Sometimes The Top Blows Off - George Floyd and Aftermath / III

TAPE RELEASED: New body camera footage of Minneapolis officers arresting #GeorgeFloyd disclosed on Monday.
DISTURBING: Floyd begged officers more than 20 times that he could not breathe #GeorgeFloydBodycam.

1:19 ( https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1293091873079341057 )

Black people in Toronto are ‘disproportionately’ arrested and subjected to use of police force

A Disparate Impact, the second report released by the Ontario Human Rights Commission as part of a public inquiry launched in 2017 to address anti-Black racism, discrimination and profiling by the Toronto Police Service, has found that while Black people make up less than 10 per cent of Toronto’s population, they represented almost a third of all charges analyzed by researchers.

The Globe and Mail Aug. 11, 2020 p. A6

https://www.foxnews.com/us/north-carolina-man-shooting-boy

5 year old boy, murdered in cold blood.

Since some of you will want the CNN version of this story, I typed it into the search for you:

https://www.cnn.com/search?q=Cannon+Hinnant+

>3 Cubby.R.S.:

Shitcago up in smoke, raised bridges, 100 arrests.

https://www.newsweek.com/bridges-raised-roads-closed-chicago-1523992

>3 Cubby.R.S.:
>4 Cubby.R.S.:

Portland Mayor condemns attempted murder:

https://www.foxnews.com/us/portland-mayor-condemns-rioters-for-attempting-to-com...

CNN link:
https://www.cnn.com/search?size=10&q=portland%20mayor%20condemns%20murder

>2 librorumamans:

Of the persons charged with crimes by the Toronto Police Service in 2009, 86% were men, even though men make up less than 50% of Toronto's population.

http://www.torontopolice.on.ca/publications/files/reports/2010envscan.pdf

Salt Lake City police dog ordered to attack a Black man on his knees with his hands in the air 36-year-old Jeffrey Ryans was doing what he had learned to do when police stormed into his backyard where he was enjoying a pre-going to work smoke.

"Growing up as a Black man in Alabama," he said, "you’re taught to cooperate. Put your hands up when you’re told. Get on the ground if they say so."
(SNIP)
“Get on the ground!” one officer yelled, as his police dog barked. “Get on the ground or you’re going to get bit!”

Ryans dropped what was in his hands and put them in the air.
(SNIP)
He was worried if he did the wrong thing, he would get shot.

“I wasn’t running,” he recalled. “I wasn’t fighting. I was just cooperating. We’ve been through this. We’ve seen this. Always cooperate with the police, no matter what.”

Bodycam shows that though Ryans was kneeling on the ground with his hands in the air, the K9 officer still ordered his dog to attack.

The dog, Tuco, latched on to Ryans’ left leg, the footage shows. Even as another officer sat on top of Ryans and puts the man in handcuffs, the K9 officer continued to instruct his dog to “hit” — and Tuco responds by biting and tearing at Ryans’ leg.
(SNIP)
“Good boy,” the officer said to his dog, as Ryans screamed in pain.

The officers are white.
Ryans has undergone multiple surgeries to repair his damaged leg. "Ryans has suffered nerve and tendon damage, infections and has difficulty walking. Doctors have not ruled out the possibility he will need to have his leg amputated."
As a result of all the hospitalizations, he lost his job and is unable to support his family.

He has a lawsuit pending. . .because. . .Black Lives Matter!

>6 cpg:

"Fingers in ears! Please! Away with such stuff! I'm not listening! I'm marching. Down with the statues! Block the police! This is sexism at its WORST!"

;^)

Hard news for the reasoning-challenged. Statistics are a bitch.

And, well, damn!, it's Enlightened Toronto, as well. We can't even resort to "Yeah, well, that's those benighted Southerners for you!"

>8 proximity1:

The US prison system is something like 92% male tenants. Maybe our good ole Canadian friends accept payment via WAP. Then their sweet feminine citizens drug them during sex and steal their money. Interesting how Cosby and Cardi B did similar crimes and yet only one of them got into trouble.

'Antifa' website cited in conservative media attack on Biden is linked to — wait for it — Russia
Hunter Walker • August 12, 2020

WASHINGTON — At his press briefing Wednesday, President Trump, as he usually does, called for a question from Chanel Rion, the chief White House correspondent for the conservative One America News network, which has at times replaced Fox News as the president’s favorite news outlet. Rion’s question had nothing to do with COVID-19 or the economic recovery Trump had been boasting about, but instead brought up an obscure website, antifa.com.

“I wanted to highlight a kind of odd situation. In the last hour or so, if you googled ‘antifa.com,’ it would take you straight to Joe Biden’s website — his official campaign website — odd situation,” Rion said, adding, “We don’t know who’s behind that.”

...The people in control of any website can redirect to another, without the permission or even knowledge of the second site. Nothing Rion described would indicate direct involvement by Biden’s campaign, which did not respond to a request for comment on this story.

Records for “antifa.com” in the domain name database Whoisology.com show the site was registered in the Russian Federation from 2013 through last July. Starting last November, the site’s registration was moved to Panama, The website has always been anonymously registered and its owners could not be reached for comment.

After briefly redirecting to Biden’s page on Wednesday, the site went dark. Based on copies of the site on the Internet Archive, it was blank from 2013 until June of this year when it began to feature a message in support of the protests that erupted around the U.S. following the killing of George Floyd. The page declared, “we are actively increasing Membership” but provided no contact information for anyone interested in joining.

...Russian state media have highlighted tensions around the Floyd protests. In June, a Department of Homeland Security bulletin indicated the agency was aware of “covert proxies and social media accounts” that were working with foreign rivals and their state media outlets to use the demonstrations to paint a bleak picture of the situation in the U.S.

“Russian influence actors, in particular, have a history of using online tools to covertly amplify content concerning protest activity in the United States, including rhetoric that may seek to incite violence at such events,” the bulletin said.

...(Rion's) channel, One America News, which was founded in 2013, bills itself as “straight news,” but it has a clear pro-Trump bent. The channel’s owners have reportedly directed staff to promote Trump and downplay Russian aggression. One of the network’s reporters, Kristian Brunovich Rouz, simultaneously worked for Sputnik, a Russian news site that U.S. intelligence officials pegged as playing a role in the Kremlin’s propaganda campaign pegged to the 2016 election. A 2017 investigation by Yahoo News found Sputnik employees were specifically directed to “stay true to the national interest of the Russian Federation.” Rouz’s work for One America News have included segments that falsely linked Democrats to antifa....

https://news.yahoo.com/atifa-website-one-america-chanel-rion-russia-004727528.ht...

Oh, and about those bibles... turns out some among us were taken in by a bit of Russian propaganda work.

A Bible Burning, a Russian News Agency and a Story Too Good to Check Out

>11 kiparsky:

"Ruptly’s characterization and promotion of the video may be part a broader disinformation campaign. It was at least misleading and incendiary, not meeting ordinary ethical standards for journalism. But it is not the only storytelling that raises questions.

The NY Times account also deserves scrutiny. The Times analysis argued that the Bible burning was merely an overblown, isolated incident.

“A few protesters among the many thousands appear to have burned a single Bible — and possibly a second — for kindling to start a bigger fire. None of the other protesters seemed to notice or care,” the NY Times said.

But it seems clear from the videotape that whoever set the first Bible alight intended to make a statement. One protestor standing around the burning Bible removed her mask and blew on the flames performatively, making a show of warming her hands from the fire’s heat.

“Best use of a Bible ever,” an unseen voice comments as the flames rise.

As the first Bible slowly burns, another voice can be heard saying: “Hey, there’s more free Bibles over there.”

“We need another Bible,” another voice says a few minutes later. “Let’s keep this s*** going,” another shouts.

Protestors later added several American flags, newspapers, a pizza box, and twigs to the fire, and chanted vulgar slogans, including “F*** the Police.”

The Times’ analysis reports that “there was no discernible reaction from the crowd as the second book is put in the flames along with twigs and branches, notebook pages and newspapers.” This is not true.

As the second Bible is ripped apart by a masked protester and added to the flames, a voice on the videotape can be heard saying clearly “A Bible, yeah!” in approval. There are also several excited whoops, and even a cry of “Hail, Satan.”

Yellow-clad members of the group Moms United for Black Lives Matter went over to the fire and put it out with bottles of water and stamping around 1 am, according to the KOIN6 report.

Protestors later built a new fire; it remains unclear whether the second fire consumed more Bibles.

A “stack” of Bibles was not burned in Portland Aug. 1. Nevertheless, Bibles were burned, and seemingly not by accident.

Whether “fake news” comes from Russia or from New York, misleading reports— whether exaggerating the truth, or downplaying it— are likely to intensify in months to come. Astute news consumers should be attentive to both."

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/analysis-was-a-stack-of-bibles-burned-in...

Cute, but all of that boils down to a simple fact: when you insisted that a "stack of bibles" was burned, you were taken in by Russian propaganda. Trying to pretend that anything else happened is silly - nobody cares that you made a mistake, that's fine, it happens to everyone, and the only way to not make the mistake again is to acknowledge it and learn from it.
But whatever, do your thing. Remain gullible or get smarter, it's up to you.

For the rest of it, it seems silly to argue the details of an incident that neither of us attended and we've only seen in a couple of poorly-shot videos. We don't know any of the facts and apparently neither does the reporter who you quote at length. However, I lived in PDX for a long time and I know the activist scene there. Based on my experience there, yes, you're going to have some people who get off on trying to be outrageous. They typically represent about 1% of any Portland action that I've ever seen. They're looking for attention from the cameras who are there looking for outrageous images, and they get the attention that they're looking for and the cameras get their outrageous images, and the rest of the crowd gets on with their business.

You might prefer to believe that these people represent the Black Lives Matter movement as a whole, but is it really useful to you to pretend to believe a falsehood in order to try to tarnish a movement to improve America? Believing things that aren't so doesn't help you understand the world better, it just means you're going to be more wrong, more often, in the future.
Again, it's your thing, do what you gotta do. Be more wrong, or be more right, it's up to you.

