8 ms·

Nobody is trying to quell protests. I don’t know how that misconception is still alive. The problem is the rioting. Nobody would be trying to disperse crowds if

Nobody is trying to quell protests. I don’t know how that misconception is still alive. The problem is the rioting. Nobody would be trying to disperse crowds if everyone was peaceful.

throwawaysea 6y ago
Yep. In Seattle the vast majority of protests had no issues, because they were peaceful, permitted, and constructive. Literally the only ones that ran into problems with the police were the ones that were breaking the law, violating police orders, committing violence, blocking highways, etc. Those particular situations were often claimed to be “peaceful protests” in social media but were definitely just violent rioting and opportunistic destruction/theft. I have no idea how people have fallen for the misleading narrative that violence was caused by police. It’s a textbook example of either the naivety of an emotionally charged mob, or incredible social media marketing, or both. Unfortunately many well-meaning protesters were also swept up in events that were subsumed by antifa/far left groups whose aim was confrontation and violence. For them, the coming backlash against their movement (due to violence) is going to sting.
lettergram 6y ago
Today I watched a police officer in kenosha wisconsin get knocked unconscious with a brick. The fellow police officers picked him up and dragged him away - while the crowd changed "Fuck the police" and recorded it. In the same vein, I saw store owners starting to shoot at protestors. I suspect, generally, all parties would rather have police keeping the peace. No one wants a gun battle in the streets as people try to protect their property from looters. I'm not 100% sure what I'd do in this case, but these are not friendly protests. I'm finding the police remarkably restrained. Even in some of these videos we are seeing, people are taking police officers weapons and / or assaulting a police officer before they open fire. If you're attacking someone who's armed (police officer or not) you should be prepared to suffer the consequences. (I'm not saying all cases are like this, just mentioning that there's a clear tilt to the coverage here).
- eanzenberg 6y ago
  One side definitely wants a gun battle in the streets.
- anigbrowl 6y ago
  This kinda elides the context of it being a response to what looked to many people like a blatant attempted murder. If you're attacking someone who's armed (police officer or not) you should be prepared to suffer the consequences. Conversely, if police departments abuse their authority, shouldn't they expect to be punished by the people they serve, and in a similarly peremptory manner?
  - refurb 6y ago
    shouldn't they expect to be punished By having a brick thrown at their head? No, that not reasonable in the least.
  - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
    This kinda elides the context of it being a response to what looked to many people like a blatant attempted murder. No rational person could think it looked like that, and this would still not be an acceptable response.
    - anigbrowl 6y ago
      Thanks for the true Scotsman perspective.
hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
> Nobody would be trying to disperse crowds if everyone was peaceful. That's not really true. There is an area between "lawful protesting" and "rioting" that's usually called civil disobedience. Civil disobedience as usually understood is peaceful, but it's also by design inherently disruptive. In Austin, TX protestors blocked the main highway through the city. That was obviously incredibly disruptive, but many people believe the city police's forceful response of shooting less-lethal rounds relatively indiscriminately into the crowd was the exact type of response people were protesting against. A large group of trauma doctors in Austin wrote a paper arguing against using these types of rounds for crowd control due to the horrific injuries they treated: https://www.statesman.com/news/20200816/beanbag-rounds-caused-horrific-injuries-austin-doctors-say https://www.statesman.com/news/20200816/beanbag-rounds-cause...
- dependenttypes 6y ago
  Honestly, this is kind of like putting your hand inside the mouth of a crocodile and then complaining that you have been bitten. Or if you start insulting/harassing and physically blocking someone and then start complaining that you were punched as a result. I would consider civil disobedience something more like as a policeman to refuse to disrupt a peaceful protest, or illegally publishing data (consider Aaron Swartz, Alexandra Elbakyan, Edward Snowden, or Chelsea Manning), or someone like Oskar Schindler.
  - Falell 6y ago
    This definition of is ridiculous to me, implying that only the privileged few (policemen, those with specific knowledge) may be civilly disobedient. The entire intent is for the masses, with no qualifications whatsoever, to make themselves heard in a way that cannot be ignored.
    - dependenttypes 6y ago
      I am not implying that. For example a worker in a gun manufactory can be civilly disobedient too by not showing up, slacking off, or intentionally making arms of subpar quality. Edit: I am talking about wartime labor mobilization. In addition the government owns gun manufactories too. > to make themselves heard in a way that cannot be ignored. You are stepping away from just civil disobedience then. Riots, sieges, or a full scale revolution fit that description better.
jeffbee 6y ago
What about Lafayette Square? https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/27/national-guard-commander-says-police-suddenly-moved-lafayette-square-protesters-used-excessive-force-clear-path-trump/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/27/national-gu...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
marricks 6y ago
Pretty sure police officers nightly beating of protestors, pulling off masks and pepper spraying their eyes and assaulting reporters is a very direct attempt at quelling protestors. If you followed the nightly protests in Portland OR with any closeness it'd be abundantly clear. Examples just in the past 20 days: - police pulling down mask to pepper spray protestor in the eyes while pinned to the ground: https://twitter.com/_WhatRiot/status/1292012255714787330 https://twitter.com/_WhatRiot/status/1292012255714787330 - police randomly puncturing a support vans tires, they have done this on multiple occasions for no real reason: https://twitter.com/ScottHech/status/1291711270903844867 https://twitter.com/ScottHech/status/1291711270903844867 - police beating and kicking an unresisting protestor: https://twitter.com/1misanthrophile/status/1295962399103545345 https://twitter.com/1misanthrophile/status/12959623991035453... - more police jabbing protestor with batons: https://twitter.com/danielvmedia/status/1292228819588452359 https://twitter.com/danielvmedia/status/1292228819588452359 You see enough of these videos and you appreciate the cops and just vindictive and angry at the prospect of losing "power". It doesn't matter what protestors do (and they most they've done to directly threaten officers is thrown water bottles and apples and flares into an empty police building), police will use any reason (or none) to beat protestors. * As far as I know these videos have resulted in NO reprimands to officers, might as well be standard operating procedure as it continues to happen nightly
