13 ms·

We Reviewed Police Tactics Seen in Nearly 400 Protest Videos

162 points by jseliger 6y ago

malechimp 6y ago
BAU in Greece where a couple of days ago a demonstrator died after being brutally attacked and tortured by police a month ago. The relevant minister was quick to deny police had to do anything with it but breaking several ribs to a previously healthy guy who then dies off lung failure is somewhat suspicious. Not to mention that for a month now no state entity investigated this incident despite it being clearly caught on cam. In general we witness at least one incident of police brutality almost weekly for months now. The frequency has been increased to almost daily lately not to mention passing a law that essentially curtails demonstrations and gives even more authority to police on them. I'm in fact quite surprised that none of these have been covered to almost no extent in international news. The irony is that all this is coming at a period when Greeks barely demonstrate at all. The vast majority just seems to have accepted their fate, i.e. economic misery ad infinitum, and it's been like that for years now. So, I'm guessing this has to do with a special agenda of the relatively new right-wing govt. Who knows. Fact of the matter is that policemen != protectors. I believe it is a sign of deep rot of western democracies that police is the most dangerous thing you can happen upon in a number of western "democratic" countries.
- LifeLiverTransp 6y ago
  It tells you what the government really thinks about its population and the situation. The army equipment handed to the police, tells you how dire the government views the whole world wide economic and ecologic situation, and how it expects the violence resulting from this, to spread in waves into its city. Like having new ambulances in place, before the accidents happen.
- 25mph 6y ago
  Police is the HR of the state: they protect the state from the citizens.
milkytron 6y ago
Interesting to hear someone from the police respond to the actions of those officers. And regarding this quote: > Law enforcement experts stressed that viral protest videos, while visceral, only show a moment in time and may miss what officers were facing outside of the frame. Isn't that what body cameras are for? If we only have one source of video, then it's hard for police to justify saying, "That wasn't the whole story."
- tehwebguy 6y ago
  Right, viral videos are in fact the only story that the public gets to see (unless the police find it to be in their interest to release it)
- nickff 6y ago
  I am no fan of the police, but the problem is not a lack of footage, the problem is the lack of attention span on the part of the viewers. Videos usually get edited for brevity, and the shorter you make the video, the more likely that you get a misleading edit. I have read that this was the case for the Rodney King incident, where the public watched a short clip on the news and got one impression, and the jury watched a longer video, which gave them a different view. The longer video was available, but not aired on TV.
  - LiquidSky 6y ago
    OP's point is that you can't make those kind of claims without evidence. If you're saying a video only looks bad because it's misleadingly edited, you need to provide proof of your claim. Unfortunately, the police also routinely fight tooth and nail to prevent access to their own video footage.
  - danaris 6y ago
    I don't care what the context is; there is absolutely zero justification for the police to be kneeling on someone's neck until they die. Or pushing over a 75-year-old man and then leaving him there to bleed from the ears. Or shooting a fleeing suspect in the back. There are dozens of similar incidents from the period since the protests started that don't matter if they were "taken out of context"—the actions themselves, no matter their context, are reprehensible from any institution that is supposed to be "serving and protecting" the people.
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
Until there are consequences for unnecessarily escalating violence cops will continue to to do it because the more violent the situation the more the law favors them. People who care about this issue have been analyzing police use of force for decades. You can find people saying basically what I just said above going at least as far back as the 1990s. The problem is well known.
- milkytron 6y ago
  > The problem is well known. It might be well known to those who have experienced, witnessed, or study the subject. But there are still plenty of people who deny these claims or are unaware.
  - stanski 6y ago
    There will always be a ton of people who will deny these claims simply because they are too afraid to accept the alternative. It's very comforting to think that there is this force of good that is there to protect you from harm when you need it.
  - x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
    They deny the claims because they support the systems US policing has historically defended. When you confront people with writings from marginalized communities going back to the 1800s about police, they still manage to "be unaware". That's intentional.
  - rasz 6y ago
    Forget denial, most people actually like it this way. They want to see unruly people being beaten by police, and violent individuals shot and killed on the spot. This looks like law and order (As seen on TV*TM), keeping the angry unwashed mob at the gates. Woulnt happen in my community, or to me, Im a good guy! keep tazing him mister officer.
mdgrech23 6y ago
This like when the younger sibling keeps punching big brother behind moms back. Eventually big brother snaps and hits the younger brother back and younger brother goes and cries to mom. It's hard to be sympathetic when radical individuals are trying to hurt officers in an effort to force their moral agenda on us.
- datameta 6y ago