BLM would not excuse me, nor do they want me in their presence. I personally do not agree with anything they are doing, and can only agree that black lives matter. So why would I support them? I have no issue with anyone that dares have a different skin color. But, the movement is not peaceful, is fascistic and exclusive to those not bowing to their measures and by large hates America. Not to mention, just like all other selfish and wanton excuses for collecting money, is directly linked to the Democrat Party.

Again, what aside of black lives matter as a general principle do they have to offer? They are ignorantly crusading on an idiotic witch hunt to destroy the nation and linked to the political tripe I despise most.

>14 Cubby.R.S.: Nurse! Nurse! He's out of bed again!

>12 Cubby.R.S.:

Conned again.

Do Black lives matter in Sudan? (Al Jazeera)

On August 2, as General Shams al-Din al-Kabashi emerged from a house in Omdurman, protesters ambushed him with anti-military chants. Al-Kabashi, who is a member of the ruling sovereign council dominated by the military, had supposedly just had an hours-long meeting with supporters of deposed President Omar al-Bashir.

While the protesters' anger was understandable, given that the military leadership continues to resist dismantling al-Bashir's regime, some of them went beyond political chants and started shouting racial slurs at the general, who is darker-skinned and hails from the Nuba Mountains region, an area in the southern part of Sudan where most communities are of African descent.

This racist episode came just a few weeks after Sudanese social media users mounted a campaign of racist abuse against a famous footballer from west Sudan, Issam Abdulraheem, after he posted a photo of himself and his wife, Reem Khougli, a makeup artist who happens to be a light-skinned Arab...

If you read the whole article, it has some interesting reflections on systemic racism. "Although I did not know why exactly I was "superior" to my darker non-Arab classmates, I knew for sure I was because everyone important I saw on television looked like me. Indeed, political and economic power was almost exclusively in the hands of members of the Arabised tribes."

Dolly Parton, country music legend, owns the racists and smug whities.

As a supporter of equal acknowledgment, she acerbically reminds the snowflakes that they're not the only persons in the world.

Dolly Parton has voiced her indisputable support for Black Lives Matter as well as the importance of changing with the times.

“I understand people having to make themselves known and felt and seen,” the 74-year-old Parton said, referring to the latest wave of racial justice protests sweeping the United States. “And of course Black lives matter. Do we think our little white asses are the only ones that matter? No!”

In short, "Don't be a troglodyte."

British far right ‘becoming more racist’ after Black Lives Matter protests, report finds (Independent)

The British far right is becoming more openly racist in the wake of a backlash against international Black Lives Matter protests, experts have warned.

A report by Hope Not Hate, seen exclusively by The Independent before its release, said that years of dominance by Tommy Robinson and other figures focused on Muslims was giving way to rising white nationalism. It found that the growth of the new Patriotic Alternative group, which openly calls for non-whites to be ejected from the UK, suggests a “shift towards more openly racial politics”.

Author Simon Murdoch said far-right activists were becoming “much more extreme ideologically”. He said the increase in migrant boat crossings over the English Channel and anger over so-called “cancel culture” had an impact. “The biggest backlash has been to the Black Lives Matter movement,” the researcher added. “There is more willingness to discuss race generally across the far right now”...

>19 John5918:

This is a horrific pendulum. Blacks will be persecuted by disturbed white supremacist types and if the media continues this BLM push while concealing the violence and destruction; others will simply look away. Others will join in, 'righteously'. Because they have been fed that they are racist... They will say hell with it, I'm racist. This is an old story playing out in a new era.

>20 Cubby.R.S.: This is an old story playing out in a new era

An old story indeed. Marginalised and disadvantaged people speak out, and even dare to protest. Privileged groups then react even more strongly against them. It is termed a "backlash" as if the victims themselves are to blame. Incidentally it's not a "media push"; it's being pushed by, er, black people themselves. And about time to.

>21 John5918:

Not exactly agreed upon, but close enough.

Austin Channing Brown teaches on issues of racial justice.This is written from a Christian perspective, but has a wider application. It challenges both the racism of some right wing evangelical fundamentalist Christians and the assumption that the movement against racism is somehow anti-white. As she says, "My story is not about condemning white people but about rejecting the assumption—sometimes spoken, sometimes not—that white is right..."

I learned about whiteness up close. In its classrooms and hallways, in its offices and sanctuaries. At the same time, I was also learning about Blackness, about myself and about my faith. My story is not about condemning white people but about rejecting the assumption—sometimes spoken, sometimes not—that white is right: closer to God, holy, chosen, the epitome of being. . . .

Our only chance at dismantling racial injustice is being more curious about its origins than we are worried about our comfort. It’s not a comfortable conversation for any of us. It is risky and messy. It is haunting work to recall the sins of our past. But is this not the work we have been called to anyway? Is this not the work of the Holy Spirit to illuminate truth and inspire transformation?

It's haunting. But it’s also holy.

And when we talk about race today, with all the pain packed into that conversation, the Holy Spirit remains in the room. This doesn’t mean the conversations aren’t painful, aren’t personal, aren’t charged with emotion. But it does mean we can survive. We can survive honest discussions about slavery, about convict leasing, about stolen land, deportation, discrimination, and exclusion. We can identify the harmful politics of gerrymandering, voter suppression, criminal justice laws, and policies that disproportionately affect people of color negatively. And we can expose the actions of white institutions—the history of segregation and white flight, the real impact of all-white leadership, the racial disparity in wages, and opportunities for advancement. We can lament and mourn. We can be livid and enraged. We can be honest. We can tell the truth. We can trust that the Holy Spirit is here. We must.

For only by being truthful about how we got here can we begin to imagine another way.

Austin Channing Brown, I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness (Crown Publishing: 2018), 23, 117–118.

Link

Take away vote from people who illegally camp on TN state property??

Scott Hechinger (public defender) @ScottHech | 7:12 PM · Aug 22, 2020
Wow. Violation of the first, fifth, fourteenth, & fifteenth Amendments in one .

Tennessee governor signs bill increasing punishments for certain protests
Tal Axelrod - 08/21/20 09:48 PM EDT

The GOP-controlled state General Assembly passed the measure (ramping up punishments for certain kinds of protests, including losing the right to vote) last week during a three-day special legislative session and (Gov. Bill Lee (R) ) signed without an announcement earlier this week.

...people who illegally camp on state property will face a Class E felony, punishable by up to six years in prison. People found guilty of a felony in Tennessee lose the right to vote.

...mandatory 45-day sentence for aggravated rioting,
boosts the fine for blocking highway access to emergency vehicles and
enhances the punishment for aggravated assault against a first responder to a Class C felony.

The leader of the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee...“We are very disappointed in Governor Lee’s decision to sign this bill, which chills free speech, undermines criminal justice reform and fails to address the very issues of racial justice and police violence raised by the protesters who are being targeted...While the governor often speaks about sentencing reform, this bill contradicts those words and wastes valuable taxpayer funds to severely criminalize dissent.” ...

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/513201-tennessee-governor-signs-bill-in...

>24 margd:

In another century, there'd be a camp-in scheduled immediately with people busing in from all around the country to "squat" camp on state land all over TN.

With lawmakers like these, it's no wonder TN is a poor red state. Crabbed minds create bad laws designed to keep the poorer classes poor.

The man's children were in the car...

Video shows police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, shooting Black man in back
The man, identified by his family as Jacob Blake, 29, was in a stable condition after being operated on.
Linda Givetash, Caroline Radnofsky and Elisha Fieldstadt Aug. 24, 2020

A Black man was shot in the back multiple times by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Sunday, a bystander's video showed, prompting community protests and widespread anger.

The incident comes just three months after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody.

The man, identified by his family as Jacob Blake, 29, is in serious condition at Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee, the Kenosha Police Department said in a statement. Blake's family has since confirmed that he is out of surgery and stable.
Image: An officer-involved shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin on Aug. 23, 2020.
Video captured by a witness showed an officer-involved shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin on Sunday.Raysean White via TMX.news

Police released few details about what happened but said officers were responding to a domestic incident at 5:11 p.m. local time and “were involved in an officer-involved shooting.”...

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/video-shows-police-kenosha-wis-shooting-bla...

Maya Moore: WNBA star's successful campaign for Jonathan Irons' release (BBC)

Irons' story is not unique and it is rooted in systems and issues unimaginably complicated to unpick. The 2016 Netflix documentary 13th shone a light on statistics demonstrating how prisons in the United States are disproportionately filled with African-Americans. Perhaps the most eye-opening one was this: while a white male in the country has a one in 17 chance of ending up behind bars, for black males it is one in three. But sometimes for change to happen, statistics are not enough. It takes a real, human story...

'Black people in America are scared,' says LeBron James after Jacob Blake shooting (CNN)

"If you're sitting here telling me that there was no way to subdue that gentleman, or detain him, or before the firing of guns, then you're sitting here, you're lying to not only me, you're lying to every African American, every Black person in the community because we see it over and over and over," James told reporters.

"If you watch the video, there (were) multiple moments where if they wanted to they could have tackled him, they could have grabbed him. They could have done that. Why does it always have to get to a point where we see the guns firing?

"And his family is there. The kids are there. It's in broad daylight ... It's just, quite frankly, it's just f**ked up in our community"...

>28 John5918:

You mean they could have restrained him, on the ground after tackling him?
Or maybe this?
https://www.mcall.com/news/police/mc-nws-route-33-state-police-trooper-shooting-...

Or maybe they could've given him a taser to shoot at other citizens, if he didn't feel like being arrested? Or maybe fuckstick athletes should wait until info is revealed before passing judgment?

>28 John5918:

Take it up with the African American whom I am quoting.

Just to be clear, although he doesn't say so and hopes you won't notice, the video in the link posted in >29 Cubby.R.S.: is completely unrelated to the situation discussed in the article to which he is responding. Different police shooting a different Black man in a different state.

>31 kiparsky:

This is what happens... this is why they are trained to not allow someone to reach into a car after fighting with police. Or maybe you're unwilling to accept any position but the one you're given.

