
A Git Repo to Document Police Brutality During the 2020 George Floyd Protests - novia
https://github.com/2020PB/police-brutality
======
dang
See also
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23393914](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23393914),
which is still on the front page.

~~~
adjkant
Hi dang!

If I may ask, why is this one not on the front page? It seems to offer
something significantly different that that older link which only links to an
article indexing police brutality against journalists, while this is against
all people. It appears to have enough upvotes to be on the front page - did
some other part of the weighting system bump it off or is there a manual
flag/bump on it?

Appreciate all your efforts here and hope that doesn't come off as
confrontational or accusatory.

~~~
dang
We downweighted it as a follow-up submission [1]. Follow-ups are by definition
repetitive, and repetition goes against curiosity which is the root principle
here [2].

I'm sorry, because this seems like a good project, and as a reader I approve.
But as a moderator, the perspective is different—the quesiton is always, is
there enough SNI (significant new information [3]) to support a significantly
different discussion? in this case vis-à-vis
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23393914](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23393914),
which has been on the front page all day? The answer seems to be no, because
the comments in this thread aren't about the specifics of the
repository—they're just about the general topic of police brutality. In other
words this thread just gets sucked into the stronger gravitational field of
the more generic topic, which unfortunately is what happens to most posts that
fly too close to a large hot planet (i.e. a hot ongoing thread).

All that said, I'm tempted to contradict myself ("very well then I contradict
myself") and dump the other thread in favor of this one, because I can feel
there's something interesting here. So how about a compromise: if someone
still feels like this post is interesting after, say, two weeks have gone by,
they can email hn@ycombinator.com and we can arrange a repost. I was
originally going to say one week, but that's sort of on the cusp between now
and the future. Two weeks is more on the future side.

[1]
[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20follow-
up&sort=byDate&type=comment)

[2]
[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20curiosity%20repetition&sort=byDate&type=comment)

[3]
[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20%22significant%20new%20information%22&sort=byDate&type=comment)

p.s. People who say "hope that doesn't come off as confrontational or
accusatory" are the least of our worries :)

~~~
adjkant
Appreciate the insight into the process! Someone very well may follow up in
two weeks :)

------
mehrdadn
Just a heads-up: before you get angry, bear in mind the situation is evolving
and that the context and the timing information are very relevant. Here's why:
at least in NYC, I know the protest leaders and the NYPD police chief got
together just a day or two ago to have a dialog and try to mend things so they
can work together instead of against each other. [1] They don't hate each
other, and in any case, both sides realize they need the other's support. They
just want to be able to work together to keep things peaceful. And it seems
like they're giving each other another chance to do things right, and it's
important that they get that chance instead of having more tensions flare
again as a result of anger from 3 days ago.

So, before you get worked up about what happened, check the date, and try to
see if there's any local news in the city that might indicate something might
have changed in the meantime. You won't necessarily see these on frontpage
headlines, so it might take a bit of digging. (I've found actual videos from
local news reporting on the ground much more helpful than textual articles
from national outlets here. It seems to me it's just too difficult to capture
all the relevant dynamics, emotion, and nuance in text.)

In fact, if anyone's involved, I would suggest putting this information in the
repo here as well. You don't want to add fuel onto a fire that was already
under control a few days ago, and you want to know when (or whether) good
progress is being made. Ultimately the goal is to find a working model that
others can hopefully emulate.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJGT06zIUiY&t=2m32s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJGT06zIUiY&t=2m32s)

~~~
johnnyfaehell
> Just a heads-up: before you get angry, bear in mind the situation is
> evolving and that the context and the timing information are very relevant.

"Before you get angry about police brutality, remember context is important!"
Are you serious?! Some people are talking to the police chief so you shouldn't
be angry that they are blockading people on to a bridge. Or angry that they
are driving SUVs into people. Or violently pushing people to the ground. And
that's just the NYPD. A department where the commissioner was praising the
department for their restrain, if that's restrain wait until they stop holding
back.

Giving each other the chance to do the right thing? What are you talking
about? What do the protesters need to do? Stop proetesting?

