White people only riot when their sportsball team wins, or when their sportsball team loses. Then they have the nerve to tell black people that cops won’t kill them in the streets just as long as they’re being respectful 
12 Likes
Don’t forget, the feds have been giving surplus military equipment to the police for years, and Trump promised to step up the giveaways. So just because it looks like weapons of war doesn’t mean it’s not operated by cops. Trump Makes It Easier for Police to Get Military Equipment
6 Likes
Forgive my multiplicity-- I have run out of edits, but I beg sanctuary as Minneapolis native reporting on my people.
I changed “citizen” to “civilian” – because of course police officers are citizens.
5 Likes
From six years ago:
When I asked previously why police in a city would wear jungle camo under their riot gear, most people said it had to do with militarization and a military surplus program. That didn’t quite explain it to me. That explains the guns and the tanks and the body armor. Not the camo. This explains the camo:
10 Likes
There is a lot wrong here (pretty much 100%)…but the one item I focus on that is a clear indicator of one source is this…“Light em up”
Now if you are facing down a group of zombies, or spider like monsters, perhaps acid for blood face hugging aliens…that phrase is perfectly acceptable.
That phrase is unacceptable in any situation when in regards to aiming any type of weapon at other human beings.
But that’s their mind set…it’s a video game or movie to them. No…these are people. People you are supposed to be protecting and serving…NOT punishing and enslaving.
15 Likes
Bullseye. Exactly right. Words like daggers piercing flesh.
A dear friend of mine, good person, knows the neighborhood all too well, entirely sympathetic leftist progressive, posted a very reasonable, rational, polite, and true comment on Facebook about need for curfew (because of the – for real – multiple instances of vehicles without license plates occupied by young white men, in one case with trusted sighting of occupant with AR-15; that shit seems to have died down after the weekend).
But I was not having it. I quote my reply:
I agree about law and order curfew patrol, but this is a SWAT team that spotted a civilian standing in the doorway of their home and targeted that civilian with non-lethal rifle rounds.
The phrase “Light em up” looks like the order that causes the unit to form up and shoot.
That’s how SWAT cops see civilians standing in doorways:
Light em up.
9 Likes
“Light Em Up”
3 Likes
Abso-fucking-lutely.
Every time I see a picture of US cop car I laugh out loud. They look like they want to be in a Transformers movie, it’s ridiculous.
Real police have cars that look like this or this, not like an action toy.
3 Likes
This exact same thing happened in June, 2013 to a photojournalist covering protests in San Paulo, Brazil. He lost one eye because an asshole cop fired a rubber bullet into his eye while he was working.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
13 Likes
I added the “modern” qualifier to my statement for a reason.
Recall that US cops were using Thompson SMGs for “riot control” back in the 1920’s.
Like everything else, the real roots of this go all the way back to the 3/5ths Compromise. American cops began as slave patrols.
6 Likes
OTOH, I wouldn’t feel too sorry for them. The Sunrise program has a long history of racist fuckery. Karma.
9 Likes
But it’s always interesting to see how shocked people who have enabled fascism are when fascism is used against them.
24 Likes
This is now turning into a diplomatic incident with an extremely close ally.
ETA: Presumably this is in response to Australia investigating the attack.
9 Likes
14 Likes
A good summary in this thread:
1 Like
fwiw, police are also civilians and they are a civil organization as opposed to a military one.
certainly the cops don’t feel that way, and it’s been a while since we treated them that way, but it’s supposed to be just another civil service profession like being a fire fighter, or a bus driver.
15 Likes
Ah, thank you, I either did not know that, or had not thought it through.
Is there no word or phase which means “people who are not police”?
1 Like
In any confrontation, it is important to win the “hearts and minds” of the people. The police have already lost.
3 Likes
10 Likes
