(06-03-2020, 08:05 PM)Dill Wrote: One could plausibly say now that "riots changed nothing" in Ferguson, but a Dem DOJ might get reform back on track.

(06-03-2020, 08:05 PM)Dill Wrote: People have to see how these reforms, and their maintenance, are connected to the leaders we choose. Stop saying "nothing changes" and "nothing can be done."  I've lived long enough to witness a tremendous transformation of our national culture on race issues. I've also lived long enough to know this only means that the battle is not over, for that transformation also produced a tremendous whitelash.

(06-03-2020, 08:05 PM)Dill Wrote: Final point--you are still giving too much power to Trump/Breitbart. Just as the civil rights struggle generated Whitelash, it has likely reached its high water mark and is now receding before  a broad coalition of opponents.

2️⃣3️⃣1️⃣: Buffalo, NY: police arrest a man *while he's being interviewed by the press* *with his hands in the air*

Lawlessness

pic.twitter.com/26l4yzWhnU

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) June 4, 2020

1️⃣3️⃣2️⃣ Buffalo, NY: police and National Guard swarm in like Keystone Kops to beat and arrest some people, but then run away as an SUV drives through them and hits at least one officer

pic.twitter.com/ufiLsfsxrk

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) June 2, 2020

(06-04-2020, 10:49 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: god damn, this whole twitter account from GMDino's last few posts is ridiculous. So many peaceful protestors being assaulted

2️⃣3️⃣1️⃣: Buffalo, NY: police arrest a man *while he's being interviewed by the press* *with his hands in the air*

Lawlessness

pic.twitter.com/26l4yzWhnU

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) June 4, 2020

This was a guy being interviewed by the media. There's another video from the media's point of view too.

He's just talking and about 5 guys ***** tackle him from behind, swing batons at everyone else, and threaten them with dogs.

(06-04-2020, 11:16 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/06/03/george-floyd-protests-police-destroy-medic-station-asheville/3124847001/

Cops destroyed a medic station, smashing and stabbing water bottles and other medical supplies, totaling $700.

The cops claimed they warned the medic station multiple times that it could not be there and said they were worried that those supplies would be thrown at the cops or that explosives where in there...

The medics said the cops never warned them, that they were told by the department that they could be there to treat the wounded, and that they did not know that the restaurants who gave them permission to use that space did not own the building of the alley they were in.

Quote:POLICE PROBE 

Cop faces sack after peaceful protester claims an officer threatened to spray tear gas at his two-year-old son








POLICE have launched a review after a protester captured in a dramatic viral picture told The Sun how cops fired weapons around him and his two-year-old son - and one officer allegedly threatened to spray tear gas at the little boy.
Dontae Parks, 29, attended a peaceful protest against the death of George Floyd in Long Beach, California, with his toddler son, where he was captured in a shocking image facing off with a police officer brandishing a rubber bullet gun seemingly inches from their faces.

8
This dramatic picture of Dontae and his son has been shared on social media by people all over the worldCredit: Richard Grant


In an exclusive interview on Wednesday, Dontae told how one officer threatened to spray tear gas while others fired bullets right in front of them.

And in video footage shared with The Sun cops can be seen loading weapons and firing bullets all around them - while in another, fellow protesters can be heard begging cops not to gas the child, shouting: "What's the matter with you? You are a monster! You are really going to gas this child? What about your child?"

Now Long Beach Police Department have responded to the claims - labelling them "disturbing" and pledging to launch a "review".

In a statement to The Sun, a spokesperson said: "The Long Beach Police Department is aware of the image posted to social media of a crowd control police officer and a man with a child on his shoulders during Sunday's civil unrest.


8
Dontae and his son attended Sunday's protest in Long BeachCredit: Dontae Parks

8
The two-year-old wore a baby Batman costumeCredit: Dontae Parks

"We agree the image is disturbing and we all share the community’s concerns for the safety of the child, the peaceful demonstrators, and the officers.

"While the review of the incident is underway, we do know that this image was taken at the time that violent disrupters were throwing bottles and pyrotechnics that could cause great bodily injury to anyone in the area.

"We are reviewing all of the related video footage to determine the facts of the situation. The item depicted in the image is a less than lethal launcher."

They added: "LBPD will continue to protect and support individuals expressing their Constitutional rights, but will not tolerate violence against our community members or officers."

Dontae earlier told how he found the police's behavior "uncalled for".


"It did very much upset me," he said. "It was a peaceful protest and, yes, there were looters down the street that were doing God who knows what.


