Appropriate response to rioting

[Kron3007]

I frankly don't give a s**t about arguing equivalencies. It's not important right now. There are armed militias that are planning another similar attack on inauguration day, and you want to discuss equivalencies. Jeezus . . . .

"Equivalency" is not the point. For many people, the police response in one case, (such as sumer riots), was too strong while in another, (capital riots), it was too weak. Given that we don't yet have mind-reading technology, and given that people are not all ideological clones, then we need to have rules that can be applied in any situation, including rules about how to handle escalation, if necessary.

What consistent rules do you propose which would cover any situation where there are large groups of people and where some may engage in lawless behaviour so that law enforcement can establish, in advance, that you will not criticize their response as being either too strong or too weak if they follow your rules?

But you do care about equivalence because you are saying that the response to the attempted insurrection should be equivalent to the BLM protests.  They are very different things.

I am saying there should be a set of rules that cover both things, which will probably include when to escalate responses. Many people have claimed that the response to white protesters is different than the response to black protesters. If that is a problem then there needs to be a consistent set of rules to be applied to all protesters.

There should, but policing is not run federally so I don't see how that could happen. 

The point that police are more violent toward left leaning protests seems pretty well documented.  This is not an isolated incident and the point here is that the insurrection is an extreme event that warranted a stronger response than we saw.  This is especially true if we were following some sort of guideline as you suggest.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/13/us-police-use-of-force-protests-black-lives-matter-far-right

[jimbogumbo]

This person, who was present claims that agents provocateurs were responsible:

https://thefederalist.com/2021/01/14/i-saw-provocateurs-at-the-capitol-riot-on-jan-6/

This is a joke, right? He presumes anyone in a MAGA cap on backwards is actually Antifa.

Jesus H Christ.

dismalist: don't know if he had a backwards MAGA hat, but this guy seems to be an actual provocateur:

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/14/liberal-activist-charged-capitol-riot-459553

[marshwiggle]

I am saying there should be a set of rules that cover both things, which will probably include when to escalate responses. Many people have claimed that the response to white protesters is different than the response to black protesters. If that is a problem then there needs to be a consistent set of rules to be applied to all protesters.

There should, but policing is not run federally so I don't see how that could happen. 

The point that police are more violent toward left leaning protests seems pretty well documented.  This is not an isolated incident and the point here is that the insurrection is an extreme event that warranted a stronger response than we saw.  This is especially true if we were following some sort of guideline as you suggest.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/13/us-police-use-of-force-protests-black-lives-matter-far-right

I'm perfectly happy to say that there should be stronger responses to any sort of violence from either side. During the riots in the summer, I believe there were places like Portland where politicians actually told police not to intervene. (And in the case of the CHOP/CHAZ, allowed armed thugs to take over part of the city for weeks.)

It was funny to see stories of journalists or bloggers shouting "DEFUND THE POLICE" until the violence reached their own neighborhoods at which point they wanted to call the police.

[mahagonny]

I am saying there should be a set of rules that cover both things, which will probably include when to escalate responses. Many people have claimed that the response to white protesters is different than the response to black protesters. If that is a problem then there needs to be a consistent set of rules to be applied to all protesters.

There should, but policing is not run federally so I don't see how that could happen. 

The point that police are more violent toward left leaning protests seems pretty well documented.  This is not an isolated incident and the point here is that the insurrection is an extreme event that warranted a stronger response than we saw.  This is especially true if we were following some sort of guideline as you suggest.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/13/us-police-use-of-force-protests-black-lives-matter-far-right

I'm perfectly happy to say that there should be stronger responses to any sort of violence from either side. During the riots in the summer, I believe there were places like Portland where politicians actually told police not to intervene. (And in the case of the CHOP/CHAZ, allowed armed thugs to take over part of the city for weeks.)

It was funny to see stories of journalists or bloggers shouting "DEFUND THE POLICE" until the violence reached their own neighborhoods at which point they wanted to call the police.

