Basically a bunch of thugs attack random drivers. One of the thugs jumps into a random car, the car stops, police come, pull the thug out, he resists, they deal with him. I have zero sympathy for the thug.
If you want to create a list for this cause, at least make it good, make it solid. Don't fill it with random junk to inflate the numbers.
At 0:16 a cop pushes Adam partially into the passenger window of an SUV, apparently hoping that he will fall out and be injured while the SUV is moving. When the SUV stops, Adam is mobbed by cops and beaten. The driver Bob (a victim of having a cop push someone into his window) is detained, his hands zip-tied. A bystander Charlie who doesn't seem to do anything is also zip-tied. At 1:43 a cop seems to spit in Adam's face and punch him while he's cuffed and being escorted by other cops.
Edited: In your first link:
If soldiers block enemy soldiers inside a 1-block length of street and use chemical weapons on them while preventing them from dispersing, it's a war crime. I don't really know why it should be fine for cops to do it to randoms.
> At 0:16 a cop pushes Adam partially into the passenger window of an SUV, apparently hoping that he will fall out and be injured while the SUV is moving.
This is the second time I've made a comment in defense of the police in a specific incident and if it's anything like last time I will be downvoted to oblivion.
Do you have any information to support your claim? (another video perhaps?) I think false claims only hurt those in support of police reform. I'm not suggesting that's your intent.
From the video in the parent post I don't understand how you reached your conclusion as I see something completely different. I see Adam attempting to enter one vehicle at 0:11 that drives off. Then he makes his second attempt with a different vehicle at 0:16 and clearly jumps into the window of an SUV. Stepping forward frame-by-frame it appears that the officer is pulling Adam's shirt[1] which would be the opposite of pushing him in. This is obviously just my opinion from that single video.
First one involves two groups of police sorrounding a group of protesters and tear gassing them.
I don't how that can be considered a valid dispersal method (They could not disperse there were police on both sides)
Also allegly firing Pepper balls above the waist which is incorrect usage. (There are marks on the walls well above head height)
If you made it practically impossable to disburse when using what are basically torture devices in that situation I don't see how it isn't brutality.
> Basically a bunch of thugs attack random drivers. One of the thugs jumps into a random car, the car stops, police come, pull the thug out, he resists, they deal with him. I have zero sympathy for the thug.
Even when one cop punches "the thug" in the face while he's being walked away while handcuffed?
This is covered in basic military and I guess also police training where I grew up. I only have brief military experience (draft) and yet I know very well that anyone in your custody are to be treated well or you get in trouble.
Besides, staying professional is the right thing to do and police of all should be extremely concerned with doing the right thing IMO.
Re the second video, what I see is that at 0:33, the guy they're chasing starts to step out of the vehicle, and a police officer just whips out his baton and whacks him, unprovoked; and was about to whack him a second time when another officer intervenes. Furthermore, it looks like officer with the baton keeps looking for more opportunities to hit him as he's wrestled to the ground, and is only prevented by the fact that the guy is being mobbed by other officers.
EDIT Also, around 1:37 it looks like someone kicks him when he's lying on the ground, and at 1:45 someone punches him when his hands are cuffed behind his back.
That looks like an example of unnecessary force to me.
I had the same experience. It was a video of a riot line of police with shields walking down the street, and people shooting fireworks at them. I welcome any content that shows events that the media isn't providing. But if someone is going to curate a list like this, don't sell it as something it's not.
You're probably mistaking police flash bangs for fireworks. These devices are completely inappropriate for crowd control, but routinely deployed by US police in the protests.
Very unlikely. Fireworks use against the police more common that you think. You’re just not going to see that many videos of them as it doesn’t help the narrative. A buddy of mine is a cop who had the unfortunate duty of being one of the riot police in my city and it’s not easy to keep your cool while having rocks, fireworks, and almost a Molotov cocktail tossed at you.
Don't dish out what you can't take. I've never seen an example of riots breaking out in a city before police instigate violence with rubber bullets and tear gas.
Also, if he can't keep his cool under those conditions, he has an obligation to change jobs because if he can't handle it he's just putting other people in danger.
I've only seen videos of police using flash bangs against crowds, which seems to be quite common in the these protests for some reason - completely inappropriate, just like shooting gas canisters or less lethal rounds at heads, not at ground level as they are designed to be used.
Haven't seen or heard of any fireworks, which you can be sure the police would not tone down in reports (probably describing them as explosive projectiles).
