The Police Brutality Thread

[frank ryan]

Yeah, the guy who fired the shot got an attempted murder charge.

As he should have.

[beefytee]

Obama tweeted this article today about how Germany reformed its police state after WWII, and the lessons that the states could learn from them. Of course the US is totally different than what Germany was, but there are some things the US could emulate to reform police. Like this one easy trick!



It hasn't been all sunshine and lollipops in Germany, but they do get some things right.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/23/w...ny-police.html

Meter maid lives matter!

[Northwestcoug]

Last month a 22 year old male was fatally shot by police during a night of looting in Vallejo. Not too many details were provided at first, except he was crouching and police believed he was reaching for a gun. It took a month before police would show the video to the family, and then release it to the press. You just need to watch the first minute to realize how trigger happy this cop was. I mean, 5 shots through his windshield. Conveniently, the adjacent store's security camera did not record the incident.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...tore-n1233178/

It won't surprise you to find out that Monterossa did not have a gun.

[Walter Sobchak]

Meter maid lives matter!

Standing by a parking meter
When I caught a glimpse of Rita
Filling in a ticket in her little white book
In a cap she looked much older
And the bag across her shoulder
Made her look a little like a military man!

[Northwestcoug]

Eight people are partially blinded on the same day during George Floyd protests. I'm sure you'll be surprised as I am that video surveillance contradicts some police official reports:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/inves...g/?arc404=true

Really good video journalism.

[swampfrog]

Interesting stuff on the situation in Portland.

Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying discuss events locally in Portland and in the culture. Includes corollaries between their experience at Evergreen being repeated in Portland.

Federal officials corroborate their interpretation of events.

Interesting line of questioning that appears to attempt to frame the conversation.

MCCAMMON: Well, this gentleman said he was pulled into an unmarked van full of armed men who didn't identify themselves, driven to a building he only found out after being released was a federal courthouse, not the county jail where local law enforcement would take him. Why - can you comment, first of all, on this allegation?

CUCCINELLI: Well, I can't speak to this specific instance, but the federal courthouse there is protected by Federal Protective Services, who are being supported by both CBP and ICE officers and - because of the violence there and the graffiti. I'm sure you've seen all of that. And they are attempting to make arrests. They are attempting to identify violent rioters and to then pick them up, arrest them and go and have them prosecuted federally.

MCCAMMON: Are you saying this has only happened once?

CUCCINELLI: The offenses there are federal.

MCCAMMON: Are you saying this has only happened once?

CUCCINELLI: I'm not speaking to the number of times it has happened. I'm telling you what they're doing in terms of a process. And I fully expect that as long as people continue to be violent and to destroy property that we will attempt to identify those folks. We will pick them up in front of the courthouse. If we spot them elsewhere, we will pick them up elsewhere. And if we have a question about somebody's identity - like the first example I noted to you - after questioning determine it isn't someone of interest, then they get released. And that's standard law enforcement procedure, and it's going to continue as long as the violence continues.

MCCAMMON: Portland police records indicate that many types of incidences are - of offenses are down compared to past years. How does this justify that response?

CUCCINELLI: Well, we're 49 straight days into violence and destruction in Portland. So it justifies the response because violence and destruction continue, including directed at federal law enforcement, at federal property. And as long as that continues, we're going to continue to attempt to enforce the law.

MCCAMMON: Are local law enforcement...

CUCCINELLI: It's not made any easier when you have somebody like Mayor Wheeler, who holds back, to a certain extent, his own law enforcement. For instance, they don't allow them to utilize certain nonlethal tactics and so forth. So it makes everybody's job harder.

MCCAMMON: What is the legal justification, though, for federal agents - not local officers - making arrests away from federal property?

CUCCINELLI: The legal justification is that they are people suspected of damaging or attacking federal personnel or property. That's the justification. That's the basis for jurisdiction.

