As a veteran this hits me particularly hard. This kind of force goes beyond most uses of force I personally used in Afghanistan and Iraq, actual fighting being the exception. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’d be brought up on charges if we treated nonviolent people the way these videos portray.
> “Tear gas is considered a riot control agent because the effects dissipate a short time after exposure,’’ said Kelsey Davenport, director for nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association. “But even though the effects of tear gas wear off, its symptoms are harsh and terrifying, including severe eye irritations and difficulty breathing.
> “The United States may justify firing tear gas [...] as legal, but the decision to use an indiscriminate, psychologically terrifying toxic chemical was excessive and certainly immoral."
> ...if we treated nonviolent people the way these videos portray.
A lot of the videos portray violent rioters/looters. A lot of the ones of the police are ambiguous because they don't show what behavior warranted the police reaction.
I've also seen a lot of videos of peaceful protests with police walking/talking/marching with the protesters.
We do justice a disservice when we lump everyone and every precinct together.
I don't think the core sentiment of these protests is "literally every cop is evil".
Rather, the repeatedly demonstrated fact that the system is willing to protect the "bad apples" (read: outright thugs) corrupts the entire policing system and undermines its legitimacy, regardless of how many benign officers there are.
> A lot of the videos portray violent rioters/looters.
I've yet to see an instance of this that wasn't precipitated by cops showing up in ironman armor to a peaceful protest and firing on people with all sorts of military-police toys.
The violent instigators are the cops, across America. Even Target came out and said "whatever, our shit's insured, this problem with the cops needs to be solved."
I've only ever heard protesters described as "animals" by people that are also happy to throw around the word "thug" and smugly pretend both aren't racist dogwhistles.
There are multiple Geneva Conventions, true. One of them deals with POWs. Other Conventions deal with other war-related topics. If you want to be technical about it, the one prohibiting the use of gas is formally known as the Geneva Protocol.
I linked to the CWC because that is the relevant international convention allowing for the use of tear gas in non-military contexts. IOW, the GP creates the ban, but the CWC provides an exception.)
This abuse of power is the direct result of the militarization of our police force.
I say we take away their guns.
If a suspect is brandishing a firearm, they can call in a separate unit allowed to carry weapons.
Also, no more riot gear. The police can’t be trusted with it. Let the national guard have it, but train them for emergency response, not hunting down crooks.
If you can't trust the police with guns or riot gear then what is the point of them. If all they are reduced to are official naggers then they will end up having to call the actual police (the people who are allowed to have guns and riot gear) and the actual police will end up doing what the current police do. A better solution would be to provide better training and enforcement of police behavior.
You can't trust most people with a gun. That's the problem. Guns also bring tension to most situations. How often do you visit people with a pistol attached to your hip? Do they all go, "Oh, yeah, feel even safer now that you're here." Probably not - they're worried you're going to do something stupid and shoot them.
No one I know feels safer with armed police around and tensions frequently escalate with them around. We all go, "this man has a gun and could kill us - he will do it too because he knows he will get away clean and free."
Training isn't sufficient. If there are real consequences for police and it shows that they face the same consequences the rest of us do for many years - maybe then. But that day will not be for 10+ years. For now, it's much easier to say and act on taking away their weapons that are meant to kill people.
In fact I do feel safer when the security guard in front of my kid's school is armed. That security guard has been trained and will suffer big consequences if he uses the gun improperly.
I guess that if you feel unsafe around armed security guards I can't argue with your feelings
Then he is investigated and the court decides if he is liable for manslaughter, murder or nothing. Similar to a soldier who killed people from their country, nuclear engineers who caused a meltdown, or bus drivers who got into a deadly accident.
There's two sides to every story. And every business/organization has bad apples. Achieving perfection becomes order of magnitudes more expensive the closer you are to achieving it, so some level of acceptance that factors economic cost must be reached. The police are humans too. Knowing people are throwing Molotov Cocktails and bricks at police cars, I wouldn't sit still in my car if people, I mean, a mob (mentality) surrounded it. Self preservation.
My theory on why the police need to use some level of brutality is because a mob mentality is an animal. It's an amorphous mammalian manifestation that is afraid of loud noises, pain, and losing it's ability to breath easily. So they use counterpart tools to control it, because when this animal cant be controlled, the whole city could be be razed in flames. (As an example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Los_Angeles_riots#Destruc... )
Im not excusing shitty behavior, but it's worth considering there are millions of events going on in these protests, and all the excess force ones fit in a bullet list on my monitor. Also, in many of the listed events, the cops told people to move away or go back inside repeatedly before taking action. From their perspective, keeping battle formation is necessary to success. And lawfully, you are supposed to comply with this demand.
Just things to consider. I hope I'm not gut-reaction-down voted for taking the middle ground.
The problem is that, by your definition, the police are turning into an animal too. They're supposed to be better than that and work to lower the tension, but instead they react and escalate things. If they can't be better than that, we shouldn't be paying them and giving them guns. And we shouldn't be exempting them from prosecution for their actions.
The police are too organized IMO to be acting like an animal (barring the bad apples). I also don't view the police force as one identity, just like (I imagine) you don't view the protesters by the actions of the rioters. It doesn't help that the police all dress the same, so the brain lumps all of them into one identity, and people focus on the bad actions of the few.
They are in an incredibly difficult situation, and putting their lives at risk. I think there are plenty of cops who care about their community, but they do what they have to do because there is no efficient way to communicate to or painlessly control an emotional mob of people (plus bad actors climbing out of the woodwork to cause harm to the community). When you talk to a mob, you aren't talking to anyone.
> I also don't view the police force as one identity
I'm sorry, what? They are literally an organization. With uniforms. The entire point is that they're supposed to be one entity. If they can't even act as one entity - much less one that, I don't know, helps people - then why do they get to wear the uniform at all?