  I think due to the type of training and framing of protest situations most police departments receive in the US, as well as the culture instilled in officers, their ego and need for absolute control of the situation stands in front of any other other considerations including avoiding excessive and disproportionate use of violence. To them a thrown water bottle is a sign of greatest disrespect and loss of face in their power position before the crowd. As Straub points out in the article they are trained to imagine the high likelihood of bricks or molotovs or acid to follow. They are specifically trained to respond with fear-inducing force. Their primary de-escalation tactic is escalation - pure and simple.
  - loco5niner 6y ago
    > To them a thrown water bottle is a sign... they are trained to imagine the high likelihood of bricks or molotovs or acid to follow It doesn't require training. My first thought when I read "thrown water bottle" was, "I have no idea whether that's water or urine".
    - bjornsing 6y ago
      I thought you were going to say “water or gasoline”. But I guess different things terrify different people.
      - loco5niner 6y ago
        You're right. Gasoline is much more terrifying. Urine was just my gut reaction.
  - 6y ago
x87678r 6y ago
Looks mostly fine to me, maybe some are over the top but these are cherry picked examples. Most of these situations there is riot police trying to clear an area. Do what you're told. Most people are hanging around waiting for a fight to start then complain when one happens. And dont say we need more protesting, there are plenty peaceful protests around. I'm glad I'm not a cop you couldn't pay me enough to put up with that.
- greatwhitenorth 6y ago
  Exactly. It's mostly people who are looking for trouble that cry police brutality. There were so many instances of people shoving their camera in a cop's face and get beaten. Why would you do that? There are a lot of dumb people who believe everything the media tells them to believe.
  - vangelis 6y ago
    If recording is violence, do I have the same rights as a civilian to respond?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - greatwhitenorth 6y ago
      Is shoving a camera in a cop's face same as recording from a distance?
      - vangelis 6y ago
        I'd hope an officer of the law would be able to keep their composure even with a camera in their face.
      - FriendlyNormie 6y ago
        Don’t bother with these retards. Just continue to stockpile ammo.
xtiansimon 6y ago
This webpage has very effective user interaction for examining the video content.
- vernie 6y ago
  I found the video playback choppy and disorienting.
  - xtiansimon 6y ago
    I did find it choppy, also. I think that's an effect of the scrolling algorithm's acceleration/deceleration, and could be adjusted. There are two effects with scrolling--advancing the page/narrative, and advancing the video. That transition benefits with subtle visual signals. And, I'm not much into video editing, but I've done a little graphic design practice. I think 'disorientation' is par for the course when you're not playing a video at constant speed. That's an unsettling thought--the webpage authors are taking advantage of the UX's disorientation effect to heighten the emotion of the video content. I watched all of these videos and they certainly don't need any additional emotive effects. I had the feeling that I was sharing the privileged insight of the 'experts' observations with the narrative callouts and graphics to pace my consumption. I looked at The NY Times mega page of videos posted earlier. Watching one video after the other was brutal. And it was my own doing. I just jumped from one video to the next. click. click. click. and feeling worse and worse and worse.
- Neff 6y ago
  It is one of the most impressive uses of "scrolljacking" and made it really easy to focus on the points of interest in the video.
pnw_hazor 6y ago
They forgot to show the video w/audio showing Antifa besieging the Federal court house in Portland, WA. Antifa were shining lasers at the cops eyes. Also, one loud rioter was calling out individual officers promising them that they would find out where they live and kill them and their families. Good times.
- non-entity 6y ago
  Turns out that when a heavily armed force carries out extrajudicial execution and lopsided violence without consequence over many years people will eventually respond with violence of their own.
  - FriendlyNormie 6y ago
    You are one of many retarded faggots turning this place into reddit and I’m looking forward to your death.
  - CompanionCuuube 6y ago
    “This is a lighthouse. Your call.”
  - pnw_hazor 6y ago
    Nonsense. Marxists attacking a Federal courthouse in Portland, OR has nothing to do with George Floyd being murdered by a local police officer in Minneapolis.
    - non-entity 6y ago
      Most antifa are more likely to be anarchists than marxists, in which case their enemy is the state.
      - pnw_hazor 6y ago
        They are doing their part. There are Marxists in their ranks. 21st Century Marxists focus on exacerbating all of the fault lines in society they can find. Old school techniques that relied on economic disparity didn't work in the West. The West doesn't have serfs like Russia and China did so 20th Century Communism didn't take. Also, most Western countries were rich enough and democratic so they could implement reforms that answered many of the 20th century communist charges without requiring a Marxist revolution. Today, Marxists focus on anything and everything that can divide, including economic issues. As soon as Trump leaves office, the mass media will flip to supporting the President (assuming he or she is not GOP) and all this will die down. The media already seems to recognize that antifa is not helping their cause so they do not report honestly on the violence in Portland. As soon as the US has a Democratic Party President, antifa will be re-branded as rioters or anarchists. In the mean time they are lionized as defenders of freedom. Note, I don't think this latest Marxist action will change America, any more than the earlier attempts.
mcguire 6y ago
"Straub said that police officers shouldn’t be expected to determine what's being thrown at them before responding. "“If you're standing there in that skirmish line, and somebody's throwing something at you, is it really up to you to be figuring out whether it's gasoline or whether it's metal, or whether it's water or whether it's acid?”" His use of military terminology ("skirmish line") is telling.
