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African-American George Floyd's death has led to marches, demonstrations, acts of violence, and looting across the USA and in other parts of the world. Emotions are running high. We will not attempt to accuse or defend anyone here. Just attempt to lay out the information we have and offer it up for the community to discuss. Many comments about this incident have been posted to unrelated stories on this site. This is, therefore, an attempt to provide one place on SoylentNews where people are encouraged to discuss it. So as to not derail other stories on the site, I kindly ask you focus those comments here.
Wikipedia has a page about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_George_Floyd (permanent link to the page as it appeared at the time of writing):
On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, an African-American man, was killed in the Powderhorn community of Minneapolis, Minnesota. While Floyd was handcuffed and lying face down on a city street during an arrest, Derek Chauvin, a white American Minneapolis police officer, kept his knee on the right side of Floyd's neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds; according to the criminal complaint against Chauvin, 2 minutes and 53 seconds of that time occurred after Floyd became unresponsive.[3][4][5][6][7] Officers Tou Thao, J. Alexander Kueng, and Thomas K. Lane participated in Floyd's arrest, with Kueng holding Floyd's back, Lane holding his legs, and Thao looking on and preventing intervention by an onlooker as he stood nearby.[8]:6:24[9][10]
The arrest was made after Floyd was accused of using a counterfeit $20 bill at a market.[11] Police said Floyd physically resisted arrest.[12][13] Some media organizations commented that a security camera from a nearby business did not show Floyd resisting.[14][15] The criminal complaint filed later said that based on body camera footage, Floyd repeatedly said he couldn't breathe while standing outside the police car, resisted getting in the car and intentionally fell down.[16][17][18][19] Several bystanders recorded the event on their smartphones, with one video showing Floyd repeating "Please", "I can't breathe", "Mama", and "Don't kill me" being widely circulated on social media platforms and broadcast by the media.[20] While knee-to-neck restraints are allowed in Minnesota under certain circumstances, Chauvin's usage of the technique has been widely criticized by law enforcement experts as excessive.[21][22][23] All four officers were fired the day after the incident.[24]
[...] Charges: Third-degree murder (Chauvin) Second-degree manslaughter (Chauvin)
This has been extensively covered by the media. Some outlets attempt to put their own interpretations on their coverage with their selection of video footage and with their commentary. It is difficult to find a simple video of the incident. Here is one that has coverage from the time of initial encounter of the police the officers with George Floyd up through his being taken away by ambulance. The video is a composite of shots from a restaurant's surveillance camera (Dragon Wok), Officer body cam, and bystander cell phones. YouTube footage: Full George Floyd Available Footage (21:12). If anyone has more complete footage of the arrest, please mention it clearly (with a link) in the comments.
Lastly, this is a hard time for everybody. Pandemic. Lock-down. Unemployment. Fears. Please be mindful of others' circumstances when commenting. We are a community sprung from a time of challenge. Let us continue to be here for one-another during this difficult time. SoylentNews is People.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by epitaxial on Tuesday June 02 2020, @07:37PM (94 children)
I come here to get a break from current politics.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by donkeyhotay on Tuesday June 02 2020, @08:05PM (27 children)
I agree. This is a bad idea.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @08:27PM (3 children)
We're already discussing this extensively.
Three of the four most recent journal entries on the front page are about this:
https://soylentnews.org/~c0lo/journal/ [soylentnews.org]
https://soylentnews.org/~RandomFactor/journal/ [soylentnews.org]
https://soylentnews.org/~exaeta/journal/ [soylentnews.org]
And those journal entries have a combined total of 223 comments.
It seems like Soylentils want to discuss this. As that's the case, why are you against such discussion?
(Score: 2, Disagree) by janrinok on Wednesday June 03 2020, @08:00AM (2 children)
Because this site was created to discuss STEM topics predominantly. We recognise that some might want to discuss other things and, as you have already pointed out, it is already being discussed in 3 different journals. What does a 4th discussion add to the matter? Do we have to cover every black murder in the USA now? How about white murders? Or perhaps we should report every car/auto accident because there are often human casualties in those events too? The subject is being covered by every MSM outline in the USA and Europe, there are plenty of sources to get your information available to you. I don't think we should be one of them.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @09:33AM (1 child)
Fair enough.
That said, I agree with martyb's reasoning [soylentnews.org].
Since folks were not only discussing this in journals, but also posting off-topic comments in other stories as well, doesn't it make sense to have a place to put those comments that's not stepping on other discussions?
What's more, SN does cover things that newsworthy that aren't STEM related. The recent "COVID Roundup" stories or the flurry of stories about Notre Dame after the fire.
Besides, this has become much, much bigger than a dead black man in Minneapolis. Hundreds of thousands of people on at least three continents (in at least 120 locations in the US alone) are out in the streets demonstrating. The President of the United States ordered peacefully protesting Americans to be tear-gassed and bludgeoned. That same President has threatened to use the US military on Americans. There have been numerous incidents of police brutality and whole neighborhoods have been looted and burned.