> When you talk to a mob, you aren't talking to anyone.
You know where the expression "bad apples" came from, right? A few bad apples spoil the bunch. In other words, if there are a couple of rotten apples in a barrel, it spreads quickly to the whole barrel. In other words, it's important to find and throw out the bad apples immediately or you'll have to throw out the whole barrel a few days later.
People are not apples obviously. Bad people may influence bad behavior, but the reverse it true too. Good behavior may influence good behavior. Some people are independent and are less influenced by others.
And, in organizations, change comes from the top. As I said, reaching perfection is prohibitively expensive.
Indeed. With our greater-than-apple intelligence, we should expect cops to sort out the bad apples themselves. Not close ranks and ostracize colleagues who speak up against the bad apples.
When you have great power and knowledge, inaction is being complicit.
I think the expression "it's only a few bad apples" started out as an ironic expression but got picked up by those who missed the irony. You're right, I do see it applied this way to police everywhere. And it's a self-defeating argument every time.
Just last year, in the official Christmas Tree in Minneapolis precinct 4 headquarters, discarded malt liquor containers and menthol cigarette packages were used as ornaments:
What perspective make you happy about taking a middle road around a police force, and society, that tolerated this? The police haven’t needed to hide their outright motives: it’s race, whether it’s killing someone or decorating a Christmas tree. Other officers don’t speak up. Enjoy the privilege, I do and am more than aware.
Imagine if the police showed up and started handing out water bottles, rather than assaulting unarmed (but angry) citizens. I think you'd see a different response.
Imagine if the police were trained to remain passive even when struck. A few violent protesters would strike the police, but if they remained passive I don't think it would take the sight of very many passive cops getting beaten up before the crowd would turn on the violent protesters and protect the cops. Seeing someone getting beaten without defending themselves triggers a very powerful gut reaction in people, even when the victim is 'the enemy'.
It appears that officer is not talking to a mob, but to dozens of calm people. Different situation. If people are already screaming and shouting, or worse, breaking things, and there are hundreds of them, that wont work.
>Imagine if the police were trained to remain passive even when struck.
Tell me how much it would cost to train a police force to that level of self control, and to be able identify, in a split second, if the person is attempting to do serious harm to you or is just blowing off steam. Once a person is close enough, there are plenty of blind spots to pull a knife out of.
>the crowd would turn on the violent protesters and protect the cops
Granted, the number of people is ~100x different. Still, examples like the tweet above illustrate that the needed 'self control' has existed within about a pay-period or two.
This is not a gut reaction, this is as calm as I can be:
You're justifying police brutality. Period.
Cops don't get to brutally assault us citizens because they're not complying. That's some third world behavior and your comment, under the guise of considering both sides, is tacitly condoning this.
For the record, I don't condone looting or property desctruction. But there are plenty of videos circulating right now that have peaceful protestors that are being assault by cops, cause they make their job a bit harder.
Great, so, let's ask an important question: Why were the cops there at all? Apparently, as videos come out, every protest was peaceful until the cops turned up in avenger armor.
So, there you go. This explains it. Police now has the license for whatever because battle formation is needed. That's what they needed to do to pin down George Floyd. Teach others a lesson
It's a tough situation for police too. On one hand, how to you stop those taking advantage of the situation by looting/burning? On the other hand, how do they show tolerance for non-aggressive civil disobedience?
Should anyone breaking curfew be subject to rough treatment? Should the police stand idle while people burn and loot?
How can peaceful protesters be protected while looters/abusers are using them as shields for their activities?
The protests are happening because the police have made a habit of treating the people as the enemy. So policing as usual, with excessive displays of force just because they can get away with it, will do nothing to quell the violence.
I think the way forward is let police do what they need to, but also allow the people to prosecute police when they step out of bounds. The current culture of protecting abusers among the police needs to go away.
Yes, this sounds like a workable path to a better future. The prevalence of cameras and incident footage would steer justice in the right direction IMO. Only if police lose the protection from prosecution.
If that happens we’d see how easy things will “fix” themselves, the police will police themselves too
In general, I think the problem that we have in the US is that the militarization of the police forces have upped the conflict when these situations arise.
What generally happens is that protests begin and the police departments move in to shut it down, instead of trying to contain it and let the protesters get their message and frustrations out.
When you see the videos of aggressive action against people who are peacefully protesting, then it causes more frustration and anger with the police which escalates and creates more conflict.
I think the French generally handle protests in a way that allow the protests to proceed until they reach a certain point. Yes, private property is damaged/destroyed (ie cars burning etc), but generally the protests are allowed to proceed.
If the police in our country recognized that people need to protest, to vent their frustrations and contain it to a mostly orderly affair, we might be better off for it.
It is definitely hard to know where to draw the line. But there’s a common rhetorical tactic in situations like these, where it’s hard to know. And that is: to say, well, since we don’t know where to draw the line, then everything is permissible (or everything is forbidden, depending on what side someone is arguing)
But the truth is, while the line may be hard to draw—and in reality, there probably will never be a perfectly defined line—there are always cases that are definitively on one side or the other. And police violence against non-violent protests will always be on the “unacceptable” side, no matter where it ends up being.
Some situations are grey. But it does not follow that all situations are.
You don't attack non-violent protestors or bystanders. You use proportional violence and only as a last resort.
But more importantly, you avoid these kinds of situations by not being an absolutely inhumane and racist police force that should be a disgrace to any nation that calls itself civilized.
I do find it fascinating and a bit scary that you can read this article, watch the linked videos, and then come up with a comment like this though. Is this kind of stuff that normalized in the US?
Pray explain what is so tough about refraining from shooting tear gas canisters right in the face of an unarmed civilian from distance of few tens of meters ?
