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

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#171

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 2:53 AM UTC

drusepth wrote: post #111

just_steve_h wrote: post #10

Folks - don't be obtuse. Police commanders know exactly what will happen when they escalate with tear gas and rubber bullets. Pro-police forces WANT mayhem. It makes people watching on TV afraid of the protests, and it changes the subject away from the widespread peaceful opposition to racist police violence.

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…

We should be very clear though that civil disobedience and disruptive protest is absolutely not the same thing as violence and looting. In Austin TX protestors blocked the major highway through downtown, which is obviously very disruptive, but IMO did not warrant cops shooting rubber bullets/bean bags indiscriminately into the crowd.

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#172

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

lsh123 wrote: post #149

parhamn wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a ton of heavy, non-looting protests going on as well.

Absolutely and I don’t think that any reasonable person will have any problem with those. I can’t speak for all the places in US but my observations in San Jose (both personal and through FB/media) is that police was cool with peaceful protests. I saw a few times police and protesters hugging each other, doing fist bumps, etc.

From my experience a protest usually becomes exactly as violent as the police initiates. In every protest I’ve attended the police is always the most violent actor.

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#173

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

komali2 wrote: post #162

stcredzero wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Your motorcycle isn't your shelter and vandalism isn't typically complete destruction.

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#174

Post by briefcomment » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 2:54 AM UTC

komali2 wrote: post #145

briefcomment wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The electorate induces fear by holding the ability to give and take power from the government. They make their demands known by being loud. The vast majority of us have been guilty of being silent when our neighbor is desperately imploring the government for change. I am guilty of silence, and I regret it and will make my demands known. All of this does not mean that the reasonable peaceful path is not effective. It…

They burnt down the police station and we had an arrest 8 hours later. It works, and we should keep doing it until the lesson is learned.

The lesson will not be learned. The only thing that will happen is that even more excess force will be justified, and our civil liberties will go away in the name of order and safety.

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#175

Post by m0zg » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 2:54 AM UTC

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #75

m0zg wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> People have been recorded on video handing out cash to "protesters" from a thick wad of bills. It would be trivial to contrive that exact scenario. I’m not say that it was contrived, just that it would be trivial to do so.

That I do agree with. A lot of other things would be trivial to contrive as well. I would not be surprised if the scenes of devastation we see in the media are far smaller in scale IRL, and we're just being shown the same smashed storefront from different angles to drive clicks.

But at the same time I think peaceful protesters would not burn police cars or loot, seeing how looting does absolutely nothing good whatsoever for their cause. They would especially not burn or loot minority businesses, churches, or low income housing complexes. Someone is very deliberately and efficiently pouring gasoline into this fire IMO, that much is pretty obvious by now.

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#176

Post by AnthonyMouse » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 2:55 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...

The 2020 data there is interesting. It's less dramatic than it looks on that graph because they only have the numbers from the first quarter for 2020, but even extrapolating from the quarter to the year, it looks like "number of people shot to death by the police in the United States" has been more than cut in half by the coronavirus.

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#177

Post by ineedasername » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 2:55 AM UTC

ciarannolan wrote: post #40

nostromo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minneapolis Chief of Police: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medaria_Arradondo Seattle Chief of Police: http://www.seattle.gov/police/about-us/about-the-department/... St Louis Chief of Police: http://www.slmpd.org/chief_of_police.shtml Atlanta Chief of Police: https://www.projectq.us/atlanta/atlanta_police_chief_erika_s... Chicago Chief of Police: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Brown_(police_officer) Oakland Chie…

>People on HN seem to have a cartoon villain view of police What could possibly give people that impression? https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/gu3s6j/poli...

Painting everyone with that same brush is not constructive. There are systemic issues to be dealt with here, but that doesn't mean every cop in the system is a murderer waiting to happen.

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#178

Post by runarberg » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 2:55 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...

Please don’t post misleading statistics, in this instance it is quite racist and you come across as a racist person.

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#179

Post by ThemalSpan » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 2:56 AM UTC

komali2 wrote: post #131

lsh123 wrote: post #121

Could we please stop calling “protesters” all the people looting jewelry stores, Target, Nike, etc? These are not protesters, these are looters. Police should use any means at their disposal to protect lives and property from looters and rioters.

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 agree and I'm sorry that the empathy needed to understand is sorely lacking here. Lives over property always.

Re: De-Escalation Keeps Protesters and Police Safer

#180

Post by CameronNemo » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 2:56 AM UTC

booleandilemma wrote: post #90

CameronNemo wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In his defense, all technology is an instrument of political and ideological battle. If the site admins really want to enforce that guideline, then we should not be discussing current events here.

I think we can have a civil discussion without resorting to slogans and rallying cries.

I agree, I take issue with the guideline on its own, not that it was applied in this case. Although I think this could be better justification for the flagging of that comment:

>Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.