> So, before you get worked up about what happened, check the date, and try to
> see if there's any local news in the city that might indicate something
> might have changed in the meantime

> So, before you get worked up about what happened, check the date, and try to
> see if there's any local news in the city that might indicate something
> might have changed in the meantime. You won't necessarily see these on
> frontpage headlines, so it might take a bit of digging. (I've found actual
> videos from local news reporting on the ground much more helpful than
> textual articles from national outlets here. It seems to me it's just too
> difficult to capture all the relevant dynamics, emotion, and nuance in
> text.)

Are you nuts? So if it happened 3 days ago and the police are saying sorry but
not laying charges, it's a-ok? There are no real nuances here. You have police
shooting rubber bullets are people's faces, spraying them with pepper spray
while they have their hands up, tear gassing people. All while not facing
criminal charges.

> In fact, if anyone's involved, I would suggest putting this information in
> the repo here as well. You don't want to add fuel onto a fire that was
> already under control a few days ago, and you want to know when (or whether)
> good progress is being made. Ultimately the goal is to find a working model
> that others can hopefully emulate.

No, you want to add fuel to this fire if you want this problem to be solved.
Working models can be found in nearly every civilised country in the world.

Stop telling people not to be angry and start being angry.

~~~
chrisco255
You know a 77 year old retired cop was killed in St. Louis last night, holding
his cell phone to call police about looters. You gonna protest his death too?
Or do you just want an endless vicious cycle of blood feuds for the next 3000
years?

~~~
robert_foss
Clearly that is wrong too, but you know, two wrongs don't make a right. And a
major difference is that violence against police actually is prosecuted unlike
the opposite.

~~~
chrisco255
No, this guy was left to die in the street. His killers weren't caught.

He was a cop for 38 years before becoming chief of Moline Acres, Mo:
[https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/500839-retired-
st-l...](https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/500839-retired-st-louis-
police-captain-killed-outside-looted-pawn-shop)

This is what anti police hatred brewing in this country leads to. Gang
violence. You embolden true criminals.

~~~
robert_foss
The killers may not have been caught in this case, but I think it safe to
assume that someone actually looked for them.

~~~
chrisco255
You got a lot of mental gymnastics to squirm out of your culpability for
perpetrating hate towards the 99.9% of cops who do their job ethically. But
you got no words for a dead man who served his community for 40+ years and
meets a fate like this thanks to instigators and rioters who claim they're for
justice.

~~~
robert_foss
I have perpetrated no hate, and don't strawman me.

Acts of violence are _always_ wrong. I did however point out the police are
not prosecuted in any meaningful systemic fashion.

------
Melting_Harps
Thanks for doing that, during the Hong Kong protests the (presumably) CCP were
attacking doing ddos attacks and trying attack servers that hosted footage of
the police illegally beating, arresting and pepper spraying lawful citizens
protesting or simply just having the misfortune of being around one when the
HKPF/PLA decided to get violent.

Here is the torrent hash if anyone wants to host it and seed:

9b85dd223c8f92c923f516ed77bbdfcb770f4dd8

> I vouched for this. In other threads, an attitude I've seen is "well I'm
> just a tech worker, what can I possibly do to help?"

I hope something like this is done for these protests (Anonymous?) and
undertaken by the greater tech community as the Police need to be held
accountable for the brutality and callous inhumane behaviour towards citizens
and journalists alike, that many on here simply accepted 'as other people's
problems.' And in many cities the police have simply decided of their own
accord to just shut off their bodycams. I spent most of the weekend following
the events and after you weed through the BS bots, you actually see the
numbers are there to make it happen in just about every city. It's really just
a matter of coordination and Will.

If nothing else this is a stark reminder of what your tax money is going
towards, and it isn't going towards roads, schools or whatever absurd notion
most use to justify the ever growing militarization and expansion of a Police
State in the US.