Is there a specific point at which police are or are not allowed to pepper spray people? Use tasers? Use other hopefully non-lethal force like this? These videos are really sad and I wonder when these actions are actually acceptable.
Such scenes can happen in any country, but when the enemy is the people it just festers and escalates. With great leaders they could deescalate, but Republicans are doubling down all the way now..
United States is a police state. I said it 20 years ago, people laughed. Now you see if for yourself. American police have positioned themselves as the enemy of the people because they see people as their enemy. And the only way to stop the enemy is by applying brute force. If they're doing all this in front of cameras, imagine what they do when nobody is looking.
Whereas in other countries, such as the UK, police are considered civilians in a uniform and behave accordingly.
I think it's more militarization of the police because of easy access to guns (so logically police has to have bigger better gear) and erosion of rights following 9/11 (and the gradual complacency/acceptance of it). Mix in a long history or racism, easy access to information - stir and wait for it to explode.
> One it has never truly confronted in any lasting manner.
I mean, the US has come a long way from chattel slavery, Jim Crow laws, Chinese exclusion acts, Irish exclusion, Italian exclusion, Catholics, etc. It did recently have a black president. Yes it has a very long way to go, but there has been a lot of progress in it's history.
We have a very armed police because we have a very armed populace, and we have a very armed populace because security is your own responsibility, at least in the rural areas (also notice the urban/rural divide, armed populace is in the rural area, and the crazy police stories are from the urban area).
One of the main ways America is so different than Europeans because of its political system. Here we empower rural areas (due to electoral college). Without electoral college, the national policies are what urban policies are. NY state looks just like Canada from a political POV, large urban concentrated center who vote and dictate all the policies, and rural areas don't really get much of a say in state policy.
Urban areas are ok with different point of views, they are ok with lifestyles which don't result in 'spreading of the tribe' (i.e. abortion, LGBTQ etc), they are less religious, pro-infrastructure spending (because a fire brigade can serve a LOT of people).
Rural areas are more religious, self-reliant, pro-guns, anti things which don't spread the tribe.
In European democracies, this results in primarily urban driven policies, whereas in the US this results in a constant rural-urban divide and struggle.
This is an amazing response. Thank you. I might also add that income equality in America is at peak, and as COVID laid bare America has no clothes, were most people are 1 Paycheck away from bankruptcy, while billionaires are still winning from the stop market. You need a heavily militarized police force to maintain peace in such an unqeual environment
> You need a heavily militarized police force to maintain peace in such an unqeual environment
There are many reasons why this argument does not hold water. In every economic system inequality feels terrible. People don't really have an absolute scale of inequality where they get upset if it crosses a certain threshold. It's all a matter of how much do they believe they can achieve the top spot.
A starving artist doesn't get super upset at wealth and the lavish parties of a successful artist because he truly believes that one day he'll get there. Tomorrow Jay-Z could become world's first trillionaire but a struggling hip-hop star would still not support high taxation on his assets.
The resentment starts when he believes that achieving that high status is not possible (which is not true for America) OR when he loses the existing status (i.e status loss).
The status loss theory explains things like Communist revolutions, rise of Christianity in the decline of Roman Empire far more than income inequality.
In fact in the United States, people at the low end of income almost never support the income inequality theory, it's almost always done by high social status non-religious left-liberals. For the people at the low end of income curve (but not like starving actors/artist/authors) believe that in the US, people have a shot at becoming rich, but because of loss of economic opportunity due to globalization, immigration etc has resulted in creation of this situation.
As a rural in the USA, I see it quite differently. Urban areas are hard left, and rural areas are a smattering of everything. I have never been attacked for my beliefs in rural areas, and yet I have in urban ones. There is a huge divide, but to assert yourself unquestionably on the right side paints how you view your position in the world. Stop demonizing what you don't understand, or you are very much the root of the problem.
> Stop demonizing what you don't understand, or you are very much the root of the problem
I don't really understand your agitation here to my comment. Yes, right now liberals aren't open to new ideas and conservatives are, but traditionally (and its well documented) liberals are open to new ideas and experiences but conservatives aren't. This doesn't mean anything other than what it says there.
The liberal-urban nexus and conservative-rural nexus is defined by their circumstances. You can choose to not keep a gun while living in the rural area, but you definitely have trouble keeping a gun in the urban area.
If you live in the rural area you can have many-many kids without an extra pressure on resources or you may choose to have fewer kids, whereas in the urban areas you need to be a lot more rich to have that 3rd kid because the resource pressure is so great.
Do those of you downvoting me, do you think it's because I think those officers are innocent or something?
They are guilty.
I also think there are many people using this tragedy as an excuse to commit crime and somehow justify their behavior via a bifurcation of their world view.
Are you applying your beliefs about a group (the police in this case) at an individual level or in one broad stroke? Is not the definition of bias / prejudice (racism as a subset?) essentially applying beliefs at the group level rather than the individual level?
When cops break the law, and that's what they're doing here, they destroy faith in the justice system, in rule of law.
What's crime? Is looting a Target, crime? Sure, according to tons of various laws in the USA, it is. Think about it another way though - there's a pile of food, more food than anybody could possibly eat before it spoils. In fact, lots of it does get thrown away, because it spoils. You're hungry, you walk up, take some, eat it, and leave. Did you just do something unethical? You take a TV, a pure form of entertainment and nothing more. Did you just do something Bad? Hm. Maybe, if I followed a very very long chain of events, I could say that the taking of the TV meant a CEO got to buy 1/100th less TVs for himself, sure, that's kinda bad I guess.
Is it... worst than someone with a state-sponsored monopoly on violence doing, well, any of the following? :
There is no "excused crime" happening here. It's people recognizing that the rule of law is broken, that those with the Most Might are doing as they please, and telling themselves "well fuck it, I'm going to get a TV then."
