Police attacks against journalists across the U.S. since May 28 • Hacker News Board

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

#681

Post by Thorrez » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 6:16 AM UTC

kortilla wrote: post #672

rumanator wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stopping traffic risks the lives of people in ambulances so it’s pretty hard to condone that. Social media is clogged with live footage from the protests. Can you find a single video of an ambulance being stopped by protests? The irony of your comment is that the likelihood of an ambulance being close to a protest is linked to the extreme violence that the police is using to attack and repress protests against poli…

> Can you find a single video of an ambulance being stopped by protests? Why would anyone make a video of stopped traffic?

If there was a stopped ambulance with its siren on, people would find that very interesting and record it. This isn't some boring traffic jam, it's very political.

Anyways, if you're trapped in traffic and not moving, there's not much else for you to do besides get out your phone and take some video.

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

#682

Post by ardy42 » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 6:17 AM UTC

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #422

vb6sp6 wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This doesn't happen" (shows a video of it happening) "This isn't widespread" So how many videos do you need to see? 2? 10? 15???

Would you find it acceptable to shoot some footage of a handful of looting/arsonist incidents and proclaiming “protesters are doing X”, just like we are complaining that “police” are doing X? Or would you correct someone and say that isn’t happening, and when confronted with a video of someone somewhere doing a bad thing, inform them of the fact that a few cherry picked anecdotes do not represent the activity of the…

> Would you find it acceptable to shoot some footage of a handful of looting/arsonist incidents and proclaiming “protesters are doing X”, just like we are complaining that “police” are doing X?

It's very easy to attribute actions to the police, since they very commonly wear easy-to-identify uniforms and it's illegal to impersonate them. The video above was of a uniformed police officer in the company of maybe a hundred others. It's the literal job of police to stop crimes, so if you see an officer commuting a crime and his colleagues see and don't intervene, you can assume some level of assent to the officer's criminal activity.

Even if you found a video of a looter/arsonist, how do you know they're a protester at all? If they are a protester, how do you establish what their faction is (BLM, anarchist anti-capitalist, Neo-nazi agitator, etc.)? How do you judge the attitudes of the other protesters to to their actions, given protesters aren't equipped to enforce the law and don't have the mandate to do so?

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

#683

Post by m0zg » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 6:19 AM UTC

tomnipotent wrote: post #619

m0zg wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> willingly and knowingly caused by the police Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Are you living under a rock? Reddit has a compilation thread of dozens of examples of police escalating situations, attacking press, pushing old men with canes to the ground, shooting residents ON THEIR doorstep, randomly grabbing civilians and assaulting them. The list doesn't seem to stop. Since 2001, police have taken more American lives than all other terrorist activities combined.

Dude, you've justified torching a residential building in another thread. I think you should sit this one out, for your own good.

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

#684

Post by yyyk » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 6:19 AM UTC

deelowe wrote: post #677

yyyk wrote: post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the coroner said it wasn't asphyxia that killed him (despite all the videos) and a private autopsy found that's not true[1]." The county coroner's report was technically true in a way meant to imply a false result. Floyd didn't die from lack of airflow, he died because the knee stopped blood flow to the brain, that is the brain couldn't receive Oxygen despite the body being able to breath. The county coroner careful…

Was this the coroner or medical examiner? I didn't think the coroner did a report. The medical examiner released their full report shortly after the preliminary one and did state the death was ultimately due to asphyxiation. I read that the initial medical examiner's report didn't go this far b/c they had not completed their review and they needed to get a report out quickly so that the officers could be charged.

IIRC we're talking about the initial report. Later on, they backtracked, but their original report was patently flawed. Given the direction and obviousness of the flaws, one must question whether the flaws were only due to haste.

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

#685

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 6:25 AM UTC

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.

[deleted]

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

#686

Post by Thorrez » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 6:25 AM UTC

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #422

vb6sp6 wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This doesn't happen" (shows a video of it happening) "This isn't widespread" So how many videos do you need to see? 2? 10? 15???

Would you find it acceptable to shoot some footage of a handful of looting/arsonist incidents and proclaiming “protesters are doing X”, just like we are complaining that “police” are doing X? Or would you correct someone and say that isn’t happening, and when confronted with a video of someone somewhere doing a bad thing, inform them of the fact that a few cherry picked anecdotes do not represent the activity of the…

It's well known that some people in society are crazy, so an occasional video of someone acting crazy doesn't really mean much. Police though need to be held to a higher standard. So a video of police doing something bad is much more impactful. And this isn't just a police officer doing something all alone, there are a ton of officers surrounding him and not stopping him.