It certainly isn't easy to keep your cool if things are been thrown at you, but that's the job. It's not an excuse to violently attack protesters who are not throwing things or use inappropriate methods.
Ah what is appropriate? Letting them take over entire city blocks as Seattle has done? Allowing mobs to burn down minority neighborhoods in Minneapolis?
I live basically in the CHAZ in Seattle, they haven't taken over anything. The police just abandoned the precinct building and left it unlocked and people are gathering peacefully to listen to other people speak. It's like a street festival or a farmer's market but with an explicit aim of stopping police from killing black people.
Ah what's the end game? They were forced by leadership to abandon the area. That wasn't their choice to abandon their post. What are your thoughts on the 300+ black people murdered in Chicago so far in the past year by gang violence? You think that a CHAZ in Chicago would help those lives? You think defunding the police would lead to less or more deaths there overall?
The police abandoned the city blocks first. The intent was to purposefully set up a situation where cops can point to rioting in an area they intentionally vacated so riots could happen. Protestors have responded by sitting and watching documentaries about police brutality in that area.
Maybe this can set an example for the rest of the nation, then.
There have been calls to abolish the police. If Seattle can do it, maybe Atlanta and Minneapolis too.
I think that's the right answer: this should be a local decision and each community should decide the level of policing it wants (including none at all).
I downvoted you because I live in a Seattle, and this question shows a ignorance of the facts: “Letting them take over entire city blocks as Seattle has done?”
A bare assertion followed by a bare refusal isn't much help. If you would instead provide some information, that would be a big help to all those of us who do not live in Seattle.
Thanks, I appreciate it. Obviously it's hard for me to confirm things (an increasing problem) but at the very least it gives me an insight and a hook into events.
Not sure why people can't take their political hat off for HN and try to inform.
They've taken over blocks, blocking traffic, stopping the flow of people and businesses into that area, they've disregarded state and local laws, etc. It's completely factual. Whatever Fox News has been doing to drum up hits on their website is completely irrelevant.
When other people have been downvoted, they complain that no reason was given.
I am doing the courtesy of telling you why I downvoted you.
If telling you why I downvoted you then also compels me to justify my position in an extended way, then I will not do it in the future. Instead I will just silently downvote when I feel it is warranted.
Here is what it looked, sounded, and felt like from the perspective of the protesters as the second police unit quickly appeared in front of them and detonated tear gas and a flashbang
From then on it goes into a lot of depth about the tactics the police used to trap the crowd, teargas them and shot them with pepperballs.
> If you want to create a list for this cause, at least make it good, make it solid. Don't fill it with random junk to inflate the numbers.
What I read is: If you want to create a list for this cause, at least make it perfect and unassailable in every possible way. Because I only need to point skeptically at one thing to dismiss the whole lot.
Is it not legitimate to want accurate sources of data? This does not mean slightly inaccurate data is unusable, simply that it is slightly inaccurate and this to some degree impugns its legitimacy (as it should).
> Is it not legitimate to want accurate sources of data?
Of course. I don't believe you honestly think that I am advocating for inaccurate sources of data.
However, finding and discussing sources of different quality among hundreds is one thing.
Saying that you only looked at two of them, expressing skepticism towards those two, and then stating that the whole thing is "filled" with "random junk to inflate the numbers" is another. That doesn't seem like the interpretation of someone who's honest about their intentions.
If I read two sentences from your thesis, find issue with them, and then claim that you have clearly filled it with random junk to inflate the word count... yould you characterize my position as believing that some parts of your thesis are "slightly inaccurate and this to some degree impugns its legitimacy"?
I didn't downvote you and I agree with many of your points.
However personally speaking I would (and do) in fact discount a reading where even two sentences are highly suspect; it makes it not worth spending the time to read the rest of it.
As another example, I work primarily in data analytics. If I produce a report where even a single number is wrong, it almost immediately calls into question all of the other reporting I produced (did they use the same unreliable source? what transformations did they apply? was any sanity checking performed?). And, as it should.
Accuracy is incredibly important to making things appear legitimate.
Appreciate it, and I agree with many of your points.
I guess my main point -- phrased a bit more aggressively than needed -- was that if you have a huge community-sourced pile of data from multiple people in multiple parts of the country, relating to complex and chaotic situations that are unfolding as we speak, and all you need to dismiss it out of hand is finding a couple of things that you find suspect... well then you're always going to dismiss it.
