Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Police attacks against journalists across the U.S. since May 28

niemanlab.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 835 posts

Re: Police attacks against journalists across the U.S. since May 28

#281

Post by macintux »

fastball wrote: post #273
Pfhreak wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no such thing as unbiased news coverage. Any news outlet has more stories to report than they have capacity to report. They must exhibit some bias to control for what they show. (Or, alternatively, I guess they could just randomly select news stories, but I don't think that'd be very compelling.)

Or they could only write about things they have thoroughly researched, not try to write about every event that happens, many of which they are just regurgitating from another source without any additional fact-checking or analysis anyway.

Research, and presenting context for the news item, always means interpretation, and that leads to accusation of bias.

Re: Police attacks against journalists across the U.S. since May 28

#282

Post by rhino369 »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #188
gedy wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you won't be punished unless you act particularly egregiously like the one officer in Louisville reassigned to desk duty (big whoop) Isn't this honestly largely due to the police union rules and contacts, which (unions) are a key part of leftist labor relations?

Don't you think it's curious that only the police are allowed to have these super-effective unions with literal stay-out-of-jail clauses in their contracts - while Amazon workers who want proper toilet breaks will simply be fired? Does that answer your question?

That's about public v. private unions, not really about cops v. everyone else.

Companies can fairly easily break a union. After call, why does Ford need a Detroit plant when they can use Mexico.

But governments are lead by politicians who get money from unions. Union supports leader, leader pays union, union supports leader. No incentive to keep costs down at all. It's actually better for politicians to have strong public unions.

Teachers unions make it pretty much impossible to fire someone. You pretty much need to molest a child in places with a union (after you make tenure).

Re: Police attacks against journalists across the U.S. since May 28

#283

Post by mwigdahl »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #171
Loughla wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. It's anecdotal at best, but all of the 6 cops I know have either "Trump 2020" or "Trump No More Bullshit" or (my personal favorite) "Trump Making Liberals Cry Since 2016" flags flying above the US flag at their homes. My baseline assumption is a vast majority of police/sheriffs/troopers support Trump. Is this incorrect?

>> "Trump Making Liberals Cry Since 2016" flags flying above the US flag at their homes. I'm having a hard time understanding why this is wrong? EDIT: "Meh, I'm not going to try and explain it, I'll just downvote it." Bravo. B R A V O.

He didn't say it was wrong, just that it was evidence that they are Trump supporters.

But it is wrong, nonetheless -- it violates 4 U.S. Code § 7(c).

Re: Police attacks against journalists across the U.S. since May 28

#284

Post by dmix »

This policy introduced into congress sounds like a helpful solution:

> "Ending Qualified Immunity Act," which would allow civil lawsuits against police, a recourse that the Supreme Court has all but done away with.

https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/06/01/us/politics/01reu...

That plus the laundry list of obvious issues with criminal justice that any defense attorney could list off hand.

Re: Police attacks against journalists across the U.S. since May 28

#285

Post by cavanasm »

viraptor wrote: post #250
jonlucc wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can weigh in a bit on what the police claim happened here in Indianapolis. They won't account for all of their CS deployments, which I think is crazy, but they did address why it started the other day (Saturday?). Their claim is that what they saw was some police inside the city/county building and a single person started hitting the glass on the building. Simultaneously, "previously peaceful" protesters started lo…

> blocking emergency vehicle ingress, so they let loose a bunch of (13 year expired)_CS gas. That doesn't make sense, unless they wanted the driver and other people in a not airtight emergency vehicle to end up in the gas cloud as well...

I'm in Richmond, Virginia, and according to people monitoring the unencrypted fire department radios on twitter (one of them a fairly reputable community organizer, but rate the source as you will), this exact situation supposedly happened on Saturday night. Fire department got called to a shoe store fire, they faced some impediment reaching the fire, police showed up and dropped tear gas all over the area, and the fire department ended up back on the scanner requesting an ambulance for the commander on site for tear gas exposure, and additional PPE from another department to help the other fire fighters cope. The building ended up being marked a complete loss, although I'm unclear of the nitty gritty details like timelines, source of the fire, etc.

EDIT: I will also note that this, among other events, was used to justify calling for a curfew in town, and today, the mayor and police chief have condemned their own police officers for deploying tear gas on peaceful protests prior to the start of the curfews last night, and then putting forward a false justification (admitted by the police chief to have been a false justification, to be clear) for doing so.