I'd say that was pretty newsworthy and certainly worth it's own front page article all by itself. Given that folks were posting about it in unrelated stories, it seems a no-brainer to me. And since this topic currently has 205 (206 once I post this) comments, I'm glad all those comments weren't in other, unrelated stories.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday June 03 2020, @05:37PM
So why didn't they put those comments into the journals that were discussing that event? And creating another story does not remove those comments from all the other stories where they remain off-topic, thus spoiling any chance of discussing the subject topic intelligently.
So this isn't about a 'dead black man' - your comment suggests that it is about politics and the person you currently have as your leader. This is just another opportunity for the Ds and Rs to throw names at each other. Take your political name-calling somewhere else please. I don't particularly care which side you are on, you as a nation put him in the Whitehouse, you sort it out. How many times have black people been killed and their death has sparked riots and protests? And then tell us all why nothing has ever changed.
That is because the community we once had and the one we have now are very different. Nowadays there are a fair number of ACs who just want to discuss their own brand of politics, and they come here because they can do so anonymously and without being censored. That is not to say that description fits all ACs but certainly a good proportion of them. But how many of them are prepared to step up and help run this site?
One of the topics that we do discuss is "Careers and Education". There can be now doubt that Covid-19 has affected both careers and education for millions of people around the world. The same cannot be said, in my opinion, for another attack by the police on a black person in the USA. As serious as that attack is, and despite how abhorrent the action is to most people, it does not meet any of our usual STEM topics. Tell me again in a few months time when the protests have ended and the name of George Floyd doesn't feature in any of the newspapers. When things change then that will be a story worth publishing by this site.
Go back and count them. There were other stories published by our community regarding the bees in Notre Dame, or actions by the alt-right who were blaming Muslims for the fire. They were stories about bees and the alt-right.
Just my $0.02 worth.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @08:30PM (5 children)
I'd rather have a place for it to go, then spill all over into random articles. But then again, we've seen how well that thought went with other political topics.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday June 02 2020, @08:49PM (4 children)
Not sure if it's really their intent, but I think it's just going to stir things up, maybe a little like inciting a riot. They'll certainly get lots of comments in this discussion.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday June 03 2020, @07:56PM (2 children)
It's still about 42 comments away from the Hall of Fame [soylentnews.org]. 41 now...
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday June 03 2020, @09:56PM (1 child)
42, the answer to life, ... never mind. So here's the burning question: is it about quantity, or quality? I'd like to see stats on total mod points, and average score per comment, etc.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Thursday June 04 2020, @11:11AM
Would be nice to have both. On a submission like this, there's bound to be a mixture. The in depth analysis is good. The one liners that just refute someone's point with the same unsubstantiated counterpoint over and over again, we could probably do without. Then you have people like me stuffing it with these offtopic metaposts, partly so I can say look, it's just matched the bottom of the Most Active Stories on the Hall of Fame!
Now you're talkin'! I wouldn't mind whiling away a quiet afternoon running queries and plotting graphs on that database. That would actually be another way to rank the most and least popular discussions on the Hall of Fame, highest and lowest average score per comment. Although it might reflect more a change in audience and modding behavior over the life of SoylentNews, rather than a change in the quality of the articles or even the comments.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @03:08PM
You blathering on, attacking other people while *falsely* claiming that they're attacking you won't help the quality of comments, Sergeant Pinback.
It's something to consider, regardless of the topic.
Cheers, friend!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by aristarchus on Tuesday June 02 2020, @08:33PM (12 children)
Nice try, martyb! This cannot but end in racist MAGA thugs crossing a street to tear gas priests to use their church for a photo op, or some thing like that.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Tuesday June 02 2020, @09:29PM (10 children)
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by aristarchus on Tuesday June 02 2020, @09:40PM (4 children)
Not just MAGA, MAGA Thugs! But, seriously, you were just asking for it. Now let me direct a horde of Anti Fascists in the general direction of SN. But, actually we do not need them, because Soylentils are creatures of extraordinary peace and justice, so the Trump supporting trolls will be dealt with appropriately. Even khallow has been making sense lately!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @12:08AM (3 children)
So anti-fascists are anti-fascist because it's in the name, exactly like national socialists were socialists? The FBI are questioning people arrested in NYC about connections to Antifa, twitchy asshole time for these authoritarians pretending they're anarchists. [youtu.be]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @12:29AM (2 children)
But finding none. [thenation.com] Interesting.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @02:37AM (1 child)
Watch and learn [instagram.com]
Review Debord, you are watching theater. Antifa is not a hierarchical organization, it's vertically integrated like ISIS so it takes longer to map but the cells are there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @01:27AM
With the crucial distinction: Antifa does not exist. It is like Q, to QAnon. Or the Deep State, Trump's attempt to be more like Nixon and his Deep Throat. Or, the pron movie.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:06PM (4 children)
Well since that was the core message behind the POTUS's campaign I think it is fair.
How come I never see this tone trolling stuff against the conservative shitposters? Hmmmmmm, no sarcasm tags, suspeeshus.
(Score: 5, Touché) by SpockLogic on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:40PM
The rotten core is full of MAGAts
MAGA = Morons are Governing America
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 3, Informative) by martyb on Wednesday June 03 2020, @02:27PM (2 children)
You want sarcasm tags? We've got sarcasm tags! Near the bottom of the comment entry form (the one you used to enter the above comment) appears this text:
For example, if you enter this text in your comment:
It is rendered as:
Similarly, if you enter this text in your comment:
That is rendered as:
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @06:07PM (1 child)
I was commenting on the lack of sarcasm tags in your post. Didn't seem like you'd be genuinely thankful for MAGA to be mentioned, bit of an odd statement.
