6 ms·

That they would all be so lax is not a sign of ineptitude, so much as it is a belief that they will not face consequences for their actions.

by jude- 6y ago

Alex3917 6y ago
The capital police helped them break in, so they don't exactly have much reason to believe otherwise. If Trump told them to this, which pretty much the entire media has been saying, then it then wouldn't it be entrapment to charge them?
- buzzy_hacker 6y ago
  I’m not sure that’s true: https://mobile.twitter.com/justinjm1/status/1347174957613199360 https://mobile.twitter.com/justinjm1/status/1347174957613199...
  - Alex3917 6y ago
    > protesters outnumbering cops "100 to 1" That's the relevant point, not whether or not the cops removed the barrier. The cops knew that hundreds of protesters were planning in on breaking into the capital building to assassinate senators, and purposely didn't send anyone to stop them. The whole thing was literally planned in public on social media.
    - sudosysgen 6y ago
      IIRC there is a budget in the hundreds of millions meant specifically to protect that building.
  - ehsankia 6y ago
    Thanks for sharing. A lot of the narratives about police helping them did seem a bit over the top. The videos don't look great but it's also easy to cherry pick videos and photos to make it look like that. That being said, it still doesn't explain how lenient they were on the mob, while in other instances during summer protests they were far more aggressive. In the very scene where the girl got shot, if you look from a different angle, you see there were a dozen riot police behind them doing basically nothing [0]. I have yet to find a satisfying explanation for it, considering the protesters were literally smashing doors and windows. [1] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ9oThRuMVs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ9oThRuMVs [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PAVTZIM5ks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PAVTZIM5ks
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - jonnycomputer 6y ago
      Well in the police brutality protests, there were days and days of protest, escalating, with lots of bad feeling on both sides. And, let's be frank here: people were protesting the police, and the police took it personally. They felt threatened.
      - chillwaves 6y ago
        I guess it's too much to ask for them to be professional and to uphold the law?
        jonnycomputer 6y ago
        Police should also be professional and uphold the law. I have personally witnessed police brutality in my community. Have you?
        jonnycomputer 6y ago
        Sometimes people interpret explanation as justification. Particularly when they are upset. To say that the police felt threatened by protests aimed at the police, and that because of that, the police acted more brutally than they otherwise might have, is not a justification of police brutality. It is an explanation.
  - kawera 6y ago
    Well... https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-protests-washington-guard-military/2021/01/07/c5299b56-510e-11eb-b2e8-3339e73d9da2_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-prote...
- jessedhillon 6y ago
  The capitol police shot one of them in the head, teargassed and wrestled with the others, so they have exactly every reason to believe otherwise. But sure, some short video of cops removing a 3' tall baby gate, circulating on social media without context, makes a great basis for suggesting that the police and these hooligans were collaborating. Edit: this sibling comment has a better angle on the barricades, https://mobile.twitter.com/justinjm1/status/1347174957613199360 https://mobile.twitter.com/justinjm1/status/1347174957613199...
  - fencepost 6y ago
    The selfie pic didn't help.
    - jessedhillon 6y ago
      I know you're being intentionally obtuse, as is the fashion right now, but I'm going to give a straight response to this for anyone genuinely engaging. We don't know what went through that officer's mind. If you're standing watch and someone stands next to you and clicks a photo, is there anything you can and should do? Should you, as the officer, wrestle him to the ground, knowing there's a riotous mob right behind him? But even if it's the case that the officer enthusiastically posed for the photo, it's probably best not to understand police like a monolithic entity operating perfect information, but rather as a group of heterogeneous actors working in a fog that limits their awareness. Otherwise, if you extend the "one officer did X therefore the motives of all officers are established" logic you quickly get really stupid contradictions. Over the summer, I saw several photos of officers kneeling in solidarity with BLM protesters -- I guess that means all police everywhere support the aims of the BLM movement now? Probably not, because police aren't a monolith, and subsequent police actions contradict that solidarity. Likewise, police teargassing, manhandling, and shooting these other protesters also paints a more complex landscape than "one officer took a selfie, therefore they're all collaborating."
      - fencepost 6y ago