The thing I don't get was that in the late 80s and 90s activism and
tech/hacking oriented people were pretty much one and the same, namely
Cypherpunks. Specifically in the Valley!

~~~
cinquemb
> The thing I don't get was that in the late 80s and 90s activism and
> tech/hacking oriented people were pretty much one and the same, namely
> Cypherpunks. Specifically in the Valley!

Alot of those folks were co-opted… at least according to folks like Bill
Blunden (belowgotham.com) and John Young (cryptome.org)

~~~
Melting_Harps
> Alot of those folks were co-opted… at least according to folks like Bill
> Blunden (belowgotham.com) and John Young (cryptome.org)

I don't know who those people are, nor have I taken the time to analyze their
work. But let's assume that some were co-opted, you do realize that ultimately
it doesn't matter because the few that weren't are responsible for some of the
greatest innovation in citizen's use of cryptography and a non-state issue
currency, those being: Wei Dai, Nick Szabo, Hal Finney, Adam Back, Timothy
May.

Hell, these people inspired a certain loud mouth Cyberpunk who went on to
create wikileaks, and tried to expose covert Nuclear armament by the US prior
to that, you may have heard of him as he's currently being used as political
football in an extradition case: Julian Assange. And he motivated a guy who
went to to work on TOR (Jacob Applebaum) and a former NSA contractor that
revealed the extensive abuses of the the Intelligence Agencies around the
world (Edward Snowden).

What I'm getting at is that these kind of movements are useful precisely
because they do not rely on a single entity or person to steer the actions of
said movement.

~~~
cinquemb
> What I'm getting at is that these kind of movements are useful precisely
> because they do not rely on a single entity or person to steer the actions
> of said movement.

I don't disagree, I'm just not as surprised as you are that things have
changed from the 80/90's… the stakes are higher… and the name of the game is
"dealing with the metadata killchain", building it, or both ;)

------
akersten
I vouched for this. In other threads, an attitude I've seen is "well I'm just
a tech worker, what can I possibly do to help?"

Projects like this are what you can do.

~~~
rrmm
Also just in general, make sure the people around you are registered to vote,
get absentee ballots if they need them, understand how to complete, and send
them. Make sure they vote.

~~~
DyslexicAtheist
but vote for who? Joe Biden has historically backed legislation for search and
frisk, he is only a good choice for people who think "BlueLivesMatter"

~~~
rrmm
I'm not gonna tell you how to vote. I will only tell you to exercise your
civic duty. We are all smart people here: to wield both the abstract and
pragmatic concerns into a decision. Make it. It may be the last we get to
make.

------
brigandish
A laudable idea but why restrict it to the protests? There's a problem with
police brutality in lots of places and at lots of times (even just the
perception of it), perhaps a more standard way to report and record _which can
be replicated easily_ and hence, compared better, might be an idea. (As I was
writing an issue opened up on this kind of point
[https://github.com/2020PB/police-
brutality/issues/83](https://github.com/2020PB/police-brutality/issues/83))

It seems to me that the current set up excludes the vast majority of people
(who are unlikely to know markdown, Git, or Github) which limits its
effectiveness.

~~~
akersten
(Not the author) I like Git for the decentralization and ease of someone
backing it all up. Agree that there's a huge usability cliff for anyone
outside our circle that wants to contribute.

Maybe a good add-on project for someone is creating a website where potential
new incidents can be submitted and evaluated, then pulled into the repo
automatically if they pass muster.

~~~
Cthulhu_
If Reddit wasn't censored, you could use that, but you'd need moderators to
manage duplicates and spam. Backing up Reddit pages / posts / videos should be
fairly straightforward. If anything it's a lot more accessible to anyone
because you can e.g. post from mobile.

------
adjkant
This tweet has a good two minute video of some of these cases, for those who
are questioning if this is "valid" as I have seen in many threads.

[https://twitter.com/JordanUhl/status/1266917228752056320](https://twitter.com/JordanUhl/status/1266917228752056320)

~~~
ebg13
This one is from a link further down. I think it tells pretty much everything.
[https://twitter.com/stephtseo/status/1267680737915924480?s=0...](https://twitter.com/stephtseo/status/1267680737915924480?s=09)

~~~
asiachick
I don't see what you seem to see in that video.

I see an umbrella put way over the fence. I see a policeman grab an umbrella
that was way over fence. I see then someone else reach across the fence in
response to the police grabbing the umbrella. I see the police then react to
that person reaching across the fence.

I don't see blame. I just see tinder, a spark, and an escalation.