I'm sure some other users appreciated your educational post though.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Wednesday June 03 2020, @06:30PM
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @01:15PM
MAGA = Making Anal Great Again. Significant that you bring this up.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by qzm on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:52AM (3 children)
Since when did this become a political discussions site? Shouldnt we be actively working to avoid this?
There are plenty of other forums more suited.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday June 03 2020, @06:15AM
Since martyb and the admins and devs decided to toss some cheese into the rat pen, that's when. Squeak squeak! :)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by acid andy on Wednesday June 03 2020, @09:53AM
For me this is primarily an ethical issue. Politics just happens to be one of the main ways our civilizations influence and legislate on such issues. I'd much rather discuss such things with intelligent nerds with at least a passing understanding of the scientific method (even if they're refusing to apply it) than people on "forums more suited".
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @11:59PM
SoylentNews is People
Personally I'd prefer we didn't have politics although that's not realistic these days to the point where I'm following politics more than tech. You don't have to comment on political stories although this one and the resulting "protests" will be unavoidable for some time.
(Score: 4, Touché) by RS3 on Tuesday June 02 2020, @08:20PM
You must be new.
(Score: 5, Informative) by martyb on Tuesday June 02 2020, @08:23PM (4 children)
Agreed. But politics sometimes inserts its head, anyway. As stated in the very first paragraph:
Like it or not, those comments have been written and posted.
In many other stories.
You are not interested in this? Fine, I understand that. It is for that very reason that this story was posted. That there may be a better chance of on-topic comments in those other stories.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday June 02 2020, @09:20PM
come on - this is SN- no one reads TFA, and few read the whole of TFS.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:28PM (2 children)
Superb point and pragmatic action. gj Martyb.
Thank you for providing a 'chaff bin' for this to be swept into, so it won't corrupt other topics.
Also so that those of us who wish to converse about it, can, in the way that we prefer - the soylent threaded-topic way!
(Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Wednesday June 03 2020, @01:22PM (1 child)
If only it worked that way. Unfortunately that's not going to happen. In addition to this story, commenters will continue to add their random, off-topic "insights" into every other story posted over the next few weeks.
(Score: 1) by petecox on Wednesday June 03 2020, @01:38PM
'over the next few weeks'
Perhaps you mean the next few *months*; until Melbourne Cup Day when they hold the election.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @08:49PM (43 children)
Is murder really political?
I get it that the POTUS has been trying to use the mass response to this tragedy to rile up his base. But, for the rest of the country (and the world, for that matter), murder is a tragedy. And, regular abuses of power, including murder, by law enforcement is an outrage. That this abuse of power occurs without consequences is criminal. No politics here. Just a demand that rule of law be enforced upon the enforcers.
I can't fathom what a person who thinks being anti-murder is "political", is thinking.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday June 02 2020, @09:51PM (14 children)
I don't think it is so much about
POUTSPOTUS.I think it is about institutionalized racism in [some] police departments. Acceptance of it by partners, other officers, supervisors and maybe the police chief or mayor. Unwillingness to address it.
How long ago was the Rodney King beating? March 3, 1991. And the trial? And aftermath of riots?
Did we learn anything? Did we fix anything?
Then other cases. For years. Stop and frisk. And more. Baltimore. Chicago.
Not so long ago August 10, 2014. Ferguson Missouri. Did we learn anything? Did we fix anything? More recently black men being shot in the back. Another black man shot because he reached in his car to produce ID when the cop asked for ID.
The only thing that has changed is cell phone cameras everywhere. Now more than ever police treat citizens like the enemy. It it telling that police use the term "civilians" like they are an occupation army. They don't say citizens like the 1966 Batman. Holy Dark Emitting Diodes Batman!
Similarly, remember the Columbine Colorado school shooting? They said "never again" would this happen. How many school shooting or shooters since then? Have we actually done anything about it?
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Immerman on Tuesday June 02 2020, @11:06PM (3 children)
Honestly, even aside from the institutionalized racism, my complaint is that cops can, and regularly do, literally get away with murder. And other crimes even more frequently. Black people suffer the worst of it, but whites aren't exactly safe either.
We need to bring accountability to all those who abuse their power under color of law, regardless of the color of the victim. All the anti-racist policy and training in the world isn't going to do a damned bit of good so long as there's institutionalized immunity for cops.
Hold cops accountable for their gross abuses in general, and tackling racist abuses will be a matter of making sure abusing minorities doesn't get "overlooked", rather than a mostly futile effort to get cops help accountable in particular situations.
(Score: 2) by qzm on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:54AM (2 children)
You mean like charging with with murder perhaps?
Do you feel the same about charging those murdering people trying to protect their livelyhoods right now?
How about those inciting looting and violence? Do you not feel personal property should be protected by said police?
You know, two wrongs and all.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @04:17AM
Where did gp say anything about not holding *everyone* accountable?
