Baltimore Riots

[Big Guy]

It has been a very unpleasant series of riots going on in Baltimore;

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/29/us/baltimore-riots.html?_r=0

All sides agree that there are a large number of citizens upset with what has resulted in the questionable death of a black man in police custody. Thousands of them staged a legal protest. But unfortunately, a small minority took advantage of the situation to loot and burn. There is profit in chaos.

There must be some way of allowing legitimate protest while at the same time separating out the criminals using protestors as cover.

Any ideas?

[Black Dog]

It has been a very unpleasant series of riots going on in Baltimore;

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/29/us/baltimore-riots.html?_r=0

All sides agree that there are a large number of citizens upset with what has resulted in the questionable death of a black man in police custody. Thousands of them staged a legal protest. But unfortunately, a small minority took advantage of the situation to loot and burn. There is profit in chaos.

There must be some way of allowing legitimate protest while at the same time separating out the criminals using protestors as cover.

Any ideas?

That's not really what it's about. Sure, that sparked it, but the reality is police brutality has been a long simmering issue in Baltimore. That's the underlying problem.

As to the rest, perhaps the media could spend more time with the majority of protesters who are going about their business peacefully rather than focusing on a small minority of troublemakers.

[Shady]

The Baltimore mayor is partly to blame. City council sent her a bill last year to equip every police officer with a body camera. She vetoed the bill.

[GostHacked]

The Baltimore mayor is partly to blame. City council sent her a bill last year to equip every police officer with a body camera. She vetoed the bill.

Even when they were bodycams, the cops can and will get away with it. Recent incident where a cop shot a mentally challenged man with a screwdriver. They let him die there without calling for medical care (as was in this case also). But those cops have now been cleared of any wrongdoing. That was ALL caught on TWO different body cams.

But now since every cop is equipped with a camera, what does that mean in terms of privacy?

[Black Dog]

The Baltimore mayor is partly to blame. City council sent her a bill last year to equip every police officer with a body camera. She vetoed the bill.

Because that would fix everything!

[Big Guy]

When people protest, they are putting themselves into a position where they are using themselves and their identities up front to state that they are unhappy with something.

People who cover their faces are trying to hide their identities in for a reason. You don't want to be identified then don't protest.

My view is that anyone having their face covered during a demonstration is there to do mischief. I suggest that having your face covered during a demonstration is grounds for immediate detention. We have the technology for cameras to identify the troublemakers and perhaps discourage their disruptive and criminal actions.

[Black Dog]

When people protest, they are putting themselves into a position where they are using themselves and their identities up front to state that they are unhappy with something.

People who cover their faces are trying to hide their identities in for a reason. You don't want to be identified then don't protest.

My view is that anyone having their face covered during a demonstration is there to do mischief. I suggest that having your face covered during a demonstration is grounds for immediate detention. We have the technology for cameras to identify the troublemakers and perhaps discourage their disruptive and criminal actions.

Agreed:

[bush_cheney2004]

....People who cover their faces are trying to hide their identities in for a reason.

...or they are just trying to mitigate the effects of tear gas or pepper spray. Riot 101 basics.....

[Shady]

Because that would fix everything!

When did I say it would fix everything? I didn't. But it would certainly help.

[Black Dog]

When did I say it would fix everything? I didn't. But it would certainly help.

They don't need garbage cops wearing cameras, they need fewer garbage cops.

[Shady]

They don't need garbage cops wearing cameras, they need fewer garbage cops.

There really is no argument, cameras would help. That's undeniable.

[Black Dog]

There really is no argument, cameras would help. That's undeniable.

OK: prove it.

[Boges]

OK: prove it.

If a cop knew that everything that they were doing was monitored they'd be far less likely to shoot an unarmed suspect. We saw the cop that shot the dude in South Carolina tried to cover his tracks. He didn't know he was being filmed. Want to bed he wouldn't have been charged had the video not been made public?

The Sammy Yatim murder charges would never have happened had someone not been filming it.

How many cop shootings are really cold-blooded murder but there's no evidence?

[sharkman]

People with little or no ethics, integrity or morals are among the police ranks for sure, and they are an accurate reflection of the citizenry in general. Racists exist in police forces(black and white) because they exist in the population. You can't get a non-bigoted police force out of a bigoted general population.

Ever wonder why politicians are so unethical? The whole thing is a society problem, not a cop problem. Any and every vocation has shocking behaviour in the news if you look for it. Name a vocation that is without these idiot individuals, whether they be molesting kids, working while in an altered state, stealing, attacking, etc., you can't get away from it.

[Shady]

If a cop knew that everything that they were doing was monitored they'd be far less likely to shoot an unarmed suspect. We saw the cop that shot the dude in South Carolina tried to cover his tracks. He didn't know he was being filmed. Want to bed he wouldn't have been charged had the video not been made public?

The Sammy Yatim murder charges would never have happened had someone not been filming it.

How many cop shootings are really cold-blooded murder but there's no evidence?

Yes, it's fairly logical. If everything is captured on video, there'd be a lot less unanswered questions. Which would help. I don't understand why that concept is so difficult for somebody to grasp. But some people will argue that the sky isn't blue, just for the sake of argument.

[GostHacked]

There really is no argument, cameras would help. That's undeniable.

I've shown they do not help. That's undeniable.

[cybercoma]

Agreed:

Cops are allowed to take off their identification to hide themselves from accountability, according to the apologists around here when we were discussing G20 in Toronto. That's different though. They're on the side of "right." So they're allowed to break laws. They're even allowed to murder people without repercussions.

[cybercoma]

If a cop knew that everything that they were doing was monitored they'd be far less likely to shoot an unarmed suspect. We saw the cop that shot the dude in South Carolina tried to cover his tracks. He didn't know he was being filmed. Want to bed he wouldn't have been charged had the video not been made public?