Expectation of the citizenry to, uh, "respect property rights" (lmfao) is absurd when we don't even expect our police to respect the rights of People to exist without violence being committed against them.
So in short, who gives a fuck if target loses TVs - until we solve police brutality to the point that every cop is held criminally accountable for unethical violence, I say let it all burn, because the harm done by a looted target is immeasurably less than even a single instance of police brutality.
There was some pretty awful things happening on the live streams last night.
I'm surprised by how many people streamed themselves committing crimes. Are they ignorant or just dumb? The police just started taking pictures of everyone
There are. But one would hope the police would hold themselves to a higher standard than an angry mob: that's supposedly why we give them weapons. Seeing them lash out at whoever looks at them the wrong way, it's become clear they have no such integrity.
How about instigators? Are you aware of white supremacists? I saw a video with a white guy breaking windows with a hammer and protesters chased him away. These tactics have been used before.
That is not to say that there aren’t bad actors on each side, there are. I didn’t like the looting but I think its nothing compared to how systematically broken things are.
Im white and I do break the law here and there, minor stuff and sometimes by accident: going above speed limit or smoking pot. If i were not white it’s likely that I would have ended up in jail.
When I was younger I’d do stupid things like trespass some propery with my friends, for fun. We would be caught sometimes and let go with a warning. They understood we were kids doing stupid stuff. Well, i dont need to tell you what would have happened if I was black, you probably know..
I'm white, I've been in jail (not prison), I've been put to the ground by an officer, I was doing dumb shit when I was a dumb shit.
But as soon as you introduce color, aren't you seeing color and preventing the fundamental problem from fading away?
You can't force it away, you have to teach it away, right?
Do children see color naturally or do we teach them how? Where are they primarily learning this? (I suspect from video screens more so than IRL, sources widely varied)
Moving abroad / long term travels are the best way to realize we are all the same, have the same basic dreams and desires, that there are bad apples in all walks of life, and is really a great way to lose prejudice, myself a case in point, but most who travel (beyond site seeing) relate this transformation
I absolutely agree with that but this view is limited to a subgroup who can empathise. The reality is in multiple modes, competition and all for oneself’s interests is generally a frequently met philosphy to a quite large subgroup and thats a human nature thing. Only when we all realize that it’s better for all of us if we’re not predominantly ruled by psychopaths and narcisits maybe things will turn around
I see you've edited your comment to add colors where I had not. You did claim to be white at the time, is that still the case? I only brought up that I was because you had, but have since removed that statement. Which version (white or not) supports your narrative better? A little disingenuous don't ya think?
I spoke of the broad variety of people involved in a sibling comment, did you consider my comments at large to gain perspective or chose things in isolation to support your world view?
Im white, of Eastern European origin and a US immigrant. Fortunately not very bigoted due to my opennnes to experiences which opened my eyes.
I did not add color to my edit but probably corrected some error, i type on my phone and also miss words.
As a veteran this hits me particularly hard. This kind of force goes beyond most uses of force I personally used in Afghanistan and Iraq, actual fighting being the exception. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’d be brought up on charges if we treated nonviolent people the way these videos portray.
It's unbelievable - you'd absolutely be brought up on charges if you used tear gas, which is clearly prohibited during war.
Hundreds of tear gas canisters got fired off at US citizens by police last night, though.
Insane.
Sounds like a good way to get looters to disperse without further violence. What am I missing?
> “Tear gas is considered a riot control agent because the effects dissipate a short time after exposure,’’ said Kelsey Davenport, director for nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association. “But even though the effects of tear gas wear off, its symptoms are harsh and terrifying, including severe eye irritations and difficulty breathing.
> “The United States may justify firing tear gas [...] as legal, but the decision to use an indiscriminate, psychologically terrifying toxic chemical was excessive and certainly immoral."
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/11/27/tear-gas-forb...
The acoup blog has an amazingly detailed post on chemical weapons and the reasons behind their disuse today:
https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-ch...
TLDR: They hit you just as hard as they hit the enemy and they are wildly unpredictable.
> ...if we treated nonviolent people the way these videos portray.
A lot of the videos portray violent rioters/looters. A lot of the ones of the police are ambiguous because they don't show what behavior warranted the police reaction.
I've also seen a lot of videos of peaceful protests with police walking/talking/marching with the protesters.
We do justice a disservice when we lump everyone and every precinct together.
https://streamable.com/u2jzoo
I don't think the core sentiment of these protests is "literally every cop is evil".
Rather, the repeatedly demonstrated fact that the system is willing to protect the "bad apples" (read: outright thugs) corrupts the entire policing system and undermines its legitimacy, regardless of how many benign officers there are.
https://imgur.com/gallery/iFMweYc
> A lot of the videos portray violent rioters/looters.
I've yet to see an instance of this that wasn't precipitated by cops showing up in ironman armor to a peaceful protest and firing on people with all sorts of military-police toys.
The violent instigators are the cops, across America. Even Target came out and said "whatever, our shit's insured, this problem with the cops needs to be solved."
Here's just one example: https://www.whec.com/rochester-new-york-news/rpd-asking-for-...
Animals.
Animals? Lemme guess, thin blue line, thugs, etc?
How about credit where credit is due - systemic police racism, and when that was protested, insane amounts of police brutality.
All people had to do was not be racist.
I'm talking about the video I linked. Did you watch it?
The looters in this video are acting like animals.
More links to the same incident: https://twitter.com/PatrolRpd/status/1267202275895803904 https://streamable.com/ibwexe?fbclid=IwAR3Kmn22FzFgxAHTxNfiu...
I've only ever heard protesters described as "animals" by people that are also happy to throw around the word "thug" and smugly pretend both aren't racist dogwhistles.
You are attempting to put a positive spin on their behavior by calling them protesters.
No. They are rioters and looters, and guilty of aggravated battery.
This has nothing to do with race. It has to do with behavior.