He, correctly, pointed out that certain folks (the police) who have *not* been held accountable for their actions in the past, should be.
Anything else is just your imagination.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday June 04 2020, @04:24AM
Charging is good. Uncommon, but good.
Conviction and sentencing that matches the severity of their crime is better. And woefully rare.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday June 03 2020, @01:07PM (8 children)
Police kill more white people than black people [statista.com]. Many are not aware of that, because the media doesn't report it, and politicians don't mention it. Why don't they? I have watched many clips online of rioters beating white people senseless or to death because they're white. The media hasn't reported that. Why not? The increasingly strident and open institutional racism against white people is alarming; the categorical condemnation of all white people as racist or malign sits in a pantheon of bigotry next to those who hate Jews because they're Jews, Muslims because they're Muslims, and so on.
Police violence against civilians, all of us, has been a problem for years. George W. Bush thought it would be a good idea to transfer military weapons and equipment to police departments across America. They then have been using that against civilians. They have been using it disproportionately against poor communities because they can get away with it; they would never get away with those tactics in Westchester, NY (ultra-wealthy area north of New York City).
There is an additional complication in that police unions and the "Thin Blue Line"/Omerta make it difficult to weed bad apples out of the force. The cop in question in the George Floyd murder had been written up over and over.
Lastly, the President and Congress really don't have the ability to do much about it under our federal system. They don't hire and fire police, municipalities do. And these incidents keep happening in big cities that are invariably controlled by Democrats, the ones who constantly claim that they're the good guys when it comes to matters of racism. Minneapolis is a Blue Town in a Blue State. New York City is a Blue Town in a Blue State. So, either that tells us that they're the racists, because they are directly responsible for those police departments, or it indicates that racism is not what's going on.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 5, Informative) by TheRaven on Wednesday June 03 2020, @02:04PM (3 children)
The media does report it, frequently, but they normalise their data. Let's look at last year's data from that chart. A total of 802 people with recorded ethnicity were killed by the police:
Now, let's compare those numbers to the total population of the USA:
So, black people make up 12.7% of the population, but 29% of the people who are killed by police. If you are black, you are more than twice as likely to be killed by police.
Comparing the absolute numbers and ignoring the distribution tells me that you are either really bad at statistics or you're intentionally misusing statistics for racist reasons. Which is it?
sudo mod me up
(Score: 3, Touché) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday June 03 2020, @04:26PM (2 children)
Clearly you're not bothered that twice as many white people are killed by cops as are black people. Is it because you think the white people are all guilty and bad, while all the black people are all innocent and good? Are you really bad at statistics or are you intentionally misusing statistics for racist reasons?
I'm making this point for a reason, because to support your unstated premise, that the cops are arresting (or attempting to arrest and unlawfully killing suspects) black people disproportionately because they are racist, you have to ignore the other statistics that black people commit crimes at a higher rate than white people. You are picking and choosing which statistics you trust, and which you discount. I am pretty sure you're going to immediately declare that the statistics you don't like are racist, too.
I said what I said because I have been seeing clips of the anchors of major news networks declaring that white people are categorically racist. I have been watching them say things that would instantly get them fired if they said the same of Jews, or LGBT people, or any other group. It's bigoted, and wrong.
The cops should not be killing any suspects no matter what color they are. Their job is to arrest them and bring them to the courts, not to summarily execute them.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday June 03 2020, @05:17PM
Well, they shouldn't be using excessive force. Which is exactly what they did in the George Floyd case. They should definitely be using deadly force, in certain situations. Not when dealing with an unruly suspect, who might have used a fake $20 bill to buy cigarettes. Is counterfeit currency even that big of a problem nowadays? The officers in question had a serious lapse in judgment, if they weren't actually trying to kill him.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @03:46PM
You're *deliberately* taking the numbers out of context. Non-hispanic whites make up ~61% of the US population. Blacks make up ~13% of the population. [wikipedia.org]
If there's no bias among cops, whites should be ~4.5 times *more* likely to be killed by police than blacks. If ~2,450 whites were killed by cops (source: https://www.statista.com/chart/21857/people-killed-in-police-shootings-in-the-us/ [statista.com] ), you'd expect that ~550 blacks would be killed by cops.
Except that since 2015, ~4600 people have been killed by cops in the US. OF those, ~2450 were white and ~1300 were black.
Given the differences in population between blacks and whites, that means that blacks are more than twice as likely to be killed by cops than whites.
Why don't you go walk over to the other side of Grand Army Plaza and try running this bullshit on those folks? Or even better, the other side of Prospect Park. They'll love you over on Eastern Parkway!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @06:08PM
This is not an accident. Who controls the media? The history books? The financial systems of many nations of the world? This is about White slavery and genocide that started a long time ago. Bolshevik Revolution, Holodomor, WW1, WW2.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Thursday June 04 2020, @04:46AM (2 children)
How about instead of fighting about who gets screwed worse, we pull together and agitate for cops to start getting charged (and convicted!) of assault and murder no matter what color their victims? Then *everybody* wins.
As for the numbers - sure, more white people get killed, and black people are something like 3x more likely to get killed (and a lot more likely to be assaulted too).
