The 50 Years of Crowd Control Research Police Are Ignoring (fivethirtyeight.com) 524
Thelasko shares an excerpt from FiveThirtyEight: Researchers have spent 50 years studying the way crowds of protesters and crowds of police behave -- and what happens when the two interact. One thing they will tell you is that when the police respond by escalating force -- wearing riot gear from the start, or using tear gas on protesters -- it doesn't work. In fact, disproportionate police force is one of the things that can make a peaceful protest not so peaceful. But if we know that (and have known that for decades), why are police still doing it?
There's 50 years of research on violence at protests, dating back to the three federal commissions formed between 1967 and 1970. All three concluded that when police escalate force -- using weapons, tear gas, mass arrests and other tools to make protesters do what the police want -- those efforts can often go wrong, creating the very violence that force was meant to prevent. For example, the Kerner Commission, which was formed in 1967 to specifically investigate urban riots, found that police action was pivotal in starting half of the 24 riots the commission studied in detail. It recommended that police eliminate "abrasive policing tactics" and that cities establish fair ways to address complaints against police. Experts say the following decades of research have turned up similar findings. Escalating force by police leads to more violence, not less. It tends to create feedback loops, where protesters escalate against police, police escalate even further, and both sides become increasingly angry and afraid.
Anne Nassauer, a professor of sociology at Freie Universitat in Berlin, has studied how the Berlin Police Department handles protests and soccer matches. She found that one key element is transparent communication -- something Nassauer said helps increase trust and diffuse potentially tense moments. The Berlin police employs people specifically to make announcements in these situations, using different speakers, with local accents or different languages, for things like information about what police are doing, and another speaker for commands. Either way, the messages are delivered in a calm, measured voice. Communication is also a cornerstone of what police know as "the Madison Model," created by former Madison, Wisconsin, chief of police David Couper. His strategy for dealing with protesters was to send officers out to talk with demonstrators, engage, ask them why protests are made, listen to their concerns and, above all, empathize. The report notes that many police departments in the U.S. did try different strategies in the 1980s and 1990s, but they ultimately ended up responding with force anyway.
"The 'negotiated management' model of protest policing called for officers to meet with protesters in advance to plan events together to specify the times, locations and activities that would happen, even when that included mass arrests," reports FiveThirtyEight. "But the era of negotiated management basically fell apart after the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle in 1999, when protesters blocked streets, broke windows and successfully shut down the WTO meeting and stalled trade talks. When protesters violated the negotiated terms, police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets and took away the wrong lessons, [said Edward Maguire, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at Arizona State University]. 'What a lot of people took from that in policing is, we can't trust these people. We need to be smarter and overwhelm them to nip these things in the bud," he said. 'We sort of went backwards.'"
There's 50 years of research on violence at protests, dating back to the three federal commissions formed between 1967 and 1970. All three concluded that when police escalate force -- using weapons, tear gas, mass arrests and other tools to make protesters do what the police want -- those efforts can often go wrong, creating the very violence that force was meant to prevent. For example, the Kerner Commission, which was formed in 1967 to specifically investigate urban riots, found that police action was pivotal in starting half of the 24 riots the commission studied in detail. It recommended that police eliminate "abrasive policing tactics" and that cities establish fair ways to address complaints against police. Experts say the following decades of research have turned up similar findings. Escalating force by police leads to more violence, not less. It tends to create feedback loops, where protesters escalate against police, police escalate even further, and both sides become increasingly angry and afraid.
Anne Nassauer, a professor of sociology at Freie Universitat in Berlin, has studied how the Berlin Police Department handles protests and soccer matches. She found that one key element is transparent communication -- something Nassauer said helps increase trust and diffuse potentially tense moments. The Berlin police employs people specifically to make announcements in these situations, using different speakers, with local accents or different languages, for things like information about what police are doing, and another speaker for commands. Either way, the messages are delivered in a calm, measured voice. Communication is also a cornerstone of what police know as "the Madison Model," created by former Madison, Wisconsin, chief of police David Couper. His strategy for dealing with protesters was to send officers out to talk with demonstrators, engage, ask them why protests are made, listen to their concerns and, above all, empathize. The report notes that many police departments in the U.S. did try different strategies in the 1980s and 1990s, but they ultimately ended up responding with force anyway.
"The 'negotiated management' model of protest policing called for officers to meet with protesters in advance to plan events together to specify the times, locations and activities that would happen, even when that included mass arrests," reports FiveThirtyEight. "But the era of negotiated management basically fell apart after the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle in 1999, when protesters blocked streets, broke windows and successfully shut down the WTO meeting and stalled trade talks. When protesters violated the negotiated terms, police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets and took away the wrong lessons, [said Edward Maguire, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at Arizona State University]. 'What a lot of people took from that in policing is, we can't trust these people. We need to be smarter and overwhelm them to nip these things in the bud," he said. 'We sort of went backwards.'"
Hmmm.... (Score:4, Insightful)
> When protesters violated the negotiated terms, police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets and took away the wrong lessons
What made it the wrong lesson? It kinda seems like it was the lesson. The "be nice" tactics didn't work.
How did these studies come to these conclusions? Where are the experiments? Don't say "Soccer matches in Germany" because that is not the same thing at all.
Re:Hmmm.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wyatt made it the wrong lesson is it doesn't seem to be making the protests and better right now.
People are legitimately angry with the police for brutality and murder and protested. The police respond with more brutality. Good job! That's making things better.
Re:Hmmm.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep. The two black college kids, just coming home from getting something to eat, getting tasered and forcibly dragged out of their cars seems like a horrific microcosm of why so many people are so angry. Their bad luck was just being near someone else who got tackled by the police - nothing more than that. This has to stop.
