4 ms·

I'm up north about the same distance. Only bad days have been this Sun/Mon with all the gas/flash-bangs and the sheriff's plane flying loops over the city until

I'm up north about the same distance. Only bad days have been this Sun/Mon with all the gas/flash-bangs and the sheriff's plane flying loops over the city until the wee hours of the morning. Since the police cleared out, everything has been much MUCH nicer around here.

ashtonkem 6y ago
As someone who has never been to Seattle, I am shocked by how bad your police department appears to be. Even the LAPD behaved ... well, less bad from what I’d heard. Flash bangs? Those are for assaulting buildings, not crowd control.
- sterlind 6y ago
  I mean, it's par for the course across America during protests. It's important to remember "less than lethal" doesn't mean safe - I saw a photo of a dude who's eye was.. exploded by a tear gas canister. Forget where that was but it was not Seattle. If anything's weird about the Seattle PD, it could be they remember the 1999 WTO protests and want to crush them this time. But overall they all seem to be around the same -- very low -- standard
  - craftinator 6y ago
    The other issue I've noticed with the less-than-lethal ordnance use is that in order to be non-lethal, they need to be used according to manufacturer guidelines. I've used rubber coated bullets, bean-bag guns, and flashbangs. The police are not using them according to non-lethal guidelines. Example: Rubber coated bullets have explicit instructions to be aimed at shin height or below. This is because everything below the knees doesn't have large masses of non-muscular soft tissue, reducing the chances of permanent injury. These rounds are designed to hit the ground first, lose some velocity, and skip into crowds, causing pain but not debilitating injuries. I haven't seen a SINGLE video of police using them like this. It's absolutely insane.
    - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
      I imagine its because all their other training, all their range practice, is to shoot at center of mass three times in a burst. Hard to change in the heat of the riot.
      - ashtonkem 6y ago
        That might explain misapplication during a riot, but it does not explain cases where police appear to deliberately target peaceful protestors or single out individuals like the press. In those scenarios they are either incompetent, deliberately aiming to wound, or too angry to think clearly. None of those are a good explanation.
      - cameron_b 6y ago
        I would say this is spot on from what I've heard. When emotions are this high ( look at the cops faces when they are exposed ) there's nothing but muscle memory. I took a class on active shooter scenarios where they focused on that "be careful how you train" aspect with the illustration that a police officer ( no idea where ) once responded to a call where an armed man pointed a pistol right at the cop close range. The cop quickly disarmed the man, but then returned the firearm to the man, whereupon the man shot him dead. In drilling the technique he used to disarm the man, police would practice in pairs, taking turns disarming each other from the draw. This meant that two officers would stand facing each other, pistols in holsters. One officer would draw, the other would disarm, hold the weapon pointed at the first officer for a beat, then return it to the first officer in order to draw his or her own weapon. Then when you start to hear about corrections departments sending officers for crowd control... the animal instincts and things these guys are trained for is so volatile.
        ashtonkem 6y ago
        I think it’s worth asking why the cops are so angry at these protestors. We didn’t see this level of police anger and misconduct during the protests over the lock down, but during these protests the cops appear to be furious in a way I have never seen before.
  - asdff 6y ago
    I don't know why we have these less than lethal rounds if they are proven time again to be so damaging. Paintball guns leave welts and bruises just fine and don't maim you in the process. Take 30 paintballs to the upper body and you will be begging for mercy. The complaint from police, especially with tasers too, boils down to that this needs to be strong enough to stop someone on meth with hulk strength. Police already have much more effective tools for this: Horse cop and lasso.
- mcv 6y ago
  I think over the past few decades, there's been a movement towards increasingly aggressive use of some police weapons. Using tear gas to disperse a crowd is also needlessly aggressive. When I was a kid, Dutch police used water for that. And only when it was an actual riot. I've seen videos of police tasering someone who wasn't the least bit violent, but simply uncooperative. That's not what tasers are for. But if someone is violent, they get shot immediately, rather than tasered. Police have all these weapons, and they want to use them, instead of first trying more constructive, peaceful methods.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    Tasers a great example of the problem of "less lethal" tools. The theory is that tasers are a (edit: partial) replacement for firearms for cops. The reality is that approximately 0% of cops are willing to draw a taser if they suspect that someone else has a firearm; they go for their firearm too. Instead tasers have replaced other methods of de-escalation and containment, which is very bad if you're not a cop. Combine this with cops being called out for people experiencing mental health crises, and this is a recipe for disaster.
  - kf 6y ago
    A lot of less lethal crowd control is about imagery and perception. Water can’t be used on crowds in America because it was used against crowds in the civil rights era so comes with a historic connotation of racism even though in reality it’s safer and more reasonable than CS gas.
    - ashtonkem 6y ago
      That’s a great point. I’m sure CS gas will soon become associated with this round of police violence and soon have similar issues.
  - AuryGlenz 6y ago
    High pressure water can cause injuries, especially eye injuries. I believe tear gas is relatively benign other than possibly for asthmatics. Fully agree with you on the tasers though. They should be just one step below using a gun, not “I’m lazy and don’t want to deal with this person.”
- loeg 6y ago
  LAPD was handling the protests extremely badly to begin with as well. They may have calmed down sooner than SPD did. As far as major west-coast city police departments, both LAPD and SPD have handle things somewhat better than the Portland Police Bureau (PPB).