- e2021 6y ago
  From further down in the thread: > Today I watched a police officer in kenosha wisconsin get knocked unconscious with a brick. The fellow police officers picked him up and dragged him away - while the crowd changed "Fuck the police" and recorded it. The idea that the worst the protesters have done is throw apples at the police is so crazy I don't even know how you could be that deep in a bubble
  - marricks 6y ago
    I'm directly talking about Portland, where plenty of protestors have been knocked unconscious by police. People get pepper sprayed in the eyes for no reason besides cops are angry. If you want to conflate places to strengthen a case then you need to dive in to what happened at Kenosha and the lack of police response to that tragedy or any of the others. If you want to bring up how "protestors were asking for it" by showing up to protests then we got to ask if police are asking for mass nation wide protests by actively resisting change and harming black lives.
anigbrowl 6y ago
Nobody gives a shit about peaceful protests. If they did the Iraq war would never have happened and many policy areas would be far different from how they are. Riots should not be a first resort but when other types of civic engagement have failed they're a wholly legitimate tactic to force change.
- gwright 6y ago
  > Riots should not be a first resort but when other types of civic engagement have failed they're a wholly legitimate tactic to force change. This statement is devoid of any explanation as to what types of "change" are important enough to override "other types of civic engagement". The legislative process, voting, representative democracy, the "rule of law" are all designed to avoid having people take matters into their own hands. If you are going to argue that all that should be thrown out it has to be more convincing than just some generic statement that "change" is necessary.
  - anigbrowl 6y ago
    Can you perhaps think of a fairly common event which is frequently followed by protests and, increasingly, riots? Go on, just take a wild guess.
    - gwright 6y ago
      You aren't making the case for abandoning the rule of law, you are just asserting that it is the right thing to do in this case. Your argument seems to be that everything possible has been tried to address police violence and that there is no other solution other than to riot. I could point to various crime statistics to suggest that the problem is not in fact intractable or "fairly common" (while still being a problem to be addressed) but it really isn't worth it. Even if I shared your apparent assessment of the problem, how does it make sense to physically and economically destroy communities in response? How does it make sense to make it impossible to actually "police" in these communities? How does it make sense to drive away anyone with resources from these communities? Why do you even think the people reacting this way are making a principled statement about police violence and aren't just taking advantage of the situation? The phrase "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater" comes to mind but it is entirely inadequate to describe the disastrous sequence of events that is going on in so many communities right now.
twright0 6y ago
It's not a misconception. As an example, here's a video of riot-gear-clad police marching on a crowd that is peacefully listening to a violin vigil for a man murdered by that same police department: https://twitter.com/jessiedesigngal/status/1277126019246260224 https://twitter.com/jessiedesigngal/status/12771260192462602...
- refurb 6y ago
  They walked right past the violin vigil and then the video cuts out. What was I supposed to gather from that video?
  - twright0 6y ago
    The parent claimed that it was a misconception that police were "quelling" peaceful protest and I shared a video of police disrupting a very obviously peaceful protest - feels relatively straightforward? If you're looking for more information, https://twitter.com/MarcSallinger/status/1277063130523348995 https://twitter.com/MarcSallinger/status/1277063130523348995 is a Twitter thread showing the police using pepper spray and batons to disrupt and clear out said vigil.
    - refurb 6y ago
      From the Twitter feed: "Police say protesters threw something at them which caused them to advance and clear the area" So, not so peaceful it seems.
      - jessaustin 6y ago
        Oh, "police say!" Of course, we should have known!
      - twright0 6y ago
        Watching the original video, do you legitimately believe that any of the police officers are in danger? Do you believe that a single (unsubstantiated claim, without any evidence of a) thrown object justifies pepper spraying reporters and attacking bystanders with batons? I originally shared the video claiming that police were interfering with a peaceful protest. You disputed that the police were interfering, saying they were marching past. When I shared further evidence that the police were in fact disrupting the protest and hurting people who were participating, you found reason to instead believe that the protest was not peaceful. Consider your biases. Here [0] [1] [2] [3] are more examples of and news articles discussing police attacking peaceful protesters. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/police-keep-using-force-against-peaceful-protesters-prompting-sustained-criticism-about-tactics-and-training/2020/06/03/5d2f51d4-a5cf-11ea-bb20-ebf0921f3bbd_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/police-keep-using-fo... [1] https://www.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs/archives/2020/07/20/new-video-shows-tampa-police-attacking-peaceful-protesters-on-july-4 https://www.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs/archives/2020/07/20/new-... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/06/police-violence-protests-us-george-floyd https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/06/police-viole... [3] https://twitter.com/DavidBegnaud/status/1268716877355810818 https://twitter.com/DavidBegnaud/status/1268716877355810818