Unfortunately, there are some people who are using this as cover to deliberately incite violence and cause property damage. It makes handling everything a lot more complicated, since you can't allow that to run rampant either. I wish there was an easy answer to this.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Problem is when we look at the crime statistics in the US, there is a problem with black crime. You know the usual claptrap of this hate fact, ~13% of the population and ~50% of violent offenses. [fbi.gov] Despite this, blacks are still less likely to be shot and/or killed. With police going out of their way to not do so even when faced with violence by someone who is black. And if you're white or hispanic, you're far more likely to be shot or die from the police in any type of altercation where violence was the
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Even if this is true the US still has a massive problem with police randomly murdering and beating and framing innocent people because our police force is made up mostly of violent sadistic thugs and is basically a street gang with no oversight.
Whether or not racism was involved in this case it was a murder and if it had not been caught on video Chauvin would have gotten away with it just like he got away with all of his other violent crimes in the past. It is why he became a police officer in the first pla
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Your entire post is full of some interesting things, but I'll touch on a few of them. First it takes a particular mindset to be a cop. If you've never been on a ride-along you should do so. 99% of people aren't cut out for it. Most people have a very serious problem when faced with the unknown hour-in-hour-out, day-in-day-out. It's extremely stressful, and I'm speaking with experience. That means the only way to deal with actual bad actors in policing is through training or simply not hiring. Now le
Re:Hmmm.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Keep in mind though, that the people who were screeching "we want cams" aka BLM and so-on, are now very much against cams.
What? Are you saying that the majority of people who were in favor of cameras 7 years ago are now opposed to cameras? You'll need a cite on that because it's a surprising claim that I've not seen any evidence of.
Anecdotally, I've seen academic research which shows that body cameras don't alter outcomes of interactions with police (no more prosecutions, no less violence). But the comments I've seen on such research as been "that's as may be but I still want more bodycams".
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You make up a lot of things as fact that are not at all true. Fortunately, you provide no citations, and pretend that wildly different countries with wildly different cultures are 100% identical.
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Your psychology of police officers in the US is terrible then. I've seen worse then the US in European countries like France and Spain, with those same issues you're talking about swept under the rug by politicos because there was some other issue going on. Your female police officer in the UK, at least going by the stats is more likely to flee the scene and call for backup. That's not exactly the type of thing you want in policing unless there's a good reason. Especially in a country where the standing
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It seems that I understand the psychology of US police a lot better than you do. I've seen their behavior for myself up close. I have seen them planning coverups and lies they are going to tell in court. I have witnessed them getting their stories straight and planning what false charges to make against me. And I have seen firsthand how violent they are against anyone they don't like and I have seen how they cover for each other even for attempted murder. If your interaction with the police is limited to te
Re:Hmmm.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't necessarily think it needs to be a new branch of the military. I believe the FBI is already in charge of investigating bad or corrupt cops or precincts. They should extend that and anytime a person is killed by a cop, the investigation should go to a neutral FBI team flown in from the opposite side of the countrry. There are only about 1000 deaths by cops per year so this isn't a hard thing to do and it's insane that a police department is expected to be neutral when investigating someone that they worked side by side with for years.
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
Re: Hmmm.... (Score:3)
Here is the page to report excessive force, sexual assault, denial of medical care, and other violations:
https://www.fbi.gov/investigat... [fbi.gov]
Re:Hmmm.... (Score:5, Insightful)
"violent sadistic thugs and is basically a street gang with no oversight."
From my interaction, incorrect
In college, I worked a job as escort security ( wanna get to your car at night? we'll walk you) that was closely tied to the campus police department.
My observation was that the power of being a police office made people go two ways.
The first, roughly 9 of the 10 offices I worked with, was that the power humbled them, they're realized it was a greater responsibility, and were very careful about how they handled it. I had an office climb out on a 10th story ledge to rescue a suicidal student, turned out later he had a documented fear of heights. But he did it anyway.
The second, which I saw in one of the officers: I'm a bigshot and the power lets me do what I want. Gleefully sat on a motorcycle all day giving tickets to students for jaywalking. LOVED it, and talked a lot about it, and didn't seem to be particularly worried that the tickets would improve safety. This office also happened to be female.
There didn't seem to be much inbetween: just bad or really good.
The end result is we need to eliminate that group that loves the power.
Ironically, your suggestions are filled with stereotypes, which is exactly what the police are being accused of now in their abuse of power. I probably should be glad you're not a cop- I'm pretty sure you'd fall into the second group.
Re:Hmmm.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Here in Minneapolis, there have been (for at least a year) complaints about public transit being basically unsafe much of the time because of criminal behavior on it. Barely a month before the death of Floyd, there was a video of a group of African American youths drop-kicking an elderly Asian woman on a light rail platform.
The presumed explanation, which I haven't seemed debated much, is that the police aren't vigorously enforcing the rule of law on transit because the arrest statistics would show a massive racial disparity. On the more liberal side, it would be "excess policing" since arrests on transit would do nothing but shift those crimes elsewhere (which is a compelling argument), so there's this kind of agreement and acknowledgement that we're just not policing the transit system as much as we could.
I do think there's a higher level of criminal activity here among African Americans. Most of it is petty, but some of it is serious, including gang activity and shootings. St. Paul had a string of gang killings over several months prior to the lockdown. IMHO, the causes are mostly socio-economic, with just vast communities of African Americans living in poverty and the poverty perpetuating awful social conditions.
I think frustration and a lack of accountability by the police is a deadly combination. They're handcuffed by political policies that make basic civil order essentially unenforceable, and then you have this intense conflicts over criminal behavior and use of force, where despite public opinion the police shootings are found to be justifiable.
I don't know what the solution is besides more police accountability but also some much more aggressive means of trying to break up the cycle of poverty in African American neighborhoods. Oddly, other poor ethnicities seem to be working their way out of poverty -- we don't generally have a major public perception of criminal behavior over Hmong and Vietnamese refugees or Somali immigrants. I work in IT and frequently run into 2nd/3rd generation Hmong from immigrant communities in IT positions, and am starting to see a few Somalis in this same role. Never African Americans.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Despite this, blacks are still less likely to be shot and/or killed.
