5 ms·

It's unfortunate that it had to come to this, but I believe the rioters were justified in their actions. If the police departments in the United States do not a

• blueatlas 11y ago
  Justified burning down a brand new senior community center and knocking out a cop with a brick to the head. Really?
  • Lancey 11y ago
    Were the police justified when they beat an unarmed suspect and denied him medical attention that would have saved his life? Were they justified when they refused to bring those responsible to justice?
    • engi_nerd 11y ago
      Ah, I see you are advocating a new system where injustices are answered with further injustices.
      • MagicWishMonkey 11y ago
        A new system? This is how society has been since time immemorial. It is the basis of our capital punishment system. People only point it out as being some sort of new phenomenon when minorities are the ones lashing out.
        • engi_nerd 11y ago
          I don't intend to argue, here, in favor of the capital punishment system. What does offend me is your assertion that what I said had ANYTHING to do with race.
      • Lancey 11y ago
        There is no system in place where this can end with justice. Every time that justice has been called for in cases of police brutality against minorities over the past year, only once was that justice served. Murderers are at large, and richer for, injustices that were defended by the system. Those that are supposed to deliver justice consider themselves all-powerful and above the laws they should be upholding. Justice failed Michael Brown and all the others that died at the hands of police officers on a power trip. When justice doesn't work, what is there to turn to?
        • msandford 11y ago
          http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/04/11/thousands-dead-few-prosecuted/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/04/11/th...
        • engi_nerd 11y ago
          I don't know what the answers are, but burning the businesses of innocent people who have nothing to do with all of this is not one of those answers.
        • tzs 11y ago
          > Justice failed Michael Brown and all the others that died at the hands of police officers on a power trip. How do you conclude that justice failed Michael Brown? The physical evidence pretty overwhelmingly backs the officer's account of their encounter. See the DoJ's report for a discussion of this. If you want a face for people unjustifiably killed by police, why not someone like Eric Garner, who was doing nothing wrong before or during his encounter with the police and so whose killing was clearly unjustified?
    • forthefuture 11y ago
      “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.
      • ceejayoz 11y ago
        "I contend that the cry of 'black power' is, at bottom, a reaction to the reluctance of white power to make the kind of changes necessary to make justice a reality for the Negro. I think that we've got to see that a riot is the language of the unheard." ― Martin Luther King Jr.
    • shoeless 11y ago
      That's an awfully big assumption. Was the fact that the police beat this guy and cracked his spine reported in the Baltimore Sun yesterday? There has been no conclusion that that is the case. Those that are rioting are guilty of exactly what they accuse the police of. I believe the mayor called them "thugs".
      • msandford 11y ago
        He was able to run away from the police BEFORE they arrested him. After he was transported to the police station, he was found to be severely injured and the folks at the police station sent him immediately to the hospital. I'm going to use logic here for a minute. There are only two possibilities for how this happened. Either it happened at the hands of the police, or another force. Who is this other force, and how were they able to overpower the police? Did they overpower them in public? You know, like in the video we can see? Or did they forcibly stop a police vehicle, beat the man half to death and then let the police vehicle continue on. And how did this arguably criminal act go unreported and un-pursued by the police? The police typically take crimes against their own pretty seriously. If you find the line of reasoning that some other mysterious force caused these injuries suspect, I would tend to agree with you.
        • maxerickson 11y ago
          It is possible to break a bone and have the injury remain somewhat stable for some time. I do not offer that as an explanation of what happened, but simply as a third possibility, that he was already injured when taken into custody, but that the severity of the injury was not apparent.
          • msandford 11y ago
            I'm not a doctor but I doubt that your vertebra can be crushed and you can move around as normal. You'd think that a guy who had a broken neck would be trying to get to a hospital, not just hanging out. If we're really going to stretch, it's possible that God reached into the van and snapped his neck despite the police officers doing an incredibly professional job and it's literally nobody's fault; an act of God.
    • fixxer 11y ago
      two wrongs = one right? IF this event leads to better policing, you'll have an argument. Nobody that holds power is thinking "these people deserve more" right now.