Nobody is trying to quell protests. I don’t know how that misconception is still alive. The problem is the rioting. Nobody would be trying to disperse crowds if everyone was peaceful.

throwawaysea 6y ago

Yep. In Seattle the vast majority of protests had no issues, because they were peaceful, permitted, and constructive. Literally the only ones that ran into problems with the police were the ones that were breaking the law, violating police orders, committing violence, blocking highways, etc. Those particular situations were often claimed to be “peaceful protests” in social media but were definitely just violent rioting and opportunistic destruction/theft. I have no idea how people have fallen for the misleading narrative that violence was caused by police. It’s a textbook example of either the naivety of an emotionally charged mob, or incredible social media marketing, or both. Unfortunately many well-meaning protesters were also swept up in events that were subsumed by antifa/far left groups whose aim was confrontation and violence. For them, the coming backlash against their movement (due to violence) is going to sting.

lettergram 6y ago

Today I watched a police officer in kenosha wisconsin get knocked unconscious with a brick. The fellow police officers picked him up and dragged him away - while the crowd changed "Fuck the police" and recorded it. In the same vein, I saw store owners starting to shoot at protestors. I suspect, generally, all parties would rather have police keeping the peace. No one wants a gun battle in the streets as people try to protect their property from looters. I'm not 100% sure what I'd do in this case, but these are not friendly protests. I'm finding the police remarkably restrained. Even in some of these videos we are seeing, people are taking police officers weapons and / or assaulting a police officer before they open fire. If you're attacking someone who's armed (police officer or not) you should be prepared to suffer the consequences. (I'm not saying all cases are like this, just mentioning that there's a clear tilt to the coverage here).

eanzenberg 6y ago
One side definitely wants a gun battle in the streets.
anigbrowl 6y ago
This kinda elides the context of it being a response to what looked to many people like a blatant attempted murder. If you're attacking someone who's armed (police officer or not) you should be prepared to suffer the consequences. Conversely, if police departments abuse their authority, shouldn't they expect to be punished by the people they serve, and in a similarly peremptory manner?
- refurb 6y ago
  shouldn't they expect to be punished By having a brick thrown at their head? No, that not reasonable in the least.
- lawnchair_larry 6y ago
  This kinda elides the context of it being a response to what looked to many people like a blatant attempted murder. No rational person could think it looked like that, and this would still not be an acceptable response.
  - anigbrowl 6y ago
    Thanks for the true Scotsman perspective.

