danielbln 6y ago
The reason for that is not necessarily its direct harm though, but to avoid combating parties one-upping each other with chemical warfare, e.g starting with teargas and escalating to sarine gas or whatever. This post explains it better: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/gwtj89/the_chemical_weapons_convention_1993_has/fsy1d9g/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/gwtj89/the_c...
- frompdx 6y ago
  > but to avoid combating parties one-upping each other with chemical warfare That policy makes sense and seems applicable to protests to prevent peaceful protests from escalating and becoming violent.
  - ggreer 6y ago
    How? There's no risk of escalation in the chemical weapons regime from the protestors, nor is there any chance of the police using lethal chemical weapons such as sarin gas. The logic around chemical weapons in the Geneva conventions was specific to escalation around chemical weapons. It wasn't a fully general argument about the use of force. Any force used by police could cause escalation, but we do allow the police to use force.
    - ineedasername 6y ago
      It's not about escalating use of chemical weapons, it's about escalating the use of violence. It's not hard to see that the same tit-for-tat mentality in chemical weapons escalation could easily apply to any form of violence. Sure, protesters don't have chemical weapons like tear gas, but they could start with bleach, or a mixture or bleach & ammonia, or Molotov cocktails. It's not like the list of home-made destructive devices is a short list.

mindslight 6y ago

Every full face respirator you see riot (-causing) police wearing or holding has a P100 particulate filter and could have instead been used by a nurse, EMT, or an at-risk person for protection from COVID-19. And to have so many ready to go, the cops were likely just sitting on their stockpiles throughout that period of dire PPE shortage. If that PPE had been used for healthcare as it should have, the cops would have had to think twice before adding tear gas to the air during a respiratory pandemic.

AWildC182 6y ago
If they had gone to the nurses it would have saved a lot of lives. There have been about 300 medical personnel deaths due to covid already.
- timbit42 6y ago
  600 medical personnel deaths globally.

werber 6y ago

I was tear gassed once and it was hell, I have nothing to compare it to. But it should be illegal, it was torture.

dirtydroog 6y ago
I believe they're working on tickle gas.

grawprog 6y ago

My girlfriend worked in eye care for years, she's seen a lot of pretty bad injuries over the years one of the worst stories though was a teenage girl who was pepper sprayed in the face at close range. It basically disintegrated her eye balls. One of them was nearly completely gone and the other one had about 30% of its tissue remaining. She permanently lost her vision and had to undergo multiple surgeries and rehabilitation for months. The damage was worse than a patient she seen who was shot in the face with a shotgun. His vision was able to be partially restored.

dominotw 6y ago
any idea why this happened to her in particular. Was there anything special about this pepper spray.
- grawprog 6y ago
  No, normal pepper spray at point blank, about an inch from her face, from a police officer arresting her.
  - dekhn 6y ago
    there's got to be some relevant detail missing here, pepper spray wouldn't cause your eyes to disintegrate in the way you described.
    - influx 6y ago
      I wonder if it's just from the force of the propellant at too close a range. Can't be good for the eye.
      - grawprog 6y ago
        This probably had a lot to do with it, I wasn't implying the tear gas itself can melt eyes. But used that way, at close range it can be more damaging than a firearm. She also ended up with some respiratory problems, but I don't know much about that, it wasn't part of my girlfriend's work.

gentleman11 6y ago

If used properly, tear gas is less dangerous than at least some of the alternatives. Imagine actual riots, not peaceful protestors. The alternatives might be literally deafening sound, rubber bullets, tasers, batons, water cannons, and real guns; all of these can hurt people.

ineedasername 6y ago
With the exception of sound & water cannons, all of these other methods have been used in the last two weeks, with many recorded usages on peaceful protesters.
joshribakoff 6y ago
If governed properly, populations tend to not riot in the first place, so I see this as a moot point.
jadell 6y ago
The alternatives would be the government not giving people a reason to riot. If we're at the point of debating which weapons are or are not allowed to be used on a civilian population, then the government has already failed in its most basic responsibilities.

oyra 6y ago

No worries. Soon police will have no funds to buy tear gas. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackbrewster/2020/06/04/la-mayor-slashes-lapd-budget-as-calls-to-defund-police-slowly-pick-up-steam/#26be50061ba3 https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackbrewster/2020/06/04/la-mayo... That's good. I'd love to see Beverly Hills turns South Central. It should teach some lessons those Hollywood morons who support riots, 'antifa' brown-shirts and alikes