John doesn't watch videos, he blindly accepts whatever narrative his sources give him.

>32 Cubby.R.S.: Ah, I see. You were just posting it because you thought it was informative, not because you wanted people to think that Jacob Blake pulled out a gun and started shooting at those officers. Gotcha.

You should be more careful, anyone could get confused and think you were trying to make an invidious comparison to an unrelated case, which would be completely dishonest and would stain your already somewhat mucky reputation for intellectual probity and fair dealing.

>32 Cubby.R.S.:

I've quoted what a public figure said, and cited the source of the quote, which includes a video of him saying it. I've also given the full headline so that people can see to what it is related. How is that blindly accepting something? Are you suggesting that he didn't say it?

>29 Cubby.R.S.:
"wait until info is revealed before passing judgment"

Exactly. LeBron's comments are irresponsible.

After seeing the incident from two angles, I'm inclined to say the police were fully justified in their actions, but there may be more to the story that I do not know. Better to wait for the results of the investigation before expressing a conclusion, or, like LeBron, throwing out speculative "could haves."

>35 TrippB: "wait until info is revealed before passing judgment"

I'm inclined to say the police were fully justified in their actions

You do see the inconsistency here, right? If you start out saying "the police were fully justified in their actions", then it's very hard for you to learn anything that might contradict that.

After seeing the incident from two angles

I'm curious about what you mean by this. What are the "two angles" you're referring to?

>36 kiparsky:

Inclined to say does not equal...

Lebron: Before conclusive video shows him fighting off the cops and trying to subdue him.

"If you're sitting here telling me that there was no way to subdue that gentleman, or detain him, or before the firing of guns, then you're sitting here, you're lying to not only me, you're lying to every African American, every Black person in the community because we see it over and over and over,"

These lies embolden the already unstable. We have seen escalated levels of violence due to these preachers of the leftist agenda, yes Lebron was irresponsible. No, inclined to say is not full committal.

>32 Cubby.R.S.: they are trained to not allow someone to reach into a car after fighting with police

There's something wrong with a system that trains the police to shoot a man in the back because he reaches into a car in which his children are sitting. Oh, but I forgot, you don't accept systemic explanations, only individuals.

>37 Cubby.R.S.: I'm a software engineer. One of the things that engineers of all sorts have to be able to do is to recognize biases and assumptions, because they lead to bad decisions. One of the things that I have learned is that if you go into an assessment situation with an assertion - even one that's qualified or hedged - you will very seldom evaluate that assertion fully. Therefore, if you want to get reliable and actionable results, you do not start out by asserting the truth of the claims you are hoping to evaluate, even in a hedged or qualified way.

Now, stepping back a bit, I do notice that you have a tendency to say "go slow, get all the facts" when the existing facts are ugly for your side, but to leap gleefully to a conclusion when you feel that the balance of the known facts support your preconceptions. Can you explain this behavior?

>36 kiparsky:
"Inclined to say" is not a conclusion, and there is no inconsistency. Did you miss the part where I said there may be more to the story that I do not know?

There are a couple of videos of the Kenosha incident. Perhaps CNN didn't show the one where he was fighting with police. One media source reported he was trying to climb into his SUV when he was shot. Looks to me like he was positioned more to reach under the seat. There are other reports saying he had a knife. That's one of the bits of information from the investigation that would be useful before making a decision.

From the videos, it appears he resisted arrest and assaulted officers. He refused to comply with the orders of police. He made a highly threatening motion near the drivers seat of his vehicle. In the fraction of a second they had for a decision, it's no surprise the officers elevated their use of force.

>38 John5918:
"There's something wrong with a system that trains the police to shoot a man in the back because he reaches into a car in which his children are sitting."

Did you see the video? The windows of his vehicle are tinted dark. Did police even know there were kids in the car? More important, does the presence of children magically negate a violent person's ability to pose an imminent deadly threat to police and others nearby? He made the choice to do all this in the presence of his kids. I saw the videos, and consider the children in the car to be irrelevant in terms of assessing whether the use of deadly force was justified.

>39 kiparsky:

Yes, I tend not to defend insanity. For example, Floyd was out of hand which likely increased his chances of negative response, but I also agree Chauvin was negligent and possibly murdered him. Not... Racist, fuck cops, racist.

When celebrities chime in, supporting irrational behavior, by no less a criminal in this case and use skin color as a weapon for their supposed mishandling, I say bullshit. On a review of all 9 cases of cops killing "unarmed" blacks... All but two were considered justifiable. The other two were cleared, that maybe they could've avoided death. This is not an epidemic.

Idiotic embracing of resisting arrest and punching or killing cops, is creating a bigger problem. When there is missing evidence such as, why not jump into your car rather than reach for something, I am not sure what you could expect police to assume. He literally fought us and now wants a stick of gum?

***update, he was reaching inside for a gun. I think he probably even told the cops he would shoot them***

Real stand up guy. I think his record consisted of pulling a gun on cops previously and raping a 15 yr old. But, I'm sure the cops had no reason to worry.

>40 TrippB: a violent person's ability to pose an imminent deadly threat to police and others nearby

If the police are trained to assume that anybody who reaches into a car poses "an imminent deadly threat to police and others nearby", then that is flawed training.

Did police even know there were kids in the car

They should be trained to ensure that there are no children or indeed other bystanders in the vicinity before using deadly force on a suspect.

Did you see the video?

Yes. I see two police officers dancing around with guns in their hands while an unarmed man walks fairly calmly around his car towards a window. If they hadn't had their hands full of guns they could at least have attempted to grab him, to taser him, to spray mace at him, even to hit him non-lethally with a baton before he got anywhere near that window, although I would still maintain that using violence, lethal or non-lethal, against a citizen who is simply walking away from a police officer would be problematic.

It's one thing to use lethal force against an active shooter who is in the process of killing and injuring people, or a chap escaping from an armed robbery with a gun in his hand, or similar cases where there is clear and actual danger to the police and public. But shooting someone simply because he is not cooperating with police officers who have used the flawed doctrine of "taking control of the situation" to escalate whatever is in the mind of a disturbed citizen is in my view unacceptable.

>42 John5918: "If they hadn't had their hands full of guns they could at least have attempted to . . . taser him".

"Law enforcement deployed a taser to attempt to stop Mr. Blake, however the taser was not successful in stopping Mr. Blake."
https://www.doj.state.wi.us/news-releases/update-kenosha-officer-involved-shooti...

>43 cpg:

Thanks for that update. But then they shoot an unarmed citizen in the back using a real gun? No attempt to use other non-lethal means?

>32 Cubby.R.S.: this is why they are trained to not allow someone to reach into a car after fighting with police.

No one died there. That's part of the argument; nobody denies that certain things are risks, but killing someone is a big step.

>40 TrippB: In the fraction of a second they had for a decision, it's no surprise the officers elevated their use of force.

You'll note that's not a privilege anyone else gets; anyone else who shoots someone who was walking away from them in the back because they might have been getting a gun is looking at felony charges.

>35 TrippB: Better to wait for the results of the investigation before expressing a conclusion, or, like LeBron, throwing out speculative "could haves."

He was killed in a fraction of a second; now those upset should wait until the results of the investigation to say anything. Seems disproportionate.

On September 11, 2001, the 9/11 attacks happened. On October 7, 2001 the bombing started, and on July 22, 2004, the 9/11 Commission Report was released. But hey, it's for the little people to wait for the results of the investigation, not the guys with the bombers.

Blake aftermath

Apparently, one of Murdoch's bought-and-paid-for lunatics ~
Tucker Carlson ~ thinks the vigilante teen shooter is a hero.
He appears to be inviting other like-minded whackos to join
in on the fun. The priests and nuns who educated TC over
the years must be shaking their heads in disbelief and shame
if they are still alive and watching their former student on
FOX News.

>44 John5918:

Update, he had a gun in his car. He fought through a taser... He even survived. PERFECT work by the police, except they could've used a bit more strength.

>47 Cubby.R.S.:

He had a gun in his car but he didn't have it on him when they shot him in the back, and presumably they didn't know he had one in the car, so it was an unnecessary use of lethal force at that point. They were tackling an unarmed man and they should be trained to do so effecively and safely.

How do you reckon they "they could've used a bit more strength"? Isn't it bad enough leaving him paralysed for life, without wishing a worse fate?

>48 John5918:

PERFECT work. If they were stronger they may have been able to pin him down. They could've used one shot? Perhaps one to the head might have stopped him.

Or, they could have just let him turn the gun on them first and blown his head off?

Nope, they gave him a shot at life. Sorry, Blake is a dick for doing any of the things he did, especially the irresponsibility of his actions regarding his children. Do not feed me the ridiculous notion that it's racism, and do not feed me the ridiculous notion that this warranted criminal was not going to kill.

>48 John5918:

As usual we're talking past each other. Different worldviews. In mine, lethal force should be used only as a last resort when there is no other option and when it is clear that the situation is a maximum risk one. Police officers are professionals who should be trained to assess the risk realistically, not to act as if every situation is maximum risk. And in my worldview police are there to protect the public, not to kill them. A disturbed person, possibly on drugs or medication, who reacts badly to a policeman shouting at him and waving a gun around, is vulnerable and should be treated as such. Remember he's innocent until proven guilty, and whatever punishment he merits is decided by a court of law, not by a policeman. And the legal penalty for failing to cooperate with a police officer is not death. Unfortunately in the USA it appears that the actual penalty often is death (or lifetime paralysis in this case), regardless of what the law prescribes.

Armed militia, one a teenage murderer,
plus feds in unmarked vehicles (with Oregon plates... https://twitter.com/jscros/status/1298790233971056641 )

This is America?

Cubby, I honestly hope you never experience the justice you wish on others. And to me, that means that what you wish for is not any kind of justice at all.

>50 John5918:

John, there were warrants out for his arrest. It doesn't matter if he was guilty, he was guilty of trying to kill police. Would you let someone kill you, just to protect them?

>52 kiparsky:

Horse shit.