As I've already posted somewhere on the fora (I'm probably on some people's 'ignore user' list) in one major city rioters set fire to a police cruiser and the whole thing was televised. The two voiceovers watching the whole thing were the staff anchorman and a retired or current police chief. Both were calmly watching and predicted the cruiser would be set on fire a good twenty minutes ahead of the incident, also predicting, correctly, that the police had most likely already decided to let it happen. This year we got a new phrase in the currency of mainstream broadcasting - 'mostly peaceful protest.' I guess if five thousand people are present and only six of them start a fire with a price tag of $100,000 and maybe only another 200 or so are looting it's a mostly peaceful protest, right? So if you are thinking of looting, vandalizing, etc, and you decide against it, it was more likely your conscience than fear of consequences. The police are under constant pressure to show they have not overreacted.
It's interesting how these things get covered by CNN, too. While all of this is going on they'll be showing pictures of George Floyd and talking about 'how upset people are.' They don't mention much about how upset people might be that their city is under siege.

[Descartes]

I frankly don't give a s**t about arguing equivalencies. It's not important right now. There are armed militias that are planning another similar attack on inauguration day, and you want to discuss equivalencies. Jeezus . . . .

"Equivalency" is not the point. For many people, the police response in one case, (such as sumer riots), was too strong while in another, (capital riots), it was too weak. Given that we don't yet have mind-reading technology, and given that people are not all ideological clones, then we need to have rules that can be applied in any situation, including rules about how to handle escalation, if necessary.

What consistent rules do you propose which would cover any situation where there are large groups of people and where some may engage in lawless behaviour so that law enforcement can establish, in advance, that you will not criticize their response as being either too strong or too weak if they follow your rules?

But you do care about equivalence because you are saying that the response to the attempted insurrection should be equivalent to the BLM protests.  They are very different things.

I am saying there should be a set of rules that cover both things, which will probably include when to escalate responses. Many people have claimed that the response to white protesters is different than the response to black protesters. If that is a problem then there needs to be a consistent set of rules to be applied to all protesters.

There should, but policing is not run federally so I don't see how that could happen. 

The point that police are more violent toward left leaning protests seems pretty well documented.  This is not an isolated incident and the point here is that the insurrection is an extreme event that warranted a stronger response than we saw.  This is especially true if we were following some sort of guideline as you suggest.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/13/us-police-use-of-force-protests-black-lives-matter-far-right

It appears, if everything that has been reported on is correct, that this was simply a massive intelligence failure more than a case of going easier on white or right wing protesters. 

I think they "let" them do this in the same way that the government "let" a bunch of Saudi's fly planes into the World Trade Center in 2001.  There was a breakdown in intelligence and competence. 

[Kron3007]

Time will tell if it was simply incompetence, or more intentional.

[apl68]

I frankly don't give a s**t about arguing equivalencies. It's not important right now. There are armed militias that are planning another similar attack on inauguration day, and you want to discuss equivalencies. Jeezus . . . .

"Equivalency" is not the point. For many people, the police response in one case, (such as sumer riots), was too strong while in another, (capital riots), it was too weak. Given that we don't yet have mind-reading technology, and given that people are not all ideological clones, then we need to have rules that can be applied in any situation, including rules about how to handle escalation, if necessary.

What consistent rules do you propose which would cover any situation where there are large groups of people and where some may engage in lawless behaviour so that law enforcement can establish, in advance, that you will not criticize their response as being either too strong or too weak if they follow your rules?

But you do care about equivalence because you are saying that the response to the attempted insurrection should be equivalent to the BLM protests.  They are very different things.

I am saying there should be a set of rules that cover both things, which will probably include when to escalate responses. Many people have claimed that the response to white protesters is different than the response to black protesters. If that is a problem then there needs to be a consistent set of rules to be applied to all protesters.

There should, but policing is not run federally so I don't see how that could happen. 

The point that police are more violent toward left leaning protests seems pretty well documented.  This is not an isolated incident and the point here is that the insurrection is an extreme event that warranted a stronger response than we saw.  This is especially true if we were following some sort of guideline as you suggest.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/13/us-police-use-of-force-protests-black-lives-matter-far-right

It appears, if everything that has been reported on is correct, that this was simply a massive intelligence failure more than a case of going easier on white or right wing protesters. 

I think they "let" them do this in the same way that the government "let" a bunch of Saudi's fly planes into the World Trade Center in 2001.  There was a breakdown in intelligence and competence.

That's what I'm inclined to suspect. 

[mahagonny]

"Police used teargas, rubber bullets, beatings with batons and other force against demonstrators at 511 leftwing protests and 33 rightwing protests since April, according to updated data made public this week.

The Guardian compared the percentage of all demonstrations organized by leftwing and rightwing groups that resulted in the use of force by law enforcement. For leftwing demonstrations, that was about 4.7% of protests, while for rightwing demonstrations, it was about 1.4%, meaning law enforcement was about three times more likely to use force against leftwing versus rightwing protests."