- stanski 6y ago
  He forgot to list a nuclear device as a potential threat.
- sneak 6y ago
  That “reasonable people on both sides” cop commentator also called the amount of pepper spray a cop used on a peaceful protester with his hands in the air “judicious”. The terrible (and currently true) idea that the police are exempt from assault and battery laws is so widespread that people don’t seem to notice how biased they are. The police need to be held to a higher standard, as public servants, but the first step is just holding them to the same laws as everyone else that say you don’t get to arbitrarily pepper spray or beat anyone you feel like. Contempt of cop is not a crime, and cops retaliating violently should be tossed in the same hellish system they force others into for breaking the law. There is no equal protection in practice so long as one group can attack and harm anyone they wish under the guise of their job title. They’re already entirely exempt from gun controls that apply to the rest of society; if they aren’t restrained from illegal activity by legal process, then the situation is indistinguishable on a practical level from military dictatorship.
- CompanionCuuube 6y ago
  Telling of what? That they reuse a term?
  - Doxin 6y ago
    It implies that they think of the conflict in military terms.
29athrowaway 6y ago
Police say "stop resisting" as an alternative to something more vulgar. They do not really mean it, they shout that as a way to release stress. They are also taught that the Lateral Vascular Neck Restraint (LVNR) is the safest way to restraint someone. The truth is, that it is not. It is stupid to believe that cutting blood supply to someone's brain is safe. LVNR is a scam that nobody actually believes in but everyone is silent about it because it is a plausible excuse to kill people. http://www.nletc.com/lateral-vascular-neck-restraint-lvnr http://www.nletc.com/lateral-vascular-neck-restraint-lvnr > Result: No death, injury or litigation for excessive use of force for 40 years against agencies using the certified Lateral Vascular Neck Restraint (LVNR®) System! No death, injury or litigation? Bullshit. It only resulted in 1 month of protests and billions of dollars lost.
- xkcd-sucks 6y ago
  Worth posting the whole description, because it's... really quite something. > The LVNR® is the number one law enforcement system of neck restraint --standing, kneeling or on the ground. If your agency is now using or considering the use of neck restraints for officer safety and subject control, then the copyrighted and US Patent Office registered NLETC/KCMO PD LVNR® is the one method you need to assess. It has been extensively field and medically tested and has proven to be safer, more effective, and less controversial than any other known neck restraint method. That is why the NLETC/KCMO PD LVNR® is the predominant method of neck control, and is now being adopted nationwide by those law enforcement agencies that teach ground defense/control systems. > Agencies and trainers should avoid the use of single-level, or time limit approved neck restraint methods since their use has resulted in all the claims of excessive force, death, and resultant litigation involving neck restraint use. Combined arm, neck and body controls are not as effective for most officers as the direct, rear, neck-specific compression which requires minimum physical effort for LVNR® vs. maximum physical exertion for other methods. Our statistics show that 50% of all subjects will cease resistance at Level One with low-level compression on the sides of the neck; 25% will comply at Level Two with medium compression on the neck; and the other 25% will comply at Level Three or be rendered unconscious in 4 to 7 seconds. Result: No death, injury or litigation for excessive use of force for 40 years against agencies using the certified Lateral Vascular Neck Restraint (LVNR®) System! > The NLETC is the sole-source provider for the LVNR® System. No other training provider is entitled to teach the LVNR® System to user agencies or to include the term LVNR® as their own when teaching other neck restraint systems. Contact the NLETC if you plan to adopt the LVNR® System.
alfor 6y ago
We can be critic to the police, but who is willing to take their place and do a better job ? What do we find if we look for the opposite in thoses 400 videos ?
- Nasrudith 6y ago
  That doesn't excuse anything. You may be afraid of blood and have a palsy making you a terrible surgeon but that doesn't excuse a surgeon burning their signature onto your pancreas.
- tehwebguy 6y ago
  I think you have misunderstood the purpose. There is no need for a collection of "the opposite" of this, whatever that would even mean. Police have arresting power, so if non-police assault them they will simply arrest or kill them immediately, largely without the possibility of facing any consequences. Thousands have been arrested at protests in the last couple of months. The non-police public have no such powers, and in fact even with video evidence will almost never see justice for police brutality. There is a huge violence problem here and it lies almost entirely on one side.
scblock 6y ago
This ex Spokane cop Frank Straub guy is a complete asshole and his responses are uniformly bullshit. In his response to every single video, no matter how shitty the cops behaved, he starts from a position of trying to make excuses for their bad behavior. His default position is the same garbage "us versus them" mentality that people want to change. At best he gives a soft criticism of truly egregious behavior. He's an apologist for police brutality and has no integrity. Yet another example of how incredibly far out of touch the police and anyone associated with them really are.
lathiat 6y ago
Wendover Productions made great video coverage on "How to Stop a Riot" based on the research: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yT9bit2-1pg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yT9bit2-1pg Unsurprisingly some of the techniques required are a little counter-intuitive which is interesting when weighed into public opinion or uninformed politicians etc. Naturally, the most effective techniques techniques don't involve violence.