>51 margd:

If only you cared about the other side... but you don't, you only care about the selected narrative. Everyone in this country deserves the right to protect their livelihood and guess what, bullshit support for one sided destruction is creating a horrific backlash. It's disgusting.

>53 Cubby.R.S.: he was guilty of trying to kill police

Really? Which court found him guilty of "trying to kill police" as opposed to "failing to cooperate with police"?

Edited to add: Wrapping people in futons: how the Japanese police confront violence (BBC)

Japan has virtually eradicated gun crime. Among the biggest contributors to low levels of gun violence are the police, who prefer to rely on their skills in martial arts - and futon rolling - rather than using weapons.

"The first instinct is not to reach for a gun - what most Japanese police will do is to get huge futons and essentially roll up the person who is being violent or drunk into a little burrito and carry them back to the station and calm them down. The response to violence is never violence - it is to de-escalate"...

>53 Cubby.R.S.: Would you let someone kill you, just to protect them?

The experience of policing around the world tells us that the reflex of killing people as the first move has failed, therefore your question is misguided. Killing people is not making anyone safer - not the cops, not the general public, and certainly not the classes of people presumed to be criminals until proven "normal". When cops presume that everyone is trying to kill them, and react with deadly force any time they get nervous, they initiate a vicious spiral of destruction. We've seen this for decades - when are you people going to learn to see reality?

Horse shit.
No, I actually would find it unfortunate if you were to get what you wish the general public should get. You're fun to have around, it would be a shame to see you perforated from afar by a couple of nervous cops just because you're being an asshole some day.

>41 Cubby.R.S.: et. al.

For what it's worth (and I don't think it's worth much to get involved in this non-discussion):

Officer Rusten Sheskey shot Mr. Blake, 29, while holding onto his shirt after officers first unsuccessfully used a taser and as Blake leaned into his vehicle during an incident Sunday evening, the [state Department of Justice]’s news release said.

State agents later recovered a knife from the driver’s side floorboard of the vehicle, the release said. A search of the vehicle located no additional weapons. — Reuters, via The Globe and Mail August 27 page A8

Edited for clarity.

>53 Cubby.R.S.: Would you let someone kill you, just to protect them?

That's hardly the question being asked, now is it? That plugs false certainty into it. Would I take the chance that someone might kill me in the hope that we all get home safely tonight? I tend to feel that if I didn't, I'd be waking up in the middle of night crying "out, out, damn spot" for the rest of my life. Why should we accept someone more concerned about their life than "to serve and protect" as a cop in the first place?

>54 Cubby.R.S.: I see; your side murders two people, and you blame it on the BLM and claim we only care about the selected narrative.

Your police let a murderer walk right past them from the scene of a crime. I'm sure the black community is feeling so much more protected knowing that allegedly "being guilty of trying to kill police" is worth seven bullets and "being guilty of killing two protestors" gets no immediate response.

I don't feel you need a selective narrative to feel uncomfortable about https://time.com/5883707/kyle-rittenhouse-murder-kenosha-protest-shootings/ , where the police is supporting vigilantes that kill two people.

Everyone in this country deserves the right to protect their livelihood

An interesting way to justify murders. You do know that the killed had livelihoods that were taken away from them, too? Part of the question that comes up is how do you expect the black community to complain? There seems to be excuses made to complain about any form of protest that's noticeable, including stuff as minor as taking a knee at the anthem at a football game.

>53 Cubby.R.S.:, >55 John5918: he was guilty of trying to kill police

Kenosha police officer who shot Jacob Blake named as Rusten Sheskey (Guardian)

Blake’s shooting, when he was not carrying a weapon at the time or apparently offering any threat to officers...

“During the investigation following the initial incident, Mr Blake admitted that he had a knife in his possession. Division of criminal investigation agents recovered a knife from the driver’s side floorboard of Mr Blake’s vehicle. A search of the vehicle located no additional weapons”...

Among issues that remain unclear is when Blake told officers he had a knife and why police reacted with such force amid what was essentially a domestic incident... State authorities also did not say that Blake threatened anyone with the knife...

Cubby, do you continue to maintain that the behaviour of the police officers was "PERFECT"? Describing it as PERFECT shuts down the conversation. Why question or interrogate something which is PERFECT? Why try to make a system better if it is already PERFECT? You yourself said in >29 Cubby.R.S.: "wait until info is revealed before passing judgment", and yet you are now contradicting that by declaring it to be PERFECT before all the iissues have been fully investigated. Unlike you, those who are questioning the system are opening up the conversation, calling for investigations and accountability, asking for the system to change based on current and past experience, lessons learned. If all this questioning leads to the evidence-based conclusion that the system really is PERFECT as you claim, then there will be no need to change anything. But don't try and shut down the conversation before any evidence-based result is obtained through investigation and broad consultation. Trying to drown out the conversation by shouting PERFECT is not only deplorable but it also won't work. Pandora's Box has been opened and the cat is out of the bag. The process will continue until its natural conclusion regardless of efforts by people of your political persuasion to shut out other voices. And elsewhere you try to claim that it is "the left" that is trying to shut down other voices. Do you really not see the contradictions in your stance?

Is it possible to rid police officers of bias? (BBC)

While kneeling on a man’s neck until he stops breathing is an extreme act, implicit bias can lead to many forms of discrimination, and can often go unnoticed by those perpetrating them. It can affect how everyone in a society – not just police officers – behaves towards one another.

But the evidence for whether implicit bias training can work is mixed. Is it really possible to reduce biases we are barely aware we have? And can we really hope to rid ourselves of them completely?

The first step is recognising you have biases in the first place... data from 2007 to 2015 shows that 73% of white people, 34% of black people, and 64% of people of other races have a pro-white, anti-black bias. This bias is so pervasive that even children as young as four, of all races, show a bias in favour of white people...

“I don’t know if we could ever get rid of those underlying associations, but we can make them less powerful in our thinking,” says Devine. “We can learn to recognise the ways in which (biases) lead us to conclusions that we understand are not appropriate or unwarranted, and then we can do something else that reflects your intentions and your values much more”...

the more “stereotypically black” a defendant is perceived to be, the more likely they are to be found guilty and sentenced to capital punishment. Prompting police officers to think of capturing, shooting or arresting also leads their eyes to settle on black faces...

But researchers say that it would be wrong to conclude that police officers have more bias than the wider population... What is different with police officers is the situations they find themselves in, which require lightning-fast decisions and actions – and the force, both legal and physical, that they are equipped with. “When you have that kind of time and response restriction, bias is going to show,” says Sherman. “If you’re working in a bookstore, the consequences {of having implicit bias} are far less consequential than if you’re a cop”...

It's worth reading the whole article, with an open mind.

He would not be stopped, he was a danger to the police, his ex girlfriend and his children, and he had a weapon. PERFECT. Do not resist a rightful arrest and threaten lives.

I'm not on the side of vigilantes, but retarded Democrats are actually responsible for encouraging riots that are encouraging vigilantes. Do not say my side, that's fucking stupid.

>63 Cubby.R.S.: he had a weapon

A knife in the footwell of his car. For that he was shot in the back seven times. PERFECT? Incidentally, I have a big bush knife in the footwell of my Land Rover, very useful when much of your driving is off-road in the bush. Fortunately no Kenyan police officer who has stopped me has ever shot me for having this knife.

Do not resist a rightful arrest

The legal penalty for resisting a rightful arrest is not death.

You continue to try to shut down a conversation by repeating the word PERFECT. I understand that in internet etiquette using capital letters is the equivalent of shouting, so you are shouting PERFECT. We don't learn by shutting (or shouting) down conversations, we learn by exploring.

Not sure what your last two sentences are about.

>64 John5918:

Your side doesn't have an opinion, just a continuous support of a narrative and quite literally evil. I have lost all respect for Democrats at this point.

>65 Cubby.R.S.:

I'm not a Democrat and I don't belong to a "side". Yes, I support various narratives which are no doubt different from yours. I try to engage with you on these narratives by pointing out what I consider to be inconsistencies and flaws in the narrative that you present, but you seem unable and/or unwilling to engage on issues. You seem intent on shutting down the conversations with slogans, sound bites and insults. Dialogue is difficult when it is one-sided, but I'll probably keep trying.

>64 John5918:
”A knife in the footwell of his car.”

What is your source for this? Officials have confirmed Blake was armed with a knife when he was shot. Witnesses reportedly claim officers were ordering Blake to “drop the knife” before he went near the footwell. In the videos, he appears to have something in his left hand as he escaped from police right after he physically resisted arrest, and it has been suggested he was wielding a karambit.

”The legal penalty for resisting a rightful arrest is not death.”

Sometimes it can be. In some jurisdictions within the U.S., deadly force can be used to stop a fleeing felon if the officer believes the person poses a substantial threat of harm to others. Just as an officer shouldn’t allow a rabid dog to trot off to a crowded playground, violent criminals shouldn’t be allowed to just stroll away when they don’t feel like being arrested. Blake was a fleeing felon. Blake demonstrated he was violent; he had a history of violence; and that’s why police were called in the first place.

I posted this in another thread but this guy has some very simple advice on how situations like this could be avoided in the future:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2Sp8EIHu1A

>63 Cubby.R.S.: I'm not on the side of vigilantes, but retarded Democrats are actually responsible for encouraging riots that are encouraging vigilantes. Do not say my side, that's fucking stupid.

I always love hearing about personal responsibility from the right and then watching them justify whatever bad actions people on the right have done. It's not the police responsibility for having a pattern of abuse against black communities. Somehow offering vigilantes water and then letting one of them that murdered two people walk right away from the scene of the crime isn't going to encourage more riots and more vigilantes.

Do not say my side, that's fucking stupid.

>54 Cubby.R.S.: If only you cared about the other side...

You've identified it as a two-sided issue and made it clear which side you're on. Complaining about that is what's fucking stupid.

>68 prosfilaes: deadly force can be used to stop a fleeing felon if the officer believes the person poses a substantial threat of harm to others.

Does having killed two people recently count?