The Geneva Convention permits the use of tear gas for non military crowd control purposes. It's use is simply prohibited for military purposes. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/aug/26/facebook-p...
You provide a link that directly contradicts your claim.
First of all, the Geneva Conventions (plural) are about treatment of prisoners of war, not agents or munitions used.
Your given link refers to the Chemical Weapons convention, but its scope is specific to wartime use between combatants.
The Hague convention has munitions provisions, but the USA is not a signatory.
There are multiple Geneva Conventions, true. One of them deals with POWs. Other Conventions deal with other war-related topics. If you want to be technical about it, the one prohibiting the use of gas is formally known as the Geneva Protocol.
I linked to the CWC because that is the relevant international convention allowing for the use of tear gas in non-military contexts. IOW, the GP creates the ban, but the CWC provides an exception.)
This abuse of power is the direct result of the militarization of our police force.
I say we take away their guns.
If a suspect is brandishing a firearm, they can call in a separate unit allowed to carry weapons.
Also, no more riot gear. The police can’t be trusted with it. Let the national guard have it, but train them for emergency response, not hunting down crooks.
If you can't trust the police with guns or riot gear then what is the point of them. If all they are reduced to are official naggers then they will end up having to call the actual police (the people who are allowed to have guns and riot gear) and the actual police will end up doing what the current police do. A better solution would be to provide better training and enforcement of police behavior.
You can't trust most people with a gun. That's the problem. Guns also bring tension to most situations. How often do you visit people with a pistol attached to your hip? Do they all go, "Oh, yeah, feel even safer now that you're here." Probably not - they're worried you're going to do something stupid and shoot them.
No one I know feels safer with armed police around and tensions frequently escalate with them around. We all go, "this man has a gun and could kill us - he will do it too because he knows he will get away clean and free."
Training isn't sufficient. If there are real consequences for police and it shows that they face the same consequences the rest of us do for many years - maybe then. But that day will not be for 10+ years. For now, it's much easier to say and act on taking away their weapons that are meant to kill people.
In fact I do feel safer when the security guard in front of my kid's school is armed. That security guard has been trained and will suffer big consequences if he uses the gun improperly.
I guess that if you feel unsafe around armed security guards I can't argue with your feelings
What if he's a bad shot, tries to aim at and hit the perp doing a shooting and ends up killing more people than the actual shooter?
Then he is investigated and the court decides if he is liable for manslaughter, murder or nothing. Similar to a soldier who killed people from their country, nuclear engineers who caused a meltdown, or bus drivers who got into a deadly accident.
You have just described the British and Japanese police. They police just fine from the crime rates.
There's two sides to every story. And every business/organization has bad apples. Achieving perfection becomes order of magnitudes more expensive the closer you are to achieving it, so some level of acceptance that factors economic cost must be reached. The police are humans too. Knowing people are throwing Molotov Cocktails and bricks at police cars, I wouldn't sit still in my car if people, I mean, a mob (mentality) surrounded it. Self preservation.
My theory on why the police need to use some level of brutality is because a mob mentality is an animal. It's an amorphous mammalian manifestation that is afraid of loud noises, pain, and losing it's ability to breath easily. So they use counterpart tools to control it, because when this animal cant be controlled, the whole city could be be razed in flames. (As an example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Los_Angeles_riots#Destruc... )
Im not excusing shitty behavior, but it's worth considering there are millions of events going on in these protests, and all the excess force ones fit in a bullet list on my monitor. Also, in many of the listed events, the cops told people to move away or go back inside repeatedly before taking action. From their perspective, keeping battle formation is necessary to success. And lawfully, you are supposed to comply with this demand.
Just things to consider. I hope I'm not gut-reaction-down voted for taking the middle ground.
The problem is that, by your definition, the police are turning into an animal too. They're supposed to be better than that and work to lower the tension, but instead they react and escalate things. If they can't be better than that, we shouldn't be paying them and giving them guns. And we shouldn't be exempting them from prosecution for their actions.
The police are too organized IMO to be acting like an animal (barring the bad apples). I also don't view the police force as one identity, just like (I imagine) you don't view the protesters by the actions of the rioters. It doesn't help that the police all dress the same, so the brain lumps all of them into one identity, and people focus on the bad actions of the few.
They are in an incredibly difficult situation, and putting their lives at risk. I think there are plenty of cops who care about their community, but they do what they have to do because there is no efficient way to communicate to or painlessly control an emotional mob of people (plus bad actors climbing out of the woodwork to cause harm to the community). When you talk to a mob, you aren't talking to anyone.
> I also don't view the police force as one identity
I'm sorry, what? They are literally an organization. With uniforms. The entire point is that they're supposed to be one entity. If they can't even act as one entity - much less one that, I don't know, helps people - then why do they get to wear the uniform at all?
> When you talk to a mob, you aren't talking to anyone.
They don't have to talk. They can show through their actions that they're willing to de-escalate the violence. Here's one that did: https://twitter.com/SCr_conserv/status/1266885805328355333
You know where the expression "bad apples" came from, right? A few bad apples spoil the bunch. In other words, if there are a couple of rotten apples in a barrel, it spreads quickly to the whole barrel. In other words, it's important to find and throw out the bad apples immediately or you'll have to throw out the whole barrel a few days later.
People are not apples obviously. Bad people may influence bad behavior, but the reverse it true too. Good behavior may influence good behavior. Some people are independent and are less influenced by others.
And, in organizations, change comes from the top. As I said, reaching perfection is prohibitively expensive.
>People are not apples
Indeed. With our greater-than-apple intelligence, we should expect cops to sort out the bad apples themselves. Not close ranks and ostracize colleagues who speak up against the bad apples.
When you have great power and knowledge, inaction is being complicit.
I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone defend police and not use the "bad apples" expression for some reason.