        I mostly kept it brief because I was browsing on a phone. I'd have no concerns had that selfie pic been taken outside at the original rally, but once that group had broken into the Capitol building everyone there was present illegally. That is not the time to pose for pictures, even if the situation or orders are such that you're not able to make arrests or expel them.
- zepto 6y ago
  Trump isn’t the police so it’s not entrapment and he isn’t above the law. If he tells you to do something illegal and you do it, he’s an accomplice.
- gruez 6y ago
  >If Trump told them to this, which pretty much the entire media has been saying, then it then wouldn't it be entrapment to charge them? No, see for instance: https://theintercept.com/2015/03/16/howthefbicreatedaterrorist/ https://theintercept.com/2015/03/16/howthefbicreatedaterrori...
  - Alex3917 6y ago
    In those cases the defendants didn't know they were talking with government agents, whereas in this case they knew the person telling them to do this was the president. And it's much harder to claim that these people were criminally predisposed when it was Trump who was telling them that the election was stolen. I realize that proving entrapment is a very high bar, but I don't you can infer anything relevant here from those FBI cases.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
epistasis 6y ago
This is precisely it. There have been insurrections before with zero consequences, such as in Wilmington where white supremacists were upset that Black people were allowed to be elected and take positions in government: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmington_insurrection_of_1898 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmington_insurrection_of_1... Yesterday there was a confederate flag in the capitol halls, something that didn't even happen during the US civil war. Pictures abound of neo-nazi symbols, like a T-shirt celebrating Auschwitz. These people expect no consequences, and they are probably right. They are still upset that Obama got into the White House.
- zarkov99 6y ago
  You should probably mention Portland, Seattle, Kenosha, Chicago, New York as well. The other kind of insurrectionists seem to also have little to fear from the law.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - Jtsummers 6y ago
    There's a bit of a difference between people gathering and protesting or even rioting in <various big cities around US> and actually storming the US Capitol Building during the tally of Electoral College votes with the intention of, somehow in their twisted minds, preventing that tally and succession to the next democratically elected president.
    - jhardy54 6y ago
      Wow, what a double-standard. Why is it that the left is allowed to express themselves through protest and civil disobedience but the right can't plant bombs and try to kidnap senators when they don't like the outcome of an election? /s
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
throw0101a 6y ago
Because they think they're the good guys: > “This is not America,” a woman said to a small group, her voice shaking. She was crying, hysterical. “They’re shooting at us. They’re supposed to shoot BLM, but they’re shooting the patriots.” * https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/capitol-trump-insurrection-explosions/ https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/capitol-trump-ins... * https://archive.is/tZVFs https://archive.is/tZVFs (paywall) See also John Wilkes Booth: > He had spent so much time among like-minded people who hated Lincoln, and he had read so many accounts denouncing Lincoln as a tyrant bent on destroying the Constitution and "personal liberty" that he expected to be hailed as a hero. * https://twitter.com/Teri_Kanefield/status/1347229880635645952 https://twitter.com/Teri_Kanefield/status/134722988063564595...
- jonnycomputer 6y ago
  This is the sad truth. And it is for this reason that those who instigated the riot, who lied to them, be held accountable. (the Proud Boys, Nazis, right wing militias etc. who were involved have no such sympathy from me. but the people who showed up because they believed the election was stolen do--I cannot blame them for their credulity, and ignorance, our society has failed them. democracy does have to be defended, after all)
  - chillwaves 6y ago
    How is over throwing an election "defending democracy"? Biden got over 6 million more votes.
    - disgrunt 6y ago
      1. U.S. elections aren't decided by popular vote. 2. Biden won narrowly in swing states. 3. The dispute is whether or not the votes cast were legitimate.
      - chillwaves 6y ago
        You can dispute whatever you want, but by every legal process, your "dispute" has been settled. When does it end? That's of course ignoring the fact that Republicans actually gained seats in the house, that Trump would have to overturn the results in multiple states, that said states have Republican leadership overseeing the election. But here we are. Fact is, at some point (now) your claims of "dispute" are no longer worth entertaining. Literally have not had a single victory in court (but over 60 losses). These cases are being thrown out by Republican judges, judges appointed by Trump even. What is your standard of evidence?
justin_oaks 6y ago
Isn't "I was tricked by the President of the United States" a valid legal defense?