Just as an officer shouldn’t allow a rabid dog to trot off to a crowded playground,

A 12-year old Tamir Rice was shot multiple times by a cop on a crowded playground. Yet demonstrations aren't justified.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2Sp8EIHu1A

This is LibraryThing. It's not Facebook. If I wanted to watch videos, I'd go somewhere else.

>67 TrippB: What is your source for this?

BBC. See >61 John5918:. The exact quote says "footboard".

some very simple advice on how situations like this could be avoided in the future

Very nice advice in theory, but in practice a lot of the people whom the police have to deal with will be disturbed, unstable, possibly on narcotics, alcohol or medication, or simply "dumb" to use a word which pops up in the video, and after the police have escalated the situation by shouting, waving guns around, trying to "take control of the situation" they're likely to be even more disturbed, panicky, unstable and yes, irrationally uncooperative. None of those are capital offences. The police need to be trained to deal with such citizens without killing them.

Just as an officer shouldn’t allow a rabid dog to trot off

That comment says it all about one's attitude to one's fellow human beings, but it also perhaps says more than you think. A rabid dog is ill. There are many mentally disturbed, ie ill, people around. Are you suggesting that it's a good thing for the police to kill mentally disturbed people?

>70 John5918:
I don't disagree with you as much as you may assume. I'm all for more police training, and there’s no question that officers would benefit from better training on de-escalation tactics and alternative means of dealing with disturbed individuals. Responding to such incidents likely also requires more personnel, as one or two officers may not be enough to safely handle violent aggressors without use of force.

The question is whether municipalities are willing to pay for vastly increased police budgets to accomplish your goal. The current fad is to call for defunding police. I don't think people realize what that will bring.

I appreciate those who are completely non-violent idealists. I also know that quick, sometimes brutal, action is necessary to protect the public from evil, or even mentally disturbed, people. It can be tragic, but if put in a position of only having deadly force as an effective option to prevent a mentally disturbed person from harming innocent victims (including the police dealing with the threat), I'll support a police officer's reasonable decision to use force to stop the aggressor.

I also think few people realize just how often police use non-aggressive methods to deal with potentially deadly threats; talking people into dropping their weapons, releasing hostages, ceasing resistance to being arrested, etc. That happens far more than often than use of deadly force, but those incidents don’t make it onto the evening news.

>44 John5918:

How about 2 attempts to use the same sort of non-lethal means? Is variety important?

"After the initial attempt to arrest Mr. Blake, Kenosha Police Officer Rusten Sheskey deployed a taser to attempt to stop Mr. Blake. When that attempt failed, Kenosha Police Officer Vincent Arenas also deployed his taser, however that taser was also not successful in stopping Mr. Blake."
https://www.doj.state.wi.us/news-releases/update-kenosha-officer-involved-shooti...

>72 cpg:

As far as other options, this:

https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/pepper-spray-research-insights-effects-and-e...

seems to be one of the more recent DoJ discussions of pepper spray.

On "Major Crimes", there is a well-done scene where (spoiler alert) the boss takes down a perp with a bean-bag round in a shotgun. The Wikipedia page for bean-bag rounds discusses downsides to their use.

At https://youtu.be/dNTqEmY_HmI there's some testing of less lethal rubber slugs and shot (along with commentary that gun owners may find entertaining). There seems to be a dichotomy between devices of this sort that are substantially less effective than a human fist and devices of this sort that have a high chance of penetrating far enough to kill the target.

>71 TrippB:, >72 cpg:, >73 cpg:

Let me repeat the article I posted in >55 John5918:

Wrapping people in futons: how the Japanese police confront violence (BBC)

Japan has virtually eradicated gun crime. Among the biggest contributors to low levels of gun violence are the police, who prefer to rely on their skills in martial arts - and futon rolling - rather than using weapons.

"The first instinct is not to reach for a gun - what most Japanese police will do is to get huge futons and essentially roll up the person who is being violent or drunk into a little burrito and carry them back to the station and calm them down. The response to violence is never violence - it is to de-escalate"...

>74 John5918:
Yes, very cute technique. I watched a video of what is involved, and lost track at seven officers arresting one drunk using the burrito method. Japan is densely populated. Such techniques are not very practical in much of the U.S., where a sheriffs deputy out in the hinterlands can hope for one or two backup units within a 15 minute response range (on a good night).....besides, where on their belts are they supposed to hang one of those huge futons?

>75 TrippB: Maybe tuck them under their huge bellies?

>75 TrippB:

You'll note, of course, that the futons only come at the end of the report. The main issues appear to me to be that the Japanese police are trained to de-escalate situations, unlike the US police who are trained to escalate them by "taking control", and that the Japanese police are trained in forms of unarmed combat to handle suspects without running the risk of killing them.

While I take your point that in some rural parts of the USA there might only be one police officer available, in the murder of George Floyd there were four - enough to use Japanese techniques, I would say.

Mind you police can be scarce not only in rural parts of USA but also England. About 25 years ago I was part of the crew of a steam locomotive in a rural part of England when we were physically attacked by an immensely strong member of the public who appeared to be on drugs and who objected to the noise the locomotive was making. We were rescued by a group of navvies working on the road nearby who rushed over hefting their picks and crowbars and the chap ran off. We took the loco up the line to the nearest small police station and reported the incident. The local police officer on duty replied, "Oh yes, we know him, but we're not coming immediately because there's only two of us here. We never arrest him unless there are at least six of us!" An anecdote which is irrelevant to the issue under discussion but which perhaps adds a bit of local colour.

>71 TrippB: The current fad is to call for defunding police.

The suggestion is usually that money removed from police departments to pay for mental health professionals and other people to respond to calls that don't need someone trained to kill. Some have pointed out that ambulance duty was done by cops in the past (often by cops being punished by being assigned to ambulance duty) and it's now done much better by people trained for the job. Defunding the police was a poor choice of phrasing, but it's clear people who have power to make changes and/or the wisdom to make plans beyond quick phrases don't mean to just get rid of the police.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/17/an-entire-florida-swat-team-r... says "The reports found that many cities exaggerated their crime rates to get surplus military gear from the Pentagon to equip their SWAT teams. The reports also found that though city officials cited incidents such as hostage takings to justify budgets for SWAT teams, the teams were primarily used to serve low-level drug warrants." and "Hallandale Beach is about 80 percent white, but a 2015 Broward/Palm Beach New Times investigation found that 33 of the 38 no-knock raids the city’s SWAT team carried out over a decade were done in a single square mile enclave that is mostly black. The other five were within a quarter-mile of the enclave. None turned up a major stash of illegal drugs."

So they get money to buy bigger guns and break into black people's houses. How about "L.A. schools police will return grenade launchers but keep rifles, armored vehicle", one of the best yet most horrific headlines of all time? A police department for a school district has about as much justification for owning grenade launchers as I do.

I understand the argument for funding better training for police. But police departments have continually worked for more money to get bigger and better toys. It is quite clear that handing the police more money is not going to get them to train for less violent behavior, and even large awards to victims of police brutality seem to be ignored. So what's your goal? Are you willing to put pressure on police to actually reform, and why should anyone skeptical of them trust them to get better if more money is provided.

It can be tragic, but if put in a position of only having deadly force as an effective option to prevent a mentally disturbed person from harming innocent victims (including the police dealing with the threat)

Eric Garner was allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes. George Floyd was sitting in his car after allegedly having passed a counterfeit $20. Tamir Rice was playing in the park with a toy gun. Breonna Taylor was sleeping in her bed. Atatiana Jefferson was in her house doing nothing questionable at all. There was no serious problem in any of those cases until the police showed up. As the Hippocratic Oath says, "first do no harm". That's five people dead who posed zero imminent risk to anyone, off the top of my head, since 2014.

I also think few people realize just how often police use non-aggressive methods to deal with potentially deadly threats; talking people into dropping their weapons, releasing hostages, ceasing resistance to being arrested, etc. That happens far more than often than use of deadly force, but those incidents don’t make it onto the evening news.

No, they don't. And when I read the details about every fatal killing in my state, I don't find much problem with them. But you talked about shooting rabid dogs, but canine rabies is extinct in the US. There are a few rabid dogs imported, but rabies from all causes is 2 deaths a year in the US. How many unwarranted deaths does it take for it to matter and be remembered?

Add to that stuff like 38 no-knock warrants on primarily black households in one medium-sized town despite nothing warranting a no-knock warrant being produced any of those times, and stop-and-frisk, which was 90% against Black and Hispanic people and 90% against innocent people.

I also know that quick, sometimes brutal, action is necessary to protect the public from evil, or even mentally disturbed, people.

So you agree that the protests, as quick brutal action is nonetheless a reasonable attempt to protect the public from evil? If it's okay to kill to protect the public, it should be okay to burn down a business.

>75 TrippB: Such techniques are not very practical in much of the U.S., where a sheriffs deputy out in the hinterlands can hope for one or two backup units within a 15 minute response range (on a good night)

We aren't really talking about those places, are we? Literally no case mentioned has occurred in such a case, and the reason police are so sparse is because people are so sparse.

You don’t need to be black to be outraged. You need to be American and be outraged.

1:30 ( https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1300108216051871745 )

- The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln | 12:28 PM · Aug 30, 2020

>79 margd:

Say the Russians.

>79 margd:

That's eloquence!!

Trump has destroyed patriotism and replaced it with radical right terrorism.
1:00 ( https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1300275599831740417 )

- MeidasTouch.com @MeidasTouch | 11:33 PM · Aug 30, 2020

This Coursera course from the University of Michigan recently came to my attention, and appears to have rolling registration:

Police Brutality in America Teach-Out

The tragic deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery have sparked a wave of renewed protests against police brutality across the United States. These nationwide uprisings have transformed into an intense interest from the public around understanding systemic racism and abuse of power. Millions of Americans and people around the world are watching incidents of police violence and excessive force captured on video, but are looking to learn about the inequalities at the root of these incidents. While the calls of Black Lives Matter protesters to #DefundThePolice are being heard for the first time by many Americans, they are part of a longstanding effort by communities and activists to reinvest in communities rather than policing and prisons. In this Teach-Out, you will learn about the history of police violence in America, become aware of laws and policies that prevent accountability, understand the demands of protesters, and gain the knowledge and tools to fight for change locally.