I'm fully 100% for "Black Lives Matter" and 100% against police brutality and
the militarization of the police. But that video is too ambiguous convince all
people. It's the same with the CNN reporter. People who want to see racism see
a black reporter get arrested. People who don't want to see racism see 3
people getting arrested, one black, one white, one latino? Yes, racism exists
but that video is also not proof of it.

~~~
ebg13
> _that video._

First of all, it's two videos. Watch the aerial view in the immediate reply.
(If you didn't see it, you can find it here:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/gv0ru3/this_is_the...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/gv0ru3/this_is_the_moment_it_all_happened/))

> _I see a policeman grab_

You see an attempted robbery resulting in the destruction of someone's private
property.

> _I see then someone else reach_

You see a person trying to hold onto their property as they're pulled over the
fence because a cop just assaulted them.

> _I see the police then react_

You see the police immediately start spraying and bombing and gassing, with
the flimsiest excuse, an entire crowd of people who are literally just
chanting.

This coordinated initiation of violence is extremely typical from the police
playbook. Watch this third video from 26:30 as the filmer explains the meaning
of a "posture" change when the police swap in gasmask brutes in place of the
bicycle cops who were standing there before, showing that they planned to
escalate from the beginning.
[https://www.facebook.com/omarisal/videos/10220021035848747/](https://www.facebook.com/omarisal/videos/10220021035848747/)

~~~
asiachick
The aerial video doesn't help at all. If you're being unkind to the protesters
then the ground level video shows a protester shoving an umbrella in a
policeman's face which is the start of the entire thing. The policeman reacts
as anyone would when someone shoves something in their face, they grab/bat it
away. That causes others to reach over the fence which would appear
threatening and then the spray starts.

If you're assuming good intentions on the part of that protestor then the
umbrella being over the fence and in the face of an officer was just an
accident of being too close the fence so that their umbrella ended up in the
police officer's face. The result is the same, the protester is crossing the
line like the "I'm not touching you" meme. The officer has an umbrella shoved
in their face and they react.

[https://www.slideshare.net/Matthewthig/4-11-am-im-not-
touchi...](https://www.slideshare.net/Matthewthig/4-11-am-im-not-touching-you)

From the officer's POV this
([https://pasteboard.co/Jbm1UXn.jpg](https://pasteboard.co/Jbm1UXn.jpg)) is a
protester trying to intentionally block their view or just annoy them.

I know you won't accept that interpretation as remotely valid because you've
already decided there is only one correct way to see it.

I'm not placing blame and I'm not defending the police. I'm just pointing out
your interpretation of what happened is just that, an interpretation. There is
at least one other perfectly valid interpretation.

~~~
asiachick
Here's another incident with 2 interpretations

[https://twitter.com/EDDIFUL/status/1267338642617364481?s=20](https://twitter.com/EDDIFUL/status/1267338642617364481?s=20)

1) The simple police brutality

2) Kid grabs policeman, policeman reacts

You can see the kid reach for the officer. The officer reacted. Whether it was
actually a threat I have no idea. The officer is trying to pass. The kid
effectively corners him into a wall, intentionally or not, and then reaches
toward the officer. Maybe it was supposed to be a friendly tap on the upper
arm but in the middle of such a situation it's not hard to believe whatever
the kid reached for felt like a threat to the officer.

Again I'm not trying to defend the police but if you want people to come
together, if you want that 1/2 of the nation that's on the wrong side to
support your cause, then you need less ambiguous examples. Otherwise it's just
easy to dismiss it.

Other than taking the kid down there is no visible brutality in that video.

~~~
ebg13
> _Again I 'm not trying to defend the police_

You're doing a great job of it anyway trying to justify marching in brutes
covered head to toe in armor all prepared for a gas attack and then
mysteriously "reacting" to an _umbrella_ a minute later by bombing a crowd of
people standing around chanting.

You're doing some heavy concern trolling here. I see you.

> _The kid effectively corners him into a wall_

If I push between you and the wall, you have not cornered me into the wall.
The person who pushes in is responsible for being there.

> _Whether it was actually a threat I have no idea_

Kid has a phone in one hand and sunglasses in the other. If you have no idea
then you're intentionally not paying attention.

