The George Floyd/Black Lives Matter protests and police conduct

[The Dude]

Plus in terms of, ya know, spreading that deadly virus going around, these idiots are several orders of magnitude more idiotic than those spring breakers minding their own business.

[ZRod]

2 hours ago, The Dude said:

I keep seeing comparisons to the lockdown protests, but there's kind of a gigantic difference between peaceful protests and mass civil unrest.  Stop conflating the two.

I don't condone the violence,  but there's pretty massive difference between people being upset that they can't buy grass seed at Home Depot, go boating, or go out to eat for a month and walking through a capitol building with ARs; compared to people with no firearms who have been speaking out for literally decades against systemic issues with no changes.

[ZRod]

1 hour ago, The Dude said:

Plus in terms of, ya know, spreading that deadly virus going around, these idiots are several orders of magnitude more idiotic than those spring breakers minding their own business.

The majority of reasonable protests have been wearing masks...

[ZRod]

How is any of this a reasonable response by the police given why these riots are happening?

 

From Reddit:

Quote

Here's some examples the last few days, please share or add more:

Cop shoves woman to ground, she ends up having a seizure and hospitalized in NYC

A lot of casual unprovoked assault in NYC

Casual car door slam drive-by in NYC

Two Cop SUVs running into/over protesters in Brooklyn

Different angle of the Cop SUVs running into/over protesters in Brooklyn

Casual pepper-spray drive-by in Minneapolis

SWAT in SLC shoving old man walking with a cane to the ground

Cops shove someone then punch different person in the face repeatedly as they are pinned on the ground, Seattle

Aftermath of 9 year old being maced by cop in Seattle

Tear gassing protesters in Fort Wayne

Car windows broken and tased for trying to drive home

Hands up, unarmed, they sic the dog on him(might not be protest related but still relevant)

More casual macing

Shooting paint canisters(?) at people filming on their own porch, Minneapolis

Officer tramples protester with horse in Houston

Black man with his hands in the air get his mask pulled down and pepper sprayed in the face

 

[BigRedBuster]

 

[Waldo]

5 minutes ago, ZRod said:

How is any of this a reasonable response by the police given why these riots are happening?

 

From Reddit:

 

Because cops aren’t prepared/trained for this and sadly there are a lot of sh***y cops out there. Imagine being a teacher and having your students scream in your face the whole day. Some would probably snap. Doesn’t justify it at all, but both sides can only take so much. 

[Waldo]

Just now, BigRedBuster said:

 

I’ll probably get kickback, but that’s not proof of anything. Taking a picture with blacks during a peaceful protest doesn’t mean change can/will happen.

[ZRod]

11 minutes ago, Waldo said:

I’ll probably get kickback, but that’s not proof of anything. Taking a picture with blacks during a peaceful protest doesn’t mean change can/will happen.

It's not change, but it's hope. At least there are LEOs out there like @BIGREDIOWAN who understand what the real problem is. It's just ashame that some people want to lump them all together as bad guys.

[DevoHusker]

33 minutes ago, ZRod said:

How is any of this a reasonable response by the police given why these riots are happening?

 

From Reddit:

 

Without full context these clips don't help one way or the other...are the cops just being thugs or did the protesters cross the line repeatedly before these clips...most cops I know have a long fuse but a loud bang 

[BigRedBuster]

15 minutes ago, Waldo said:

I’ll probably get kickback, but that’s not proof of anything. Taking a picture with blacks during a peaceful protest doesn’t mean change can/will happen.

Hmmm...police officers showing protesters they stand with them.

 

i fail to see why that should get this response. As small as each one is, it should be commended. 

[JJ Husker]

2 hours ago, The Dude said:

I keep seeing comparisons to the lockdown protests, but there's kind of a gigantic difference between peaceful protests and mass civil unrest.  Stop conflating the two.

Where are you seeing comparisons to the lockdown protests? I haven’t seen one in this thread. So, I guess my question is, who is conflating the two? Are you referring to the media?

[Waldo]

3 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

Hmmm...police officers showing protesters they stand with them.

 

i fail to see why that should get this response. As small as each one is, it should be commended. 

Because it’s not like this hasn’t happened before. There have always been good cops, but taking a picture during a peaceful protest doesn’t prove much either way to me.

[ZRod]

9 minutes ago, DevoHusker said:

Without full context these clips don't help one way or the other...are the cops just being thugs or did the protesters cross the line repeatedly before these clips...most cops I know have a long fuse but a loud bang 

Maybe actually watch the videos. A 9 year old was maced at a protest. Another protestor at a separate event is standing there and a cop pulls his mask off and maces him in the face. NYPD drives and SUV into a crowd 6 seconds AFTER people stopped throwing water bottles and a cone at the car. A grey hared man with a cane is shoved to the ground by an officer with a riot shield.

 

None of that is justified.

[BigRedBuster]

26 minutes ago, Waldo said:

Because it’s not like this hasn’t happened before. There have always been good cops, but taking a picture during a peaceful protest doesn’t prove much either way to me.

It’s not meant to prove that now all cops are good and everything is fixed. 

[JJ Husker]

18 minutes ago, ZRod said:

Maybe actually watch the videos. A 9 year old was maced at a protest. Another protestor at a separate event is standing there and a cop pulls his mask off and maces him in the face. NYPD drives and SUV into a crowd 6 seconds AFTER people stopped throwing water bottles and a cone at the car. A grey hared man with a cane is shoved to the ground by an officer with a riot shield.

 

None of that is justified.

You’re right, none of that is justified or called for. But cops are human beings. 3 Nights of riots, hundreds of thousands of personal interactions in heightened stressful situations while police have been constantly insulted, attacked and assaulted by the crowds. I don’t think we should make too much of statistically irrelevant bad reactions. I’m much more concerned about fixing the problems that touched all this off.