I think the expression "it's only a few bad apples" started out as an ironic expression but got picked up by those who missed the irony. You're right, I do see it applied this way to police everywhere. And it's a self-defeating argument every time.
Keep in mind, the middle might be very narorw.
Just last year, in the official Christmas Tree in Minneapolis precinct 4 headquarters, discarded malt liquor containers and menthol cigarette packages were used as ornaments:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/12/racist-christmas...
What perspective make you happy about taking a middle road around a police force, and society, that tolerated this? The police haven’t needed to hide their outright motives: it’s race, whether it’s killing someone or decorating a Christmas tree. Other officers don’t speak up. Enjoy the privilege, I do and am more than aware.
I don't know man, it really doesn't have to be this way. Look at how people respond when authority figures act like human beings: https://twitter.com/RexChapman/status/1267107339833925634
Imagine if the police showed up and started handing out water bottles, rather than assaulting unarmed (but angry) citizens. I think you'd see a different response.
Imagine if the police were trained to remain passive even when struck. A few violent protesters would strike the police, but if they remained passive I don't think it would take the sight of very many passive cops getting beaten up before the crowd would turn on the violent protesters and protect the cops. Seeing someone getting beaten without defending themselves triggers a very powerful gut reaction in people, even when the victim is 'the enemy'.
It appears that officer is not talking to a mob, but to dozens of calm people. Different situation. If people are already screaming and shouting, or worse, breaking things, and there are hundreds of them, that wont work.
>Imagine if the police were trained to remain passive even when struck.
Tell me how much it would cost to train a police force to that level of self control, and to be able identify, in a split second, if the person is attempting to do serious harm to you or is just blowing off steam. Once a person is close enough, there are plenty of blind spots to pull a knife out of.
>the crowd would turn on the violent protesters and protect the cops
Crowd psychology overrides individual identity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowd_psychology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_mentality
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_intelligence
It's interesting to compare the present issues with policing with those of about a month ago:
https://twitter.com/TyreeBP/status/1256813343764918272
Granted, the number of people is ~100x different. Still, examples like the tweet above illustrate that the needed 'self control' has existed within about a pay-period or two.
This is not a gut reaction, this is as calm as I can be:
You're justifying police brutality. Period.
Cops don't get to brutally assault us citizens because they're not complying. That's some third world behavior and your comment, under the guise of considering both sides, is tacitly condoning this.
For the record, I don't condone looting or property desctruction. But there are plenty of videos circulating right now that have peaceful protestors that are being assault by cops, cause they make their job a bit harder.
Great, so, let's ask an important question: Why were the cops there at all? Apparently, as videos come out, every protest was peaceful until the cops turned up in avenger armor.
So, there you go. This explains it. Police now has the license for whatever because battle formation is needed. That's what they needed to do to pin down George Floyd. Teach others a lesson
The protests might lead to real change and save lives.
The riots will get people killed and are destroying businesses.
Events like this are as bad as the original event https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/22-arrested-60-l...
If this has deteriorated to an eye for an eye I'm not sure where it will end. I hope things get better before there is more loss of life.
It's a tough situation for police too. On one hand, how to you stop those taking advantage of the situation by looting/burning? On the other hand, how do they show tolerance for non-aggressive civil disobedience?
Should anyone breaking curfew be subject to rough treatment? Should the police stand idle while people burn and loot? How can peaceful protesters be protected while looters/abusers are using them as shields for their activities?
PS: If replying, please be civil!
Yes, gentleness and civility is appreciated for sure.
The protests are happening because the police have made a habit of treating the people as the enemy. So policing as usual, with excessive displays of force just because they can get away with it, will do nothing to quell the violence.
I think the way forward is let police do what they need to, but also allow the people to prosecute police when they step out of bounds. The current culture of protecting abusers among the police needs to go away.
Yes, this sounds like a workable path to a better future. The prevalence of cameras and incident footage would steer justice in the right direction IMO. Only if police lose the protection from prosecution.
If that happens we’d see how easy things will “fix” themselves, the police will police themselves too
The lawyers defending the cops would be paid by tax payers, correct ?
If I am not mistaken, fines, if imposed on the cops would be paid using tax payer's money too.
In general, I think the problem that we have in the US is that the militarization of the police forces have upped the conflict when these situations arise.
What generally happens is that protests begin and the police departments move in to shut it down, instead of trying to contain it and let the protesters get their message and frustrations out.
When you see the videos of aggressive action against people who are peacefully protesting, then it causes more frustration and anger with the police which escalates and creates more conflict.
I think the French generally handle protests in a way that allow the protests to proceed until they reach a certain point. Yes, private property is damaged/destroyed (ie cars burning etc), but generally the protests are allowed to proceed.
If the police in our country recognized that people need to protest, to vent their frustrations and contain it to a mostly orderly affair, we might be better off for it.
It is definitely hard to know where to draw the line. But there’s a common rhetorical tactic in situations like these, where it’s hard to know. And that is: to say, well, since we don’t know where to draw the line, then everything is permissible (or everything is forbidden, depending on what side someone is arguing)
But the truth is, while the line may be hard to draw—and in reality, there probably will never be a perfectly defined line—there are always cases that are definitively on one side or the other. And police violence against non-violent protests will always be on the “unacceptable” side, no matter where it ends up being.
Some situations are grey. But it does not follow that all situations are.
You don't attack non-violent protestors or bystanders. You use proportional violence and only as a last resort.
But more importantly, you avoid these kinds of situations by not being an absolutely inhumane and racist police force that should be a disgrace to any nation that calls itself civilized.
I do find it fascinating and a bit scary that you can read this article, watch the linked videos, and then come up with a comment like this though. Is this kind of stuff that normalized in the US?