> _Other than taking the kid down there is no visible brutality_

Other than the visible brutality, there is no visible brutality. Well, by
_that_ definition...

~~~
asiachick
I'm not trolling and dang should have banned banned your message for name
calling.

There is no brutality in that video. The officers wraps his arm around the kid
and pulls him to the ground slowly and safely. There is no evidence in that
video the kid got a single scratch or bruise. If there is evidence of actual
violence it's not in that video.

There are videos of actual violence.

[https://twitter.com/vantaepedia/status/1266055700515520512](https://twitter.com/vantaepedia/status/1266055700515520512)

no need to use the ambiguous videos that don't actually help change minds but
only preach to the choir.

Black Lives Matter!

~~~
ebg13
> _There is no brutality in that video_

Putting someone into a headlock and dragging them around by their neck when
that person had not initiated violence is brutality. And that person clearly
did not initiate violence.

> _The officers wraps his arm around the kid_

Sure, a gentle loving caress around the neck, and then a gentle loving pull by
the neck, and then gently and lovingly putting him to the ground by the neck.

> _There are videos of actual violence._

Both are videos of actual violence. Thank you for sharing that one.

~~~
asiachick
Violence: Behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill
someone or something.

There is no intent to hurt, damage, or kill that kid and there is no evidence
in the video of the cop on a bicycle taking down the kid that the kid was
remotely hurt. Unlike other videos. So no, it is not actual violence.

And, no I'm not getting hung up on the word "intent". I'm pointing out if
there is no actual hurt or damage then it's not violence.

As for the kids intent or the officer's perceived intent we'll never know
unless the officer has a body cam and even if we did different people will
likely see it differently just like the umbrella above. You see an innocent
girl with an umbrella. Others see a girl intentionally putting her umbrella in
the face of an officer and blocking his view effectively obstructing an
officer. When he takes the umbrella clearly in his face people react and
things escalate.

In any case you, and all the other downvoters, seemed to miss the entire point
of my comments.

The point is there are multiple ways to see those videos. You claiming there
is only one is about as relevant as telling someone their feelings are wrong.
You can't tell someone else how they feel and you can't tell someone else what
they see in those videos. If you showed those videos to 100 people and found
that 50% (or even 20%) saw something different your rage that they didn't see
the exact same thing you saw would not help you convince them they're wrong.
If instead you understand those videos are actually not strong proof of your
case you'd drop them for videos that are and therefore make your case better
and help bring about the change you (and me) want to see.

------
war1025
Am I the only one that gets the feeling these riots have nothing to do with
George Floyd at this point and are just a massive boiling over of tension from
Coronavirus lockdown orders?

~~~
phoe-krk
I think that and the resulting unemployment boom certainly contributes, but
you seem to miss the obvious point here - that the Black and Brown people of
US have other objective reasons to protest about, too.

~~~
war1025
Sure, Black and Brown people have legitimate things to protest. But all I see
are videos of white kids throwing bricks and otherwise stirring the pot.

~~~
ebg13
At this point, if that's all you've seen, it's because you aren't looking.

So maybe look up videos of cops shooting journalists, smashing windows,
bashing people in the face when they weren't doing anything, and running
people over with their cars. There are literally hundreds of such videos from
the past few days.

Then you'd be able to say you've seen videos of things other than white kids
throwing bricks.

------
orwin
Seeing US police act almost make me believe French BAC is a peacefull police
force trained for violence deescalation.

I don't understand how you can not have the equivalent of
CRS/Bereitschaftspolizei.

~~~
freeone3000
We do. SWAT teams absolutely exist. You're seeing them here.

~~~
411111111111111
Uh, nobody questioned that you've got trigger-happy and overgeared specialists
on a powertrip.

That's not what CRS/Bereitschaftspolizei is though. I've only ever seen them
running around entirely without protection or with shields to stop people
doing dumb shit.

------
axegon_
Probably a bit of a controversial opinion but in some cases I can sympathize
with the police officers. The reality is that the vast majority of them likely
condemn the events around George Floyd's death. They are also regular people
with families, children and friends they have to provide for. And they have
the exact same problems that many of us do. Their daily work involves keeping
things in order, which is something I respect. That said, the first video I
opened at random[1] shows a small number of people blocking a road in what
looks more like a civil war scene rather than a protest. And the authorities
are greeted with "F-U" and people tossing objects at them. The people in
uniforms are ordinary people. Put yourself in their shoes and tell me: having
all the problems you have, seeing all the destruction, which in all cases is
no longer a protest, people shouting "f-u" and throwing stuff at you: You can
be the most mentally stable human being but everyone has a limit. Many of
those men are possibly working overtime, in extreme conditions and I bet they
would much rather be with their kids or sick parents for instance. With this
idea in mind, I personally can't picture myself being able to remain calm and
not overstep my boundaries sooner or later.