I don't know where you get your "facts" from but the statistics cited in this [vox.com] article show that blacks are about twice as likely to be killed by police.
When the rate at which blacks are killed by police is greater than the homicide rate, as is currently the case in 8 US cities, the police are doing their job wrong.
Re: Hmmm.... (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know where you get your "facts" from but the statistics cited in this article show that blacks are about twice as likely to be killed by police.
That's easy; your shitty article looks at killings per capita by group, whereas he is looking at killing per arrest by group.
When the rate at which blacks are killed by police is greater than the homicide rate, as is currently the case in 8 US cities, the police are doing their job wrong.
If that were even remotely true, yeah, they probably would be doing their job wrong. It's a good thing that your claim is almost certainly bullshit. Your shitty article claims that the rate of police killings in those cities is higher than the national homicide rate, but that's a useless fucking statistic if the local homicide rate in those cities happens to be 10 times higher than the national rate.
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I think you're saying that in a given encounter with the police, a wh
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I'm not sure what this has to do with police thuggery or murder of restrained and unarmed people. There is crime all over the world but the police don't have a reputation of a group to avoid rather than to call for help like they do in the USA.
Probably because you don't understand that policing is a reaction, when proactive measures fail. Proactive being everything from the community itself dealing with a problem, to crime prevention methods like CTPED. You've also apparently never traveled the world then, otherwise you'd know exactly how far out to lunch that second sentence is.
Honestly the black vs white discussion is completely secondary to the USA not having a well respected police force.
If you don't understand reality, then you fail to understand how the problem happened in the first place. Stop dry washing your hands.
Re: (Score:3)
So like usual, you have nothing constructive. It's almost like you want to play with the surface issues, but not the underlying issues and why things are looked at the way they are with policing in the US.
Colour me shocked at your fundamental ignorance and desire to remain there.
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Yep. The two black college kids, just coming home from getting something to eat, getting tasered and forcibly dragged out of their cars seems like a horrific microcosm of why so many people are so angry. Their bad luck was just being near someone else who got tackled by the police - nothing more than that. This has to stop.
Unfortunately, there are some people who are using this as cover to deliberately incite violence and cause property damage. It makes handling everything a lot more complicated, since you can't allow that to run rampant either. I wish there was an easy answer to this.
There is. Tackle police brutality as a topic, not only when it applies to black people. Stop police brutality applies to everyone (potentially) and builds a very broad coalition of supporters including me. BLM on the other hand is a divisive scheme, that's why the media is so happy to promote it. That's also why the obvious name, All Lives Matter, had to be vilified quickly by calling it racist. Whatever doesn't fit the divisive narrative is called racist.
You're right, most posts here miss that (Score:4)
> Unfortunately, there are some people who are using this as cover to deliberately incite violence and cause property damage. It makes handling everything a lot more complicated, since you can't allow that to run rampant either
Indeed, this IS a complicated issue. The recent actions of the sheriff in Flint, Michigan worked very well I that time and place. He did the right thing in that specific situation.
When people are lighting schools on fire, breaking into stores, and throwing bricks at police a very different response is called for. Anyone posting that "all we need to do is ...." is missing a lot of what is going on.
One thing I think we all need to do, including the media and cops, is to distinguish between protestors and violent criminals. A recent news story on CNN said that protestors were arrested smashing through the door of a phone store to steal iPhones. No, thieves were arrested for burglary or robbery. The protestors are the people lighting candles, criminals are the people lighting someone's car on fire. They aren't the same thing. Police shouldn't confuse the two, CNN shouldn't confuse the two, and we shouldn't confuse the two. Those are very different actions, which need to be handled very differently.
and anyone saying
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
cops in the US, at least, are our 'little C students' (we use letter grades in school; C is average, at best, and usually getting a C marks you as being below average, in reality).
these people are physical-oriented people, not much brainpower upstairs. the job WANTS THAT (search for 'new london, ct' and you'll read about a cop that scored too high on his IQ test and they rejected him. point proven.)
do you really expect analysis and higher understanding from people who took the job so they could 'smash sku
use of Force (Score:5, Informative)
Another aspect of "police mentality" seems to be that (for the most part anyway) law enforcement almost always respond to any form of civil disobedience with force. And if force doesn't work, clearly the answer is to use more force. While this works well against individuals and small groups, force stops being effective when those trying to quell disobedience are heavily outnumbered, like at protests. There comes a point where you just can't muster more force (badges) and so then they turn to amping up the force of each individual officer, using things like beanbag/rubber bullet, tear gas, and water canons. But usually by that point they are so heavily outnumbered that it doesn't make a big difference.
I was just talking with someone in Kansas City... they've got plenty of people pissed off there too, and the city came up with a brilliant response to keep protests peaceful and destruction low. Instead of going all-in on force, the police JOINED the daytime protests. Officers were peppered throughout the marches, supporting and voicing their agreement with the people. Since the people had no force to oppose, they maintained peaceful rallies. But that was only good during the day - when the sun goes down, there's a curfew in effect. MLK stressed that protests should only be held during the day, because the purpose of a protest is to be seen, not to be violent. Disgruntled groups gathering during the day will usually stay peaceful as long as they're allowed to be there and not forced out, disgruntled groups gathering at night are almost always lawless and violent. So, give them the best chance to voice their opinions during the day, support them, and don't use force. But draw the line when the sun sets. It worked then, and it works now.
Re:Hmmm.... (Score:4, Informative)
I live near Minneapolis. For us, at least, this "study" is bullcrap.
The local idiot mayor supported the protesters (rightfully) and made sure that the cops didn't incite any violence, and in fact cleared areas for protests. But when a certain segment turned violent, he even ordered the 3rd precinct to be evacuated to "prevent injury to the protesters" who promptly burned the place and everything near it down. And things went downhill from there with 2 days of massive violence and destruction.