"But at the same time, I feel it's uncalled for - I don't think they should be firing any type of weapons especially in a crowd where there is a peaceful protest and there's a child near by.

"The officer in the photo - he should not be a cop at all."

8
In dramatic video shared with The Sun, cops can be seen firing rubber bullets around Dontae and his sonCredit: Dontae Parks

8
Cops warned Dontae to go home but he said he wanted to exercise his right to peacefully protestCredit: Dontae Parks


Dontae, who works as a welder, defended his decision to take the youngster to the protest - after he received criticism from some who said he put his son in danger.


"I saw a post about a peaceful protest so I decided to go over and I wanted my son to be there with me so he can see what's really going on and appeal for justice for our people and all races," he said.


"There was a lot of looting going on but not everyone was there to cause a ruckus, you have stupid people doing that but we were there to stand up for the people.


"I'm a great father and I take care of my son and I'm raising him to be great.


"A lot of people might think I put my son in danger by being there, but I know I wouldn't let anything happen to him, and when it started to get really dangerous, we went home."

8
George Floyd died after a police officer knelt on his neck during an arrest in MinneapolisCredit: Handout

8
Thousands took to the streets of Long Beach to protest Floyd's deathCredit: AFP or licensors


Dontae also believes that he wouldn't have had the same reactions from cops if he was white, saying: "Definitely...if me and my son were white I don't think that cop would have threatened to spray the gas.


"It would have been a whole different scenario and that's another reason I was there.


"I'm tired of the injustice that goes on in the world today with color.


"I'm not one to say 'It's because I'm black these things happen' but it happens repeatedly. It's all over social media people of color dying, it's become normal, it's like 'Oh another day, another black person got killed, carry on'."


Dontae said he wanted to make it clear that he didn't want the picture or his experiences to spark any more violence - and there are other peaceful ways to bring about change.


"I'm a peaceful guy and I avoid confrontation," he said.


"But we need change - I feel like they can't just let anyone be a cop, I feel like a lawyer has to go to school and do a lot of years of education, I feel like it should be the same with cops.


"You can't just give someone a gun and expect them to save the world, that's not how it goes."


Photographer Richard Grant earlier described the image as "the most impactful picture I have ever taken".

8
Crowds of protesters standing against the killing of George Floyd have gathered in cities across the US over recent days.


George Floyd died on May 25 after getting arrested for allegedly trying to use a fake $20 bill to buy cigarettes.
[/url]
While in police custody, [url=https://www.the-sun.com/news/893466/derek-chauvin-george-floyd-minneapolis-police-fired/]former Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin held his knee on Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes — while Floyd repeatedly said he couldn't breathe and then died.

(06-04-2020, 02:01 PM)GMDino Wrote: So a little follow up here:

1) The child had a mask.
2) The protest was peaceful. 
3) There were looters in another area but the police decided to shoot rubber bullets at the peaceful protesters instead.

https://www.the-sun.com/news/930715/police-investigation-protester-cop-tear-gas-son-george-floyd/

(06-04-2020, 02:30 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: I heard someone telling their tale of protesting in southern California. He described a scene in which police had their backs to and were ignoring looters and focusing their attention on peaceful protesters. He describe ways in which the crowd of protesters tried to cooperate with police and it resulted in them being hemmed in and gassed. I don't know how much of his tale was true, but if it was it is a disturbing image of a police force attacking individuals for exercising their rights and ignoring people breaking the law in order to do so.

(06-04-2020, 10:23 AM)hollodero Wrote: I disagree though a bit when it comes to your historical analysis. Yeah you had that whole cowboy and settler history that was gun-affine and violent for sure. But we Europeans had enough frontiers. We used to lead war against each other all the time, big ones and smaller ones. Eg. around 1800 Napoleon came along. Tyroleans, which you mentioned as an example of peaceful idyll, became proud self-defending partisans in that time and feel that history until this day, eg. 65.000 guns are registered in that part of our country alone. We have enough history of violence and death and destruction, it wasn't all peaceful and placid easy living here either. In the end, say 1945, we stood at the ruins of our civilizations after two world wars that braught the most severe inhumanity in human history and devastated the continent once again.

We did not make an everyday experience out of guns though, we never made it a symbol like you did, we also were not taught to be aware of murderous intruders all the time. Michael Moore (who I generally do not like) mentioned TV series like "cops", and I think that might be a fair point, we don't have this kind of indoctrination that death awaits us and our families on every corner and in our homes and only a gun can protect good people. We sure have a whole different attitude towards them and a few things are more puzzling tzhan seeing those right-wing gun nuts that take to the streets like this was Falludja.

