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Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

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Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#641

Post by koolba »

space_fountain wrote: post #220
colllectorof wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The media coverage of it is WILD > People on the internet are convinced it's protected by armed guards and people are dying of hunger and instead its...like a music festival campground This seems like propaganda in its own right. With the exception of Fox and Sky, most news coverage I see on YouTube is neutral or positive: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=capitol+hill+au... Most mainstream coverage of p…

It's wild that the first time I saw this on the NYT was an article talking about Trump's tweat about it. I don't quite understand why they didn't think it was newsworthy

> I don't quite understand why they didn't think it was newsworthy

It's pretty obvious that they do not want to go into detail on anything that would paint the actions of the past two weeks in any negative light. There's no positive way to spin losing control of multiple city blocks, including a police station.

Bias does not have to be a slant in an articles content or writing style, though that happens as well, e.g. including phrases like "mostly peaceful protests" in articles describing looting. It can also be as simple as not reporting things you do not want to publicize.

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#642

Post by Auracle »

cma wrote: post #620
Izkata wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you have guessed it if there were equal numbers of burger-lovers and taco-lovers? 'Cause despite what it looks like online, the US is about equally split between liberal and conservative.

If CNN was as partisan as MSNBC, maybe.

They’re pretty close, especially in regard to Trump himself. For whatever reason his existence turned up partisanship to 11, on both sides.

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#643

Post by mixmastamyk »

djsumdog wrote: post #533
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe more money should be diverted to training and wages, and less to equipment and vehicles? The police in my town make more than I do. NYPD officers make way more than I do and get sweet benefits I will never enjoy. In return they act petulant and ignore their duties whenever someone forces them to apply less than brutal tactics to non-threatening people. They need comprehensive retraining and removal of the pro…

I grew up in a small city in Tennessee. I remember reading about a cop whose income topped out at $38k when he retired. I was making $45k in my 2nd job, in my 20s, only a few years out of college. Sure my job probably required more knowledge, but I'd argue his was more dangerous. I dunno .. there are a lot of trade-offs and it varies greatly per municipalities. Not all police departments in all cities and counties ca…

Depends on the city of course, but a lot of officer compensation is in the form of overtime, pension, early retirement, and other benefits.

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#644

Post by loeg »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #388
latencyloser wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are not automatic rifles, they're very likely all semi-automatic. Semi-automatic rifles can look the same as automatic rifles, visual appearance doesn't mean much. Automatic rifles in the US are much, much more difficult and expensive to acquire than one would think--tens of thousands of dollars usually vs ~$500 for a semi-automatic variant. Sorry if that seems pedantic, but the media uses the understandably ea…

The whole 'fully automatic rifle' is such a nothing burger anyway. M4s and M16s aren't controllable on fully automatic at anything over 10m. Watch modern combat footage of any trained unit, and I guarantee you'll see them using semi auto. My point? Semi auto AR-15s are every bit as effective and deadly as their fully automatic military counterparts. Whether civilians should have such weapons is another discussion.

Yeah you say that but in a tight crowd with nowhere to go, and enough ammunition, you can do a lot of damage. E.g., the Vegas shooting at a music festival with pseudo-automatic bump stocks.

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#645

Post by colinmhayes »

dgellow wrote: post #426
ShamelessC wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for leaving this one up. I understand it's not the discourse this site is directly interested in, but the occasional opportunity to debate such issues in an intelligent forum is something I have trouble finding elsewhere on the internet. Having said that, I'm sure these types of post create a lot of work for you. I appreciate the upkeep and please keep up the good work!

> the occasional opportunity to debate such issues in an intelligent forum is something I have trouble finding elsewhere on the internet. That's maybe the good place to ask: What are other places (maybe places more open to political discussions) the HN crowd would recommend for "intelligent discussions"? Twitter and Reddit are an awful mess at the moment.

LessWrong and niche subreddits depending on the political views you hope to find.

