[pstuart]

> If we are to trust the cops again, they need to show us they are worthy of trust. And they sure aren’t doing that right now.

What I've seen in the past 2 days is that the police are doubling down on being oppressors, not public servants. I expect it to get much worse before it (possibly) gets better. And it may not get better.

[jariel]

This is not fair at all.

Protest turned to riots, literally burning down police stations. Police action wasn't until much later, and they were perfectly fine with the daytime, civil unrest. During the evening, the 'protestors' went home and the agitators came out to fight police, and that's that.

When people are looting every store on a street, the police have no choice but to physically move in. There are very few options for anyone at that point.

[pstuart]

> This is not fair at all.

Nyet, comrade. My points were perfectly valid and to not acknowledge them is willful ignorance at best.

Black bloc and others are a problem but that actually feeds into what the authorities want, which is to completely suppress protest and civil disobedience.

Challenge: explain away the arrest of compliant CNN reporters on live tv, as well as the intentional targeting of reporters elsewhere (with rubber bullets), and last, but very much not least, the police shooting people in their yards for the act of filming them.

[jariel]

That police, in some instances, act irresponsibly, does not invalidate the absolute need for police to use some degree of force given the prevalence of a variety of violent agitators.

As for the journalist - in a riot situation, people are often detained temporarily as police are clearing areas. Once a riot hits, the police are within their rights to clear out areas. While the legality of temporary detainment varies, you should consider why police are all carrying handfulls of plastic ties ... to detain people.

In some cases, the police were shooting rubber bullets in the direction of protesters wherein there were reporters - there's nothing wrong here.

In some cases, the police were shooting pellets directly at reporters, I don't think this is fair or right, but it still doesn't abnegate the need of cops to be there and to clear people - also - we never know the full details. Maybe the police had warned the crew to leave several times before.

Once things turn into a riot, it's going to be a little bit of a fight, there's no other way about it. If this were 50 years ago there would have been batons cracking heads, thankfully we don't have that. We have have now is actually fairly mundane.

Also, the regular protestors, during the day, are allowed to do as they please generally speaking which is fine.

[pstuart]

So to summarize your assessment: you have no real problem with the state of police conduct in the U.S., and that these protests cause all the trouble.

I think the only way you would ever change your mind is if you went to one of these protests just to observe peacefully and respectfully, and then get caught up in a sweep. Experiential learning is powerful stuff.

Please bear in mind that this topic is not about denying rightful enforcement of law, it's the exact opposite: ensuring enforcement of the law is just and in the interests of all.

[fzeroracer]

Let's talk about these instances of police violence then [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]. You can pick any one of them. What is the police's justification for them, other than to further confirm how much of a police state we live in.

[1] https://twitter.com/imactuallynina/status/126691262719377408...

[2] https://www.businessinsider.com/nypd-officer-shoves-woman-ge...

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/30/us/minneapolis-protests-p...

[4] https://twitter.com/tkerssen/status/1266921821653385225

[5] https://twitter.com/TIME/status/1266384227492335616

[jariel]

I don't quite agree with your logic.

You're legitimising mass violence, and then condemning those trying to stop it, who in some instances might step too far.

A police Officer and others have been killed, the riots are spreading and it's obviously a problem.

There are riots in major cities - fairly aggressive violence and widespread property destruction.

This absolutely necessitates a physical response by police.

There is no way around that.

To expect absolutely perfectly defined behaviour in a perfect legal sense from some people in a situation, and then to completely ignore the violence by others, which is the cause of underlying problem, is some really difficult logic. Obviously the bar is higher one side, and accordingly behaviour is mostly better.

There are thousands of people looting and rioting and destroying things.

The police are responding fairly proportionately.

The 'daily protests' it seems are going fairly well, peacefully, but the evening situations are basically just riots.

As for your 'examples' ...

If police are slashing tires and tazing people arbitrarily there's no excuse for that, they should be punished.

But a woman was 'shoved'? Why does anyone think we have the right to physically or verbally assault government workers or anyone else, and for there not to be some kind of reaction, and in some cases overreaction, that is frankly, somewhere in the range of proportional, and not a big deal. We didn't see exactly what happened, but there is clearly a physical confrontation going on, while I wouldn't support at all an officer just arbitrarily shoving someone, there's a lot on that table to discuss.

The 'press officer arrested'. This again, I don't think is a story. In a riot, if police are asking people to move somewhere, and they don't, it's very reasonable for people to get detained for a few minutes as they are moved out of the way. In fact, that's a pretty 'civil' example of unrest and the management of it. I don't know all the details actually, but as police are clearing a riot scene of mass violence, having to temporarily detain some people seems reasonable.

There's also the issue of a 'freelance journalist' hit with pellets or something along those lines. A lot of people were hit with pellets - just because someone is carrying a camera, does not give them some kind of legal immunity. Again, we're missing details - if she was standing out of the way, where she was clearly not participating and the cops just 'shot her way' for no reason, well, that's bad. On the other hand, if she's thick into the riot and pellets came her way, well then I think it seems rational, if tragic, that this would be the outcome.

If those thing were happening without any riots or legitimate need to be respond, then it would be really bad, but in the context of literally trying to suppress riots, that's not a 'police state' - that's literally just police dispersing a riot and getting people to go home or indoors.

Already a Police Officer has been killed, one protestor has been killed purposefully, and another killed while accidentally dragged behind a vehicle? And there's probably a billion or so in property damage and lives ruined? This is serious stuff, far beyond the legit protests we're seeing mostly during the daytime that nobody has a problem with.

[fzeroracer]

You're going out of your way to rationalize innocent people getting hurt because some people in an entirely separate city and incident are looting or causing property damage.

All of the videos and incidents I linked showed 100% from multiple angles that the police were the ones instigating the issue. They shoved a woman out of the way because she was just standing there and sent her to the ER. Journalists were blinded because they were simply doing their job and the police decided to take potshots. You're arguing about 'legal immunity' when we're talking about cops blatantly breaking the law and abusing their privilege as police officers to get away with it. And the reason why this entire incident occurred was because of police murdering someone so obviously that people couldn't look the other way. Maybe you should start by blaming them for instigating this whole mess.

[jariel]

"the police were the ones instigating the issue" - absolutely not true.

The reporter shot in the eye and the reporter temporarily detained were literally at riots in Minn. Being at a riot when the police have lawfully asked you to leave is 'instigating'. Literally requiring the police to come and use force to move them, and 'the police are the instigators'? This defies reason.

And the 'shoved' woman in the video walked right up to the police officer and was clearly saying something - I don't think it justifies the response but she was literally instigating a confrontation.

" Maybe you should start by blaming them for instigating this whole mess."

I don't 'blame police' because one of them did something egregious, I blame that officer, just as I don't blame 'Americans' or reasonable 'protestors', for looting, murdering, destroying things - I blame the people doing it.