Mothers, sisters, wives: Kenyan women lead fight against police violence (The New Humanitarian)

‘When we lose our fear, they lose their power!’

The confrontation was caught on film. As three armed policemen try to pull Wanjira Wanjiru away, she clings to the wing-mirror of a parked car and refuses to move. “Don’t touch me!” she yells. “Why are you arresting me?” “Why are you protesting?” one of the steel-helmeted policemen asks. “I’m protesting because you’re killing us,” replies the 25-year-old anti-police brutality campaigner. “Who is killing you?” “You police! You’re killing us in our communities!” Then, as the policemen back off, Wanjira, fist in the air, defiantly chants what has now become an iconic line: “When we lose our fear, they lose their power!”...

Nearly all Black Lives Matter protests are peaceful despite Trump narrative, report finds (Guardian)

In stark contrast to rightwing claims, 93% of demonstrations have involved no serious harm to people or property...

But the US government has taken a “heavy-handed approach” to the demonstrations, with authorities using force “more often than not” when they are present, the report found.

And there has been a troubling trend of violence and armed intimidation by individual actors, including dozens of car-ramming attacks targeting demonstrators across the country...

Rex Chapman @RexChapman | 10:12 PM · Sep 8, 2020
I’m crying.
Rolling on the floor laughing

Wait for the dismount...

1:18 ( https://twitter.com/RexChapman/status/1303516483985735680 )
From George Hahn

Federal officials stockpiled munitions, sought ‘heat ray’ device before clearing Lafayette Square, whistleblower says
Marissa J. Lang | September 16, 2020

Hours before law enforcement forcibly cleared protesters from Lafayette Square in early June amid protests over the police killing of George Floyd, federal officials began to stockpile ammunition and seek devices that could emit deafening sounds and make anyone within range feel like their skin is on fire, according to (D.C. National Guard Maj. Adam D. DeMarco) who was there...authorized the transfer of about 7,000 rounds of ammunition to the D.C. Armory as protests against police use of force and racial injustice roiled Washington.

...(DeMarco, the senior-most D.C. National Guard officer on the ground that day and served as a liaison between the National Guard and U.S. Park Police) contradicts the administration’s claims that protesters were violent, tear gas was never used and demonstrators were given ample warning to disperse — a legal requirement before police move to clear a crowd...

Just before noon on June 1, the Defense Department’s top military police officer in the Washington region sent an email to officers in the D.C. National Guard. It asked whether the unit had a Long Range Acoustic Device, also known as an LRAD, or a microwave-like weapon called the Active Denial System, which was designed by the military to make people feel like their skin is burning when in range of its invisible rays.

The technology, also called a “heat ray,” was developed to disperse large crowds in the early 2000s but was shelved amid concerns about its effectiveness, safety and the ethics of using it on human beings....

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-protest-lafayette-square/2020/09/16/ca01...

Three multi-dimensional reflections on the Black LIves Matter movement through a peacebuilding lens, from the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the Catholic University of Notre Dame in the USA:

“No justice, no peace” is a slogan that appears in the many protests organized recently by the Black Lives Matter (BLM) Movement for racial justice, arguably the largest and most diverse mass movement for social justice in U.S. history. In peace studies, we know that positive sustainable peace depends on overcoming conditions of structural violence that oppress marginalized communities and impede the ability of people to live fulfilling lives of dignity. The work of justice is linked to the work of peace.

How to Sustain the Global Black Lives Matter Movement

Between Disruption and Coordination: Building Insider-Outsider Strategies

Justice through Trauma Healing

>86 margd:

I guess there really is no accounting for taste.

Chad K. Mills (WDRBNews) @ChadKMills | 2:13 PM · Sep 23, 2020:
A militia group marches up 7th St. in downtown Louisville. They wouldn’t identify their group, but I know I’ve seen some here before. #BreonnaTaylor #Louisville @WDRBNews
0:21 ( https://twitter.com/ChadKMills/status/1308831863977504772 )

David Frum @davidfrum | 3:29 PM · Sep 23, 2020
It might help if we stopped calling them "militia," an honorable term for the legal armed force of state governments.
A group of armed men who answer to no civil authority are a "gang"
As in: "Armed gang members march up 7th St. in downtown Louisville."

Revealed: pro-Trump activists plotted violence ahead of Portland rallies (Guardian)

Patriots Coalition members suggested political assassinations and said ‘laws will be broken, people will get hurt’, leaked chats show...

Ryan Van Velzer (wfplnews) @RyanVanVelzer | 5:16 PM · Sep 23, 2020:
I just went to drop off my colleagues who have been covering the march in the highlands.
As I entered 4th St. in downtown Louisville, police asked for ID then threatened to impound my car if I came back with other reporters.
@lmpd why are you threatening me for doing my job?

Breonna Taylor: Why it's hard to charge US police over shootings (BBC)

getting a charge or conviction for those tragedies that involve excessive use of police force is rare....

Although the language of laws that dictate what police may do vary from state to state, the most common standard officers have to abide by is that their use of force be "objectively reasonable". That means the officer had a reasonable belief in the moment that he or she, or a bystander, were about to be harmed. That standard has come under increased scrutiny for giving police too much leeway, particularly the flexibility of the word "reasonable" - it could be enough that an officer believed they were in danger at the time, even if hindsight showed they were not. "In these cases, historically, the police have owned the narratives. Bystander accounts are discounted, oftentimes," says Dr Stinson."Written reports are sometimes factually inconsistent with the video evidence". California changed its use of force law in August, swapping out the word "reasonable" for the word "necessary"...

Judges and juries may also have trusting feelings towards police, and be less likely to doubt their word...

Police unions are some of the strongest in the country, and over time some have written into officers' contracts various conditions that can slow the investigative process after a killing, such as giving the officer advance warning about an impending investigation...

Some have cautioned that putting all the focus on charges and prison time for police officers who kill civilians gives a false sense that policing in the US is truly changing... looking at the procedures used by the officers in Ms Taylor's case is more important to lasting reform. "We are really spending too much time focusing on prosecution and incarceration of individual police officers," she says, "and not enough time on big systemic changes that will stop police officers from being at Breonna Taylor's house in the early hours of the morning with a battering ram."

I think this satirical video on authoritarianism might be of relevance here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shBwf97O7zk

Harry and Meghan call to end 'structural racism' (BBC)

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have called for the end of "structural racism" in a piece written for a newspaper for Black History Month...

Ervin Staub: A Holocaust survivor’s mission to train ‘heroic bystanders’ (BBC)

A training programme designed to discourage police misconduct is being adopted across the US after months of protests over the use of excessive force. The Holocaust survivor behind the training believes that, after initial success in one city, it can change police culture nationwide...

The training, called Ethical Policing Is Courageous (EPIC), encourages officers to intervene if they see misconduct within their ranks... Crucially, it emphasises the responsibility, not of the perpetrator, but of bystanders. Every officer is reminded of their duty to act if they see bad behaviour, repudiating the so-called blue wall of silence. This ethos upends the way officers traditionally think about loyalty to their partners. "Loyalty isn't saying, 'well, you've done something wrong, I'm going to protect you'," Lisa Kurtz, an innovation manager at the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD), told the BBC. "Loyalty is me saying, 'you're about to do something wrong, and I'm going to stop you'."

>93 John5918:

It may be hard to charge police for brutality, but the
Infamous gun-waving St. Louis couple indicted for threatening BLM protesters — and evidence tampering

Mark and Patricia McCloskey garnered their 15 minutes of infamy for standing outside their lavish mansion with firearms trained on peaceful Black Lives Matters protesters who walked past their home June 28 on their way to demonstrate at the nearby home of Mayor Lyda Krewson.

The McCloskey’s have claimed they were acting in self-defense after the “horde” of protesters broke down an entrance to their gated neighborhood (which apparently was previously broken). Video evidence suggested otherwise, and the grand jury apparently believed it, and actually added a charge of tampering..

Republican Governor Mike Parson, who made what is believed to be an unprecedented offer to pardon the McCloskey’s before they were charged. Parson is an ardent Trump supporter who has refused to mandate the use of what he has referred to as “dang masks.”

Parson and his wife Teresa contracted COVID-19, but apparently have recently recovered.

St. Louis couple who pointed guns at protesters indicted on firearm charges
Konstantin Toropin and Nicole Chavez | October 6, 2020

(CNN)Patricia and Mark McCloskey, the St. Louis homeowners who pointed guns at protesters, have been indicted on weapons and tampering with evidence charges, their attorney said...

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/06/us/patricia-mark-mccloskey-st-louis-indicted/inde...

Justice Dept. Is Said to Quietly Quash Inquiry Into Tamir Rice Killing
Charlie Savage and Katie Benner | October 30, 2020

The Justice Department decided more than a year ago to effectively shut down its civil rights investigation into the high-profile killing of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old Black boy carrying a pellet gun who was shot by a Cleveland police officer in 2014, according to people familiar with the matter.

Career prosecutors had asked in 2017 to use a grand jury to gather evidence in their investigation, setting off tensions inside the department. In an unusual move, department supervisors let the request languish for two years before finally denying permission in August 2019, essentially ending the inquiry without fully conducting it.

But more than a year later, the department has yet to take the bureaucratic steps to close the case, like completing a draft memo explaining why it declined to indict anyone. And it has not told the Rice family or the public that it will not charge the police officer...

https://news.yahoo.com/justice-dept-said-quietly-quash-121306500.html

Emails show DEA’s “covert surveillance” of racial justice protesters in Philadelphia, Chicago, Albuquerque
Nikhel Sus | April 16, 2021

...Justice Department leadership authorized the surveillance efforts in May 2020, per a DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) memorandum revealed last year by BuzzFeed News. The decision—which significantly expanded the DEA’s law enforcement authority nationwide for 14 days—was decried by members of Congress and civil liberties advocates as an invasion of First Amendment rights. (The operations involved the use of undercover DEA agents to “infiltrate” protests, social media monitoring and aerial surveillance by the DEA Air Wing.)