162 points by jseliger 6y ago

BAU in Greece where a couple of days ago a demonstrator died after being brutally attacked and tortured by police a month ago. The relevant minister was quick to deny police had to do anything with it but breaking several ribs to a previously healthy guy who then dies off lung failure is somewhat suspicious. Not to mention that for a month now no state entity investigated this incident despite it being clearly caught on cam. In general we witness at least one incident of police brutality almost weekly for months now. The frequency has been increased to almost daily lately not to mention passing a law that essentially curtails demonstrations and gives even more authority to police on them. I'm in fact quite surprised that none of these have been covered to almost no extent in international news. The irony is that all this is coming at a period when Greeks barely demonstrate at all. The vast majority just seems to have accepted their fate, i.e. economic misery ad infinitum, and it's been like that for years now. So, I'm guessing this has to do with a special agenda of the relatively new right-wing govt. Who knows. Fact of the matter is that policemen != protectors. I believe it is a sign of deep rot of western democracies that police is the most dangerous thing you can happen upon in a number of western "democratic" countries.

LifeLiverTransp 6y ago
It tells you what the government really thinks about its population and the situation. The army equipment handed to the police, tells you how dire the government views the whole world wide economic and ecologic situation, and how it expects the violence resulting from this, to spread in waves into its city. Like having new ambulances in place, before the accidents happen.
25mph 6y ago
Police is the HR of the state: they protect the state from the citizens.

milkytron 6y ago

Interesting to hear someone from the police respond to the actions of those officers. And regarding this quote: > Law enforcement experts stressed that viral protest videos, while visceral, only show a moment in time and may miss what officers were facing outside of the frame. Isn't that what body cameras are for? If we only have one source of video, then it's hard for police to justify saying, "That wasn't the whole story."