At that point Gov Walz realized that the mayor was in over his head and took control. He initially tried a restrained National Guard response that consisted of support to the police, but by that time passions had risen and the rioters were emboldened to increase their violence.
We've been calm the last few days, but only because of overwhelming police and a National Guard presence that was almost 10x the initial deployment. The police went in and started forcefully enforcing the curfew and breaking up even "peaceful" but unlawful gatherings at night. Those peaceful protesters were behaving, but they were also unwittingly providing cover for the violent and making it difficult for the police to respond to the rioters. By reducing crowd size the cops could better respond to violence and looting.
What we're seeing now are pretty much peaceful large daytime protests, which everyone supports. But nighttime protests are pretty much shut down because of all the troubles those caused.
In my small suburban home town we've had protests and seen similar results to Minneapolis. A small group tried to turn the first protest into a riot, but the police responded with overwhelming force and immediately broke up the protest forcefully and the instigators are still stuck behind bars. We have had a couple of smaller protests since, but no more attempts at violence.
Re:Hmmm.... (Score:5, Informative)
https://twitter.com/RebeccaWSM... [twitter.com]
https://twitter.com/kylegriffi... [twitter.com]
https://twitter.com/mochimomsc... [twitter.com]
https://twitter.com/JoshuaPota... [twitter.com]
https://twitter.com/midmichiga... [twitter.com]
https://www.wxyz.com/news/watc... [wxyz.com]
Re: (Score:3)
it did not actually help.
But did it make it worse? If it didn't help but made no difference then the sensible move is to actually stand down.
There are several examples already of actual escalation just because the two sides came in contact, so maybe standing down will achieve de-escalation faster than maintaining the status quo.
Or you could run in guns blazing, with ATVs and military hardware. I'm sure that will definitely help the police force's current reputation. /sarcasm.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Hmmm.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Crowd control / riot control is tricky. If you have 10,000 protestors and 200 cops, you have to use something better than brute force unless you want a riot. There might actually be no "winning" move. But the choice between standing down completely and going in guns blazing is a false dichotomy. And I'm not talking about a "middle ground" - you need to have other tactics based on psychology and the particulars of the situation at hand. Ways to separate the looters from the protestors. Maybe sometimes strategic blocking of routes, communicating with the protestors, or a strategic show of force without actually using it.
Re:Hmmm.... (Score:4, Insightful)
In Flint, MI, a desperately poor community with a very large percentage of black residents, there was no violence. Do you know why? The **POLICE** joined the protesters. When police are seen as part of the community there isn't a problem, but most make a point of keeping themselves separate as though they're somehow superior to the riffraff that they're supposedly controlling. If you know any police look at where they live. Is it in the area they're patrolling? No.
Hypocrisy is strong in this one (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Hypocrisy is strong in this one (Score:4, Insightful)
MLK adopted peaceful resistance from Ghandi. It relies on the society viewing itself as basically kind, and you take advantage of that by showing the police being brutal, and the people watch or read about it and decide that's wrong.
The rhetoric about the basic goodness of society is in short supply at the moment, even though it historically works. Certain factions are more interested in riding an outrage wave as an election approaches. Well, factions on both sides, sadly.
Re:Hypocrisy is strong in this one (Score:4, Insightful)
It's tough when a large faction of our society actively, even passionately supports police brutality.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's tough when a large faction of our society actively, even passionately supports police brutality.
You say that but where's the proof? You have to go to trolls at the margins to find anyone supporting the specific case of holding down George Floyd. I've read many a commentary, both liberal and conservative, but haven't seen anyone saying that the police were justified in that case. As close as I've seen is do an investigation then charge, which is how the justice system is supposed to work, so even that isn't a show of support. Please show something that supports your claim.
Re: (Score:3)
People generally support various aspects of retributive justice. Tough on crime. Mandatory minimum sentencing. War on drugs. Capital punishment.
It's a very human thing. An eye for an eye is in the bible. Thing is, it doesn't work very well. Rehabilitative justice and community support is much more effective, both in terms of outcomes and cost, but it's less direct. It doesn't give your monkey brain the satistfaction that vengeance does.
Re: (Score:3)
People generally support various aspects of retributive justice. Tough on crime. Mandatory minimum sentencing. War on drugs. Capital punishment.
It's a very human thing. An eye for an eye is in the bible. Thing is, it doesn't work very well. Rehabilitative justice and community support is much more effective, both in terms of outcomes and cost, but it's less direct. It doesn't give your monkey brain the satistfaction that vengeance does.
You misunderstand the idea behind an eye for an eye. Human nature is to do unto others what they did to you plus a little. Eye for an eye keeps it from escalating.
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People show support for police brutality in a number of ways. One is when they demonize black people by calling them all thugs, insinuating that there is no reasoning with them. If you need something a little more concrete - Trump wanted to release dogs on protesters in front of the White House. Or do you need me to take a million screenshots of people advocating violence against protesters? I could make a carousel picture gallery for you.
Sounds like you're confusing rioters for protesters. Once fires and looting starts the rules change.
Re:Hypocrisy is strong in this one (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh, the rhetoric is about anglosphere societies being kind still stands on merit. If you want to see what unkind society looks like, I recommend Brazil. The horrible race riots?
They have more than one a day on average every year. They call your current crisis with race riots "average Tuesday". And they cull "negroes getting out of their favelas" with automatic weapons and live ammo, not tear gas and tasers.
The main problem with US sees to be extreme focus on safety from both ends. Those protesting against the police demand that police guarantee safety even for the worst of the worst, the types who rob, rape, maim and murder just for fun of it. Read violent crime reports in US to find out more.