Yes, unfortunately, it is normalized, even 9 years ago, the UC Davis pepper spray incident shocked people, but we hardly have changed since then.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC_Davis_pepper_spray_incident
If you go to /r/publicfreakout and sort by /rising, you will see LOTS of videos of some rioters being extremely violent.
Two sides to every story.
Peaceful protesters deserve respect and to be heard. Rioters and looters should be dealt with harshly by the law.
Do you not see the dozens of videos on that sub showing protestors being shot, shoved down, tear gassed, for nothing?
> It's a tough situation for police
Pray explain what is so tough about refraining from shooting tear gas canisters right in the face of an unarmed civilian from distance of few tens of meters ?
Probably the same tough behavior that's preventing rioters from burning down poor immigrant small businesses.
Human stupidity and the law of averages.
It would be as easy for the cops as staying home, because that's literally all they have to do to prevent violence in the streets.
https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-proacti...
Is there a specific point at which police are or are not allowed to pepper spray people? Use tasers? Use other hopefully non-lethal force like this? These videos are really sad and I wonder when these actions are actually acceptable.
Such scenes can happen in any country, but when the enemy is the people it just festers and escalates. With great leaders they could deescalate, but Republicans are doubling down all the way now..
Rules of engagement:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_of_engagement
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ending-excessive-pol...
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2014/11/how-police-rules-of-e...
United States is a police state. I said it 20 years ago, people laughed. Now you see if for yourself. American police have positioned themselves as the enemy of the people because they see people as their enemy. And the only way to stop the enemy is by applying brute force. If they're doing all this in front of cameras, imagine what they do when nobody is looking.
Whereas in other countries, such as the UK, police are considered civilians in a uniform and behave accordingly.
How did this come about, is it the consequence of an armed society, or something else unique to Americans?
Militarization of the police following 9/11.
People of color throughout this nation's history would disagree that it only began in 2001.
It's well documented that modern policing in the US began in the model of slave patrols. And it shows.
I think it's more militarization of the police because of easy access to guns (so logically police has to have bigger better gear) and erosion of rights following 9/11 (and the gradual complacency/acceptance of it). Mix in a long history or racism, easy access to information - stir and wait for it to explode.
Or in 1980, Norco California, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norco_shootout#Legacy The police were outgunned by a group of bank robbers.
Racism is a hell of a drug. It's the US's original sin. One it has never truly confronted in any lasting manner.
> One it has never truly confronted in any lasting manner.
I mean, the US has come a long way from chattel slavery, Jim Crow laws, Chinese exclusion acts, Irish exclusion, Italian exclusion, Catholics, etc. It did recently have a black president. Yes it has a very long way to go, but there has been a lot of progress in it's history.
We have a very armed police because we have a very armed populace, and we have a very armed populace because security is your own responsibility, at least in the rural areas (also notice the urban/rural divide, armed populace is in the rural area, and the crazy police stories are from the urban area).
One of the main ways America is so different than Europeans because of its political system. Here we empower rural areas (due to electoral college). Without electoral college, the national policies are what urban policies are. NY state looks just like Canada from a political POV, large urban concentrated center who vote and dictate all the policies, and rural areas don't really get much of a say in state policy.
Urban areas are ok with different point of views, they are ok with lifestyles which don't result in 'spreading of the tribe' (i.e. abortion, LGBTQ etc), they are less religious, pro-infrastructure spending (because a fire brigade can serve a LOT of people).
Rural areas are more religious, self-reliant, pro-guns, anti things which don't spread the tribe.
In European democracies, this results in primarily urban driven policies, whereas in the US this results in a constant rural-urban divide and struggle.
That's an interesting point of view, as a European I've never looked at it as rural/urban divide.
This is an amazing response. Thank you. I might also add that income equality in America is at peak, and as COVID laid bare America has no clothes, were most people are 1 Paycheck away from bankruptcy, while billionaires are still winning from the stop market. You need a heavily militarized police force to maintain peace in such an unqeual environment
> You need a heavily militarized police force to maintain peace in such an unqeual environment
There are many reasons why this argument does not hold water. In every economic system inequality feels terrible. People don't really have an absolute scale of inequality where they get upset if it crosses a certain threshold. It's all a matter of how much do they believe they can achieve the top spot.
A starving artist doesn't get super upset at wealth and the lavish parties of a successful artist because he truly believes that one day he'll get there. Tomorrow Jay-Z could become world's first trillionaire but a struggling hip-hop star would still not support high taxation on his assets.
The resentment starts when he believes that achieving that high status is not possible (which is not true for America) OR when he loses the existing status (i.e status loss).
The status loss theory explains things like Communist revolutions, rise of Christianity in the decline of Roman Empire far more than income inequality.
In fact in the United States, people at the low end of income almost never support the income inequality theory, it's almost always done by high social status non-religious left-liberals. For the people at the low end of income curve (but not like starving actors/artist/authors) believe that in the US, people have a shot at becoming rich, but because of loss of economic opportunity due to globalization, immigration etc has resulted in creation of this situation.
As a rural in the USA, I see it quite differently. Urban areas are hard left, and rural areas are a smattering of everything. I have never been attacked for my beliefs in rural areas, and yet I have in urban ones. There is a huge divide, but to assert yourself unquestionably on the right side paints how you view your position in the world. Stop demonizing what you don't understand, or you are very much the root of the problem.
The Sikhs that got killed for wearing turbans after 9/11/2001 weren't living in SF, LA or NY.
https://www.cnn.com/2016/09/15/us/sikh-hate-crime-victims/in...
> Stop demonizing what you don't understand, or you are very much the root of the problem
I don't really understand your agitation here to my comment. Yes, right now liberals aren't open to new ideas and conservatives are, but traditionally (and its well documented) liberals are open to new ideas and experiences but conservatives aren't. This doesn't mean anything other than what it says there.