tehwebguy 6y ago
Right, viral videos are in fact the only story that the public gets to see (unless the police find it to be in their interest to release it)
nickff 6y ago
I am no fan of the police, but the problem is not a lack of footage, the problem is the lack of attention span on the part of the viewers. Videos usually get edited for brevity, and the shorter you make the video, the more likely that you get a misleading edit. I have read that this was the case for the Rodney King incident, where the public watched a short clip on the news and got one impression, and the jury watched a longer video, which gave them a different view. The longer video was available, but not aired on TV.
- LiquidSky 6y ago
  OP's point is that you can't make those kind of claims without evidence. If you're saying a video only looks bad because it's misleadingly edited, you need to provide proof of your claim. Unfortunately, the police also routinely fight tooth and nail to prevent access to their own video footage.
- danaris 6y ago
  I don't care what the context is; there is absolutely zero justification for the police to be kneeling on someone's neck until they die. Or pushing over a 75-year-old man and then leaving him there to bleed from the ears. Or shooting a fleeing suspect in the back. There are dozens of similar incidents from the period since the protests started that don't matter if they were "taken out of context"—the actions themselves, no matter their context, are reprehensible from any institution that is supposed to be "serving and protecting" the people.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

Until there are consequences for unnecessarily escalating violence cops will continue to to do it because the more violent the situation the more the law favors them. People who care about this issue have been analyzing police use of force for decades. You can find people saying basically what I just said above going at least as far back as the 1990s. The problem is well known.

milkytron 6y ago
> The problem is well known. It might be well known to those who have experienced, witnessed, or study the subject. But there are still plenty of people who deny these claims or are unaware.
- stanski 6y ago
  There will always be a ton of people who will deny these claims simply because they are too afraid to accept the alternative. It's very comforting to think that there is this force of good that is there to protect you from harm when you need it.
- x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
  They deny the claims because they support the systems US policing has historically defended. When you confront people with writings from marginalized communities going back to the 1800s about police, they still manage to "be unaware". That's intentional.
- rasz 6y ago
  Forget denial, most people actually like it this way. They want to see unruly people being beaten by police, and violent individuals shot and killed on the spot. This looks like law and order (As seen on TV*TM), keeping the angry unwashed mob at the gates. Woulnt happen in my community, or to me, Im a good guy! keep tazing him mister officer.

mdgrech23 6y ago

This like when the younger sibling keeps punching big brother behind moms back. Eventually big brother snaps and hits the younger brother back and younger brother goes and cries to mom. It's hard to be sympathetic when radical individuals are trying to hurt officers in an effort to force their moral agenda on us.

datameta 6y ago
I think due to the type of training and framing of protest situations most police departments receive in the US, as well as the culture instilled in officers, their ego and need for absolute control of the situation stands in front of any other other considerations including avoiding excessive and disproportionate use of violence. To them a thrown water bottle is a sign of greatest disrespect and loss of face in their power position before the crowd. As Straub points out in the article they are trained to imagine the high likelihood of bricks or molotovs or acid to follow. They are specifically trained to respond with fear-inducing force. Their primary de-escalation tactic is escalation - pure and simple.
- loco5niner 6y ago
  > To them a thrown water bottle is a sign... they are trained to imagine the high likelihood of bricks or molotovs or acid to follow It doesn't require training. My first thought when I read "thrown water bottle" was, "I have no idea whether that's water or urine".
  - bjornsing 6y ago
    I thought you were going to say “water or gasoline”. But I guess different things terrify different people.
    - loco5niner 6y ago
      You're right. Gasoline is much more terrifying. Urine was just my gut reaction.
- 6y ago

x87678r 6y ago

Looks mostly fine to me, maybe some are over the top but these are cherry picked examples. Most of these situations there is riot police trying to clear an area. Do what you're told. Most people are hanging around waiting for a fight to start then complain when one happens. And dont say we need more protesting, there are plenty peaceful protests around. I'm glad I'm not a cop you couldn't pay me enough to put up with that.

greatwhitenorth 6y ago
Exactly. It's mostly people who are looking for trouble that cry police brutality. There were so many instances of people shoving their camera in a cop's face and get beaten. Why would you do that? There are a lot of dumb people who believe everything the media tells them to believe.
- vangelis 6y ago
  If recording is violence, do I have the same rights as a civilian to respond?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - greatwhitenorth 6y ago
    Is shoving a camera in a cop's face same as recording from a distance?
    - vangelis 6y ago
      I'd hope an officer of the law would be able to keep their composure even with a camera in their face.
    - FriendlyNormie 6y ago
      Don’t bother with these retards. Just continue to stockpile ammo.