[frank ryan]

This is not at all sketchy and seems like a great way to manage the unrest:

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection arm confirmed on Tuesday it has deployed officers from three paramilitary-style units to join a federal crackdown on protests against police violence in Portland, Oregon.

“We have agents and officers from our special operations groups deployed,” a CBP official said in an email. The official did not respond to questions about the number of officers deployed.

Multiple videos posted online showed camouflage-clad officers without clear identification badges using force and unmarked vehicles to transport arrested protesters, tactics that civil-rights advocates said could violate protesters’ right to free speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

President Donald Trump, who has been sliding in opinion polls as he seeks re-election, has vowed to also send federal agents to cities including New York, Philadelphia and Chicago, which critics said would amount to a use of federal power for political ends.

CBP, which patrols land borders and operates checkpoints for people arriving at U.S. airports and other transportation hubs, has three specially trained units that have deployed officers to Portland, the official told Reuters.

According to the CBP’s website, one of these units, the Border Patrol Tactical Unit, “provides an immediate response capability to emergent and high-risk incidents requiring specialized skills and tactics.”

CBP said it also sent agents from its Border Patrol Search, Trauma and Rescue and Special Response teams to Portland.

Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, criticized the Trump administration’s deployment of such forces.

“Donald Trump has no justification for deploying paramilitary troops to the streets of Portland or any other American city,” Wyden said. “These occupying forces are creating conflict, attacking peaceful protesters and making my hometown more dangerous. For Portland to find peace, Trump needs to pull unwanted federal agents out of our city immediately.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-g...medium=partner

[swampfrog]

This is not at all sketchy and seems like a great way to manage the unrest:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-g...medium=partner

Continues to be fascinating how different the narratives of events in CHAZ/CHOP and now Portland are.

Here's the Portland Police narrative on July 21st. A couple of excerpts.

Around 10:15 p.m., members of the group were spotted bringing plywood to the Justice Center. At 10:40 p.m., members of the group started to kick the front doors of Central Precinct while others dragged a large metal fence to the west side of the Federal Courthouse. At 11 p.m., several group members kicked and pounded on plywood attached to the west exterior glass doors of the Federal Courthouse. The people who kicked and pounded on the plywood were using hammers, crowbars and other pry tools. These people carried bats and shields as well as wore helmets and gas masks. Soon after, at 11:05 p.m., the group breeched the west side doors of the Federal Courthouse.

Around 1:00 a.m., some people associated with the group opened a fire hydrant at Southwest 3rd Avenue and Southwest Taylor Street and added soap to the water causing a hazard downtown. Some other people downtown set several small fires while other people vandalized and spray painted both city, federal, and private property. At 1:27 a.m., another fire was lit outside an exit door on the south side of the Federal Courthouse and the group successfully tore off a large piece of plywood protecting some glass doors on the west side of the building. At 1:45 a.m., Federal Police Officers once again were forced to disperse the crowd west from the building. During the dispersal, a large fire was started in the middle of Lownsdale Square.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Trader Joe is being forced to abandon "racist" brand names.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/19/b...-petition.html

An online petition is asking the company to “remove racist branding and packaging from its stores,” including international food items carrying the names Trader Ming’s, Trader José and Trader Giotto’s. Those products and others reflect “a narrative of exoticism that perpetuates harmful stereotypes,” according to the petition, which on Sunday had been signed by more than 1,500 people.

“They’re racist because they exoticize other cultures, present ‘Joe’ as this default normal, and then the other characters — such as Thai Joe, Trader José, Trader Joe San — falling outside of it,” said Briones Bedell, 17, who started the petition.

A Trader Joe’s spokeswoman said in a statement that the company had previously decided to get rid of the names and to rebrand its international foods with the Trader Joe’s name.

This is really stupid.

[Eddie]

Trader Joe is being forced to abandon "racist" brand names.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/19/b...-petition.html



This is really stupid.

Yes. Yes it is.

They are racist because they exoticize other cultures? What the hell does that even mean?