Oh we do have quite a lot of hunter vs. poacher stories though, and they usually end bloody. (Of course we also have all the western films you mentioned and know all those; some are even Italian.)
Also, "Gendarm" would be the word probably.

(06-04-2020, 10:43 AM)hollodero Wrote: I didn't say nothing can be done. I am pessimiistic regarding the current situation though. I have to say, one reason for that for me is that it is not really clear what specifically should be achieved. As of now, this seems like an "we're pissed" outrage, and while I can totally understand that, it's usually too slim. It would take some organization, maybe even a charismatic leader in the likes of a MLK, which you do not have now; as you don't seem to sport too many tangible demands as basis for debate and negotiations.

I hope you're right, and if Trump loses reelection I might agree. But as of now, I don't quite know how you can say that. As long as 90% of republicans think Trump is a genius and the swellest guy, as long as the votes he brings are enough to pocket all but one republican senator (and possibly the whole republican house), I think the Breitbart wing is particularly influential. Not Breitbart per se maybe, but Trump and FOX breitbarted the whole conservative wing and this is who the other sides is consisting of right now, of Breitbarts and Trumps and the more radical FOX news figures that shape US policy at this moment. You don't get to solve problems with negotiators like bfine, you get to solve problems with negotiators like Lucie. And that's the current forlom reality of things, isn't it.

(06-04-2020, 11:16 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/06/03/george-floyd-protests-police-destroy-medic-station-asheville/3124847001/

Cops destroyed a medic station, smashing and stabbing water bottles and other medical supplies, totaling $700.

The cops claimed they warned the medic station multiple times that it could not be there and said they were worried that those supplies would be thrown at the cops or that explosives where in there...

The medics said the cops never warned them, that they were told by the department that they could be there to treat the wounded, and that they did not know that the restaurants who gave them permission to use that space did not own the building of the alley they were in.

(06-04-2020, 06:00 PM)Dill Wrote: Jeezus. Fresh fodder for outrage.

Isn't there a room somewhere where all these guys meet together before going out on the street, and someone called "sarge" gets in front of them to define their mission and warn them against behavior detrimental to the department and bad for public's view of the police?

They do that on tv.  Or maybe night after night sarge is just telling them to "crack heads" and "dominate the streets"--orders from on high?

(06-04-2020, 07:28 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: Some people another county over were hanging up flyers memorializing George Floyd when a man on a bike attacked them, yelling that they were deviants and inciting riots.

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/victim-posting-racial-injustice-flyers-assaulted-by-cyclist-on-capital-crescent-trail/2322251/

In the video you can see him corner a girl who may be 10 or 11, grab her arm, and rip the flyers from her hands and roll of tape from her arm. He then grabs his bike, charges the person filming, and knocks them over.

The MAGA crowd is attacking little girls now? Hopefully the MOCO PD finds him.

(06-04-2020, 07:21 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: the man who filmed Ahmaud Arbery's murder admitted to prosecutors that as they chased him with their cars, he hit Arbery hard enough to dent his car. After the son shot Arbery, he stood over him and taunted him with a racial slur...

and the cops let this sit for 3 months...

(06-04-2020, 05:48 PM)Dill Wrote: This is a process.  No one should be thinking there is some one thing to fix a nationwide problem and someone should be out there hawking it now. "Tangible demands" come, as Obama pointed out, from the local level.  But there have to be municipal, state and federal administrations in place which can receive and implement, not block them.

(06-04-2020, 05:48 PM)Dill Wrote: You are still making too much of the  90% Republicans number, but Republicans are fewer now than in 2012 or 2016. And I remind you, again, that we may leave it to Trump himself to diminish these numbers, a fraction this week (e.g., elderly upset about his coronavirus response), a percentage next (more military members who recognize he does not understand the Constitution).

(06-04-2020, 05:48 PM)Dill Wrote: I don't think your read on Bfine and Lucy is quite right. Bfine will not likely vote for Biden, but I don't think he will vote for Trump either. His defenses of Trump are really more attempts to prevent any cultural or political capital accruing to Democrats.  Other "independents" will do the same.  Not Lucy though. I expect him vote for Trump. (Wish he were still here! His voice enriched the mix.)

(06-04-2020, 04:59 PM)Dill Wrote: So to me, our internationally renowned gun culture has changed in my lifetime. I am not even ready to hypothesize causes, but I suspect it has something to do with the confluence of foreign wars, movies about foreign wars, Whitelash since the Civil Rights Act, attacks by "the Muslims," immigration, and some smart political marketing--all grafted on to the already ingrained self-reliance and readiness to posse up.