xtiansimon 6y ago

This webpage has very effective user interaction for examining the video content.

vernie 6y ago
I found the video playback choppy and disorienting.
- xtiansimon 6y ago
  I did find it choppy, also. I think that's an effect of the scrolling algorithm's acceleration/deceleration, and could be adjusted. There are two effects with scrolling--advancing the page/narrative, and advancing the video. That transition benefits with subtle visual signals. And, I'm not much into video editing, but I've done a little graphic design practice. I think 'disorientation' is par for the course when you're not playing a video at constant speed. That's an unsettling thought--the webpage authors are taking advantage of the UX's disorientation effect to heighten the emotion of the video content. I watched all of these videos and they certainly don't need any additional emotive effects. I had the feeling that I was sharing the privileged insight of the 'experts' observations with the narrative callouts and graphics to pace my consumption. I looked at The NY Times mega page of videos posted earlier. Watching one video after the other was brutal. And it was my own doing. I just jumped from one video to the next. click. click. click. and feeling worse and worse and worse.
Neff 6y ago
It is one of the most impressive uses of "scrolljacking" and made it really easy to focus on the points of interest in the video.

pnw_hazor 6y ago

They forgot to show the video w/audio showing Antifa besieging the Federal court house in Portland, WA. Antifa were shining lasers at the cops eyes. Also, one loud rioter was calling out individual officers promising them that they would find out where they live and kill them and their families. Good times.

non-entity 6y ago
Turns out that when a heavily armed force carries out extrajudicial execution and lopsided violence without consequence over many years people will eventually respond with violence of their own.
- FriendlyNormie 6y ago
  You are one of many retarded faggots turning this place into reddit and I’m looking forward to your death.
- CompanionCuuube 6y ago
  “This is a lighthouse. Your call.”
- pnw_hazor 6y ago
  Nonsense. Marxists attacking a Federal courthouse in Portland, OR has nothing to do with George Floyd being murdered by a local police officer in Minneapolis.
  - non-entity 6y ago
    Most antifa are more likely to be anarchists than marxists, in which case their enemy is the state.
    - pnw_hazor 6y ago
      They are doing their part. There are Marxists in their ranks. 21st Century Marxists focus on exacerbating all of the fault lines in society they can find. Old school techniques that relied on economic disparity didn't work in the West. The West doesn't have serfs like Russia and China did so 20th Century Communism didn't take. Also, most Western countries were rich enough and democratic so they could implement reforms that answered many of the 20th century communist charges without requiring a Marxist revolution. Today, Marxists focus on anything and everything that can divide, including economic issues. As soon as Trump leaves office, the mass media will flip to supporting the President (assuming he or she is not GOP) and all this will die down. The media already seems to recognize that antifa is not helping their cause so they do not report honestly on the violence in Portland. As soon as the US has a Democratic Party President, antifa will be re-branded as rioters or anarchists. In the mean time they are lionized as defenders of freedom. Note, I don't think this latest Marxist action will change America, any more than the earlier attempts.

mcguire 6y ago

"Straub said that police officers shouldn’t be expected to determine what's being thrown at them before responding. "“If you're standing there in that skirmish line, and somebody's throwing something at you, is it really up to you to be figuring out whether it's gasoline or whether it's metal, or whether it's water or whether it's acid?”" His use of military terminology ("skirmish line") is telling.

stanski 6y ago
He forgot to list a nuclear device as a potential threat.
sneak 6y ago
That “reasonable people on both sides” cop commentator also called the amount of pepper spray a cop used on a peaceful protester with his hands in the air “judicious”. The terrible (and currently true) idea that the police are exempt from assault and battery laws is so widespread that people don’t seem to notice how biased they are. The police need to be held to a higher standard, as public servants, but the first step is just holding them to the same laws as everyone else that say you don’t get to arbitrarily pepper spray or beat anyone you feel like. Contempt of cop is not a crime, and cops retaliating violently should be tossed in the same hellish system they force others into for breaking the law. There is no equal protection in practice so long as one group can attack and harm anyone they wish under the guise of their job title. They’re already entirely exempt from gun controls that apply to the rest of society; if they aren’t restrained from illegal activity by legal process, then the situation is indistinguishable on a practical level from military dictatorship.
CompanionCuuube 6y ago
Telling of what? That they reuse a term?
- Doxin 6y ago
  It implies that they think of the conflict in military terms.

