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Git Repo of Police Brutality During the 2020 George Floyd Protests

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Re: Git Repo of Police Brutality During the 2020 George Floyd Protests

#161
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The vast majority of police are heroes. Define "hero". As has been noted many, many times across HN these past few weeks, "police officer" isn't even among the top 15 most dangerous professions in America. And even then police aren't legally required to do their job[1]. Most police are never called upon to do anything heroic, so we can't say if they are heroes or not. This type of blind veneration for police is wei…

USA Today says that policing is the 18th most dangerous job in the US. What makes police injuries and deaths notable from other occupations is that “The most common cause of workplace fatalities among police officers is direct violence from other people”. It is not just a risky job in general, it is a risky job due to people that would intentionally do them harm, done in service of their community. Everyone is a regu…

Fwiw 18 is greater than 15...

Did the chicken or the egg come first?

Were cops the helpless victims of wanton violence before they started brutalizing poor and minority neighborhoods?

Or, has police work gotten more dangerous as police are continually escalating against their desperate communities whom have little left to lose except their lives? Are police fit for duty in America when my barber took a longer training course than an average cop? As the first of first responders police should be competent to deal with any situation. This repo and tens of thousands of incidents going back decades prove, beyond the shadow of adoubt, that police are, on average, incapable of doing what's required of them.

Re: Git Repo of Police Brutality During the 2020 George Floyd Protests

#162
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can read "Police showed up and fired tear gas and agitated the crowd and caused violence", but you're not told WHY they fired tear gas. You're not given the context as to what happened. Police have body cameras and vehicle cameras that can provide much of the rest of the context. The public doesn't have access to that video and the police don't release it save when it reinforces their narrative. If the police w…

In the current environment, I’m not so sure. I was really negative on the St. Louis couple that pulled guns on protesters... until I learned the “peaceful” protesters were on private property and had already destroyed an iron gate and were threatening to burn down their house. None of those latter facts were easily available until I dug deeper into the story. The New York Times story that shows up when I Google menti…

A significant number of the "facts" you're citing are under dispute.

There's significant documentary evidence of the incident on video, starting ~27:50: https://www.facebook.com/derk.brown.5/videos/154551737227670...

There's also some dispute about the legal disposition of the property on which protesters may have been protesting, but at worst it appears to be a private street. Just because it is a private property doesn't mean it was their private property, to defend with threats of lethal violence. Being a member of the HOA and paying your dues doesn't give legal title to treat property as your own.

Re: Git Repo of Police Brutality During the 2020 George Floyd Protests

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in my city, for the protests I attended, this is about the right level of context. The ordering went 1) Peaceful protest 2) Police decide that they need to use extreme amounts of force to break up the peaceful protest 3) Unsavory elements use the cover of the ensuing chaos to loot/burn/tag/etc.

Was there a dispersal order given before physical attempts to break up the protest? (I am not opining about its propriety (if it existed); just asking if it happened.)

In some cases, but not in others.

We had a problem with the police doing drivebys and firing indiscriminately at crowds as police would drive off.

Re: Git Repo of Police Brutality During the 2020 George Floyd Protests

#164
post #5

I checked out my city and state on here. The vast majority of the incidents listed are not even close to police brutality. This is clearly put together by someone that has an agenda and doesn't know what they are talking about. Unfortunately this is junk.

So confident in your statement you made a new account. Would you care to link some of the incidents that feel are not even close to police brutality? You could also make a PR to remove those.

In this day and age, it's a wise move to make a new account and protect your identity. Nobody wants their live destroyed ("canceled") for a comment. That's what it has become, and it will only get worse.

Re: Git Repo of Police Brutality During the 2020 George Floyd Protests

#165

Just a reminder that none of this is factual or evidence. It COULD be, but just because somebody writes something doesn't make it true. You are not given any of the context of what happened in these situations. If there's video the video starts when the conflict is already full swing, you're not seeing anything that led up to the situation. You can read "Police showed up and fired tear gas and agitated the crowd and…

I'd like to hear the backstory behind these videos then.

https://youtu.be/8kCrTvlcgD4?t=57 https://youtu.be/-BGyTi-KdKc?t=33

I think its pretty weird that you justify police violence that is permanently disabling people. I'm sure serial killers and mafia bosses can come up with good reasons why they kill people and if you were in their shoes you would act in exactly the same way but why on earth would accept their behavior? Just because you know why someone did something doesn't mean that the thing they did is okay.