As for the federal government not being able to do anything about it - here's the best idea I've heard on how to do it practically overnight via Executive Order: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M71z6K7IkjU [youtube.com]
TD;DR version: Establish an independent civilian oversight organization that investigates complaints of cops using excessive force, and their department's response. Any time an officer gets off easy, his department loses all access to federal funding, military-hardware, etc.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 04 2020, @02:03PM (1 child)
Police departments should not have military hardware. That is a big part of the problem: it leads the cops to think they should be playing soldier, fighting civilians.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday June 04 2020, @02:16PM
I agree. But so long as we're offering it, attaching some really heavy strings is a good way to make sure it's not being abused. And after a while departments might even realize that it's kind of pointless getting the hardware if they don't get to abuse it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @09:23AM
I've been reading the reddit threads on this the past few days, as well as twitter and a lot of conservative types are asking 'Where is the sympathy for white men murdered by police.'
Check out /r/2020PoliceBrutality and /r/PoliceBrutality Both of which make mention of murdered white men, black men, and native americans, as well as the mentally ill. What we see looking into these cases is no long term changes, most of the officers back on the force, and institutionalized incompetence on the parts of the law enforcement leadership leading to the deaths of individuals, many of which weren't considered clear and immediate threats (ie no weapons and no actually aggressive actions towards cops.) Our Military Police have a higher standard of engagement than our Civilan Law Enforcement do. OUR SOLDIERS have a higher burden of proof with foreign civilians, even among groups that might be utilizing asymmetric warefare using disguised assets. But our civilian cops are getting away with it, often with backpay and few or no effects on their advancement. Even of the ones who are permanently discharged from their positions at a particuar department, around 1/4 to 1/2 of them are later found working at another police department with a new list of complaints or official actions against them. And yet they just keep working. That should tell you something about the systemic issues in American law enforcement, as well as the responses of some members of the community who think this behavior is appropriate. Maybe if they were treated the same way by law enforcement we could see how they felt about that treatment afterwards.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:05PM (18 children)
There's something like 96-98% agreement that the officers' acts where horrific and that policing needs to change.
I doubt there's as much support for destroying the neighborhoods and livelihoods of people who agree with the protestors and who also had nothing at all to do with what happened to Floyd.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:34PM (17 children)
I agree. In fact, looting/rioting has been roundly criticized by pretty much everyone. Including the protestors. In fact, there have repeated instances of legitimate protestors *stopping* the criminals who are trying to take advantage of the cover of night, the protests and the fact that most folks are staying at home trying to limit the spread of Coronavirus.
What's more, video and other independent reporting makes it clear that those engaged in violence/looting are *not* the same folks who are protesting peacefully. Those who do engage in violence and looting need to be prosecuted for their crimes.
However, that does *not* mean that those peacefully exercising their First Amendment rights should be stopped from doing so.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @11:48PM (16 children)
Yeah, the cops are using the rioters as an excuse to brutalize countless innocent people. In some cases, cops are marching down the street and demanding people who are standing on their own property to get in their houses and shooting projectiles at them if they don't. Anyone remotely libertarian should be screaming about this rampant authoritarianism, as it's yet more evidence that the entire system needs to be reformed from the ground-up.
(Score: 5, Informative) by hemocyanin on Wednesday June 03 2020, @01:03AM (9 children)
For reference, the videos mentioned above can be seen here:
Protestors, some antifa moron, "Take His Ass": https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1267335981092478981 [twitter.com]
People standing on their porch being subjected to police state: https://streamable.com/u2jzoo [streamable.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by captain normal on Wednesday June 03 2020, @01:50AM (7 children)
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/31/us/george-floyd-protests-white-supremacists-antifa.html [nytimes.com]
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Wednesday June 03 2020, @07:33AM (6 children)
NYT? *eyeroll*
The Pacific NW has seen what antifa and antifa-adjacent can do very clearly between Portland where they are a constant darling of the press and local government despite causing seven figures in damage during the tantrum of the 2016 election. https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2016/11/pearl_district_ne_portland_wak.html [oregonlive.com] There's also the whole Evergreen College Brett Weinstein debacle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5Wny9TstEM&list=PLRdayXEOwuMG9DG66Bvx6YbUnhw-buS5K [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Wednesday June 03 2020, @07:04PM (5 children)
Oregon Live ? You Tube? *eyeroll*
Where is there evidence that the damage in the Portland rioting was caused by Antifa and not by far right militants? Certainly not in either of your links.
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2020/06/george-floyd-protests-vehicle-attacks-police-trucks-cars/612487/?srnd=premium [citylab.com]
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @12:18AM (3 children)
Antifa are far right militants.
(Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Thursday June 04 2020, @02:08AM (2 children)
They just won't admit it.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @04:08AM (1 child)
You are so far off base. Antifa has no organization, but fighting fascist violence with violence is not hypocritical in the slightest. Anyone who is engaging in fascist activities is not Antifa.
The absolute worst condemnation of Antifa so far is throwing milkshakes with concrete in them, but given the evidence that is either complete bullshit or the concrete was the least concrete substance ever.
So, worst offense by "antifa" is an attack that gave someone a mark under their eye. Compared to police attacks on peaceful protesters resulting in multiple 4+ inch bruises on people that is child's play. Compared to actual far right terrorists bombing clinics and murdering people I think your priorities are fucked.