Isn't that only somewhat less than 1/5 as many right wing demonstrations studied as the number of left wing demonstrations studied? Questions:

1. If police are more annoyed internally with left wing protests than with right wing ones, why do we think that is? I have a theory...there are more of them, and the job of watching them is a pain in the ass.
2. Which category of protesting gets more encouragement from the media?
3. What is the conclusion/interpretation about those incidents involving a protest and also a counter protest?
4. How many deserved teargas and rubber bullets and never got any, and which side were they on?

[marshwiggle]

It appears, if everything that has been reported on is correct, that this was simply a massive intelligence failure more than a case of going easier on white or right wing protesters. 

I think they "let" them do this in the same way that the government "let" a bunch of Saudi's fly planes into the World Trade Center in 2001.  There was a breakdown in intelligence and competence.

That's what I'm inclined to suspect.

The same logic could be applied to the summer riots. Was it the intent of governments in various cities and states to "let" businesses be torched, looted, etc? It's much more reasonable to assume they didn't really anticipate what was about to happen.

[Kron3007]

It appears, if everything that has been reported on is correct, that this was simply a massive intelligence failure more than a case of going easier on white or right wing protesters. 

I think they "let" them do this in the same way that the government "let" a bunch of Saudi's fly planes into the World Trade Center in 2001.  There was a breakdown in intelligence and competence.

That's what I'm inclined to suspect.

The same logic could be applied to the summer riots. Was it the intent of governments in various cities and states to "let" businesses be torched, looted, etc? It's much more reasonable to assume they didn't really anticipate what was about to happen.

Yes, I'm sure many decided to let them proceed, but again you fail to see a difference between storming your government and protesting or rioting in the streets.  Deciding to allow people into your capital building to potentially kidnap (or worse) your sitting government is not at all the same as allowing rioters to burn a police car.

[Kron3007]

"Police used teargas, rubber bullets, beatings with batons and other force against demonstrators at 511 leftwing protests and 33 rightwing protests since April, according to updated data made public this week.

The Guardian compared the percentage of all demonstrations organized by leftwing and rightwing groups that resulted in the use of force by law enforcement. For leftwing demonstrations, that was about 4.7% of protests, while for rightwing demonstrations, it was about 1.4%, meaning law enforcement was about three times more likely to use force against leftwing versus rightwing protests."

Isn't that only somewhat less than 1/5 as many right wing demonstrations studied as the number of left wing demonstrations studied? Questions:

1. If police are more annoyed internally with left wing protests than with right wing ones, why do we think that is? I have a theory...there are more of them, and the job of watching them is a pain in the ass.
2. Which category of protesting gets more encouragement from the media?
3. What is the conclusion/interpretation about those incidents involving a protest and also a counter protest?
4. How many deserved teargas and rubber bullets and never got any, and which side were they on?

I assume police are overwhelmingly conservative and this likely influences these decisions.  Also, on one hand you have a group of people who are protesting policy violence and racism.  I could definitely see this influencing how they want to respond.

[marshwiggle]

It appears, if everything that has been reported on is correct, that this was simply a massive intelligence failure more than a case of going easier on white or right wing protesters. 

I think they "let" them do this in the same way that the government "let" a bunch of Saudi's fly planes into the World Trade Center in 2001.  There was a breakdown in intelligence and competence.

That's what I'm inclined to suspect.

The same logic could be applied to the summer riots. Was it the intent of governments in various cities and states to "let" businesses be torched, looted, etc? It's much more reasonable to assume they didn't really anticipate what was about to happen.

Yes, I'm sure many decided to let them proceed, but again you fail to see a difference between storming your government and protesting or rioting in the streets.  Deciding to allow people into your capital building to potentially kidnap (or worse) your sitting government is not at all the same as allowing rioters to burn a police car.

Descartes' point was that it's more likely that the response was inadequate because of a failure to anticipate the size of the threat, rather than a desire to condone the action. I'm suggesting the same would apply to the summer riots; I doubt any city "wanted" to get rid of surplus police cars, but were unprepared for the degree of violence that led to the cars being burned.

Many of the people now complaining that the DC police did not act as quickly or decisively as they should have would probably have complained in the summer if cities had had huge, visible police presences at protests in case of violence. But the only way to prevent things getting out of hand is to have a massive, visible presence of police in advance. With the summer riots having themes like "defund the police", such a  presence would be seen as direct provocation.