If you think I'm cherry picking. I've seen dozens of videos like these since June where the police was intentionally trying to cause more damage than necessary. At least 4 headshots with rubber projectiles like the video I linked. One of the victims was a man in a wheelchair or a girl going shopping unaware of the riots. Cops standing 2m away throw burning CS gas canisters in your face. At least two elderly men pushed to the ground and one of them bleeding from his ear (most likely skull damage). Sure the man got a bit too close but once he was helplessly lying on the ground the police just walked away as if nothing happened instead of calling an ambulance. There are too many examples to list and I'm sure lots of them didn't even get recorded so we will never know how many there are.

Re: Git Repo of Police Brutality During the 2020 George Floyd Protests

#166
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If the police were blameless here, they have lots of tools to clear their name. Is it true though? I saw police actions that looked bad on video, but having been on the scene earlier that day I knew the context that cast it in a very different light. And yet no counter-evidence was published. They did not clear their name, despite being in the right (or much more right than the video shown).

Can you give context to what you saw?

This incident: https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/gwa2ub/seattle_pol...

Witness accounts: https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/gwa2ub/seattle_pol...

I was there earlier and I saw a scared resident trying to drive home through that gate. A protester right next to me made a snide remark about the "expensive" car and proposed blocking the gate. The gate was not blocked that time, but given the video they did it later for some other vehicle.

Two things I conclude from this:

1. The police do not necessarily publish exculpating evidence for their own actions.

2. You wouldn't know what happened if you were not there.

This latter point I cannot emphasize enough - I was there often and last Thursday I realized that one can make/edit enough material to support any point of view.

Re: Git Repo of Police Brutality During the 2020 George Floyd Protests

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before we filter for truth lets train our police force to be less violent because that breads more violence on the other end and we all loose except for the powerheads in charge as well as the real gangsters. Police have no right to be violent, they do get a paycheck for fsake, and they have the law on their side as well. I will respect all cops when they earn it. So far I respect only those I interacted with and wer…

Currently, and historically as far as I know, part of a police officer's job is to hurt people, when certain conditions present themselves. Every day police officers respond to DV assaults that are in progress. Oftentimes the perpetrator fights the police. Any time an arrestee is not fully cooperative with the police taking them into custody, the arrest is not going to be pleasant to watch. Someone is having their fr…

That doesn't explain why police violence happens against unarmed and vulnerable people.

Re: Git Repo of Police Brutality During the 2020 George Floyd Protests

#168
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The vast majority of police are heroes. Define "hero". As has been noted many, many times across HN these past few weeks, "police officer" isn't even among the top 15 most dangerous professions in America. And even then police aren't legally required to do their job[1]. Most police are never called upon to do anything heroic, so we can't say if they are heroes or not. This type of blind veneration for police is wei…

USA Today says that policing is the 18th most dangerous job in the US. What makes police injuries and deaths notable from other occupations is that “The most common cause of workplace fatalities among police officers is direct violence from other people”. It is not just a risky job in general, it is a risky job due to people that would intentionally do them harm, done in service of their community. Everyone is a regu…

Yes, but in a free society, their job is necessarily difficult and dangerous. In a free society, when a peaceful protest starts to look like some folks may become violent, the response is not supposed to be “welp, time to respond with overwhelming force - I feel possibly threatened.” Now, if you think the police should be compensated accordingly, that’s a different argument, and I may well agree with that argument. But “gee, they have a hard gig” simply doesn’t excuse the responses that we’ve seen over and over and over again. Additionally, these are the responses we’re seeing to what are overwhelmingly a bunch of middle-class white twenty-somethings. Recall that the real issue here is how police in the US deal with people of color, which by any metric is a freaking nightmare.

Re: Git Repo of Police Brutality During the 2020 George Floyd Protests

#169

From what I saw on Twitter, most of the videos alleging police using force without reason were misleading, and leaving out all the footage preceding police action. In cases where others uploaded longer videos or different angles, it was clear that protesters were acting illegally, or ignoring clear verbal warnings, or refusing lawful orders to disperse, and so on. By leaving those crucial additional bits out, activis…

That doesn't explain why people receive permanent disabilities for non compliance. By non compliance I don't mean threatening the life of the police officer by the way I literally mean standing somewhere without moving.

Re: Git Repo of Police Brutality During the 2020 George Floyd Protests

#170
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give context to what you saw?

This incident: https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/gwa2ub/seattle_pol... Witness accounts: https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/gwa2ub/seattle_pol... I was there earlier and I saw a scared resident trying to drive home through that gate. A protester right next to me made a snide remark about the "expensive" car and proposed blocking the gate. The gate was not blocked that time, but given the video they did…

I mean, I don't see why they're moving the barricades into the protesters when they could move them to the side to let the van through, and explain what they're doing rather than just arresting people out of nowhere.

Their actions police here are openly antagonistic, even with the context you've given.

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