29athrowaway 6y ago

Police say "stop resisting" as an alternative to something more vulgar. They do not really mean it, they shout that as a way to release stress. They are also taught that the Lateral Vascular Neck Restraint (LVNR) is the safest way to restraint someone. The truth is, that it is not. It is stupid to believe that cutting blood supply to someone's brain is safe. LVNR is a scam that nobody actually believes in but everyone is silent about it because it is a plausible excuse to kill people. http://www.nletc.com/lateral-vascular-neck-restraint-lvnr http://www.nletc.com/lateral-vascular-neck-restraint-lvnr > Result: No death, injury or litigation for excessive use of force for 40 years against agencies using the certified Lateral Vascular Neck Restraint (LVNR®) System! No death, injury or litigation? Bullshit. It only resulted in 1 month of protests and billions of dollars lost.

xkcd-sucks 6y ago
Worth posting the whole description, because it's... really quite something. > The LVNR® is the number one law enforcement system of neck restraint --standing, kneeling or on the ground. If your agency is now using or considering the use of neck restraints for officer safety and subject control, then the copyrighted and US Patent Office registered NLETC/KCMO PD LVNR® is the one method you need to assess. It has been extensively field and medically tested and has proven to be safer, more effective, and less controversial than any other known neck restraint method. That is why the NLETC/KCMO PD LVNR® is the predominant method of neck control, and is now being adopted nationwide by those law enforcement agencies that teach ground defense/control systems. > Agencies and trainers should avoid the use of single-level, or time limit approved neck restraint methods since their use has resulted in all the claims of excessive force, death, and resultant litigation involving neck restraint use. Combined arm, neck and body controls are not as effective for most officers as the direct, rear, neck-specific compression which requires minimum physical effort for LVNR® vs. maximum physical exertion for other methods. Our statistics show that 50% of all subjects will cease resistance at Level One with low-level compression on the sides of the neck; 25% will comply at Level Two with medium compression on the neck; and the other 25% will comply at Level Three or be rendered unconscious in 4 to 7 seconds. Result: No death, injury or litigation for excessive use of force for 40 years against agencies using the certified Lateral Vascular Neck Restraint (LVNR®) System! > The NLETC is the sole-source provider for the LVNR® System. No other training provider is entitled to teach the LVNR® System to user agencies or to include the term LVNR® as their own when teaching other neck restraint systems. Contact the NLETC if you plan to adopt the LVNR® System.

alfor 6y ago

We can be critic to the police, but who is willing to take their place and do a better job ? What do we find if we look for the opposite in thoses 400 videos ?

Nasrudith 6y ago
That doesn't excuse anything. You may be afraid of blood and have a palsy making you a terrible surgeon but that doesn't excuse a surgeon burning their signature onto your pancreas.
tehwebguy 6y ago
I think you have misunderstood the purpose. There is no need for a collection of "the opposite" of this, whatever that would even mean. Police have arresting power, so if non-police assault them they will simply arrest or kill them immediately, largely without the possibility of facing any consequences. Thousands have been arrested at protests in the last couple of months. The non-police public have no such powers, and in fact even with video evidence will almost never see justice for police brutality. There is a huge violence problem here and it lies almost entirely on one side.

scblock 6y ago

This ex Spokane cop Frank Straub guy is a complete asshole and his responses are uniformly bullshit. In his response to every single video, no matter how shitty the cops behaved, he starts from a position of trying to make excuses for their bad behavior. His default position is the same garbage "us versus them" mentality that people want to change. At best he gives a soft criticism of truly egregious behavior. He's an apologist for police brutality and has no integrity. Yet another example of how incredibly far out of touch the police and anyone associated with them really are.

lathiat 6y ago

Wendover Productions made great video coverage on "How to Stop a Riot" based on the research: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yT9bit2-1pg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yT9bit2-1pg Unsurprisingly some of the techniques required are a little counter-intuitive which is interesting when weighed into public opinion or uninformed politicians etc. Naturally, the most effective techniques techniques don't involve violence.