[aspenmayer]

By defenders, I mean those not associated with law enforcement, who defended people or property from harm or damage during protests. You seem to really believe in capital T truth as something that can be known by you and by others including police in a large protest, or riot, or looting, or all of the above. I don’t share this belief in Truth being knowable in the field. That’s why police don’t have unlimited latitude to identify criminals and respond to suspected criminal acts in the field. They must act within policing standards set by the community in stated and unstated ways. Otherwise, they may not have a job if the service they provide is made redundant through community involvement in legislatively changing police mandates, authority, and priorities.

But more to my point, police are not judges, lawyers, or most important, juries. They don’t decide what is just. They just deliver those suspected of lawbreaking to the judicial system, which determines guilt or innocence under the law. As far as the legal system is concerned, everyone has presumption of innocence. The way you are characterizing people as looters or rioters is to say that what they are doing is unlawful, but that’s just like your opinion, man. One person’s rioter is another person’s edgy protesting neighbor. It’s for the courts to decide which behavior is law-abiding. If they aren’t convicted, they were not found to be in violation of the law, yet. It’s strange for you to presume they would found guilty just because you disagree with their actions. Sounds authoritarian to me and not in step with our justice system or the times.

[jariel]

I understand the truth can't always be known in a situation - and I fully agree given ambiguity, he police don't have the right to use inappropriate force - however 'looters are looters' - there's no question about the illegality and inappropriateness of that, and we do know that looting is happening.

This looting causes a lot of personal damage, people are losing their life savings and livelihoods, and nobody seems to care.

I see a lot of rhetoric and populism trying to side-step the issue and it really needs to be clear - there's a very wide gap between 'protesting' and 'looting' and they are not 'shades of the same thing'.

Also, I'm not sure if it's legal or appropriate to even 'protest' out in the open, on highways or streets - I think these things need to move to controlled ares, like in front of city hall or in parks, but that's a slightly different matter.

I'm also not entirely condemning people 'caught up in a riot' as I understand these things happen in social waves, and people would be doing things they might not otherwise. It's not a big moral condemnation, it's an articulation of reality.

I'm actually sympathetic to the protesters overall, but I lose sympathy quickly when I see it out of hand. I also think we need to be sympathetic to the police, and accept that we, as citizens are giving them a nary impossible task - which is to use force to move people out of an area, and then somehow remain within perfect contraints at all times. Some of the police actions are beyond unreasonable and they should go to jail, but I'm not even sure that it's systematic. What can we expect by sending 5000 officers in to physically move aggressive, often violent people out of the way. Punches will fly in some cases. Batons, purposeful harm with weapons, irresponsible use of fire arms - this is too much obviously and has to be punished.

I'm really happy to show support for reforming police actions, but I'm not going to take sides in a 'civic street war'.

What's happening now is just shameful for almost every party.

[aspenmayer]

It's shameful that you think that these protests aren't acceptable outcomes of police brutality. The protests are a direct result of the public not accepting the status quo anymore. The death of a person at the hands of the police started this fire. The police keep it going by aggressive unconstitutional protest containment actions. I don't agree with you at all, and I have laid out the legal and social basis why you are wrong to believe what you do. If I have failed to convince you, I'm sorry. I tried and will keep trying. If you choose not to agree with my interpretation, that's fine too.

Protest and looting are shades of the same idea. If you don't care about us taking up space in your streets, maybe you may care about being deprived of your corporate assets. Corporations aren't people. People are people. If harming corporations leads to an increase in human rights, that is a net gain for society. To question whether the cost is too high like you do shows you care more for property, capital, and the people who wield these asset classes, than you do for those who have cause to protest. Just because you don't share their cause célèbre does not invalidate it.

Reasonable people can disagree. It's impossible to be reasonable or disagree if you're killing someone or being killed. The police actions up to this point have been unreasonable, and so the response of the public is currently outside the scope of actions that can have a reasonableness standard applied to them. Protest is inherently justified by the Constitution. The response to police brutality and lack of internal reform proves the police think they are right to kill people and don't need to change. That's why the protests continue. To stop protesting now would be to negotiate with terrorists. The protests must continue as long and until the police come to the table with protesters and stakeholders, and they all negotiate a solution.