On the other end, there's the ridiculous focus on safety on the police end. They react to any weapon being brandished as a permit to kill the perpetrator, because doing it any other way would risk safety of police officers. I remember a story from a Finnish police officer who moved to US, became an officer there, got promoted quickly and then was demoted because he showed on the scene of a guy brandishing a gun. And instead of doing what police regulations demanded him to do, he told other police officers to stand down and talked the guy down, then came to him and took his gun away. Reason for his demotion was that he put himself and his fellow police officers at risk for not taking down the person brandishing a weapon. The fact that he defended himself by pointedly stating that his Finnish police training and his Baccalaureate in Policing allowed him to analyze the person as non-threatening in spite of his brandishing a weapon, and evidence for this was in his success of talking him down and then disarming him did him no favours.
In the end, US has a problem with badly calibrated "personal safety" meter for everyone. Everyone demands to be safe, and doesn't care about the other. Black activists don't care that there are exceedingly violent thugs in their community who would kill a police officer just because he/she has a badge. Police trainers don't care that there are plenty of gun-toting citizens that can in fact be reliably talked down from firing their weapon without lethal police response. And when everyone is focused on personal safety of their own, everyone quickly learns that massive dereliction of care for safety of others is an acceptable sacrifice for minor improvement in their own personal safety.
And until you begin addressing that, it doesn't matter if you have police or BLM "community leaders" or Black Block terrorists policing the streets. Thuggery will continue, as will beatings and killings. And considering that middle class doesn't actually give a flying fuck beyond canned "yes, we condemn" nonsense of the kind we keep hearing that sounds exactly like "yes, we support The Party" from Warsaw Block folks during Cold War... No resolution is going to happen any time soon. Other than more pretty and meaningless words often uttered in abject horror as they're facing a black clad lynch mob or riot police, and more forcing those that note the remarkable lack of honesty on all parts of the discussion to kneel before them or else.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Those protesting against the police demand that police guarantee safety even for the worst of the worst, the types who rob, rape, maim and murder just for fun of it.
Yes because you're supposed to have the police, not street judges. It's up to a court and jury to decide if the accused are in fact guilty of robbery, rape and murder, not the police.
Re: Hmmm.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I have been to many protests, the issue is the protests want to create a monolith, but it isnt. There are usually a bunch of law abiding people and some hell raisers. Police respond to the monolith, and hell raisers can dictate the response. This can result in a kind of short term radicalization of law abiding people. My two cents? Ignore the monolith, get plainclothes cops who support cause in march and deal with crimes in a minimalist way. The protest itself is just citizens expressing their legal rights.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: Hmmm.... (Score:2)
Yes agent provocateurs are there, but I do not think they are police, but rather people hoping to claim legitimacy of police to intimidate constitutional expression and taint public opinion. Police work more transparently in these times, in accordance with policy, and it is all on camera. The public interest is in arresting provocateurs and having protests be like a festival or concert otherwise.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I'm pretty sure that guy who walked along breaking windows with a hammer was a cop. He was dressed in all black and carrying an open umbrella. In a protest of 10,000 people he was the only person with an umbrella. When confronted he was ready to fight. Most of those kids breaking shit would shy away from a confrontation.
Re: (Score:3)
You're belief is unfounded. The police have a history of doing this in left political actions. But COINTELPRO was a long time ago, right?
Not that long ago. [fair.org]
Re: Hmmm.... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a mix of 4 things:
1) Police agent provocateurs. There are some out there because the police don't know how to respond to a peaceful protest, but have this shiny new riot gear and other equipment that they got from the military surplus that they're itching to use. A few officers in plain clothes inciting a riot and they get to call all the protesters rioters and arrest them.
2) Third party provocateurs . Some of this might be far left groups trying to cause violence, but there's also a lot of far right groups that are trying to take advantage of the protests to spark a race war. Their plan is to join the protest, start rioting hoping that protesters join in (or get branded as guilty by association), and then they can have the big Whites vs Blacks war that they fantasize about.
3) Criminals using the protests as cover. They join the protests only looking for an opportunity to smash windows and steal stuff. They don't really believe in the protest's cause as much as they think it'll be cover for their crimes.
4) Anger boiling over. This is an important one. People have a legitimate grievance. They've tried peacefully protesting and have either been told it's wrong to peacefully protest (e.g. Colin Kaepernick) or they are ignored. Now, while peacefully protesting against police brutality, they're being hit with tear gas and rubber bullets by police in riot gear. (This happened by me. Peaceful protesters hit with tear gas. Even worse, it went into a poor residential area where they typically keep their windows open to cool the inside of the house. So people not participating in the protest were gassed in their own homes.) Do this enough and people will see no other option available to them and they will lash out. Does it excuse the damage done to property? No, but it's important to understand WHY these people are doing this, the options they tried first, and the responses they were met with.
The problem is that there's a mix of these four. Depending on the media you watch, they might focus on only one aspect and ignore the others. Watch FOX and you'll hear "criminals and Antifa." Watch a more left-leaning station and you'll hear "angry ignored people and some right-wing provocateurs." It's important to keep the whole picture in mind instead of painting all rioters with the same brush.
Re: Hmmm.... (Score:5, Interesting)
That is what I always saw as well, although my protest days were pretty much limited to Critical Mass in SF in the 90’s. You would have a blob that has a general mission, and a set of people that want to escalate to a point that the police will not tolerate.
Riot gear is a clear escalation tactic, and it will shape how people will react. Most of what is going on right now though is just people being pissed for the sake of being pissed. A friend shared video of people looting his bike shop. He could identify about half the people by name, as either customers or people in the cycling community. Moral outrage be dammed...
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On the other hand when the National Guard put down their riot shields they got applause and de-escalated the situation.
If you pull out a knife it escalates the situation. Others don't trust you to only defend yourself with that knife and if they attack they will use more force to ensure you go down and don't stab them. That's how it works, you bring weapons and riot gear to a peaceful protest, you escalated.