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago

> Nobody would be trying to disperse crowds if everyone was peaceful. That's not really true. There is an area between "lawful protesting" and "rioting" that's usually called civil disobedience. Civil disobedience as usually understood is peaceful, but it's also by design inherently disruptive. In Austin, TX protestors blocked the main highway through the city. That was obviously incredibly disruptive, but many people believe the city police's forceful response of shooting less-lethal rounds relatively indiscriminately into the crowd was the exact type of response people were protesting against. A large group of trauma doctors in Austin wrote a paper arguing against using these types of rounds for crowd control due to the horrific injuries they treated: https://www.statesman.com/news/20200816/beanbag-rounds-caused-horrific-injuries-austin-doctors-say https://www.statesman.com/news/20200816/beanbag-rounds-cause...

dependenttypes 6y ago
Honestly, this is kind of like putting your hand inside the mouth of a crocodile and then complaining that you have been bitten. Or if you start insulting/harassing and physically blocking someone and then start complaining that you were punched as a result. I would consider civil disobedience something more like as a policeman to refuse to disrupt a peaceful protest, or illegally publishing data (consider Aaron Swartz, Alexandra Elbakyan, Edward Snowden, or Chelsea Manning), or someone like Oskar Schindler.
- Falell 6y ago
  This definition of is ridiculous to me, implying that only the privileged few (policemen, those with specific knowledge) may be civilly disobedient. The entire intent is for the masses, with no qualifications whatsoever, to make themselves heard in a way that cannot be ignored.
  - dependenttypes 6y ago
    I am not implying that. For example a worker in a gun manufactory can be civilly disobedient too by not showing up, slacking off, or intentionally making arms of subpar quality. Edit: I am talking about wartime labor mobilization. In addition the government owns gun manufactories too. > to make themselves heard in a way that cannot be ignored. You are stepping away from just civil disobedience then. Riots, sieges, or a full scale revolution fit that description better.

jeffbee 6y ago

What about Lafayette Square? https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/27/national-guard-commander-says-police-suddenly-moved-lafayette-square-protesters-used-excessive-force-clear-path-trump/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/27/national-gu...

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

marricks 6y ago

Pretty sure police officers nightly beating of protestors, pulling off masks and pepper spraying their eyes and assaulting reporters is a very direct attempt at quelling protestors. If you followed the nightly protests in Portland OR with any closeness it'd be abundantly clear. Examples just in the past 20 days: - police pulling down mask to pepper spray protestor in the eyes while pinned to the ground: https://twitter.com/_WhatRiot/status/1292012255714787330 https://twitter.com/_WhatRiot/status/1292012255714787330 - police randomly puncturing a support vans tires, they have done this on multiple occasions for no real reason: https://twitter.com/ScottHech/status/1291711270903844867 https://twitter.com/ScottHech/status/1291711270903844867 - police beating and kicking an unresisting protestor: https://twitter.com/1misanthrophile/status/1295962399103545345 https://twitter.com/1misanthrophile/status/12959623991035453... - more police jabbing protestor with batons: https://twitter.com/danielvmedia/status/1292228819588452359 https://twitter.com/danielvmedia/status/1292228819588452359 You see enough of these videos and you appreciate the cops and just vindictive and angry at the prospect of losing "power". It doesn't matter what protestors do (and they most they've done to directly threaten officers is thrown water bottles and apples and flares into an empty police building), police will use any reason (or none) to beat protestors. * As far as I know these videos have resulted in NO reprimands to officers, might as well be standard operating procedure as it continues to happen nightly

e2021 6y ago
From further down in the thread: > Today I watched a police officer in kenosha wisconsin get knocked unconscious with a brick. The fellow police officers picked him up and dragged him away - while the crowd changed "Fuck the police" and recorded it. The idea that the worst the protesters have done is throw apples at the police is so crazy I don't even know how you could be that deep in a bubble
- marricks 6y ago
  I'm directly talking about Portland, where plenty of protestors have been knocked unconscious by police. People get pepper sprayed in the eyes for no reason besides cops are angry. If you want to conflate places to strengthen a case then you need to dive in to what happened at Kenosha and the lack of police response to that tragedy or any of the others. If you want to bring up how "protestors were asking for it" by showing up to protests then we got to ask if police are asking for mass nation wide protests by actively resisting change and harming black lives.

