That was my guess but it was just so weird. If it was a movie and we knew pizza dude was a good guy we’d be yelling “Don’t do it! That man with the umbrella and hammer is crazy” and he’d end up getting hammered himself.
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Anarkiddies excepted, progressive protesters (especially racialised ones) have wised up to these tactics a long time ago.
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Lets remember that when Trump (and other right wing people) call protesters “THUGS” it’s very clear what he/they actually mean:
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All these years watching movies with bad cops doing stuff like this and thinking “Well this is just the movies. It can’t really be that bad or people would know and do something about it.”
Turns out it is that bad and people did/do know and it’s nearly impossible to do anything about it through the legal system and/or law enforcement community.
I don’t think all cops are bad or even that most of them are bad. I also don’t trust any of them due to the bad cops. I do believe that the courts and law enforcement have been twisted in a way as to protect the bad cops and it’s been that way for a long time. Is it just becoming more visible due to social media and the ubiquity of cameras? (Or am I just becoming more aware of it?)
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I have a different viewpoint, probably. I grew up poor and lived on the street for a while, so I got to see a lot of this 1st-hand at a young age. None of it really is a surprise for anyone who anyone who lives in an urban area, I’d guess.
It’s ALWAYS been “that bad”.
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Yup. Even violent gangs like cops have occasional good apples that rarely last long. The orchard’s still rotten and that’s the problem needs addressing.
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I have respect for law enforcement on principle or on a conceptual level but i have a lot of disdain and distrust because i know that historically this country has treated non-whites as anything but human.
As far as the current protests go i understand why it’s become chaotic because the community is tired of doing what they’re told. To behave and wait for the system to work things out, going by the word of those within the system its clear they’re doing a lot of gymnastics to get these cops off as lightly as possible. We all know it was murder, and we all see how its actively being covered up (badly), it’s Eric Gardner all over and those cops got off free.
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I have friends and neighbors who are LEOs and I would call them “good” ones. But I still have said point blank to each of them…I have to consider you all bad. Because the point where I have the ability to identify good from bad is the same point where a loaded weapon is being discharged in my (or someone I care for) direction.
If there are 10 bad cops and 1000 good cops who do/say nothing about the 10…there are 1010 bad cops. End of story.
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I hear 'em saying that this shit don’t ever happen in SeattleIt’s impossible to go along with the concept of “good cop”, if they’re going to defend crap like this. They are all tarred by the same brush.
And that’s how it should be for any military or paramilitary (police) force. Unit group responsibility pushes self-enforcement of discipline, and eventually, camaraderie and esprit de corps. That’s exactly why it’s the military norm.
I DO NOT claim it’s not problematic, but in some ways part of the problem is that the police aren’t really “militarized”; rather; they’re an armed gang of thugs with military weapons and some procedures, pretty much. Turning them into actual soldiers is another bucket of worms I have no answers for, but this half-ass shit is no good.
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Just read a Salon article, that points at Amy Klobuchar as the prosecutor who let this cop go the last time he was up on charges:
Summary: Holy crap on a stick =p .
Edit -> Pardon, I didn’t think of it, but I STRONGLY recommend a good adblocker and Anti-Adblock Killer before visiting Salon, or your browsing experience will be pretty bad. Among other things, they cryptomine (fully disclosed, mind you) on free accounts and DON’T use reasonable limits, bogging your PC horribly =x. Annoyingly, they still have good articles; I wish they’d stick with ads I can allow.
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I don’t condone destruction of property but… I don’t now, maybe I understand it? If it was a strictly peaceful protest it would get a bit of news coverage and be forgotten within days.
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Fuck… it’s not an orchard, and they aren’t apples. Policing is a 10 foot tall wall of brambles, designed to keep black Americans in check and cause them pain. That’s all it was ever intended to do. We’re looking at what’s been happening now, and we’re saying it’s horrible, but it’s working as designed.
It’s a fundamentally racist structure of violence, with a minimal side-effect that sometimes citizens get assistance when they need it, not the other way around.
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Well, yes, I ~87% agree with you (and agree entirely with your core thesis). The point of the imperfect analogy is to illuminate the need for systemic reform.
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I also don’t condone a protest becoming destructive, but i understand it. As i mentioned, people are frustrated because they can clearly see how the system is moving to keep the status quo and its looking likely that no justice will occur. Faced with that possibility some folks are becoming more angry and frustrated, i’ve never personally experienced police brutality but for the people that have i’m sure these events have them incensed.
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This is not the topic for tone policing. We expect posters to remain within our guidelines, but folks are rightly upset as hell over this murder-with-a-side-of-past-corruption.
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Yeah, different worlds. I’m a white guy who grew up on a farm till I was 16 then moved to a suburban lower middle class neighborhood. I always suspected things were a lot worse than portrayed by authority figures but pre-internet we only had talking heads on the three broadcast tv stations and a local newspaper.
I’ve become steadily more cynical about politics and police over the years.
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