Hemocyanin, you need to reevaluate your life choices.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @04:36AM
That's what they'd like you to believe. In reality, it has central figures, much like the Anonymous hacktivists did. The government is monitoring their communications and looking for an excuse to round them all up.
(Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Thursday June 04 2020, @02:11AM
When a local newspaper gets us into a war in the Middle East, I'll roll my eyes at them too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @06:26AM
"Light 'em up!" == a totally normal response for someone who is legally complying with your curfew order.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday June 03 2020, @01:13PM (3 children)
Let's consider that on the street, masses of people are not wearing different color t-shirts to signal that they're there for peaceful protest or looting or violence. You look at a crowd of people holding signs, and then somewhere, just past the front ranks, somebody starts throwing molotov cocktails. Others jump out and beat an old couple to death and then melt back into the crowd.
As the police, what do you do then, just let it continue that way?
Of course not. You clear the street.
Peaceful protest is absolutely protected under law. Violence and looting are not. It sucks that criminals (practiced, or imminent) use the cover of lawful activity to commit crimes, but when they do the police must clear the street. The burden of suppressing the lawful exercise of free speech is then on the criminals, not on the police.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @06:12PM
So making it easy for cops to assault and arrest innocent people is preferred?
Hopefully one day you'll realize that such attitudes are why protests and riots keep happening. People don't like injustice, cops should have body cam footage that someone is actually breaking the law in order to arrest them.
"But that's haaaard" whines the old white boomer :|
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @03:53AM (1 child)
You need to read the history of unions. You're absolutely incorrect, and everyone stating that protesting is protected, is a little full of shit.
It's been forgotten through time, but there were peaceful protests for the 10-hour day (predated the 8-hour day movement). "Police", or law enforcement that also moonlighted for rich interests (Railroad Robbin' Barons), murdered women and children in the street to send a message. This is a fact in our history.
The "Coal Police" were very much a real thing, and union members back then risked being "disappeared" by them if they became too effective.
A large number of protests in this country have been about working conditions and the middle class being treated like "human capital stock". Chicago police in particular are known for brutal moonlighting. Read up on this history, because in many cases it was paid agitators or police in disguise that started the violence in the first place. Either that, or it was the police that started shooting.
The NLRB itself was created to take the teeth out of protesting, legally. In exchange for mandatory participation by the owners/managers, many forms of protest were made illegal. Talk to the unions in San Fransisco about the police getting into it with dock workers protesting.
In the last week, there has been evidence of police starting the violence. So the real truth of is that not all riots were purely caused by the rioters, especially when it's a "riot" that developed from a protest situation and not the wrong sports team winning with football hooligans tearing up the place.
Peaceful protestors, and the press covering them, are routinely abused by law enforcement. Put on buses without bathrooms, locked in handcuffs for 18 hours, not fed. You know, being mistreated and deeply abused by hate filled officers. I say hate filled, because I don't know how decent humans treat other humans like that. Perhaps there are popular behavioral experiments that could explain police behavior? Just perhaps.
No, the "police" have always been against us. They have always ostensibly served at our pleasure, but the truth is, they're just paid enforcers and murderers for the 1 percent. It has ALWAYS been the police against protestors, which is just another way of saying that has always been police against the working man and unions. The police are the buffer between the poor, the middle class, and the upper classes.
Only difference here for black people specifically is perhaps the playing field and conditions. War on drugs instead of a factory, material deprivation, programs targeted against minorities. Black people have poor working conditions, wage theft, and all the standard union refrains, IN ADDITION TO, the systemic racism they must deal with. Unfortunately, as MLK said, the riot is the language of the unheard. Black protestors have been pushed into a corner for a long damn time, and it's too easy to demonize and deflect because of a small percentage of looters and criminal opportunists. Not to mention many interests on the ground with their own agendas trying to take advantage of the situation
Your point about white people being the majority abused by police is somewhat correct, and it's not reported enough, but it also doesn't matter. It is happening to black people many times more than it is happening to white people, and it is not commensurate with the percentage of the whole. What's worse, is that white people seem to not want to believe this. Even with video, it seems that the only cases that matter are when the victim is black. I don't find that a coincidence, but a concerted effort to continue to divide us.
That's because one of the best men this country has ever seen, tirelessly worked on behalf of the unions and the workers, because he knew the SECRET. Before the Civil War started, this man would speak at union gatherings and conventions about how the "negro must be embraced as our brother, and brought into the unions". If white and black people ever came together? If they became organized and unified in a union of brothers and sisters seeking common goals?
The power in this country would shit themselves in abject fucking terror. Black people have to deal with a lot more shit, and for a long damn time. It's about time the dam burst, and I can only hope that a critical mass of multi-ethnic multi-racial people will organize to tear the whole system down.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday June 05 2020, @01:46PM
When riots break out, what do you want to happen? Do you want them to destroy the stores you need? Do you want them to burn your home to the ground, drag you and your family out and beat you to death on your front lawn? You want the police and national guard to stand down then?
