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

Baltimore Residents Begin Clearing Debris After Night of Riots

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 110 posts

Re: Baltimore Residents Begin Clearing Debris After Night of Riots

#71

Post by ceejayoz »

mc32 wrote: post #66
akilism wrote: post #7

This is what happens when you have an above the law police force that preys on entire neighborhoods that feel like they have been cast aside.

The problem isn't the police. The police are a good target of authority. The real problem is economic. Even with all the current police injustices, the negative impact from them is less than the impact if they withdrew from the neighborhood. In that sense they are a net good. Of course people want the peace and prosperity reduced crime brings but also want less authority looking down but most of all they want economi…

It should be noted that the police can be used as an economic weapon via tickets/fees/fines.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/11/26/h...

Re: Baltimore Residents Begin Clearing Debris After Night of Riots

#72

Post by k-mcgrady »

crusso wrote: post #68
k-mcgrady wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes let's blame poor people. You realise we don't have this problem in countries with even larger welfare systems because our police aren't so heavily militarised and given free reign with no consequences?

Where did I blame poor people? Why do discussions like this on HN have to be so twisted and toxic? If anything, I would blame the political elitist class that uses shiny beads to buy power and then perpetuates the misery of their constituents by not giving them a good education and the means to improve their lot.

It reads to me like a complaint about wards of the state but I may have misunderstood.

Re: Baltimore Residents Begin Clearing Debris After Night of Riots

#73

Post by stefantalpalaru »

cognivore wrote: post #57
stefantalpalaru wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no justification for this kind of violence. And it's not even directed against law enforcement. Further more, in the near future it will be used as an excuse to further militarize the police, increase its budgets and reduce civil liberties even more - think Camden, NJ where drug traffic is an excuse to discourage white people to walk and black people to sit on street corners (VICE S02E12).

>> There is no justification for this kind of violence. This is what I'm talking about in my previous post. It actually ignores that it happened - regardless of how justified or wrong or morally outraged you might feel about it. The reality is it's going on whether you feel it's justified or not.

You mistake causation for justification. Nobody is challenging the former, we're just disagreeing about the latter.

Re: Baltimore Residents Begin Clearing Debris After Night of Riots

#74

Post by Mtinie »

Lawtonfogle wrote: post #58
Mtinie wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But it's a reminder of how fragile the social order is and how close we always are to its collapse. It makes me wonder if "civilization" really exists, or if we really are just small groups of self-centered "tribes" with sets of overlapping goals...until they aren't. Fiction writers have made extensive use of this tenuous balance as a plot point. "Under the Dome" by Stephen King comes immediately to mind as one rec…

>if we really are just small groups of self-centered "tribes" with sets of overlapping goals...until they aren't. Look at criminals, especially those who violate moral standards we hold as sacred. Each of us is only a good citizen as long as our goals align, though those goals can be more complex than they first appear (such as altruism).

That's a good point. I had been thinking about the "positive" outcomes of those overlapping concerns but you are right to point out that social mores are a very grey area.

Re: Baltimore Residents Begin Clearing Debris After Night of Riots

#75

Post by owenjones »

madez wrote: post #22
rayiner wrote: post #3

My wife and I live in Baltimore, in Mt. Vernon. We were having dinner the other night in Bolton Hill (a quiet residential area), and four guys ran by the restaurant and tried to throw a chair through the window (chairs turned out to be heavier than they thought). People vandalized the Rite-Aid a few blocks from our apartment, and set fire to a building we could see out our window. Being from Bangladesh I'm not worrie…

Why do many countries with cold climate didn't have these issues while many countries with hot climate tend to do? Why do countries which didn't have unsafe streets now do after immigration?

Hmm, today I learned America has never had a riot before.

Although I seem to distinctly remember my city of Philadelphia rioting pretty good after the Philadelphia Phillies won the World Series...

Re: Baltimore Residents Begin Clearing Debris After Night of Riots

#76

Post by Lancey »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #52
SFjulie1 wrote: post #15

Northen America cities are really not geometrically in favour of law enforcement. L1 geometry + size of blocks gives an unfair advantage to the rioters. Which means law enforcement have to resort to excessive violence to squash demonstration, and the government to use excessive measures to protect social peace (such as spying their own citizens). Designing cities for cars and not the "humans beings" may have been a c…

Aren't North American cities generally grid based? wouldn't this make it easy for police to for lines, block off several streets, and contain rioters within a block or two?

See New York where protesters could easily avoid cops by creating multiple incidents at once and dispersing in different directions when police resistance arrives. It takes too long for an organized group to move through the city and that can be used to spread police thin.

Re: Baltimore Residents Begin Clearing Debris After Night of Riots

#77

Post by msandford »

shoeless wrote: post #26
Lancey wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were the police justified when they beat an unarmed suspect and denied him medical attention that would have saved his life? Were they justified when they refused to bring those responsible to justice?

That's an awfully big assumption. Was the fact that the police beat this guy and cracked his spine reported in the Baltimore Sun yesterday? There has been no conclusion that that is the case. Those that are rioting are guilty of exactly what they accuse the police of. I believe the mayor called them "thugs".

He was able to run away from the police BEFORE they arrested him. After he was transported to the police station, he was found to be severely injured and the folks at the police station sent him immediately to the hospital.

I'm going to use logic here for a minute. There are only two possibilities for how this happened. Either it happened at the hands of the police, or another force.

Who is this other force, and how were they able to overpower the police? Did they overpower them in public? You know, like in the video we can see? Or did they forcibly stop a police vehicle, beat the man half to death and then let the police vehicle continue on. And how did this arguably criminal act go unreported and un-pursued by the police? The police typically take crimes against their own pretty seriously.

If you find the line of reasoning that some other mysterious force caused these injuries suspect, I would tend to agree with you.

Re: Baltimore Residents Begin Clearing Debris After Night of Riots

#78

Post by [deleted] »

th0waway wrote: post #32
akilism wrote: post #7

This is what happens when you have an above the law police force that preys on entire neighborhoods that feel like they have been cast aside.

This is what happens when you have populations that think they are above the law, and that prey on other citizens that aren't like them (FTFY)

[deleted]

Re: Baltimore Residents Begin Clearing Debris After Night of Riots

#79

Post by vinay427 »

Lancey wrote: post #67
crusso wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a bit of a leap to say that the cops helped start the riots because there are a couple of incidents of cops throwing something. From the video on the link you referenced, it looked like the cops were in full retreat from a wild crowd throwing objects. One of the cops half-heartedly tossed something back... inappropriate response on his part, but hardly evidence that he was the instigator in anything.

Police do a bad thing: "You can't blame all cops for a few bad apples in isolated incidents." Protesters do a bad thing: "Pathetic rioters! Ungrateful youths! Sit down and do as you're told!"

No one's saying that. My comment simply mentioned that cinder blocks were apparently being thrown at firefighters by some protesters. I fully support peaceful protests as they are an effective way to enact change, but violent acts really only harm innocents and turn public support away.

Re: Baltimore Residents Begin Clearing Debris After Night of Riots

#80

Post by msandford »

Lancey wrote: post #63
engi_nerd wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, I see you are advocating a new system where injustices are answered with further injustices.

There is no system in place where this can end with justice. Every time that justice has been called for in cases of police brutality against minorities over the past year, only once was that justice served. Murderers are at large, and richer for, injustices that were defended by the system. Those that are supposed to deliver justice consider themselves all-powerful and above the laws they should be upholding. Justic…

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/04/11/th...
Post reply on HN