Re: Police attacks against journalists across the U.S. since May 28

#286

Post by monoideism »

stonogo wrote: post #219
SpelingBeeChamp wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"numerous videos show police breaking windows themselves" I don't believe you. The umbrella guy breaking the AutoZone window with a hammer has no connection to any police department. Someone made that up on social media and people shared it because that's what people do. The only video I know of showing officers breaking a window is out of Seattle. It shows officers responding to a burglary in progress at a Target st…

Here you go. https://www.reddit.com/r/ThatsInsane/comments/gv2ogk/news_ch...

That looks very suspicious, but if this were really a widespread technique by the police, I'm assuming there would be more than a single video taken.

I mean, we know the black bloc and similar groups engages in these tactics, they've been doing it since Seattle WTO 1999. I've seen it in person to protests I've been to (as a protester). It's very hard for me to believe that all of a sudden those people are no longer active in protests, and their place has been taken by (insert your politically-convenient group here).

Re: Police attacks against journalists across the U.S. since May 28

#287

Post by lawnchair_larry »

jwilber wrote: post #148
jascii wrote: post #133

Disclaimer: I am a bleeding heart liberal and this may filter my observations. I have been to a few rallies/vigils/marches lately and all incidences of violence that I have witnessed either in person or through media has been instigated by the police. As far as I know,every documented case where a formerly peaceful crowd turns into chaos has been started with police shooting pepperspray, teargas, or whatever into the…

It’s the same here in Seattle as it was while I was in Berkeley during Ferguson. People protest peacefully, and police shoot tear gas into the crowd and attack whomever they can get their hands on. I’ll admit, the outright brutality I saw in-person in Oakland was worse than what I’ve seen here in the recent days. In Oakland, the police would purposely corral protestors into groups and literally beat the shit out of t…

In any case, it’s all the same: in a country that parades its freedom, people of color can’t protest without the president calling for them to be roughed up, and without the police willingly complying.

That’s a load of bullshit and you know it. This isn’t the situation.

Re: Police attacks against journalists across the U.S. since May 28

#288

Post by evan_ »

lostmsu wrote: post #240
pwinnski wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America supersedes local ordnances, and journalists absolutely do no have to disperse when police issues such an order to the general public.

> journalists absolutely do no have to disperse when police issues such an order to the general public The first amendment speaks nothing about who can be where. It just denies government the right to prosecute people for making statements.

> The first amendment speaks nothing about who can be where. It just denies government the right to prosecute people for making statements.

"just" free speech? Might want to check your pocket constitution again. The first amendment also protects the free press- and the freedom to assemble. (Not to mention religion and to petition for redress of grievances)

Re: Police attacks against journalists across the U.S. since May 28

#289

Post by ravenstine »

heavyset_go wrote: post #239
ravenstine wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All ideas should be considered, but yours is not one I subscribe to. More people have been killed and had their lives destroyed as the result of non-protestors taking advantage of the protests to destroy communities. This is before the actual protests themselves have even been given a chance to succeed without violence. To subscribe to your perspective, I would have to believe that rioting and looting is the way to a…

How many people have these non-protestors killed? Are you talking about police or what you'd describe as rioters?

https://www.npr.org/2020/05/29/866022166/protests-spread-nat...

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Police-Davenport-officer...

https://www.foxnews.com/us/federal-law-enforcement-officer-k...

https://www.foxnews.com/us/kentucky-man-killed-by-cops-who-d...

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/article/Police-Retired...

https://www.ibtimes.com/george-floyd-las-vegas-protests-1-po...

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/top-detroit-news-most-arre...

----

Maybe there are more, and I think it's fortunate that the deaths don't appear to be excessively high. But I would still argue these people might not be dead or in critical condition if the rule of law wasn't out of control. I'm no fan of police, but that doesn't mean I don't think about how some kids may have lost a parent.

Re: Police attacks against journalists across the U.S. since May 28

#290

Post by gruez »

dmix wrote: post #284

This policy introduced into congress sounds like a helpful solution: > "Ending Qualified Immunity Act," which would allow civil lawsuits against police, a recourse that the Supreme Court has all but done away with. https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/06/01/us/politics/01reu... That plus the laundry list of obvious issues with criminal justice that any defense attorney could list off hand.

Is qualified immunity really the issue? The general impression I have is that PDs/DAs straight up refuse to investigate/prosecute abuses of power. It's not like we have a bunch of cases where the case was airtight, but the officer was being acquitted because of qualified immunity.
Post reply on HN