Identifying, discussing and removing data points that don't belong is absolutely useful and fair. Taking a glance at a mountain of data, pointing out a couple pieces that you don't like and implying that the entire pile is rubbish is neither useful nor fair to me.
And I'm sorry for calling you dishonest, or at least heavily implying it. That was stupid and rash of me.
You're being massively disingenuous in the second example. A 'bunch of thugs' means one person who was being chased by a group of officers and beaten while he's trying to run. He's trying to get into a car to escape (admittedly a bad idea), then when they catch up to him they beat him up, throw him to the ground AND arrest the driver.
The fact that you chose to take the video so far out of context means you're not here to argue in good faith at all. Said list isn't for people such as yourself, where no level of evidence could convince you.
Ok, your correction is - one guy is doing it, not a bunch. I agree with your correction.
Other than that, the point remains.
They "arrest" the driver, because he is not following the police instructions to get out of the car, and is actively resisting the police. We don't know if he was actually arrested or just detained. I got handcuffed once and then let go, it wasn't an arrest.
Can you explain to me why the driver needed to be arrested, and why it was considered 'resisting arrest'? Try again, because you seem to still be spinning the story in a way as to try to favor the police. Even though I can agree the person running shouldn't have jumped into cars, why do you think the person driving deserve to be beaten too? If that was you in that situation, do you think you would deserve to be beaten up and arrested too?
And try not putting 'arrest' in fear quotes, because they literally yanked him out of his car, threw him against his vehicle and arrested him.
We don't know if he was arrested. And if he was, and he did nothing wrong, he gets to sue the state for a nice payout.
I would not sit in the car if the police ordered me out. So I wouldn't get beaten. I don't mess with the police.
> And try not putting 'arrest' in fear quotes, because they literally yanked him out of his car, threw him against his vehicle and arrested him.
As I told you. I got handcuffed and put in the back of a police car once. But it wasn't an arrest. They let me go. As a lawyer explained to me later, an arrest is a specific procedure, not just the fact of getting detained/handcuffed.
You are probably also taking it out of context. You have no idea what has happened in that neighborhood in the last year or decade. You have no idea what those perps and officers have experienced. Right?
Both totally irrelevant to whether or not it's appropriate to punch a handcuffed prisoner in the face while they're not resisting.
If a cop is suffering from PTSD or stress to the point where they can't keep themselves from assaulting a handcuffed prisoner, then I am genuinely very sorry for them, but they're still in the wrong job and they still need to be let go.
If the police officer is suffering from PTSD, a mental illness, and it originated at work, the police department as their employer should look into other options first before firing the unfit officer.
Treatment combined with appropriate work should be the first option. Treatment combined with sick leave should obviously be the second.
I'm willing to compromise on how treatment/employment is handled, especially if the problem originated at work, but I assume we're still in agreement that the officer shouldn't be on the street making arrests?
In the course of one thread, there's now a series of sequential arguments from several different commenters progressing from:
"A lot of these videos don't show anything wrong", to
"Well, here's at least two videos that show nothing wrong", to
"Okay, the video looks bad, but the full context probably justifies it", to
"Sure it was wrong, but keep in mind that in a stressful situation everybody makes mistakes".
I'm eager to see how these arguments continue to evolve once comments move away from isolated video clips and into the territory of police departments lying about video footage[0], or 57 other officers resigning in protest over basic disciplinary actions[1].
The union said the officers resigned in support of their peers. Two officers have said they actually resigned because the union refused any legal aid. Further the same officers said that many of those who resigned do not in fact support the suspended officers.
Most of the MA I have attended that had a serious focus on self defense, were focused on deescalation, safety and dealing with the stress of the moment. There is a place for the use of violence to educate someone that it's in their best interest to change their behavior, but prolonged choke holds or grappling aren't helping keep anyone safe in most on the street situations.
You're making this argument in a thread where police have been found brutally beating people who are already restrained and/or not resisting arrest. People without firearms. Or people that are protesting peacefully. Or a 75 year old man who was entirely harmless.
https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1270402748895412224
Which isn't an example of police brutality.
The second one was this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsTkAOe5UTE
Basically a bunch of thugs attack random drivers. One of the thugs jumps into a random car, the car stops, police come, pull the thug out, he resists, they deal with him. I have zero sympathy for the thug.
If you want to create a list for this cause, at least make it good, make it solid. Don't fill it with random junk to inflate the numbers.