That they would all be so lax is not a sign of ineptitude, so much as it is a belief that they will not face consequences for their actions.

by jude- 6y ago

That they would all be so lax is not a sign of ineptitude, so much as it is a belief that they will not face consequences for their actions.

Alex3917 6y ago

The capital police helped them break in, so they don't exactly have much reason to believe otherwise. If Trump told them to this, which pretty much the entire media has been saying, then it then wouldn't it be entrapment to charge them?

buzzy_hacker 6y ago
I’m not sure that’s true: https://mobile.twitter.com/justinjm1/status/1347174957613199360 https://mobile.twitter.com/justinjm1/status/1347174957613199...
- Alex3917 6y ago
  > protesters outnumbering cops "100 to 1" That's the relevant point, not whether or not the cops removed the barrier. The cops knew that hundreds of protesters were planning in on breaking into the capital building to assassinate senators, and purposely didn't send anyone to stop them. The whole thing was literally planned in public on social media.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    IIRC there is a budget in the hundreds of millions meant specifically to protect that building.
- ehsankia 6y ago
  Thanks for sharing. A lot of the narratives about police helping them did seem a bit over the top. The videos don't look great but it's also easy to cherry pick videos and photos to make it look like that. That being said, it still doesn't explain how lenient they were on the mob, while in other instances during summer protests they were far more aggressive. In the very scene where the girl got shot, if you look from a different angle, you see there were a dozen riot police behind them doing basically nothing [0]. I have yet to find a satisfying explanation for it, considering the protesters were literally smashing doors and windows. [1] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ9oThRuMVs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ9oThRuMVs [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PAVTZIM5ks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PAVTZIM5ks
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - jonnycomputer 6y ago
    Well in the police brutality protests, there were days and days of protest, escalating, with lots of bad feeling on both sides. And, let's be frank here: people were protesting the police, and the police took it personally. They felt threatened.
    - chillwaves 6y ago
      I guess it's too much to ask for them to be professional and to uphold the law?
      - jonnycomputer 6y ago
        Police should also be professional and uphold the law. I have personally witnessed police brutality in my community. Have you?
        jonnycomputer 6y ago
        Sometimes people interpret explanation as justification. Particularly when they are upset. To say that the police felt threatened by protests aimed at the police, and that because of that, the police acted more brutally than they otherwise might have, is not a justification of police brutality. It is an explanation.
- kawera 6y ago
  Well... https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-protests-washington-guard-military/2021/01/07/c5299b56-510e-11eb-b2e8-3339e73d9da2_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-prote...
jessedhillon 6y ago
The capitol police shot one of them in the head, teargassed and wrestled with the others, so they have exactly every reason to believe otherwise. But sure, some short video of cops removing a 3' tall baby gate, circulating on social media without context, makes a great basis for suggesting that the police and these hooligans were collaborating. Edit: this sibling comment has a better angle on the barricades, https://mobile.twitter.com/justinjm1/status/1347174957613199360 https://mobile.twitter.com/justinjm1/status/1347174957613199...
- fencepost 6y ago
  The selfie pic didn't help.
  - jessedhillon 6y ago
    I know you're being intentionally obtuse, as is the fashion right now, but I'm going to give a straight response to this for anyone genuinely engaging. We don't know what went through that officer's mind. If you're standing watch and someone stands next to you and clicks a photo, is there anything you can and should do? Should you, as the officer, wrestle him to the ground, knowing there's a riotous mob right behind him? But even if it's the case that the officer enthusiastically posed for the photo, it's probably best not to understand police like a monolithic entity operating perfect information, but rather as a group of heterogeneous actors working in a fog that limits their awareness. Otherwise, if you extend the "one officer did X therefore the motives of all officers are established" logic you quickly get really stupid contradictions. Over the summer, I saw several photos of officers kneeling in solidarity with BLM protesters -- I guess that means all police everywhere support the aims of the BLM movement now? Probably not, because police aren't a monolith, and subsequent police actions contradict that solidarity. Likewise, police teargassing, manhandling, and shooting these other protesters also paints a more complex landscape than "one officer took a selfie, therefore they're all collaborating."
    - fencepost 6y ago
      I mostly kept it brief because I was browsing on a phone. I'd have no concerns had that selfie pic been taken outside at the original rally, but once that group had broken into the Capitol building everyone there was present illegally. That is not the time to pose for pictures, even if the situation or orders are such that you're not able to make arrests or expel them.
zepto 6y ago
Trump isn’t the police so it’s not entrapment and he isn’t above the law. If he tells you to do something illegal and you do it, he’s an accomplice.
gruez 6y ago
>If Trump told them to this, which pretty much the entire media has been saying, then it then wouldn't it be entrapment to charge them? No, see for instance: https://theintercept.com/2015/03/16/howthefbicreatedaterrorist/ https://theintercept.com/2015/03/16/howthefbicreatedaterrori...
- Alex3917 6y ago
  In those cases the defendants didn't know they were talking with government agents, whereas in this case they knew the person telling them to do this was the president. And it's much harder to claim that these people were criminally predisposed when it was Trump who was telling them that the election was stolen. I realize that proving entrapment is a very high bar, but I don't you can infer anything relevant here from those FBI cases.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