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Riot gear when there is no riot is an intimidation tactic. Cops in riot gear boxing people into a small contained space in order to "control" the crowd, makes people jumpy. It triggers the "fight or flight" response. Now you have a large group of people who were calm a few minutes ago in a small enclosed space, pumped full of adrenaline, and pressed up against a wall of masked armed individuals. A certain percentage of people in that crowd are now going to choose fight instead of flight. The rest are g
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No shit - would "mow them all down with machine guns" be a better tactic, AKA The Tiananmen Square tactic? Kill 'em all and let... er, Communist Chinese don't believe in God, so just kill 'em all and let their bodies rot, preferably where eyewitnesses can see, and maybe with heads on a spike. Referring to an ancestor that had his junk cut off and nailed to the town gate and he was also beheaded and head stuck on a stake. Jesuits in the 1500s were seriously not to be fucked with.
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That's the tactic Assad (the Sr. not the Jr.) used on the city of Hama in 1982. He leveled the city and invited the press in to show the aftermath. Roll the tape forward to the 2010s and we get the broken state of today. The people remembered, they were still pissed, they will now remain pissed for the foreseeable future.
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What made it the wrong lesson? It kinda seems like it was the lesson. The "be nice" tactics didn't work.
You're completely correct.
Kneeling during the anthem respectfully and silently hasn't worked.
Re:Hmmm.... (Score:5, Informative)
The "be nice" tactics didn't work.
They appear to have worked so far in cities like Camden, where the old corrupt police force was ripped out from the roots a few years ago and a policy of "use of force as a last resort" instead of "use of force as a first resort" was implemented, and officers have an affirmative duty to stop other officers from using improper force. ‘Police must first do no harm’: How one of the nation’s roughest cities is reshaping use-of-force tactics [washingtonpost.com]. As chaos engulfed Philadelphia, peace reigned across the river in Camden [courierpostonline.com]. And it's not like Camden is some peaceful oasis where violence is the last thing you'd expect to find on the street on any given night; the fact that the protests haven't gotten violent there so far is an impressive accomplishment.
Where the "be nice" tactics haven't worked is in places like Minneapolis, where officers have publicly mocked and ignored deescalation training [theintercept.com].
Why should cities tolerate officers like that? If you had a bunch of employees who kept stealing from the till, and you gave them Don't Steal From The Till training, and they publicly mocked it and kept stealing from the till, would you conclude that you were wrong to expect them to stop stealing? Would you encourage them to steal more, since obviously "stop stealing" doesn't work? No, you'd fire their criminal asses.
Re:Hmmm.... (Score:4, Interesting)
The WTO riot was scripted, with provocateurs in the crowd, at least one of which was identified as an off-duty cop by an acquaintance, in the until-then peaceful protest. The Oregon anarchists that were eventually blamed were 8 blocks away when it started. Seattle's "law and order" police chief wanted more money to buy more weapons and hire more cops, and the city wouldn't give it to him because there wasn't a need. It's widely suspected that he deliberately created the "need", which is why they canned his ass almost immediately afterward.
Small Group (Score:3)
I think that, out of any large protest, there are going to be a small group that aren't going to go with the flow.
There was a protest near my house and that's what happened. The police got together with the protesters ahead of time, and everything went smoothly at the beginning. The protesters shut down a street, the police protected them from traffic, but when it was time to go, a group didn't want to leave. The the organizers credit, they came down on the group hard and fast, pressuring them to leave. Eve
Relevant??? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's pretty damned hard to "escalate" something that has already gone over the edge.
Re:Relevant??? (Score:5, Interesting)
You're not wrong, but: not all of the protests were violent. Sure, some were, but even there you had two groups: the people who wanted to protest, and the people who took advantage of the situation to riot and loot. A good, competent police force should do its best to separate those two groups. Rioters and looters? No mercy. Peaceful protesters? Go on your way.
The problem is: too many US police forces are over-militarized and under-trained. They have a one-size-fits-all approach to crowd control, and it involves riot gear, tear gas, and rubber bullets.
The other half of the problem, of course, is the underclass in the rioting cities. That has developed over the past 50 years, largely due to utterly counterproductive "we want to help" social programs. These programs have destroyed families, destroyed individual initiative, and stoked racism. The result is an an almost barbaric, tribal, anti-everything culture in the inner cities. There's no easy solution to be had: what took generations to create will take generations to undo - and only after you get rid of the progressive policies that created it.
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The problem is: too many US police forces are over-militarized and under-trained.
It's also worth saying that the military is not trained for this kind of thing either. Sending them in is a huge escalation, the kind of thing incompetent tinpot dictators do.
My understanding is that the National Guard does have some training in this area, and we actually saw some of that yesterday when they successfully de-escalated by putting down their shields and weapons and talking to protesters.
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You're not wrong, but: not all of the protests were violent.
Correct. I referred only to the violent ones. And there have been more than enough of those.
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Strange, because those black protesters brought them last night in Indianapolis. And they were also the ones protecting businesses from thugs that were trying to loot.
Sounds like you've got an inferiority complex.
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I think the covid lockdown wouldn't have been so bad but the world prior wasn't perfect by a long shot.
So tension was there already, tension was increased greatly by the lockdown and suddenly you have a powder keg and some schmuck politician who thinks the no smoking sign doesn't apply to him.
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France has been "on fire" For almost a year and a half at this point. Their police make US police look positively gentle. They disperse their tear gas using canisters that have enough TNT to blow one's arm off should one pick it up before it blows up. Current president's bodyguard was on camera beating the shit out of protesters after they surrendered about a year ago. It's a norm among much of urban police force who are used to dealing with teenagers from MENA cultures who exist in extremely violent surbur
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Wouldn't it be great if the peaceful police (typically the majority) would turn and stop the murderers in their midst?
Re:Relevant??? (Score:4, Insightful)
Pretty strange response. One might almost think that's not even what this is all about.
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If there was no camera rolling with these murders, nothing would have been done. They could get away with these things before because there were no cameras.