ashtonkem 6y ago

As someone who has never been to Seattle, I am shocked by how bad your police department appears to be. Even the LAPD behaved ... well, less bad from what I’d heard. Flash bangs? Those are for assaulting buildings, not crowd control.

sterlind 6y ago
I mean, it's par for the course across America during protests. It's important to remember "less than lethal" doesn't mean safe - I saw a photo of a dude who's eye was.. exploded by a tear gas canister. Forget where that was but it was not Seattle. If anything's weird about the Seattle PD, it could be they remember the 1999 WTO protests and want to crush them this time. But overall they all seem to be around the same -- very low -- standard
- craftinator 6y ago
  The other issue I've noticed with the less-than-lethal ordnance use is that in order to be non-lethal, they need to be used according to manufacturer guidelines. I've used rubber coated bullets, bean-bag guns, and flashbangs. The police are not using them according to non-lethal guidelines. Example: Rubber coated bullets have explicit instructions to be aimed at shin height or below. This is because everything below the knees doesn't have large masses of non-muscular soft tissue, reducing the chances of permanent injury. These rounds are designed to hit the ground first, lose some velocity, and skip into crowds, causing pain but not debilitating injuries. I haven't seen a SINGLE video of police using them like this. It's absolutely insane.
  - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
    I imagine its because all their other training, all their range practice, is to shoot at center of mass three times in a burst. Hard to change in the heat of the riot.
    - ashtonkem 6y ago
      That might explain misapplication during a riot, but it does not explain cases where police appear to deliberately target peaceful protestors or single out individuals like the press. In those scenarios they are either incompetent, deliberately aiming to wound, or too angry to think clearly. None of those are a good explanation.
    - cameron_b 6y ago
      I would say this is spot on from what I've heard. When emotions are this high ( look at the cops faces when they are exposed ) there's nothing but muscle memory. I took a class on active shooter scenarios where they focused on that "be careful how you train" aspect with the illustration that a police officer ( no idea where ) once responded to a call where an armed man pointed a pistol right at the cop close range. The cop quickly disarmed the man, but then returned the firearm to the man, whereupon the man shot him dead. In drilling the technique he used to disarm the man, police would practice in pairs, taking turns disarming each other from the draw. This meant that two officers would stand facing each other, pistols in holsters. One officer would draw, the other would disarm, hold the weapon pointed at the first officer for a beat, then return it to the first officer in order to draw his or her own weapon. Then when you start to hear about corrections departments sending officers for crowd control... the animal instincts and things these guys are trained for is so volatile.
      - ashtonkem 6y ago
        I think it’s worth asking why the cops are so angry at these protestors. We didn’t see this level of police anger and misconduct during the protests over the lock down, but during these protests the cops appear to be furious in a way I have never seen before.
- asdff 6y ago
  I don't know why we have these less than lethal rounds if they are proven time again to be so damaging. Paintball guns leave welts and bruises just fine and don't maim you in the process. Take 30 paintballs to the upper body and you will be begging for mercy. The complaint from police, especially with tasers too, boils down to that this needs to be strong enough to stop someone on meth with hulk strength. Police already have much more effective tools for this: Horse cop and lasso.
mcv 6y ago
I think over the past few decades, there's been a movement towards increasingly aggressive use of some police weapons. Using tear gas to disperse a crowd is also needlessly aggressive. When I was a kid, Dutch police used water for that. And only when it was an actual riot. I've seen videos of police tasering someone who wasn't the least bit violent, but simply uncooperative. That's not what tasers are for. But if someone is violent, they get shot immediately, rather than tasered. Police have all these weapons, and they want to use them, instead of first trying more constructive, peaceful methods.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  Tasers a great example of the problem of "less lethal" tools. The theory is that tasers are a (edit: partial) replacement for firearms for cops. The reality is that approximately 0% of cops are willing to draw a taser if they suspect that someone else has a firearm; they go for their firearm too. Instead tasers have replaced other methods of de-escalation and containment, which is very bad if you're not a cop. Combine this with cops being called out for people experiencing mental health crises, and this is a recipe for disaster.
- kf 6y ago
  A lot of less lethal crowd control is about imagery and perception. Water can’t be used on crowds in America because it was used against crowds in the civil rights era so comes with a historic connotation of racism even though in reality it’s safer and more reasonable than CS gas.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    That’s a great point. I’m sure CS gas will soon become associated with this round of police violence and soon have similar issues.
- AuryGlenz 6y ago
  High pressure water can cause injuries, especially eye injuries. I believe tear gas is relatively benign other than possibly for asthmatics. Fully agree with you on the tasers though. They should be just one step below using a gun, not “I’m lazy and don’t want to deal with this person.”
loeg 6y ago
LAPD was handling the protests extremely badly to begin with as well. They may have calmed down sooner than SPD did. As far as major west-coast city police departments, both LAPD and SPD have handle things somewhat better than the Portland Police Bureau (PPB).