At this point we've got folks looking for racist stuff to condemn simply for the sake of finding racist stuff to condemn. Can't we focus on the real racist stuff? Are really to the point that we are looking at the margins like this to find racism in places it really doesn't exist? Or at least not in a way that has any kind of meaningful impact on anyone?

[swampfrog]

Trader Joe is being forced to abandon "racist" brand names.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/19/b...-petition.html

This is really stupid.

Agreed. With all of the repudiation of the "build a wall" as racist, this activity is the cultural equivalent. If you want a multicultural environment to work, exposure to other cultures, especially by integrating some aspects (however imperfectly) into your own would seem a natural remedy to tribalistic instincts, but no, off limits.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/...on-to-division

A shift in tone, rhetoric, and logic has moved identity politics away from inclusion – which had always been the Left’s watchword – toward exclusion and division. As a result, many on the left have turned against universalist rhetoric (for example, All Lives Matter), viewing it as an attempt to erase the specificity of the experience and oppression of historically marginalized minorities.

The war on “cultural appropriation” is rooted in the belief that groups have exclusive rights to their own histories, symbols, and traditions. Thus, many on the left today would consider it an offensive act of privilege for, say, a straight white man to write a novel featuring a gay Latina as the main character.

Transgressions are called out daily on social media; no one is immune. Beyoncé was criticized for wearing what looked like a traditional Indian bridal outfit; Amy Schumer, in turn, was criticized for making a parody of Beyoncé’s Formation, a song about the black female experience. Students at Oberlin complained of a vendor’s “history of blurring the line between culinary diversity and cultural appropriation by modifying the recipes without respect for certain Asian countries’ cuisines”. And a student op-ed at Louisiana State University claimed that white women styling their eyebrows to look thicker – like “a lot of ethnic women” –was “a prime example of the cultural appropriation in this country”.

[frank ryan]

Trader Joe is being forced to abandon "racist" brand names.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/19/b...-petition.html



This is really stupid.

So dumb. What a waste of energy and attention.

[CardiacCoug]

Trader Joe is being forced to abandon "racist" brand names.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/19/b...-petition.html

This is really stupid.

The world must be sanitized and made as sterile and boring as possible!

All woke. No joke.

[swampfrog]

I sometimes wonder what's going on. Are the sides of all of these conflicts genuinely engaged in rational worldviews? Then I get reminded that there things happening on one side or the other that is beyond my grasp of understanding. I won't accept a worldview as valid that motivates this kind of behavior.

Embedded Tweet

[swampfrog]

So what really happened in CHOP, the New York Times explores. Also some information about similar circumstances in Minneapolis and Portland.

Abolish the Police? Those Who Survived the Chaos in Seattle Aren’t So Sure


What is it like when a city abandons a neighborhood and the police vanish? Business owners describe a harrowing experience of calling for help and being left all alone.

Young white men wielding guns would harangue customers as well as Mr. Khan, a gay man of Middle Eastern descent who moved here from Texas so he could more comfortably be out. To get into his coffee shop, he sometimes had to seek the permission of self-appointed armed guards to cross a border they had erected.

“They barricaded us all in here,” Mr. Khan said. “And they were sitting in lawn chairs with guns.”

One community relief fund in Minneapolis, where early protests included vandalism and arson, has raised $9 million for businesses along the Lake Street corridor, a largely Latino and East African business district. “We asked the small businesses what they needed to cover the damage that insurance wasn’t paying, and the gap was around $200 million,” said Allison Sharkey, the executive director of the Lake Street Council, which is organizing the fund. Her own office, between a crafts market and a Native American support center, was burned down in the protests.

Many are nervous about speaking out lest they lend ammunition to a conservative critique of the Black Lives Matter movement. In Portland, Elizabeth Snow McDougall, the owner of Stevens-Ness legal printers, emphasized her support for the cause before describing the damage done to her business.