epistasis 6y ago

This is precisely it. There have been insurrections before with zero consequences, such as in Wilmington where white supremacists were upset that Black people were allowed to be elected and take positions in government: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmington_insurrection_of_1898 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmington_insurrection_of_1... Yesterday there was a confederate flag in the capitol halls, something that didn't even happen during the US civil war. Pictures abound of neo-nazi symbols, like a T-shirt celebrating Auschwitz. These people expect no consequences, and they are probably right. They are still upset that Obama got into the White House.

zarkov99 6y ago
You should probably mention Portland, Seattle, Kenosha, Chicago, New York as well. The other kind of insurrectionists seem to also have little to fear from the law.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Jtsummers 6y ago
  There's a bit of a difference between people gathering and protesting or even rioting in <various big cities around US> and actually storming the US Capitol Building during the tally of Electoral College votes with the intention of, somehow in their twisted minds, preventing that tally and succession to the next democratically elected president.
  - jhardy54 6y ago
    Wow, what a double-standard. Why is it that the left is allowed to express themselves through protest and civil disobedience but the right can't plant bombs and try to kidnap senators when they don't like the outcome of an election? /s
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]

throw0101a 6y ago

Because they think they're the good guys: > “This is not America,” a woman said to a small group, her voice shaking. She was crying, hysterical. “They’re shooting at us. They’re supposed to shoot BLM, but they’re shooting the patriots.” * https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/capitol-trump-insurrection-explosions/ https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/capitol-trump-ins... * https://archive.is/tZVFs https://archive.is/tZVFs (paywall) See also John Wilkes Booth: > He had spent so much time among like-minded people who hated Lincoln, and he had read so many accounts denouncing Lincoln as a tyrant bent on destroying the Constitution and "personal liberty" that he expected to be hailed as a hero. * https://twitter.com/Teri_Kanefield/status/1347229880635645952 https://twitter.com/Teri_Kanefield/status/134722988063564595...

jonnycomputer 6y ago
This is the sad truth. And it is for this reason that those who instigated the riot, who lied to them, be held accountable. (the Proud Boys, Nazis, right wing militias etc. who were involved have no such sympathy from me. but the people who showed up because they believed the election was stolen do--I cannot blame them for their credulity, and ignorance, our society has failed them. democracy does have to be defended, after all)
- chillwaves 6y ago
  How is over throwing an election "defending democracy"? Biden got over 6 million more votes.
  - disgrunt 6y ago
    1. U.S. elections aren't decided by popular vote. 2. Biden won narrowly in swing states. 3. The dispute is whether or not the votes cast were legitimate.
    - chillwaves 6y ago
      You can dispute whatever you want, but by every legal process, your "dispute" has been settled. When does it end? That's of course ignoring the fact that Republicans actually gained seats in the house, that Trump would have to overturn the results in multiple states, that said states have Republican leadership overseeing the election. But here we are. Fact is, at some point (now) your claims of "dispute" are no longer worth entertaining. Literally have not had a single victory in court (but over 60 losses). These cases are being thrown out by Republican judges, judges appointed by Trump even. What is your standard of evidence?

justin_oaks 6y ago

Isn't "I was tricked by the President of the United States" a valid legal defense?