...The new emails, obtained by CREW as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, provide a glimpse into how the DEA utilized its expanded surveillance authority in three cities.

Philadelphia...
Albuquerque...
Chicago...

https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-investigations/ema...

I am surprised.

How Views On Black Lives Matter Have Changed — And Why That Makes Police Reform So Hard
Alex Samuels | Apr. 13, 2021

...Eleven months after Floyd’s death, support for the Black Lives Matter movement has fallen, while America’s trust in law enforcement has risen. Sixty-nine percent of Americans, according to a USA Today/Ipsos survey from March, now trust local police and law enforcement to promote justice and equal treatment of all races versus 56 percent who felt the same way last June.

...in the almost four years Civiqs has been asking about support for the Black Lives Matter movement, a majority of white people have never supported the movement.1 Support peaked at 43 percent last June, just days after Floyd’s death. Since then, white Americans’ support for the movement has dipped back down to roughly where it was before Floyd’s death and is currently at 37 percent...

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-views-on-black-lives-matter-have-change...

________________________________________

I am not surprised.

Florida Adopts Nation's Toughest Restrictions On Protests
Greg Allen | April 19, 2021

Gov. Ron DeSantis...has signed a law that he called the "strongest anti-rioting, pro-law enforcement measure in the country." The law was written in response to protests around the country following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. It provides new protections for police and increases the penalties for people who take part in property damage or violence during protests.

The law increases penalties for protesters who block roadways or deface public monuments. It creates a new crime, "mob intimidation." And it requires that anyone arrested at a protest be denied bail until their first court appearance, likely making for overnight jail stays.

The law makes local officials in Florida liable for lawsuits from injured parties if they are found to have not done enough to respond to control violent protests. And it reacts to the "defund the police" movement, allowing officials to appeal to the governor and his Cabinet any decision by local officials to reduce funding to law enforcement.

Civil rights and social justice groups said it's an unconstitutional attack on free speech...

https://www.npr.org/2021/04/19/988791175/florida-adopts-nations-toughest-restric...

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/tucker-carlson-der...
Tucker Carlson accuses media of ‘lynching’ Derek Chauvin

Apparently, Tucker wanted to assure his white nationalist/white supremacist viewers that he is on the side of the white guy who snuffed out the life of a brown voter. The 'White Power Hour' concoction devised by R. Murdoch and Carlson is providing programing for an underserved segment of our society in their depraved minds.

George Floyd: Jury finds Derek Chauvin guilty of murder

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56818766.amp

Guilty on all counts.

Talk to conservatives and most will tell you there are not enough—not nearly enough people in prison and they’re not talking about people like Chauvin or police who beat up or murder routinely in the course of their daily routine and much more often than not it’s blacks or hispanics who bear the brunt of that. Conservatives will tell you there are not enough people in prison despite the fact that the United States leads the other countries of the world in incarceration rate by a large margin and has been the leader in that miserable statistic for quite some time. Our justice system is fucked up and it has turned into an industry that targets minorities and the poor and strips them of their rights and depends on the fears stoked often by conservative politicians and police departments and organizations and the prison industrial system. All this nonsense about the United States being the land of the free then is just parroted bullshit really and I’ll tell you I don’t fucking believe we’re the land of the free.

This unchecked justice system of ours is also though part of Clinton’s and Biden’s legacy who helped make it what it is with their crime bill and even Obama did almost nothing to change a thing. We need more than just police reform. We need justice reform as well and we need our politicians to be honest with us about it and that’s not just the bad guy Republicans. It is a tragedy that so many people are locked away for large portions of their lives. It does not make for a happy society.

>105 lriley: I don’t fucking believe we’re the land of the free

Until the coronavirus effectively put an end to international travel I've been travelling annually to New York and DC with a retired Sudanese bishop for lobbying and fundraising, meeting government officials, congresspeople and their staffs, church leaders and members, UN officials, foreign diplomats, NGOs, civil society activists, etc. As we observed the heavy paramilitary police presence and passed through seemingly endless security checks, the elderly bishop remarked, "This is a police state". He knows what a police state looks like as thirty years ago he had to flee into exile from the security forces in his own country, Sudan.

#106–in that respect police departments around the country are militarized as in trained in military tactics and provided with military equipment and weaponry and at least in part this is to quell protests which as we can see lately is very much on the agenda of republican governors like Florida’s Ron DeSantis.

I’m afraid as well with all the superhero type cop movies around where black is black and white is white and extralegal measures are presented as the only practical way of attaining real justice that many police see themselves as some kind of heroic gang and sadism only a way of doing their job.

For the most part American citizens are complicit in all this and believe that good will always eventually prevail and it won’t at least if we continue down the road we’re on. A policeman is meant to be a public servant and not a protected and empowered psychopath. We have way too many of those but also a system that feeds their violence.

Sounds like a quiet night? Rep MTG tried to make that a problem, saying people too frightened to come out in DC . (Not, tweeted a restaurant-goer.)

FL Gov de Santis was also ready to take political advantage of any rioting with his new legislation.

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/tucker-carlson-says-chauvin-jury-verdict-was-please-...
Tucker Carlson Says Chauvin Jury Verdict Was ‘Please Don’t Hurt Us,’ Questions If We Can ‘Trust the Way This Decision Was Made’

In other words ~
Ignore what your eyes saw and your ears heard. Murdoch is paying me big bucks to scr*w with your minds and please our white nationalist and white supremacist viewers. The cops who turned on Chauvin, the doctors who testified against him and the teen who shot the video are enemies of our white power cause.

Here's what we 'need' to 'know' about "systemically", "institutionally" "racist" America:

In the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, a place which as recently as 1993 to 2001 had a Black woman as mayor for two consecutive terms in office, a jury 12 (six of whom were "White", four "Black", and the remaining two self-described as of mixed or multiracial origin, and who ranged in age from their 20s (2) to 60s (1) (30s: 3, 40s: 3, 50s: 3), voted unanimously to return a verdict of "guilty" at the state court criminal trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin on three charges:

1) Second-degree murder - unintentional (Minnesota statute 609.19)

2) Third-degree murder - 'depraved mind' (Minnesota statute 609.195)

3) Second-degree manslaughter - culpable negligence (Minnesota statute 609.205)

The prosecution's case against former Officer Chauvin was led by assistant Attorneys General Matthew Frank and Erin Eldridge (direct and cross-examination of witnesses) and assisted by argued by outside-hires ("White") attorney Steve Schleicher and ("Black") Jerry Blackwell (for the prosecution's opening statement). Blackwell is the founder of the Minnesota Association of Black Lawyers. (Source: Associated Press: (https://apnews.com/article/derek-chauvin-trial-steve-schleicher-e1a14774fe5d88666232187c1413d5b8))

At the time of the events for which former officer Chauvin was convicted, systemically-racist America's Minneapolis Police department was led by it's first "Black" Chief, Medaria Arradondo, chief since July of 2017. Also present at the arrest of George Floyd were Minneapolis Police officers Tou Thao--a Hmong-American-- and James Alexander Kueng, a "Black" officer; and the "White" officer, Thomas Kiernan Lane. All three were first placed on administrative leave before being definitively dismissed from their positions as police officers later the same day. While now free on bail, they all face criminal trial beginning in August on charges of " aiding and abetting second-degree murder as well as aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter."

The presiding judge at the trial of former Officer Chauvin was ("White") Minnesota 4th District Court Judge Peter A. Cahill (an elected position).

Minnesota's State Attorney General is ("Black") Keith Ellison, former U.S. House Representative for Minnesota's 5th congressional district (serving six consecutive terms of office) as well as the former deputy chairman of the Democratic Party's National Committee (February 25, 2017 – November 8, 2018).

In the delusional imaginations of those who claim that the Black Americans suffer from a national and systemic endemic racism, Chauvin's conviction can only be clearly the fluke-product of a system stacked, from "top to bottom" against all Black people, without distinction or difference. That is why, in addition to Black American descendants of African-Americans of slave and of freed slave origins, those of African origin in the Caribbean, the Indian ocean and others of dark-skinned people of East Indian and other south Asian and Central and South American origin or descent also suffer all manner similar discrimination because, as we know, in the U.S. since their founding as well as before, racism is endemic, systematic ---oh, wait...

_________________________________

It's a virtual certainty that Derek Chauvin shall file an appeal on the charges for which he was tried and convicted and, in my opinion, on appeal, those convictions should be reversed for error and either a new trial ordered or, better, the charges against him dropped for lack of evidence of intent or culpable negligence.

In any case, the claims that the United States are a collection of states in which Black Americans suffer general and systematic racism at the hands of others are patently absurd and are the crass design of the cynical and self-serving politically-motivated-- of whatever skin-tone.

(from John McWhorter's blog, "It Bears Mentioning" at Substack.com) : "THE VICTORIANS HAD TO ACCEPT DARWIN. WE NEED TO ACCEPT THAT COPS KILL WHITE PEOPLE AS EASILY AS THEY KILL BLACK PEOPLE. Otherwise, our conversation on race is deeply and perniciously fake." | April 17, 2021

(excerpt)

...
"It’s why now, when the cop who killed Daunte Wright not only says she mistook her gun for a taser, and is even recorded as having done so, legions of people still insist on parsing it as evidence of “racism.” The idea is, I suppose, that she wouldn’t have made that mistake, would have been more prudent, if Daunte Wright was instead a white guy named Donald White.

* * *

"Here is why we need that mental exercise. Tony Timpa was quite white and was killed quite in the way that Floyd was, including it being recorded.

"AND white people have been killed when cops mistook their guns for tasers. I wonder why no one ever heard about this one beyond one day in Philadelphia? (Wait – there will be objection that the shot didn’t actually kill this guy. But that’s random – it could have, easily.) There are many others — there has been media coverage this week of cases where cops made the mistake that Officer Potter did towards Daunte Wright (where the person shot died). You can be quite sure that if their authors had found that the mistake only happened when the victims were black, we’d know by now.

