
Police targeted journalists covering the George Floyd protests - raybb
https://www.vox.com/identities/2020/5/31/21276013/police-targeted-journalists-covering-george-floyd-protests
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noitsnot
It's hard to believe there isn't some sort of order or unspoken code at this
point to go after people with cameras, including the media. They have
permission to spray rubber bullets so they're hitting innocent people on their
porches as they march down the road.

[https://streamable.com/u2jzoo](https://streamable.com/u2jzoo)

~~~
voltaireodactyl
The conservative commander in chief has been referring to the media as
“enemies of the people” for four years. Law enforcement is overwhelmingly
conservative. They believe what they’re doing is right, because they are
attacking the people the president says are the enemy.

To my eyes, it really looks that simple.

~~~
mycall
Obama was dealing with this same problem. He couldn't get the Republicans in
Congress to make change in good faith.

The problem is more complicated than simple.

~~~
voltaireodactyl
I agree with you that "how we got to a point where the conservative commander
in chief could repeatedly label the media 'enemies of the people' without any
political repercussions whatsoever" is a much more complicated topic.

I'm just saying that I think you can draw a direct line between the shameless
attacks on reporters the past few days, and the words spoken over and over
again by the ostensible top law enforcement agent in the country.

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TooSmugToFail
I have been closely following the coverage of HK protests as it was
developing. I was (and still am) strongly sympathetic with the HK protesters.

I have to say, the HK police has proven to be _massively_ more professional
than the cops in Minneapolis, NYC, and many other places in the States.

HK is under a toralitarian regime, while the US is, supposedly, the bastion of
freedom.

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deanCommie
The police departments seem to have become incapable of separating the
difference between "enforcing the law", and "being the law".

They also don't seem to understand that they are not on equal grounds with
private citizens. They are civic servants. Police have an obligation to
protect their fellow citizens, even if those citizens are protesting Police.*
The amount of examples of police actively instigating violence [1] in the last
48 hours is horrifying, but perhaps not surprising. Police have a 2-4x the
incident rate of domestic violence [2] than the rest of the population. And
with the President tweeting support for them to respond to protests with
violence, it makes sense that they would feel enabled to act accordingly.

In every city protest the exact same script has unfolded:

* A peaceful protest starts

* A heavily militarized police force descends on the protest and begins oppressing it without overtly instigating any engagement

* SOMEONE pushes things over the line. That someone might be a protestor, but honestly looking around and reading the news it seems like it is equally likely right now to be Police themselves, or a provocateur masquerading as a protestor.

* Police overreact, violence and property destruction abounds

* Mayor/governor instigate curfew

* AHA - now any private citizen on the street is automatically a criminal

* Police take the initiative and run with it targeting journalists and instigating violence.

So what's next? I think this needs to be a reckoning in the US unlike any
since 9/11\. 9/11 created The Department Of Homeland Security. And regardless
of what you think of the execution of that program, the point was that it was
a serious action designed to take the threat of terrorist attacks against the
US seriously. I believe the US needs an equally powerful independent
government agency to oversee local police departments. There are simply no
checks and balances otherwise. No oversight. No one watches The Watchmen.
Before you tell me that this is a massive Federal overreach, I believe this
could be similar in scope to Desegregation and School Integration, which were
federal top-down projects.

P.S. If you turn this thread around to talk about the "looters", so help you
god. You are a lost cause. So let's just get this out of the way: No, looting
is not morally justifiable. But in the grand scheme of things, the moral
failings of those protestors that are taking this opportunity to loot is
incomparable with the overall message of the protest or the harm inflected
upon the African American community by centuries of systemic racism.

* * Or at least, they SHOULD. I think we can all see that is not actually the case.

* [1] [https://twitter.com/chadloder/status/1266952661791674370?s=1...](https://twitter.com/chadloder/status/1266952661791674370?s=19)

* [2] [https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/09/police-...](https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/09/police-officers-who-hit-their-wives-or-girlfriends/380329/)

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
I like your proposal, but policies can't be shaped purely with respect to the
grand scheme of things. All police reform proposals in the near future are
going to face a simple and important question: will this proposal, if
implemented, compromise their ability to stop hooligans from burning down my
neighborhood? Reformers are going to have to learn to say "no, and here's why"
rather than "you are a lost cause" or "racism is more important".

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xkcd-sucks
Of course they are. Protests are media agents first and foremost. Entrenched
power has always tried to suppress unfavorable media coverage of protest
events, and protest planners put a lot of effort into optics.

This doesn't make it _right_ , but given that cops are social groups looking
after their own interests, it's hardly surprising.