The Sammy Yatim murder charges would never have happened had someone not been filming it.

How many cop shootings are really cold-blooded murder but there's no evidence?

Except for cases where they were videotaped and faced no repercussions for their actions. Or times when they are monitored like when Henry Davis, an innocent man, was beaten mercilessly by the cops outside his cell (where mysteriously the recording disappeared) and was then charged for destruction of city property for bleeding on their uniforms.

Yeah....cameras would really help. It would help grand juries continue to not hold police accountable for their actions which have been grossly disproportionate to policing in the rest of the free world for years now.

[Boges]

Except for cases where they were videotaped and faced no repercussions for their actions. Or times when they are monitored like when Henry Davis, an innocent man, was beaten mercilessly by the cops outside his cell (where mysteriously the recording disappeared) and was then charged for destruction of city property for bleeding on their uniforms.

Yeah....cameras would really help. It would help grand juries continue to not hold police accountable for their actions which have been grossly disproportionate to policing in the rest of the free world for years now.

Never said they would solve all the problems. They don't erase the thin-blue line. But it makes events like this in Baltimore more understandable to the public at large.

I'm not fan of the power police wield. But they act like any other public service by protecting their own before actually serving the public. But they have guns so it's more obvious when they over-reach.

[cybercoma]

Never said they would solve all the problems. They don't erase the thin-blue line. But it makes events like this in Baltimore more understandable to the public at large.

I'm not fan of the power police wield. But they act like any other public service by protecting their own before actually serving the public. But they have guns so it's more obvious when they over-reach.

Yeah, but they don't. The situation is for more dire in the United States than virtually anywhere else in the world. Cops in the US killed over twice as many people in March alone than the police in the UK had killed since 1900. There is a serious and multi-faceted problem with US law enforcement. Why do police departments like Saginaw, Michigan need a huge armoured vehicle for their Podunk town? Why do cops show so little gun discipline that they would actually point firearms at an unarmed person they don't intend to kill? Why does Doraville, GA, population 8335 people, have a tank with a promotional video featuring the song "Die Motherfucker Die"? Historical and systemic racism, coupled by an overzealous war on drugs, lax gun regulations and the militarization of police has lead to the current state of affairs. Hundreds of Americans are being butchered by their police services every year, when every other civilized nation manages to avoid executing their citizens in the streets and, you know, actually having fair and just trials.

But hey. Let's slap some cameras on the cops. That might help, maybe, a little bit. It won't though. There's cameras everywhere. People have been videotaping police encounters for decades. Remember the Rodney King beating? Famously recorded. Cops know they're being watched. Guess what? It doesn't matter.

[Boges]

Yeah, but they don't. The situation is for more dire in the United States than virtually anywhere else in the world. Cops in the US killed over twice as many people in March alone than the police in the UK had killed since 1900. There is a serious and multi-faceted problem with US law enforcement. Why do police departments like Saginaw, Michigan need a huge armoured vehicle for their Podunk town? Why do cops show so little gun discipline that they would actually point firearms at an unarmed person they don't intend to kill? Why does Doraville, GA, population 8335 people, have a tank with a promotional video featuring the song "Die Motherfucker Die"? Historical and systemic racism, coupled by an overzealous war on drugs, lax gun regulations and the militarization of police has lead to the current state of affairs. Hundreds of Americans are being butchered by their police services every year, when every other civilized nation manages to avoid executing their citizens in the streets and, you know, actually having fair and just trials.

But hey. Let's slap some cameras on the cops. That might help, maybe, a little bit. It won't though. There's cameras everywhere. People have been videotaping police encounters for decades. Remember the Rodney King beating? Famously recorded. Cops know they're being watched. Guess what? It doesn't matter.

Violence could simply just be a part of the culture in parts the US too. To highlight cops as a specific problem doesn't address the problems all together.

Cops have to deal with more violent people in the US than the do in other civilized cultures. Which is why I chuckle that cops in Canada often make 6 figures when in the US they make a fraction of that but actually have to deal with far more dangerous people.

I concede that the militarization of police forces is an issue but that's a part of the military industrial complex. That's not going to be dealt with by riots.

[cybercoma]

It's all tied together. When you live in a country that devalues human life so much that it executes its criminals, then you end up with police services who don't see accused parties as persons, they see them as sub-human and completely disposable. You combine that with the endemic violence and racism in American society and this is what you get: anarchy. Police lose the ability to maintain order when they lose the consent of the people to be governed by them. When they act like oppressors, they lose all authority and society descends into completely anarchy. At that point, we get this bizarre contrast of people who aren't facing the oppression being far more concerned about the destruction of property than the loss of human life.

Unless something drastic happens, this situation is going to descend even further into violence and chaos. Society cannot function without the consent of the governed to be policed. They will never get that consent if the policing is not viewed as just and equitable. Strapping cameras to cops is completely irrelevant. It's not going to make the policing more just. Black people will still be disproportionately targeted by the police for searches and carding when they've done nothing wrong and they will continue to be disproportionately murdered in the streets while unarmed. The police tactics will still be seen as illegitimate and clashes will continue to occur.

[bush_cheney2004]

Violence could simply just be a part of the culture in parts the US too. To highlight cops as a specific problem doesn't address the problems all together.

The U.S. has always been a violent "culture"....homicide by cop is a very small percentage of all U.S. homicides.

[cybercoma]

The U.S. has always been a violent "culture"....homicide by cop is a very small percentage of all U.S. homicides.

Don't feel bad. Your criminal justice systems in the US are no more violent than Iran, North Korea, or Yemen. You're in good company. Edited April 28, 2015 by cybercoma

[cybercoma]

Although in those places they at least pretend to have a trial instead of killing people in the streets, but whatever.