Well, I'll tell you what you get if you do that: real civil war. If the government abdicates its responsibility to maintain law and order, citizens will do it themselves. They will make mistakes, because they are not trained for chaotic situations. Innocent people will die. That will stoke more anger, and pretty soon the streets run with blood. How well do you think that works out for people who are 13% of the population as they start a race war against the people who are 73% of the population?
There comes a point at which there's no turning back from that eventuality. We've been heading toward that point for 30 years, and are very close now.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @07:09PM (1 child)
yes, this incident and many other are directly or indirectly due to the unconstitutional (criminal) drug war and it's offspring the Prison Industrial Complex, militarized police, etc. Whites need to quit being passive aggressive with their laws and votes, be honest with themselves and just decide if they want to live in a multicultural society or not. If not, organize, buy land in one area, buy people out who don't fit the mold, and take that area over politically. Don't enforce fed laws locally and repel/disappear invading feds or other invaders after fair warning.
This country is lost as a white nation, at least for now. Either get used to being the scapegoat and a second class citizen, per the Bolshevik cultural marxists' agenda, as the shell of the powerhouse you built is captured by ingrates incapable of sustaining it long term, or get busy building a defensible racial homeland! There could be a region for black nationalists (southeast), a region for "viva la raza" folk (southwest), a region for people who think they want to live in a multicultural society, etc. Perhaps under a mutual protection/anti-aggression pact/confederacy.
Also, just the proposal of an amicable, peaceful split is probably cultural relativism on my part, as none of these freeloaders will let Whites leave peacefully. They will do anything to stop Whites from having a safe prosperous country free from intervention and manipulation. Just look at what they did to Germany for trying to kick the Jew saboteurs and interlopers out and rebuild their country. Just a continuation of WW1. They killed millions and then sent in their conquered red horde to rape the remaining civilian women and children. That's what this is all about. Just look at what the media and complicit whore corps are doing with TV in general. If you can't see the writing on the wall, you're fucking blind.
Super wealthy Jews like Rothchild and race traitor internationalist banksters/captains of industry, using reality TV stars like Trump to keep the dumb White funding and supporting their own destruction, while the machine for White Genocide is built. Learn about real history if you think this is crazy talk. Why do you think the Jews in congress and big tech are panicking to censor the internet? People are finding out everything they have been taught about history, religion, rights/law and economics is a (largely Jew) lie; that's why.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @06:40AM
Right on my white brother!
I don't care that there's more genetic "diversity" between "white folks" than between various ethnic groups.
Murder, violence and oppression are just fine as long as it's us superior white folks doing the murder, violence and oppression.
Kill the Jew! Kill the Nigger!
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Tuesday June 02 2020, @11:54PM (4 children)
It's really simple: They agree with killing the person in question. The closest most people who think this way get to openly expressing their agreement is a sense of "Guy got killed by a cop? He musta done something!" Usually the reason for that agreement is, in the US at least, either a belief in racism or authoritarianism. Not that any racists or authoritarianists will admit it.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @02:20AM (3 children)
Well, I have to admit that I used to think that if some random guy got killed by a cop that he must have done something wrong. Sure, I understood that there were some rogue cops out there, but I guess I wanted to believe that they were the exception and not the rule. I think that what has played a big role in changing my thinking is that we now have so much video evidence that it becomes near impossible to avoid the obvious, that we have a serious chronic problem here.
I used to think that maybe blacks were exaggerating the problem. Now I'm beginning to think that maybe they weren't being alarmist enough in their denunciations.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday June 03 2020, @02:44PM (2 children)
I would read that as your younger self being somewhat authoritarian in outlook, e.g. assuming that because a cop says one thing and a civilian says something else, the cop is necessarily in the right. That's usually not your fault: A lot of kids get taught to obey authority figures (parents, teachers, cops, bosses, commanding officers, etc) before they're old enough to know any better.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @09:45AM
Community figures.
Priests, schoolteachers, etc are taught as being 'good' people, rather than teaching us/our children to only trust them within the confines of very specific duties that are part of their job (splashing you with holy water or leading you in prayer, being in a public classroom to teach you, o rpulling you into the hallway to have a discussion about your conduct, but in neither positions case taken into an isolated office away from other people where you can't yell.)
Most of us are brought up with overtly evil boogeymen and groups of 'good guys' who are beyond reproach, because even when they do bad things it's for good reasons, when in reality the 'good guys' just have better optics, and sometimes the 'bad guys' are actually doing something that is optically bad, morally ambiguous, but cannot be argued against full given the circumstances and reasons for their stance (think about some of the ecoterrorist types in 60s-80s cinema, who were obviously evil, and yet were working on or utilizing 'green' technologies which would have improved the world, but for reasons outside their control could not.) There is a lot of optics, indoctrination, and might makes right forcing intellectually stunted masses to obey and conform, rather than to question and reproach or correct.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Friday June 05 2020, @10:24AM
I very much agree and a further epiphany for me in adulthood was that even when you reach a point where you tell yourself you know better about these authority figures, even to the point of telling yourself they're more likely corrupt than not, it's likely you still have subconscious biases based on that childhood mental model your brain formed for these people. The realization that they're all regular guys and gals, in many cases less competent and probably just as out of their depth as you or I would be in their roles, and often highly flawed or pathological, is quite profound. From there you can come to a similar realization about corporations and their products and services, that beneath all the marketing and PR, they're just a load of regular guys too, very often with no real clue what they're doing.