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

#687

Post by panny » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 6:28 AM UTC

bosswipe wrote: post #91

I had been heartened by the right's recent upswing in fierce support for the first amendment, but unfortunately I've seen little of that support during the protests as freedom of assembly and freedom of the press have been attacked. For example Rand Paul has not tweeted in a week. Sadly, as always, these kind of principled arguments, on both sides, are a sham to advance whatever the partisan battle of the week is.

>I had been heartened by the right's recent upswing in fierce support for the first amendment, but unfortunately I've seen little of that support during the protests

You do see a difference in the protests, right? The protests against lockdowns didn't include looting, arson, rape, murder, and multiple murdered police.

Here, have a small sample,

Black pawn shop employee murdered by looters for TVs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhG0v9pDycM

"You said black lives matter.. look what you did to my store"

https://mobile.twitter.com/Mus1yMustafa/status/1267874483840...

Destroying store and beating unarmed woman and her husband

https://streamable.com/rvrwil

Restaurant manager beaten and stomped for trying to defend his workplace

https://streamable.com/ila4dh

Stopping, beating and stomping a truck driver while protesters yell to kill him

https://streamable.com/8zk9dq

Protesters attack a media member and then pummel him

https://streamable.com/p4i3jb

Police officer beaten on the streets

https://streamable.com/je4ki5

Car runs over a cop

https://streamable.com/q4nat7

Protesters set homeless man’s belongings on fire

https://streamable.com/sdjvfa

Throwing fireworks at the cops

https://streamable.com/7sv4a9

Chasing and beating guy with red had

https://streamable.com/rcsmi0

I can keep going. It is utterly dispicable. There's a long long list of videos with these "peaceful protestors" in action. Everyone has a camera, and all of this is available for you to see, if you only choose to see it.

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

#688

Post by freeone3000 » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 6:31 AM UTC

lenkite wrote: post #660

skoskie wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the bigger issue to be the videos of police doing nothing to thwart blatant vandalism, and the contrast of those videos with the unprovoked attacks on what appear to be peaceful protesters. The “politically convenient group” seems to be anyone being destructive, like ... https://twitter.com/SARAHKSTUDIO/status/1267371809084567554/... ... white women? The sum of causing unnecessary damage and turning a blind ey…

Considering that police are being beaten badly and some killed attempting to stop "protestors", I think it's not surprising that many have chosen to do nothing. Better safe than sorry. Actually, there are dozens of different videos showing police being badly beaten as they attempt to stop vandalism. They just don't make the news as this isn't "progressive". https://abcnews.go.com/US/small-town-police-chief-killed-off…

So is this how we've decided it's going to be? We have all protesters on one side, and if any protesters do anything bad, all get punished? (I also find some moderate irony in you claiming something doesn't make the news, then linking a news website.)

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

#689

Post by aspenmayer » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 6:34 AM UTC

kortilla wrote: post #675

gindely wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Protests are inconvenient. But if you can amass enough people day after day to block major intersections with crowds of people, then the correct thing to do is to block major intersections with crowds of people day after day. If people don't want their intersections blocked by crows of people day after day, then they should consider the extent to which their interests are compatible with the interests of the proteste…

Being a large enough crowd to block an intersection does not mean your views are valid enough to be supported by everyone else. Would you really advocate joining KKK protests just because they were large?

White supremacists are actively trying to fly under the radar in open-carry protests right now.[1] There’s a lot of weird noise in that area online and off. So just because white supremacists and their sympathizers get to protest, that doesn’t mean other people get to protest? Sounds like separate but equal to me.[2] Not for me or mine.

This was your hypothetical, but it’s actually reality. Protest is protest. It’s for the whole society to decide what are valid forms of it, at every level.

[1] https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2020/05/27/the-boogaloo-move...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separate_but_equal

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

#690

Post by jussij » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 6:35 AM UTC

jariel wrote: post #479

kayfox wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your of course assuming that ambulance services don't track the protests and route around them as much as possible.

There is absolutely no need for emergency services to track pop-up protests, the very notion is absurd. We don't have the right to block traffic to promote our political opinions. When protestors block traffic, if the city decides they have to go, and they won't - in those situations, it's the protesters who are 'instigating', not the police. NRA 2cnd amendment protestors, pro/anti-abortion protestors, anti-capitalis…

A mark of any free democratic society is for the right of the public to engage in peaceful protest and for the form of that peaceful protest to be not be constrained by external parties.

For example it is not up to the government to define what constitutes an acceptable peaceful protest.

When you get to the point where the government defines what is and what is not an acceptable protest then you no longer have a free democracy society.