Now putting myself in the shoes of the protesters: seeing the same
destruction, destroying of properties, cars and businesses, I'll call it a day
because this is no longer a protest. I'd go back home and wait for this to be
taken care of and join a civilized protest once this has been taken care of. A
civilized country should be able to hold a civilized protest. And having spent
most of my life in eastern Europe, you can say I know a thing or two about
protests. Last large protest I was a part of was in ~2013 irrc and the
aftermath was very different. The night after each of those protests,
everything was spotless clean, people thew all their garbage in the bins,
nothing broken or destroyed. People were coming with their children and pets
and being completely comfortable with it. There was a completely unrelated
incident of a gas explosion at a Chinese restaurant, which burned a nearby
shop. People gathered donations fo the shop owner to recover. Incidents with
police? Practically none during ~3 months of daily protest. And we are talking
eastern Europe - the police officers are anything but the nicest people on the
planet.

[1]
[https://twitter.com/XruthxNthr/status/1266903223220097024](https://twitter.com/XruthxNthr/status/1266903223220097024)

~~~
muglug
I think most of what you’re saying is not controversial, but I think you’re
missing a lot of context. Those officers, and the protestors, exist in a
country that still treats black people as second-class citizens in a variety
of ways. Hell, the current President spent years saying the previous (black)
President was illegitimate.

You want to see the protesters and officers as equal, but they’re not - the
protesters are trying to change the status quo, the officers by and large want
it to stay the way it is, and often want to make things worse for minorities
(“Make America Great Again”).

Sympathy for the officers is fine, but remember they can quit whenever they
want. Black people can’t quit being black.

~~~
jtjbdhsjjdnd
As an outsider (maybe I am wrong) US will continue their bad treatment of
'black people' as long as you continue calling them 'black' and supporting it
at the official level. It is just racial segregation in disguise.

~~~
muglug
> maybe I am wrong

Yeah, uh, I have bad news for you...

------
sneak
Please put the media clips into the repo. The original links will frequently
disappear from the censorship platforms. Don’t just link, mirror the videos.

------
sagebird
GIT (and github) is a terrible tool for general purpose collaboration of non-
technical people.

Something like shared google doc would fit better.

Perhaps google docs, or other collaborative tools are actually able to scale
to 30+ users? What is the largest google doc collaboration that you have seen
work out?

~~~
bskap
I think Google docs has a limit of 100 concurrent users on a doc

------
booleandilemma
Is there a Git repo to track the stores that have been looted/burned to the
ground?

~~~
gremlinsinc
Maybe they should do that, but make sure to exclude the ones that are insured.
Because that's not a net loss.

Also be sure to include the ones that police are responsible for like this car
that the Riverside Sherrif busted out for no reason:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_XERvsXvSU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_XERvsXvSU)

~~~
zanmat0
Its not a net loss if they have to increase their prices to pay for the new
higher premiums?

These failures to understand basic economics are frightening.

------
nojvek
This is awesome. However it’s still pretty vague. Can there be any meaningful
action from this ?

Is there a way for a civilian to get access to the officer’s body camera
recording and identify which cops are the trigger happy ones.

Basically a more targeted list that says “These officers violated the first
amendment constitutional rights of citizens to peacefully assemble and
petition the government for a redress of grievances, this is the proof, please
file charges”.

We are protesting because the police are unaccountable for their actions. How
do we move to a place where we can hold them accountable and there is a quick
as fair process for justice to be served.

------
Nemo_bis
You can also contribute to the press freedom tracker.
[https://pressfreedomtracker.us/](https://pressfreedomtracker.us/)

------
MisterBastahrd
Here's a thread by T. Greg Doucette, a public defender and 1st amendment
litigator who is white and conservative-leaning but who also attended an HBCU.