Re:Relevant??? (Score:4, Insightful)
Police are entering into conflict with (some) armed individuals
Police are murdering and brutalizing unarmed, peaceful people.
Wouldn't it be great if the peaceful protesters (typically the majority) would turn and stop the few violent protesters in their midst?
Tell you what, when the typically peaceful majority of the police take a hard line against the murders and thugs in their midst then we can talk.
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"The officers involved were fired and the one that held the choke-hold is being tried for murder."
If an officer watches another officer murder someone over the course of minutes and does nothing, they are at least an accessory. If I rob a bank with 3 guys and one murders a teller, we are all guilty of murder.
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Wouldn't it be great if the peaceful protesters (typically the majority) would turn and stop the few violent protesters in their midst?.
So just abolish the police. What are they for if responsibility for policing lies directly on the citizen?
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A policeman in full riot gear does not magically cause unarmed protesters to become armed.
How's that work in the USA where you have the right to bear arms? I mean you have a right to self defense right? Does that mean every time a police officer talks to a person it is inevitable that a western style shootout results?
Of course not.
Also those poor police how will they cope with their riot gear and ATV. The humanity of it. I mean someone may throw something at them. Oh noes!
I personally hate the "second amendment right to defend myself" bullshit but you took it to the opposite extreme which is equ
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm old enough to remember a few weeks back when white guys armed with rifles made their way in to public buildings and disrupted the functioning of the government. For some reason the police didn't use violence against them though.
There is evidence that the police have been supplying weapons to protesters, e.g. leaving piles of bricks around. When the protesters ignore them they just attack anyway. Journalists getting hit with teargas on live TV, police storming protesters standing around singing. The poli
Re:Relevant??? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm old enough to remember a few weeks back when white guys armed with rifles made their way in to public buildings and disrupted the functioning of the government. For some reason the police didn't use violence against them though.
Strangely enough, though there were angry people there, nobody was actually harmed, and no property was destroyed.
I don't see how that's even remotely a valid comparison.
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The peaceful protesters in Chicago weren't hurting anyone or damaging anything either, they still got tear gassed by the police.
Those armed guys were shouting right into the faces of police a couple of weeks ago, far more aggressive and threatening.
Re: Relevant??? (Score:2)
A policeman in full riot gear does not magically cause unarmed protesters to become armed
Actually yes, they do. The protesters know from history that police will go full invasion force on them even if peacefully protesting.
That the protesters expect and even prepare for that isn't surprising.
Police know from history that protesters will escalate to violence and so turn up as a full invasion force.
Both sides are to blame. But only one side is organised and disciplined and had the ability to institute a sweeping change throughout it's ranks.
Somebody needs to begin the long process of de-escalatin
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In those areas where the mayor or the governor or the police chief told the police to stand down, it did not do a damned bit of good.
The violence, looting, and destroying only increased.
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Re:Relevant??? (Score:4, Interesting)
Isn't it great that I have seen several videos of the peaceful protesters turning and stopping violent protesters in their midst, and in at least one case, turning them over to the police.
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I said nothing about "angry protests". I specifically referred to looting and destroying.
And no, it is NOT normal to go destroy your own neighborhood because someone else did something wrong.
Re:Relevant??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Angry protests are a reasonable response to cold blooded murder perpetrated by the police. They are so arrogant they didn't even stop murdering the guy when there was a crowd off witnesses.
So why is it you never see whites or hispanics rioting when the same things happens here in North America? It's sure not a high-trust issue with police from both groups, especially in the US.
Yea white people only riot over important things, like their favorite sports team losing (or winning) a championship game.
Ignored? Used? (Score:3)
I think we being much too generous here, declaring the police brutality as an "accident". It is not. The police and the government are clearly trying hard to escalate the riots.
Even some of the military were appalled at the behaviour of the police. That should tell you all you need to know.
But do they want to de-esclate? (Score:5, Interesting)
This begs the question - That the authorities want to de-escalate.
What if they want to escalate, and to provoke a more violent reaction, in order to justify their response? It may be that to appear touch on crime, they need to have the crime occurring and so can justify a brutal response?
Agent provocateurs are real. Why would that be? Could it be that the people in authority want to have the protest to be discredited?
So, it could be that everything is working as planned, and nothing is being ignored.
The real problem:the police is too privileged (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems the US police gets this privilege of being a special class, with special privileges, and not a genuine part of real society, a part of normal citizenship.
That is the real problem, they get too easy away with things where other citizens would absolutely not get away with.
Also, how much violence do you need to use to arrest someone? Isn't the goal to bring the suspect to the police station and interrogate them? If you don't succeed in this you have already failed. I mean, this is actually complete incompetence on the part of those policeman who were involved in this.
This isn't typical (Score:4, Interesting)
What doesn't work (Score:5, Informative)
You know what doesn't work? Giving room to 'breathe', burn or take their anger out. I'm not sure it ever has. Whether it's Ferguson, New York or Minneapolis this particular strategy always fails. All that happens is people become emboldened and start to do things that they wouldn't do if cops were watching. Even if cooler heads are there with peaceful intentions to protest, some young hothead who's high as a kite and eager to show off to his friends will break with the crowd. Sometimes cooler heads prevail and keep the young hotheads from getting violent:
https://www.redstate.com/brand... [redstate.com]
Far to often they don't.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/0... [nytimes.com]
In Minneapolis the mayor is very weak and a fool and told the police to give them space and stay away. The result was the protest quickly turned into a violent riot as there was no police presence to discourage this. Political leadership told the police to stand down which emboldened the 'protesters' who tried to attack a police station. The next night the mayor told the cops to abandon the police station when they tried again saying that the bricks and mortar were just a symbol. Almost of these buildings on this list were looted and or burned after the police station.
He was right about it being a symbol. Once the 'protesters' were able to burn down the police station they felt they had carte blanche to burn down anything. They started to target pretty much any small business or service they could find. They looted and burned places like medical and dental offices. The did the same with banks, restaurants, bars and even peoples homes.
https://www.startribune.com/th... [startribune.com].