  • cognivore 11y ago
    I find it disconcerting that Lancey's comment is down voted. It's the the only post so far that actually addresses the problem directly and honestly. You can wring your hands about how terrible it is that they rioted, looted, vandalized, assaulted, and that an opportune moment for protest was lost, but then you're ignoring the truth of the matter. The reality is that this happened, because of ongoing police brutality against a minority that is already feeling the pressure of racism, unemployment, incarceration, and other social disadvantages. You can't pretend those are just all bad people waiting for a chance for thuggery. We, as Americans, have created this by the way we have structured our society to allow for ever growing inequality. And by allowing the police to become para-military in their methods. It's obviously too late for protests. You've got civil unrest now. Is it even possible to stop it? edit: fixed a typo
• engi_nerd 11y ago
  How does "violent resistance from the people" against officers who "show an indiscriminate disregard for the well being of those they're sworn to protect" involve burning down a family owned business[0] that has nothing to do with the Freddie Gray case? How can you justify such acts? [0]:http://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2015/04/28/ctn-cuomo-liquor-store-on-fire-baltimore-riot.cnn http://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2015/04/28/ctn-cuomo-liquor-sto...
  • jbob2000 11y ago
    Because the police are responsible for protecting that business. If the police fail, then the business owner's faith in the police is shook up.
• stefantalpalaru 11y ago
  There is no justification for this kind of violence. And it's not even directed against law enforcement. Further more, in the near future it will be used as an excuse to further militarize the police, increase its budgets and reduce civil liberties even more - think Camden, NJ where drug traffic is an excuse to discourage white people to walk and black people to sit on street corners (VICE S02E12).
  • cognivore 11y ago
    >> There is no justification for this kind of violence. << This is what I'm talking about in my previous post. It actually ignores that it happened - regardless of how justified or wrong or morally outraged you might feel about it. The reality is it's going on whether you feel it's justified or not.
    • stefantalpalaru 11y ago
      You mistake causation for justification. Nobody is challenging the former, we're just disagreeing about the latter.
• craigwblake 11y ago
  Are you aware that it's not the police or city who own the CVS? It's also not the police or the city who own the 7-11. It's not police or the city who own Binta's African Hair, or the community center, or the stores in the Mondawmin mall, or the McDonalds, or the majority of the other property that was damaged. It's individuals, private citizens, neighbors of those who are looting. Will you please explain how looting and burning down your neighbors private property is justified by civil rights violations that may have been committed by agents of the government?
  • esrauch 11y ago
    A black man killed in police custody and large peaceful protest doesn't even register as a blip on any radar. It was a footnote in the media and something politicans ignore practically every month in the US. The riots have very significantly raised this issue to the public. Sure a lot of people are just going to write it off as mindless violence (and a lot of it is) but in reality destruction of random private and community property is literally the only way that the rage can be channeled. It isn't feasible for them to burn down the police station, or else they would have. These people are literally destroying their own community which is failing to serve them. Seems like pretty powerful message and effective imagery for the media to me.
    • louisphilippe 11y ago
      Have you read any history? Riots such as these happened all during the late 1960's in response to much worse oppression during the time period. Virtually all these riots made the black community worse off. Their own business districts were destroyed, anyone with any money fled the city, the tax base collapsed, crime got even more out of control. If the black community in Baltimore want to solve police oppression, here is a positive way they can do it: 1) form a neighborhood association with a neighborhood police force to handle issues of crime. These police officers would be elected and controlled by the community. 2) Tell the center city police that they no longer have to police the black neighborhoods, which the police would like, it is not a fun job. When a case of police brutality breaks out, tell the police to stay of the hood from now on or face reprisals. 3) Tell their elected officials - (who are black, the majority of the voters are black in Baltimore) to disband the police.
• Mtinie 11y ago
  I (personally) can almost rationalize rioting if the target of the violence is a symbol of the population that the mob see as their oppressor. Take for instance, the Los Angeles riots in 1992. If significant mobs of rioters had streamed out of South Los Angeles, marched up La Cienega Blvd., taken a left on Wilshire, and then laid waste to establishments in Beverly Hills, it would make perverse sense. However, for the most part, this didn't happen. While the violence and looting was geographically widespread across the Los Angeles basin, the neighborhoods where it happened were often the same ones that the rioters lived in. The same neighborhoods that their friends and families shopped in, played in, and ultimately where they continued to live in after the six days of rioting ended. This represents something else than just a "justification". I'm not a sociologist, but as a person it's pretty clear to me that something else is going on if you decide to, proverbially, "shit where you sleep".