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#646

Post by asdff »

umvi wrote: post #553
craftinator wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add to this, having had quite of bit of firearms experience both semi and auto, the real limiting factors are, as mentioned, controllability and ammo. With a 30 round mag and a cyclic rate of 700 rounds per minute (AR-15 mods run 700-1000 RPM), you get a little over 2 seconds of trigger time. That assumes you don't experience a jam, which is very likely with an AR-15 variant modified for automatic fire, and becaus…

> I'd be wayyyyy less concerned than if they were using semi automatic. In general, yes. To play devil's advocate though, accuracy/controllability is not really needed if your goal is just to spray as much lead as possible into a densely crowded area from, say, a hotel room above. Such domestic terrorist events are extremely rare, but I would guess in these specific cases where the goal is to spray as many bullets pe…

Semi auto fires as fast as you can tap the trigger, they still fire plenty fast. Test out how long it takes you to get through 30 clicks on your mouse. Now keep in mind with the automatic, by your third or fourth shot your aim might be 10 feet higher than where you set off aiming at the start of the burst, and you can see how even in crowds a semi automatic weapon would be far more dangerous as you could control where the rifle is pointed.

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#647

Post by Auracle »

mcv wrote: post #475
ashtonkem wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has never been to Seattle, I am shocked by how bad your police department appears to be. Even the LAPD behaved ... well, less bad from what I’d heard. Flash bangs? Those are for assaulting buildings, not crowd control.

I think over the past few decades, there's been a movement towards increasingly aggressive use of some police weapons. Using tear gas to disperse a crowd is also needlessly aggressive. When I was a kid, Dutch police used water for that. And only when it was an actual riot. I've seen videos of police tasering someone who wasn't the least bit violent, but simply uncooperative. That's not what tasers are for. But if som…

High pressure water can cause injuries, especially eye injuries. I believe tear gas is relatively benign other than possibly for asthmatics. Fully agree with you on the tasers though. They should be just one step below using a gun, not “I’m lazy and don’t want to deal with this person.”

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#648

Post by boomfus »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #502
djsumdog wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if you look at the numbers, police abuse has gone down. There were 1007 shootings by US police last year. Yes, that's still terribly high, even per-capita, for a high income/developed nation, but police departments have been embracing body cameras. If you watch YouTube channels like Donut Operator where people do police breakdowns, a lot of people .. really do deserve to get shot. Body cameras also make it way ea…

> Maybe more money should be diverted to training and wages, and less to equipment and vehicles? The police in my town make more than I do. NYPD officers make way more than I do and get sweet benefits I will never enjoy. In return they act petulant and ignore their duties whenever someone forces them to apply less than brutal tactics to non-threatening people. They need comprehensive retraining and removal of the pro…

85k for almost 6 years of experience in New York is pretty severely underpaid.

https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/careers/police-officers/po-be...

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#649

Post by rovolo »

catacombs wrote: post #478

Serious question: What's to stop Seattle Police or state authorities from removing people from CHAZ? I wouldn't be surprised if there are city, state and federal officials drawing up probable cause to shut it down.

Protestors occupied the intersection of 11th and Pine (1 block from the police station) for multiple nights prior to the police abandoning the precinct. The police tried clearing people multiple nights with tear gas and flash-bangs, but the images and video of clearing the protestors night after night became politically unsavory. They probably won't try evicting people from the area again because they didn't succeed politically the previous times they tried.

(Plus, tear gas would seep into the nearby residential buildings)

https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2020/06/after-mayors-spee...

Re: Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone

#650

Post by monocasa »

zaarn wrote: post #435
monocasa wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's federal case law that the profession of policing doesn't require what you're asking.

Then you make it law that it becomes required.

I guess I'm just on the side of: if the only thing we think police should be doing is something they already legally don't have to do, achieving the goal of getting that covered is better handled by tearing the entire system down and building a new system with a new name and new members than trying to force reform on orgs that have fought it tooth and nail. The actors that have gotten rulings like Warren v. District of Columbia obviously don't want reform in this area, and I don't see much success in forcing it on them. They have the time, resources, and inclination to fight it at every step, and piecemeal subvert the spirit of the reforms as they occur.
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