Unfortunately the 'protesters' don't particularly care whether or not people are inside the building when they commit arson and burn it down. There have been cases where they have stopped firetrucks from reaching burning buildings, even when children are trapped in them:
https://www.newsbreak.com/virg... [newsbreak.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Why are police still doing it? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Why are police still doing it? (Score:4, Insightful)
"If these "protestors" would stay in a place like a public park or side of the road."
Then nobody would care.
Which is the problem.
They've tried asking nicely. It hasn't worked.
Insisting that they do what doesn't work is bullshit.
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Government has slowly chipped away at our rights, one side simply uses the 2nd amendment to dangle over their supporters to rally their base. I support Guns and God, vote for me! (that was the campaign of my local state rep.... she's an idiot but won 70% of the vote).
Because it's expensive, actually (Score:5, Insightful)
This approach allows for the militarization of police, and huge budgets. It's another wealth transfer ...
The police should not look like the military.
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Why are police still doing it?
Because it's cheap, doesn't require education, training, or any compassion for the sheeple.
It's not cheap.
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Why are police still doing it?
Because it's cheap, doesn't require education, training, or any compassion for the sheeple.
It's not cheap.
It's cheaper than the alternative for the police. For society as a whole it's of probably more expensive but that additional cost is carried by among others business owners and insurance companies, so not their problem unless there is a political will within the police or from the elected.
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Material costs are higher, sure, but the ongoing personnel and training costs are a lot lower, ie. you can hire morons for the job.
Re:Whats the alternative? (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, just a few soccer games... So just hundreds or thousands strong, aggressive rioters looking for a fight with police. So easy...
I live in Europe and saw how police handled some very tense situations like this. They would stop only the most aggressive individuals and surround the rest. No tear gas, no rifles visible. Just well trained police with batons. After some time hooligans would see that they can either calm down or stay surrounded and that fighting police is not really an option. So they would calm down be allowed to go and see the game.
But you need well trained police for that. They need to know how to hit someone with a baton to let him know he needs to keep walking and how to hit someone to knock him to the ground. In US police doesn't even know how to handcuff someone without killing him first. Shouldn't that be the first thing they learn?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The thing is... he was handcuffed. They claimed they couldn't put him inside the car. 4 man were not able to put 1, handcuffed man inside a car. That's incompetence. But on the video you can see they are not really even trying. They just torture him instead. Now that's murder.
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Thing is, it's very possible not to be able to put even a willing person into some of the modern cop cars. Give you an example, when they changed over from the Crown Vic's to Dodge Charger's up here in Ontario, they lost around 3.8" of movement to put a person in. And nearly 3" of head clearance.
It was a damn stupid move to switch to them, because it was almost impossible to knock a persons head even accidentally into the door frame of the car unless the person was tall. This is why you're also seeing so
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what you call antifa is probably a misnomer, I would call them anarchists; I don't see anti-fascism in them if they seek violence. fascism derives its power primarily from violence.
Re:The article missed a critical factor: (Score:5, Interesting)
They're technically closest to Trotskyite anarcho-Communists - it's a syncretic ideology. It makes the most sense if you look at the framing from their perspective, where capitalism and fascism are indistinguishable and functionally interchangable in their logical construct. They see peaceful engagement as both hopeless and "treasonous" to the anti-fascist revolution. To them, fighting cops, burning businesses, and stirring up violence against businesses and the government are the only correct course of action.
It helps if you also realize that Antifa itself is descended from the street gang / freikorp militias of the German Communist Party in the 1920s, that the Berlin Wall's formal name in Communist East Germany was "Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart", and that the stated fundamental goal of the GDPR (Communist East Germany) when it was set up by the Soviets and busy implementing the Berlin blockade was the "establishment of an anti-fascist, democratic regime". This was, of course, in the Communist-controlled half of a surrendered nation where the entirety of the fascist Nazis had just been delightfully shot, bombed, bayonetted, rounded up, put in prison camps, hung, or simply disappeared (boo hoo, right? Seriously, fuck Nazis). Point being, there weren't many fascists left to tilt at in that manner... except the capitalists on the other side of the border, who would do in a pinch as makeshift fascists when you can't find many real fascists.
The conclusion we can come to without having to go very far - and reading their own words published in their own name currently lines right up with this - is that Antifa, all the way back to it's beginnings almost 100 years ago to now, calls itself anti-fascist but means much more than that when they do, because from where THEY stand, pretty much everybody but them are fascists. They really like that it's so easy to get people to buy into the more superficial implication of the name, though. "If you're against fascism, you're anti-fascist. Antifa is anti-fascist". Well, yes... in the same way that indiscriminate mass aerial firebombing is effective against a specific building in a city. If somebody slaps a name on it that like anti-building and tells you it's a solution to destroying a building you rightfully hate, they're deliberately keeping some important details from you to steer you in a certain direction - like burning the whole city.
And that holds true in the black bloc Antifa / DSA street gangs we're seeing on the evening news right now. They want violence. There is no effective way to peacefully hold a protest or police a protest when practiced and skilled agent provocateurs are actively working to provoke violence from both sides.
I see my earlier post got modbombed by the American baizuo wumao. How does it feel to know you overplayed your hand and your dreams of Marxist revolution and the crowds of angry people you wanted to manipulate into marching you to power are now turning on you and beating you senseless the minute you show your true colors, you cowardly little shits?
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Congrats on winning the 2020 "Most Transparent Fascist" award. That took some doing.
Re:What do urban police deparments have to gain by (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, I get it! This is the work of liberals to undermine the presidency! If you hadn't made all those vague statements with half-truths in it then I'd never have put the pieces of the puzzle together! Do you honestly believe your own narrative? Do you have any sort of proof that inner city cops are predominantly liberals? You do realize that most cops don't live in the neighborhoods that they police, right?