anigbrowl 6y ago

Nobody gives a shit about peaceful protests. If they did the Iraq war would never have happened and many policy areas would be far different from how they are. Riots should not be a first resort but when other types of civic engagement have failed they're a wholly legitimate tactic to force change.

gwright 6y ago
> Riots should not be a first resort but when other types of civic engagement have failed they're a wholly legitimate tactic to force change. This statement is devoid of any explanation as to what types of "change" are important enough to override "other types of civic engagement". The legislative process, voting, representative democracy, the "rule of law" are all designed to avoid having people take matters into their own hands. If you are going to argue that all that should be thrown out it has to be more convincing than just some generic statement that "change" is necessary.
- anigbrowl 6y ago
  Can you perhaps think of a fairly common event which is frequently followed by protests and, increasingly, riots? Go on, just take a wild guess.
  - gwright 6y ago
    You aren't making the case for abandoning the rule of law, you are just asserting that it is the right thing to do in this case. Your argument seems to be that everything possible has been tried to address police violence and that there is no other solution other than to riot. I could point to various crime statistics to suggest that the problem is not in fact intractable or "fairly common" (while still being a problem to be addressed) but it really isn't worth it. Even if I shared your apparent assessment of the problem, how does it make sense to physically and economically destroy communities in response? How does it make sense to make it impossible to actually "police" in these communities? How does it make sense to drive away anyone with resources from these communities? Why do you even think the people reacting this way are making a principled statement about police violence and aren't just taking advantage of the situation? The phrase "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater" comes to mind but it is entirely inadequate to describe the disastrous sequence of events that is going on in so many communities right now.

twright0 6y ago

It's not a misconception. As an example, here's a video of riot-gear-clad police marching on a crowd that is peacefully listening to a violin vigil for a man murdered by that same police department: https://twitter.com/jessiedesigngal/status/1277126019246260224 https://twitter.com/jessiedesigngal/status/12771260192462602...

refurb 6y ago
They walked right past the violin vigil and then the video cuts out. What was I supposed to gather from that video?
- twright0 6y ago
  The parent claimed that it was a misconception that police were "quelling" peaceful protest and I shared a video of police disrupting a very obviously peaceful protest - feels relatively straightforward? If you're looking for more information, https://twitter.com/MarcSallinger/status/1277063130523348995 https://twitter.com/MarcSallinger/status/1277063130523348995 is a Twitter thread showing the police using pepper spray and batons to disrupt and clear out said vigil.
  - refurb 6y ago
    From the Twitter feed: "Police say protesters threw something at them which caused them to advance and clear the area" So, not so peaceful it seems.
    - jessaustin 6y ago
      Oh, "police say!" Of course, we should have known!
    - twright0 6y ago
      Watching the original video, do you legitimately believe that any of the police officers are in danger? Do you believe that a single (unsubstantiated claim, without any evidence of a) thrown object justifies pepper spraying reporters and attacking bystanders with batons? I originally shared the video claiming that police were interfering with a peaceful protest. You disputed that the police were interfering, saying they were marching past. When I shared further evidence that the police were in fact disrupting the protest and hurting people who were participating, you found reason to instead believe that the protest was not peaceful. Consider your biases. Here [0] [1] [2] [3] are more examples of and news articles discussing police attacking peaceful protesters. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/police-keep-using-force-against-peaceful-protesters-prompting-sustained-criticism-about-tactics-and-training/2020/06/03/5d2f51d4-a5cf-11ea-bb20-ebf0921f3bbd_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/police-keep-using-fo... [1] https://www.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs/archives/2020/07/20/new-video-shows-tampa-police-attacking-peaceful-protesters-on-july-4 https://www.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs/archives/2020/07/20/new-... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/06/police-violence-protests-us-george-floyd https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/06/police-viole... [3] https://twitter.com/DavidBegnaud/status/1268716877355810818 https://twitter.com/DavidBegnaud/status/1268716877355810818