"This is a dog that didn’t bark and for a reason – that this week’s headlines have not been about how cops only mistake their guns for tasers when they are dealing with a black man is because … wait for it … they don’t! I suggest you take a little time and do a quick search on the cases listed by media articles like this. When the victim is black, it’s noted – big surprise – and quite often, the victim simply is not. By that I mean that often the victim was white. The journalists seeking to show that cops only mistake guns for tasers when they are confronted with a black person couldn’t find it and thus just write that officers have sometimes been “confused” while studiously leaving race out of it. Their head editors have made sure they did.

"In this vein, what you didn’t hear this week is that cops killed a teen pointing a toy gun at them. Many will recall that cops killed (black) Tamir Rice for holding a toy gun, with this considered a prime demonstration that cops kill out of racist animus – why just a teen waggling a toy around? I mentioned this new case in my Twitter feed this week and have been bemused to see almost Talmudic exegesis arguing that the killing of Rice was “worse” because the white kid was actually aiming the gun at the cops and then picked up a knife."

...

(all emphasis & formatting as in the original.)

(I'm a reader (by paid-subscription) of John McWhorter's writing at https://johnmcwhorter.substack.com and I recommend subscribing to his blog to all readers here.)

___________________________

Some Wikipedia articles were consulted for use in this post:

(primarily) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_George_Floyd

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharon_Sayles_Belton

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Ellison

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medaria_Arradondo

(Derek Chauvin murder case) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_v._Chauvin

>110 proximity1:

Demonstrating once again that you don't know what systemic racism is. Misrepresenting it in this manner merely bolsters systemic white supremacism.

>110 proximity1: Your position seems to be that because there are people of color in positions of power, that systemic racism cannot be real. This would be valid if "there are no people of color in positions of power" were part of anyone's definition of systemic racism. However, that is not part of any definition of systemic racism that I have ever seen, so your argument is irrelevant.

FWIW, one useful definition says that systemic racism is "a system in which public policies, institutional practices, cultural representations, and other norms work in various, often reinforcing ways to perpetuate racial group inequity." Obviously, this is a pretty deep idea and a single sentence is not likely to be adequate, but this is at least pointing in the right direction.

I have found Akala's discussion of systemic racism informative in his book Natives : race and class in the ruins of empire (the US release is imminent, I believe). Although focussed on the black experience in the UK, much of what he describes seems transferable.

Looking forward to his sentencing.

In the interests of fair play, I believe 10 years uninterrupted solitary confinement for each minute Chauvin's knee was on George Floyd's neck is "justice" desserts.

#114—put into the population of any max or medium security prison it’s doubtful Chauvin would last more than a couple days. He would be the ultimate prize for prison trophy hunters and every prison has some like that. I suspect he is going to be sequestered away from the masses of other prisoners for at least the next 20 years if not his entire sentence and even then there’s a good chance that he will end being a victim of violence. Not just the Floyd murder but he is also a cop with a violent reputation which is a karma situation in its own right.

Orlando attorney files federal lawsuit challenging 'anti-riot' law
Greg Angel and Matt Fernandez | Apr. 21, 2021

Attorney Aaron Carter Bates filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday in Orlando, contesting the “Combating Public Disorder Act”, also known as the “anti-riot” law.

The suit names Governor Ron DeSantis, Attorney General Ashley Moody, and Orange County Sheriff John Mina as defendants, in their official capacities.

The suit, filed on behalf of "Lawyers Matter Task Force" argues CS/House Bill 1 violates the U.S. Constitution.

“These statutes are unconstitutional on their face and as-applied to Plaintiffs’ planned speech and expressive conduct because: (1) they target protected speech under the First Amendment; (20) they are written with the intent of defining any such protest as a “riot” or participation in such protest as “inciting a riot”; and (3) they retaliate against those subjected to these laws with excessive bail, fines, or cruel and unusual punishment as a means of hindering the speech of dissenting opinions,” the lawsuit states...

https://www.mynews13.com/fl/orlando/news/2021/04/21/orlando-attorney-files-feder...

G.O.P. Bills Target Protesters (and Absolve Motorists Who Hit Them)
Reid J. Epstein and Patricia Mazzei | April 21, 2021

...while Democrats seized on Mr. Floyd’s death last May to highlight racism in policing and other forms of social injustice, Republicans responded to a summer of protests by proposing a raft of punitive new measures governing the right to lawfully assemble. G.O.P. lawmakers in 34 states have introduced 81 anti-protest bills during the 2021 legislative session — more than twice as many proposals as in any other year, according to Elly Page, a senior legal adviser at the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, which tracks legislation limiting the right to protest...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/21/us/politics/republican-anti-protest-laws.html

There’s hope for racial justice in America. But it comes from the people – not the courts (Guardian)

While I don’t find hope in one man’s conviction, I do find it in multitudes elsewhere...

The George Floyd verdict would not have happened without months of protest (Guardian)

Martin Luther King Jr famously said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” President Obama was fond of the saying and used it often – but it could do with a second part. The arc of the moral universe does not bend on its own. It is bent in the right direction by protesters, campaigners and dissenters. It was their hands that forced it towards justice last week, when the former police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of the second-degree murder of George Floyd. We cannot celebrate and take comfort in the verdict that was meted out without acknowledging the action outside the courtroom that secured it. But this is what some will do: claim the verdict to be a great victory, after denigrating the means by which it was achieved...

The other huge contribution was that of 17 year old bystander Darnella Frazier, who recorded the entire nine plus minutes and posted it to Facebook for all the world to see. Her video which has been used in the media thousands of times since, for which I suspect she didn't see a penny (though trolls accused her of being a money grubber).

There is a trust established in her name to help her move on:
The Darnella Frazier Gift Trust
Bremer Bank, NA
372 St Peter Street
St. Paul, MN 55102 USA
Phone: phone redacted
ABA Routing: 096010415
Account Number: 53660
REF: FBO Darnella Frazier our 920602
Note to Originating Sender: Provide your full address when sending the incoming wire.

Also a couple of go-fund-me websites, one by her BLM associates
https://www.gofundme.com/f/peace-and-healing-for-darnella

and the other by Historically Black Colleges and Universities alumnae to send her to college:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/darnella-frazier039s-hbcu-scholarship-fund.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

"Man Dies After Medical Incident During Police Interaction."

That was the headline of a Minneapolis Police press release on May 25, 2020, in the hours after an unnamed man in his 40s died. Absent from the nearly 200-word post is any mention of officers restraining him on the ground, a knee on his neck, or any sense of how long this "interaction" lasted.

Thanks to video from a 17-year-old bystander, we now know what really happened: Former police officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, by using excessive and unreasonable force when he kneeled on Floyd's neck and back for 9 minutes and 29 seconds...

How Minneapolis Police first described the murder of George Floyd, and what we know now
Eric Levenson | April 21, 2021
https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/21/us/minneapolis-police-george-floyd-death/index.ht...
----------------------------------------------------------------------

A teen with 'a cell phone and sheer guts' is credited for Derek Chauvin's murder conviction
Holly Yan | April 21, 2021
https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/21/us/darnella-frazier-derek-chauvin-reaction/index....

>120 margd:

NEW YORK (AP) — Pulitzer Prizes award special citation to Darnella Frazier, the teenager who recorded the killing of George Floyd.

- Kyle Griffin (MSNBC) @kylegriffin1| 1:15 PM · Jun 11, 2021

1 Woman Is Dead, Others Injured In Minneapolis After A Driver Plows Into Protestors
Jaclyn Diaz | June 14, 2021

...Demonstrators were gathered to protest the June 3 shooting death of Winston Boogie Smith Jr., a 33-year-old Black man, by U.S. Marshals in Minneapolis. At approximately 11:39 p.m. Sunday, a car sped into a group of protestors that were standing along Lake Street and Girard Ave. in the Uptown area of the city, hitting and injuring at least three people.

...An adult woman critically injured at the scene was declared dead at the hospital as a result of the crash, police tweeted.

...A suspect was pulled from the wrecked car by protestors and restrained...His identity has not been released....

https://www.npr.org/2021/06/14/1006147824/1-woman-is-dead-others-injured-in-minn...

A thread on the future of police technology, from "police protection units" to drones and robotic dogs... Creepy. Sometimes, as in Tiananman Square, a human tank-driver sees humanity, blinks. Less of that in future?

Leah McElrath @leahmcelrath | 4:27 PM · Oct 3, 2021:
More people need to understand what’s coming.

https://twitter.com/leahmcelrath/status/1444761157848477701 (1:16)
From The hit man

A “Police Protection Unit” or similar equipment was deployed in 2019 in Indonesia in response to protests regarding accusations of fraud after a presidential election https://nytimes.com/2019/06/27/world/asia/indonesia-widodo-prabowo-election-frau...

1:06 ( https://twitter.com/leahmcelrath/status/1444884979801014272 )
From Renae Henry

( https://www.bozena.eu/portfolio/police-protection-unit/ )
------------------------------------------------

Leah McElrath @leahmcelrath | 10:47 PM · Oct 3, 2021:
Police departments around the US are reportedly already experimenting with use of the so-called robotic “dogs,” as well as using drones extensively for surveillance.

Debate Over Police Use of Robotic Dogs in Law Enforcement
If you're homeless and looking for temporary shelter in Hawaii's capital, expect a visit from a robotic police dog that scans your eye to make sure you don't...

https://twitter.com/leahmcelrath/status/1444856694467702789 (1:48)

Ahmaud Arbury's murderers with their police-backgrounds WANTED to go to federal prison rather than state. I expect Chauvin shares the sentiment?

Derek Chauvin sentenced to 21 years in federal prison for violating George Floyd's civil rights
Updated on: July 8, 2022 / 7:47 AM / CBS/AP
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/derek-chauvin-george-floyd-civil-rights-21-years-fe...