[mahagonny]

"Police used teargas, rubber bullets, beatings with batons and other force against demonstrators at 511 leftwing protests and 33 rightwing protests since April, according to updated data made public this week.

The Guardian compared the percentage of all demonstrations organized by leftwing and rightwing groups that resulted in the use of force by law enforcement. For leftwing demonstrations, that was about 4.7% of protests, while for rightwing demonstrations, it was about 1.4%, meaning law enforcement was about three times more likely to use force against leftwing versus rightwing protests."

Isn't that only somewhat less than 1/5 as many right wing demonstrations studied as the number of left wing demonstrations studied? Questions:

1. If police are more annoyed internally with left wing protests than with right wing ones, why do we think that is? I have a theory...there are more of them, and the job of watching them is a pain in the ass.
2. Which category of protesting gets more encouragement from the media?
3. What is the conclusion/interpretation about those incidents involving a protest and also a counter protest?
4. How many deserved teargas and rubber bullets and never got any, and which side were they on?

I assume police are overwhelmingly conservative and this likely influences these decisions.  Also, on one hand you have a group of people who are protesting policy violence and racism.  I could definitely see this influencing how they want to respond.

Not to mention they know that fighting black on black crime might be a pretty serious exhausting and costly undertaking to do and never be thanked for.

Anyway, these numbers don't tell a story of rampant police violence. They just don't. The story is no matter who you are they are mostly pretty disciplined. Should we riot whenever any well paid group is not doing their job perfectly? When will we get around to college professors.

[mahagonny]

Should we riot protest whenever any well paid group is not doing their job perfectly? When will we get around to college professors.

Fixed it.

I can think of one possible response to rioting and protesting that hasn't been mentioned yet. Hold the media accountable for what they should be accountable for.

Many if not almost all of the George Floyd incident protesters were motivated by the belief that the timeline of events involved George Floyd being pushed to the ground, restrained and then Derek Chauvin leaning on his neck with Chauvin's knee, and following that Floyd saying 'I can't breathe.' then dying within minutes. All of that did happen, but what came out several months later was that Floyd began saying he couldn't breathe before Chauvin even arrived, when he was in the squad car, and subsequently asked to be allowed to lie on the ground. While none of this makes Chauvin look like he did the proper thing, it's a significantly different story. Floyd also complained of claustrophobia even though when they first apprehended him he was sitting in the front seat of his car, considerably less roomy than the squad car. The bizarre behavior was eventually understood to be intoxication with amphetamine and fentanyl, which is used for anesthesia.
When the media has a story about a police killing it's a boon to their sales. When they have a story about a racist killing, it's a gold mine. When they have a complex story, they lose some of their power to get people excited.

[Kron3007]

"Police used teargas, rubber bullets, beatings with batons and other force against demonstrators at 511 leftwing protests and 33 rightwing protests since April, according to updated data made public this week.

The Guardian compared the percentage of all demonstrations organized by leftwing and rightwing groups that resulted in the use of force by law enforcement. For leftwing demonstrations, that was about 4.7% of protests, while for rightwing demonstrations, it was about 1.4%, meaning law enforcement was about three times more likely to use force against leftwing versus rightwing protests."

Isn't that only somewhat less than 1/5 as many right wing demonstrations studied as the number of left wing demonstrations studied? Questions:

1. If police are more annoyed internally with left wing protests than with right wing ones, why do we think that is? I have a theory...there are more of them, and the job of watching them is a pain in the ass.
2. Which category of protesting gets more encouragement from the media?
3. What is the conclusion/interpretation about those incidents involving a protest and also a counter protest?
4. How many deserved teargas and rubber bullets and never got any, and which side were they on?

I assume police are overwhelmingly conservative and this likely influences these decisions.  Also, on one hand you have a group of people who are protesting policy violence and racism.  I could definitely see this influencing how they want to respond.

Not to mention they know that fighting black on black crime might be a pretty serious exhausting and costly undertaking to do and never be thanked for.

Anyway, these numbers don't tell a story of rampant police violence. They just don't. The story is no matter who you are they are mostly pretty disciplined. Should we riot whenever any well paid group is not doing their job perfectly? When will we get around to college professors.

Man, you really like to conflate issues.  The BLM were not based on how police handle protests or riots, as you know.

They are also not just about George Floyd, as you know.

You can attack his character all you want, but there are many more examples.