[https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1266752393556918273](https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1266752393556918273)

The thread was at 185ish at last count. It has been growing since he started
it on May 30.

------
_bxg1
I don't see the source for the linked "Web App" here; just the markdown files.
Would be good to be able to contribute to that as well.

~~~
NameDoesntExist
The Web App repo is here [0]

0:
[https://github.com/ubershmekel/2020PoliceBrutality](https://github.com/ubershmekel/2020PoliceBrutality)

------
Melting_Harps
While we're on the topic, here is another useful program that removes metadata
from images on github, of anyone can take the time to look over the source
code and verify it does what it says that would be super useful:

[https://everestpipkin.github.io/image-
scrubber/](https://everestpipkin.github.io/image-scrubber/)

------
throwaway391003
This is just inciting and encouraging violence against police, increasing a
feud between the left and the police

------
itsbits
Just wanted to know why protests are still continuing? Aren't Police involved
with the incident are charged?

~~~
nsilvestri
The one officer who was immediately involved has been charged; the other three
have not. However this case is more of the straw that broke the camel's back.
It's freshest in our minds and is the face of the protests, but as a whole the
protests represent decades of tensions boiling over.

------
razius
Why not go the other way as well, do one with how many police officers have
been killed by protesters.

~~~
netsharc
You're free to start one...

------
samh
You people are credulous and mad. Goodbye Western civilisation.

------
ghthor
If you're going to document violence, do it on both sides and try to document
without any bias. Don't let your agenda cloud your judgement about what
narrative to tell.

------
master_yoda_1
what about the looting on the street?

------
sbmthakur
Nice. Is there any repo that tracks all the riots?

~~~
Cthulhu_
Why do you ask, and what is your end game?

~~~
sbmthakur
I have no end game.

------
alphachloride
The organization for this repo has only 2 repositories in their github
profile: this one .... and Atom the text editor. Wat.

------
throwaway391003
There's one from NYC that says: "A police officer forcefully pulls off a
protestors face mask and pepper sprays him. The protestor had his hands up in
surrender when this happened."

From [https://github.com/2020PB/police-
brutality/blob/master/repor...](https://github.com/2020PB/police-
brutality/blob/master/reports/New%20York.md#police-pull-off-protesters-mask-
to-pepper-spray-him--may-31st)

If you look at the video though the guy was pushing towards the officer
against the officer's hand. What do you expect to happen when you decide to
aggress on an officer instead of back away?

Here's the video they link
[https://twitter.com/_doreenpt/status/1266994439039455232](https://twitter.com/_doreenpt/status/1266994439039455232)

How many other incidents are there in this repo that are unfairly
listed/described?

~~~
mquander
I watched that video. You have clearly mastered the application of Newton's
third law, by pointing out that when someone pushes you away with their hand,
you are also pushing against their hand. We only disagree about whether it's
correct to pepper spray someone in the face when this happens.

~~~
throwaway391003
The guy did not take a step or two back, like everyone else seen in the video
was doing

edit: I just walked the video again. you have to be crazy if you don't think
the guy was encroaching on the officer's space

~~~
mquander
I agree. We clearly have a dramatic difference of opinion about when it is a
good time to pepper spray someone. I suppose the police officer in the video
shares your opinion, and the authors of the document share mine.

~~~
rrmm
The cops seem to have a low threshold for using it.

There was a video where a bunch of riot police were riding on the outside of
an SUV. One fell off of it to the ground, got back up turned around and pepper
sprayed behind him, even though there was no one behind him. There was no one
moving towards him or even near him.

~~~
adjkant
Truly an insane moment that really underscores the level of fear these cops
are acting under. If they are that unstable, they should not be out in the
field currently.

I have said this elsewhere on HN, but I think these protests would be better
for everyone if police simply did not show up. I think the video we are
referencing is a great example why.

~~~
throwaway391003
Like what Minneapolis was experiencing before the National Guard came in?

~~~
adjkant
The national guard is backing up the police. The police presence there was
long before they came in. So yes, like Minneapolis. If the initial police
response was different we could see a vastly different landscape of protests
currently, but that set the tone and virtually no departments have been
effective or even been trying to deescalate it seems.

