4 Likes
I think in this situation they are trying to keep protests from turning into riots. At least that’s what they said. Nothing wrong with that. Now , if they are really trying to turn protest into riots there is a huge problem. We know some police departments have been guilty of this in the past but that’s not what this is about. Is it? This is about outnumbered police who claim to have been attacked while trying to protect protesters from those who would incite a riot.
Who is telling the truth? How do you know?
I’ve always thought that the purpose of the canted grip was to cause ejected brass flies high into the air, so it makes a more satisfying tinkling sound when it hits the sidewalk/floor/pavement.
2 Likes
Escalation is a continuum, not a true-or-false state. Pointing a deadly weapon at a crowd is very near the final conclusion of that continuum.
6 Likes
That’s what is being claimed – the protesters say that the two were inciting damage, and that’s how they were identified as undercover provocateurs.
Pointing guns at photographers documenting the scene also tends to make one less believable.
8 Likes
Ahh, Berkeley, so many reasons to love you…
good for you, sticking up for the armed policeman waving a gun around in the middle of a crowd after he had been outed. it’s refreshing to see someone step up and back the boys in blue despite misconduct and creating a public danger by waving his gun around and pointing it at anyone who was trying to document him. it takes a lot of courage to support that kind of incompetence and stupidity and i’m glad to see someone with the courage to do that. my hat’s off to you.
6 Likes
If it stops further violence it concludes the continuum as apparently it did in this example. It seems to me that a conclusion was necessary to stop further escalation. Bravo.
Sometimes it’s the penultimate step in the continuum…
These cops made provocative decisions at every branch on the decision tree. The fact he didn’t open fire should not be counted to his credit, since he created the situation in the first place.
4 Likes
Not if he was attacked first as he claims. In that case you would be “victim blaming” which is cause for moderation apparently.
Why were they there?
The officers, who Browne said he is not identifying, had been trailing the crowd in an unmarked car and began following on foot at Ninth and Harrison streets, after vandals marching with the group had smashed the windows of a T-Mobile store in Oakland’s Chinatown neighborhood and made off with merchandise. A nearby Wells Fargo ATM was also damaged.
3- like this:
“Just as we turned up 27th Street, the crowd started yelling at these two guys, saying they were undercover cops,” Short said Thursday. “Somebody snatched a hat off the shorter guy’s head and he was fumbling around for it. A guy ran up behind him, knocked him down on the ground. That guy jumped backed up and chased after him and tackled him and the crowd began surging on them."
So, I dunno. They were doing their job and then made an arrest and defended themselves. What horrible cops.
It is funny how the civilians get the benefit of the doubt to the point of ridiculousness, but the cop is evil from the beginning. I suppose that is clickbait 101. Can’t we extend the presumption of innocence to the cops as well?
Are you new here?
2 Likes
There’s accounts of these cops banging on bank windows before the T-mobile store window was broken.
@Federal_flashes @DaveId those are the ones who were hitting bank windows before T-Mobile got looted! #berkeleyprotests
From the linked storify:
@marymad livetweeted the California Highway Patrol conference call Dec
11 2014, that addressed last night’s incident where two undercover CHP
officers were outed by the crowd in which they had been marching with
during the evening.
From marymad:
CHP calls them plainclothes not undercover. They have been using them since the protests broke out. #oaklandprotest
They were wearing masks. After someone took off one of their masks, he put it back on. There’s reason to doubt that this is what plains clothes means.
One arrested for public intoxication “out of the group” - no names and booking info for that and other arrest. #oaklandprotest
So after watching them loot from the inside they took a person in for public intoxication?
This was your point wasn’t it? They didn’t take anyone in for attacking cops, so maybe it didn’t happen?
FTA: http://www.ktvu.com/story/27606016/undercover-cop-pulls-gun-on-demonstrators
One Berkeley resident, Dylan, who declined to give his last name, said he pulled off the officer’s bandana.
The two CHP officers started to walk away, but the protesters persisted,
screaming at the two undercover cops. One of the officers pushed a
protester aside. The man responded by pushing back and then the officer
tackled him to the ground, handcuffing him.
…
“I’m a white man, and I pulled off (the officer’s) mask, but they punched a black man,” Dylan said. “He got arrested.”
Seems to me that you mean to say that both civilians and cops should get the benefit of the doubt, but that’s not what you’re doing is it?
Look, you dismiss civilians, and let other people dismiss cops, that way we get a balanced story! Seems fair.
I think this is one point where most people can at least agree: People don’t seem to trust cops.
How does trust work? Is trust owed or earned? Can you forgive without any remorse in sight?
6 Likes
7 Likes
It is funny how the civilians get the benefit of the doubt to the point of ridiculousness
You do know the whole protest was sparked by police killing civilians, right? Civilians who got no benefit of the doubt from the cops?
12 Likes
OK Fine. Try this on for size
The next police officer who pulls a stunt like that will get a bullet in his brain. And the grand jury will exonerate the shooter.
Does that sound likely?
4 Likes
2 Likes
The news said they were inciting violence, someone questioned if they were cops, and the provocateurs started shoving people first…
What else would he possibly say?
Magazine capacity restrictions?