Undoubtedly the sharing of information on the internet is helping to pull the masks off these figures, but it can't instantly fix people's mental models. Many people with never see beyond their own subconscious biases.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 5, Informative) by ilPapa on Wednesday June 03 2020, @01:40AM (3 children)
When it's murder by someone who has been given license to kill by the power structure and the victim is a traditionally oppressed class, you're goddamn right it's political.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @04:50AM
Yeap - add in the fact that this isn't the first time it has happened and nothing meaningful have been done in prior events to move toward resolving it.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @07:16PM (1 child)
fuck the seditious police, but you can shove your "traditionally oppressed class" cultural marxist propaganda up your ass.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @03:54PM
Ignorant of history [nytimes.com], I see. Good show.
I'm not sure how much more of a "traditionally oppressed class" that African Americans could be:
1. 250 years of chattel slavery;
2. 100 more years of legally sanctioned discrimination;
3. Another 50 years of semi-sanctioned discrimination.
What does a group need to do to be considered "oppressed?" Be wiped out entirely? Geez Louise!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:26PM (2 children)
I think that when there is a major world topic that you wish to avoid you should just not click on the headline, nor comment. Just skip it.
On the other hand, many of the rest of us are geeks and nerds that are interested in how technology and society interact. For us, the dissemination patterns of information - check out https://twitter.com/n_waters89/status/1267496777730621440 [twitter.com] and consider how impossible this would've been in 1990 - and technology's mediation of dissemination is interesting in and of itself.
The fact that it's an important topic anyways also has bearing.
I would expect and welcome similar coverage here if eg. India, Russia, or China were experiencing this degree of civil unrest.
Some of us are political or history nerds and geeks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @10:32PM (1 child)
Actually, a knee to the neck is pretty low-tech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @04:06AM
but bellingcat's work here - showing systematic police-on-press violence in the last two days - qualitatively needs the internet
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 02 2020, @11:45PM (5 children)
Then don't read/comment on the political articles. Pretty simple.
(Score: 1, Troll) by janrinok on Wednesday June 03 2020, @08:04AM (4 children)
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @09:58AM (2 children)
So, now do I understand correctly that not only do you not read TFA, not only do you not read TFS, but now you don't even bother reading THE FUCKING TITLE at the top of the page?!? What the hell is the matter with you? My God!!! You have the greatest technology the world has ever seen at your fingertips but it all goes to waste because you have apparently forgotten how to read!
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday June 03 2020, @10:18AM (1 child)
He appears not to be able to read titles, TFAs, TFSs, but is doomed to read the comments.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday June 03 2020, @02:59PM
That sounds like Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
As c0lo would say, (grin).
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:28PM
screech screeee diiiiii la bweereee
Sorry, not sure how to properly translate tiny violin to text.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:20AM
Enjoy your breaks, but don't make them too long. Sadly, we can't ignore society in order to spend yet more time on tech. I don't like politics, not least because I'm not good at it. I'm an introvert, and just don't care for it. I'm also a member of a class that inspires much jealousy and hatred: the geek and/or nerd. Makes it harder to win people over. But I have found the hard way that office politics cannot be reliably trumped by technical merit. I wish the school of engineering at the university had spent a little more than no time at all on these matters.
Moronic, hypocritic, gaslighting, cutthroat, treacherous bullshit artists who can barely wake up a hibernating computer and who have no sense of decency or team spirit, are everywhere among your fellow employees, desperately working every angle to keep those paychecks coming. You ignore them at your peril. Don't dismiss them as too stupid to be a threat, either. They may be total lusers, but ineptness at critical thinking does not automatically mean they can't run a successful con. They absolutely will frame you for something if that means you get fired instead of them, even if they will still be stuck and now in worse shape because they can no longer tap you for technical expertise. I haven't had to deal with those sorts being numerous enough to shape the social scene since high school, and I'd forgotten a lot of it.
Indeed, the past 3 years has been a long and painful reminder just what it's like to be among that element of society that is criminally oblivious to ethics, as well as scornful of facts and science. The whole nation was caught taking a collective break, otherwise many of the current political officeholders would never have obtained those offices.
(Score: 2, Troll) by janrinok on Wednesday June 03 2020, @07:54AM (3 children)
I agree 100%. This is not what this site was founded for.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by aristarchus on Wednesday June 03 2020, @08:44AM (1 child)
Repeating something does not make it true, janrinok! That was old Goebbel's technique of the Big Lie, recently adopted by USAian Park Police who did not fire any of that tear gas they used to drive the peaceful protesters away from their freedom of expression. Why to you constantly support Nazis, janrinok? Not a good look, and that Alt-right is so two year ago.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @12:25AM
I don't think he supports the Nazi, white supremacist Antifa. I think you do.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:32PM
You're right, this site was founded so that a bunch of kosers could shitpost their racist nonsense without people like you bothering to even mod them down because "freedom of speech" yet articles like this discussing world changing politics are "not right."
Gross.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @12:26AM
Your white privilege is showing.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 05 2020, @01:07AM