De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer • Hacker News Board

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#161

Post by calvinmorrison » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 2:49 AM UTC

lsh123 wrote: post #137

komali2 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could we please not waste a second of thought on the relatively minor issue of broken store windows until we sort the issue of cops indiscriminately killing black people? If you care so much, how about petition your local police force to dump their tear gas at the range and stop firing on peaceful protesters, turning a lot of sitting people into a riot.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-de...

That stat becomes more useful when you take into account black Americans are roughly 15% of the population.

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#162

Post by komali2 » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 2:50 AM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #154

komali2 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree that any responsibility should fall to the protesters. The right to protest is baked into the first legal document the country as a political entity wrote. For the last 250 years politicians and cops have had the knowledge that Americans care a great deal about their right to stand in front of a statehouse and shout to their heart's content. They should create their own policies to deal with that fact. If…

Now that being said, black lives matter in particular suffers from (in my opinion) a lack of leadership and organization. A universal problem with "leaderless movements" is that they quickly devolve to the lowest common denominator level. Anyone can put out their slate and call themselves an "activist" and it's inevitable that some dim person will come along and try to make a name for themselves by taking things fart…

> Would you feel that way if they came and burned your house or business down?

Yup, and I have the receipts to prove it: my motorcycle was vandalized in Oakland during the protests. A small price to pay for unsung voices being heard.

You say violence is violence, yet I bet you have no problem with criminals being put in jail, i.e. their freedoms being violently removed from them.

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#163

Post by iphone_elegance » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 2:51 AM UTC

xvector wrote: post #55

Unpopular opinion: The newfound delusion that peaceful protests have ever engendered any real change as opposed to their violent cousin is perhaps the nail in the coffin of freedom and democracy.

Things tend to break down when the leadership gets off on harassing the otherside, add to that a feelings of disenfranchisement and it's a recipe for disaster

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#164

Post by jaas » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 2:51 AM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #142

komali2 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could we please not waste a second of thought on the relatively minor issue of broken store windows until we sort the issue of cops indiscriminately killing black people? If you care so much, how about petition your local police force to dump their tear gas at the range and stop firing on peaceful protesters, turning a lot of sitting people into a riot.

I care about both. Two wrongs are two wrongs.

But hopefully you care about one much, much more than the other. They are not comparable in terms of needing discussion at this moment in history.

(Edit: In the event that you honestly don't know which one is the more important topic, right now or pretty much any other time - police frequently murdering black people or some store windows getting smashed and merch stolen - it's the police murdering black people.)

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#165

Post by drusepth » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 2:52 AM UTC

m0zg wrote: post #15

WillDaSilva wrote: post #6

"Of course, as Gillham pointed out, negotiating and managing a protest can’t really work if the protest wasn’t organized ahead of time. That goes double, he said, if the topic of the protest is police brutality. It’s hard to negotiate with someone about the best way to demand they be fired." This point is important. The police can't police themselves, and for a lasting solution to this problem to emerge there'll have…

> wasn’t organized ahead of time Protests might have been unorganized, but riots most certainly are organized. Torching a police car carries a minimum 5 year sentence. It's not the protesters who are doing that. Moreover, it is still being "organized". Someone keeps dropping off pallets with bricks. There are agitator leaflets all over twitter. People have been recorded on video handing out cash to "protesters" from…

We had a peaceful protest in Kansas City on Friday where some police joined in, listened to protestors, took a knee with the protestors, and the mayor joined the protest as well. It was peaceful and all over the news.

The very next day we had several trucks unloading beds of bricks and large rocks throughout the Plaza (where protests were and would be again that night) throughout the day and people were snapping videos of at least two buses full of protesters in the full black getup unloading on the edge of the Plaza a few hours before sundown. That night we had 85 arrests, multiple cars set on fire, multiple officers put in the hospital, and plenty of CS gas in the streets.

After seeing the peaceful protest on Friday, I find it a little bit suspicious that the crowds grew so quickly and things escalated so quickly (and intentionally, by the looks of people dropping of brick caches) just 24 hours later.

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#166

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 2:52 AM UTC

komali2 wrote: post #125

beloch wrote: post #78

We should expect police to us less use violence and improve their crowd management and deescalation skills. The increasing militarization of police is a trend that must be reversed. However, we should not neglect the other side of the equation either. This article is, in large part, about just that. The article points out that many protests in the U.S. went smoothly through the practice of police and protest organize…

I disagree that any responsibility should fall to the protesters. The right to protest is baked into the first legal document the country as a political entity wrote. For the last 250 years politicians and cops have had the knowledge that Americans care a great deal about their right to stand in front of a statehouse and shout to their heart's content. They should create their own policies to deal with that fact. If…

[deleted]

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#167

Post by calvinmorrison » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 2:52 AM UTC

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #100

nostromo wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Police commanders ... WANT mayhem" That's what I responded to. I'm curious if you truly think the people that I listed want to see their home towns on fire.