“One window broken, then another, then another, then another. Garbage to clean off the sidewalk in front of the store every morning. Urine to wash out of our doorway alcove. Graffiti to remove,” Ms. McDougall wrote in an email. “Costs to board up and later we’ll have costs to repair.”

When a tall man in a trench coat and hiking boots walked over to question Mr. Khan, the man spread his coat open, revealing several pistols on harnesses around his chest and waist. He presented a badge on a lanyard that read “Black Lives Matter Community Patrol.”

His name is Rick Hearns and he identified himself as a longtime security guard and mover who is now a Black Lives Matter community guard, in charge of several others. Local merchants pay for his protection, he said as he handed out his business card. (Mr. Khan said he and his neighbors are now paying thousands of dollars a month for protection from Iconic Global, a Washington State-based private security contractor.)

He blamed the destruction and looting on “opportunists,” but also said that much of the damage on Capitol Hill came from a distinct contingent of violent, armed white activists. “It’s antifa,” he said. “They don’t want to see the progress we’ve made. They want chaos.”

Many of the business owners on Capitol Hill agreed: Much of the violence they saw and the intimidation of their patrons came from a group these business owners identified as antifa, which they distinguished from the Black Lives Matter movement. “The idea of taking up the Black movement and turning it into a white occupation, it’s white privilege in its finest definition,” Mr. Khan said. “And that’s what they did.”

Antifa, which stands for anti-fascist, is a radical, leaderless leftist political movement that uses armed, violent protest as a method to create what supporters say is a more just and equitable country. They have a strong presence in the Pacific Northwest, including the current protests in Portland.

Matthew Ploszaj, a Capitol Hill resident, is one of the complainants. He said his apartment building, blocks from Mr. Khan’s shop, was broken into four times during the occupation. The Seattle Police were called each time and never came to his apartment, according to Mr. Ploszaj. When he and another resident called the police after one burglary, they told him to meet them outside the occupation zone, about eight blocks away. He and other residents spent nights at a friend’s house outside the area during the height of the protests.

The employees of Bergman’s Lock and Key say they were followed by demonstrators with baseball bats. Cure Cocktail, a local bar and charcuterie, said its workers were asked by protesters to pledge loyalty to the movement: “Are you for the CHOP or are you for the police?” they were asked, according to the lawsuit.

The business owners also found that trying to get help from the Seattle Police, who declined to comment for this article, made them targets of activists.

A man who was inside the shop, Mr. McDermott said, had emptied the cash drawer and was in the midst of setting the building on fire. Mr. McDermott said he and his son wrestled the man down and planned to hold him until the police arrived. But officers never showed up. A group of several hundred protesters did, according to Mr. McDermott, breaking down the chain-link fence around his shop and claiming that Mr. McDermott had kidnapped the man.

“They started coming across the fence — you see all these beautiful kids, a mob but kids — and they have guns and are pointing them at you and telling you they’re going to kill you,” Mr. McDermott said. “Telling me I’m the K.K.K. I’m not the K.K.K.”

The demonstrators were livestreaming the confrontation. Mr. McDermott’s wife watched, frantically calling anyone she could think of to go help him.

Later, Mr. McDermott’s photo and shop address appeared on a website called Cop Blaster, whose stated aim is to track police brutality but also has galleries of what it calls “Snitches” and “Cop Callers.” The McDermotts were categorized as both of those things on the website, which warned they should “keep their mouths shut.”

The experience of the small-business owners seems a universe away from the rhetoric of Seattle’s politicians. As the violence turned deadly, Councilwoman Kshama Sawant, who represents Capitol Hill, defended the protesters’ use of their own armed guards instead of the police.

“Elected committees of self defense have historically played vital roles during general strikes, occupations and in mass movements, in order for the working class and marginalized people to defend themselves and carry out necessary functions in place of the forces of the state,” she wrote. She has called for the local police precinct to be permanently placed under “community control.”