The liberal-urban nexus and conservative-rural nexus is defined by their circumstances. You can choose to not keep a gun while living in the rural area, but you definitely have trouble keeping a gun in the urban area.
If you live in the rural area you can have many-many kids without an extra pressure on resources or you may choose to have fewer kids, whereas in the urban areas you need to be a lot more rich to have that 3rd kid because the resource pressure is so great.
Let’s be very clear, police are assaulting citizens in order to protect capital. Police protect capital not humans.
Slave patrols was another instance of protecting 'capital'.
> in order to protect capital
Doesn't look so to me.
instead I think it's because those policemen (which are not all policemen) enjoy being others.
I forgot about that, and how pissed it made me.
Also forgot how people revenge killed good, innocent cops
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/cops-shot-bro...
Do those of you downvoting me, do you think it's because I think those officers are innocent or something?
They are guilty.
I also think there are many people using this tragedy as an excuse to commit crime and somehow justify their behavior via a bifurcation of their world view.
Are you applying your beliefs about a group (the police in this case) at an individual level or in one broad stroke? Is not the definition of bias / prejudice (racism as a subset?) essentially applying beliefs at the group level rather than the individual level?
> excuse to commit crime
When cops break the law, and that's what they're doing here, they destroy faith in the justice system, in rule of law.
What's crime? Is looting a Target, crime? Sure, according to tons of various laws in the USA, it is. Think about it another way though - there's a pile of food, more food than anybody could possibly eat before it spoils. In fact, lots of it does get thrown away, because it spoils. You're hungry, you walk up, take some, eat it, and leave. Did you just do something unethical? You take a TV, a pure form of entertainment and nothing more. Did you just do something Bad? Hm. Maybe, if I followed a very very long chain of events, I could say that the taking of the TV meant a CEO got to buy 1/100th less TVs for himself, sure, that's kinda bad I guess.
Is it... worst than someone with a state-sponsored monopoly on violence doing, well, any of the following? :
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23373619
There is no "excused crime" happening here. It's people recognizing that the rule of law is broken, that those with the Most Might are doing as they please, and telling themselves "well fuck it, I'm going to get a TV then."
Expectation of the citizenry to, uh, "respect property rights" (lmfao) is absurd when we don't even expect our police to respect the rights of People to exist without violence being committed against them.
So in short, who gives a fuck if target loses TVs - until we solve police brutality to the point that every cop is held criminally accountable for unethical violence, I say let it all burn, because the harm done by a looted target is immeasurably less than even a single instance of police brutality.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23371796.
Are there videos where protesters are beyond acceptable behavior? Rioters? I doubt this is a one way street by any measure.
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/cops-shot-bro...
There was some pretty awful things happening on the live streams last night.
I'm surprised by how many people streamed themselves committing crimes. Are they ignorant or just dumb? The police just started taking pictures of everyone
There are. But one would hope the police would hold themselves to a higher standard than an angry mob: that's supposedly why we give them weapons. Seeing them lash out at whoever looks at them the wrong way, it's become clear they have no such integrity.
More have died in the riots now right?
How about instigators? Are you aware of white supremacists? I saw a video with a white guy breaking windows with a hammer and protesters chased him away. These tactics have been used before.
That is not to say that there aren’t bad actors on each side, there are. I didn’t like the looting but I think its nothing compared to how systematically broken things are.
Im white and I do break the law here and there, minor stuff and sometimes by accident: going above speed limit or smoking pot. If i were not white it’s likely that I would have ended up in jail.
When I was younger I’d do stupid things like trespass some propery with my friends, for fun. We would be caught sometimes and let go with a warning. They understood we were kids doing stupid stuff. Well, i dont need to tell you what would have happened if I was black, you probably know..
I'm white, I've been in jail (not prison), I've been put to the ground by an officer, I was doing dumb shit when I was a dumb shit.
But as soon as you introduce color, aren't you seeing color and preventing the fundamental problem from fading away?
You can't force it away, you have to teach it away, right?
Do children see color naturally or do we teach them how? Where are they primarily learning this? (I suspect from video screens more so than IRL, sources widely varied)
I guess from being treated like dirt and excluded. This can happen to white males too, but is systematic against how people where born and look.
If you move abroad, the same can happen to you.
Moving abroad / long term travels are the best way to realize we are all the same, have the same basic dreams and desires, that there are bad apples in all walks of life, and is really a great way to lose prejudice, myself a case in point, but most who travel (beyond site seeing) relate this transformation
I absolutely agree with that but this view is limited to a subgroup who can empathise. The reality is in multiple modes, competition and all for oneself’s interests is generally a frequently met philosphy to a quite large subgroup and thats a human nature thing. Only when we all realize that it’s better for all of us if we’re not predominantly ruled by psychopaths and narcisits maybe things will turn around
We will stop glorifying narcissists and psychopathic systems after they make the world burn. Their positive traits turn destructive in excess.
Most people abroad are friendly. Makes one think why we hang on to old conceptions and limited beliefs, and instead meet people "as new".
I see you've edited your comment to add colors where I had not. You did claim to be white at the time, is that still the case? I only brought up that I was because you had, but have since removed that statement. Which version (white or not) supports your narrative better? A little disingenuous don't ya think?
I spoke of the broad variety of people involved in a sibling comment, did you consider my comments at large to gain perspective or chose things in isolation to support your world view?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23372896
Im white, of Eastern European origin and a US immigrant. Fortunately not very bigoted due to my opennnes to experiences which opened my eyes. I did not add color to my edit but probably corrected some error, i type on my phone and also miss words.
> Are you aware of white supremacists? I saw a video with a white guy breaking windows with a hammer and protesters chased him away.
Why did you imply that guy was a white supremicist? What ever evidence do you have?
Video in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vurPRZbLvc
This channel is pretty good: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVKDKWKR498Ut2m8H5oUEcA