Most Police Don’t Live In The Cities They Serve: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/most-police-dont-live-i... Chicago: 88% of police live in city St Louis: 59% Atlanta: 14% Minneapolis: 10% (white officers: 5%) Seattle: 12% Oakland: 9% Also, certainly in Minneapolis—and likely elsewhere—the police chief doesn't seem to have nearly as much control over rank and file officers as the union head does. This story gives…

Philadelphia takes a split approach. See below:

The city has mandated residency requirements for nearly all city employees since the 1950s, but police and some other public workers are exempt, The Philadelphia Tribune reports. Approximately 30 percent of Philadelphia police officers live outside of Philadelphia, according to Acting Commissioner Christine Coulter.

In 2010, the police union won the right for officers who have five or more years of experience to live outside the city limits. Those terms have been in effect since 2012. Firefighters and sheriff’s deputies with five or more years of service were allowed to live outside of the city in 2016.

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#168

Post by g8tor » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 2:53 AM UTC

beloch wrote: post #78

We should expect police to us less use violence and improve their crowd management and deescalation skills. The increasing militarization of police is a trend that must be reversed. However, we should not neglect the other side of the equation either. This article is, in large part, about just that. The article points out that many protests in the U.S. went smoothly through the practice of police and protest organize…

I don't read that article as supporting the title that descalation leads to less violence. it does discuss evidence for escalation being correlated with more violence. but you can't blanket say that's causal.

These are complex situations that don't follow rules. The mob consists of peaceful protesters, violent protesters and looters. people's membership in any of these groups can be multiple and shift over time.

it's not reasonable for police to make an assessment who is who on the ground because their job is not to be a jury. what is reasonable is that once a gathering crosses the threshold of criminal activity it becomes illegal.

one solution is to just arrest everybody after giving them time to disperse. but to do that you need overwhelming numbers. not always the resources to do that.

you can't just stand there and let people beat you, stab you, lob projectiles at you. you have to respond to that force with force. You also need to protect property again using force.

again unless you have overwhelming numbers you can't engage in hand-to-hand combat or using battons. this strategy cannot be used by itself to bring the crowd under control. so each officer needs a force multiplier some sort of tool that can effect multiple people. it's a given that in such situations any such tool will affect multiple people even those doing nothing violent.

tear gas and rubber bullets are okay tools. but I think there needs to be more. when a patient becomes psychotic and dangerous in a hospital or asylum you don't mace their face. you give them a sedative. instead of CS gas it would be great if there was some sort of sedative gas to just slow people down enough to sap their will to continue.

police have to handle the situations as best they can using the tools they have.

I don't think you can say that big protests are all about the death of one man or the treatment of one group. I think the causes of people's unhappiness here is systemic and this is probably just an outlet where people feel now we can stand up.

the police can't cure the people of their anger no matter what they do.

when I see this chaos, I remember ahow US media lionized what happened in Hong Kong not even 1 year ago, and I can't help thinking of the proverb, people in glass houses....

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#169

Post by pjc50 » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 2:53 AM UTC

rectang wrote: post #48

davros wrote: post #17

From afar, it seems to me like the big problem in US policing is a lack of calm professionalism. The de-escalation approach in the article would to me but just one aspect of taking a professional approach where safety and following rules and best practices is paramount (and prioritised over 'winning' against criminals).

I have always suspected that US police are shunted into sub-optimal patterns because there are so many guns here that the odds a simple interaction will involve a firearm are much higher than they are in less-well-armed societies. Does anybody know if I'm right about that? That doesn't mean that they can't do more de-escalation or take other steps, but the high prevalence of guns does seem like it would be a contribu…

White protestors were allowed to occupy a state building with guns without a single bit of teargas.

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#170

Post by ineedasername » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 2:53 AM UTC

markdown wrote: post #148

drusepth wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am pro-police and I do NOT want mayhem. The ideal protest in my eyes is a peaceful, effective one. One that causes real change -- like increased oversight, accountability, altered training, etc -- in the general police population: one that fixes the very real problems we've seen with police for years and continuously improves law enforcement for years to come. Claiming "pro-police forces WANT mayhem" paints the sit…

> The ideal protest in my eyes is a peaceful, effective one. This is the US; you only get to pick one of those.

Hardly. The civil rights movement is an excellent example of civil opposition done peacefully and effectively. It helped that there were many strong leaders in that movement across the country. Right now the energy is chaotic and undirected, without a strong voice of leadership to act as both the vanguard of the protests as well as the negotiators of change.