National Guard Deployed in Baltimore, Maryland

Discussion in 'Current Events' started by Amaury, Apr 28, 2015.

  1. Amaury Legendary Hero

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    You thought Ferguson was bad? Say hello to Baltimore

    I liked how the major and chief of police noticed they have a pattern they need to change, and I also liked how many citizens were against the rioters' actions. Protesting peacefully is fine; rioting is not. And the people who riot don't even care about the key issue, they just take advantage of the situation.

    There are videos and images in the source link below.


     
  2. Meilin Lee RPG (Red Panda Girl)

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    I watched the riots live as they happened yesterday. There is definitely a sense of frustration happening, and I can understand why the people are angry. They had every right to be upset about what happened. HOWEVER, what I saw yesterday was a terrible example of how to protest. Actually, I'm not gonna even refer to it as a protest. It was vandalism and theft. If you wanna make a point, do so peacefully, not by attacking and looting from the properties of others who had nothing to do with the problem in the first place.
     
  3. libregkd -

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  4. Amaury Legendary Hero

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  6. Amaury Legendary Hero

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  7. Sara Tea Drinker

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    Looting will happen out of any situation where people can take advantage. It's part of some people's nature. Whether it's to steal, take advantage of a situation, or what I call a "group mentality" where people are watching others do it and do the same. It happens in a lot of situations like this, riots, natural disasters, even situations just where the cops can't be around or are overworked. Some might try to stop them, but there's few when it happens. Look up the LA Riots for a prime example of this happening.

    Rodney King (African American) was beaten to near death by six white cops. An all white jury declared each cop innocent and they walked out without even a slap on the wrist. The LA riots began the next day in protest for what the verdict was. The theft was rampant then, too for six days even with the National Guard.

    I just really think they should clamp down on these cops. There are good cops out there, I met a few during my problems with a bully boss. But the ones who aren't take advantage of a system that lets them do so. They always go for the poor, the African American, the ones who can't really sue or do anything against these cops. The mayor doesn't say anything most of the time because a hefty part of his paycheck COMES from these cops taking advantage of these people. But if you constantly never do anything, NOTHING, against cops who blatantly abuse their power. (If you don't believe me about this case, watch the video of the guy being dragged, yes, dragged... To the car in this case. He was deadweight with his legs dragging behind him and his neck was angled in an unnatural position. They left him in the car for 45 minutes before even thinking about giving him medical attention. This wouldn't happen with a rich white kid.)

    They need to crack down, throw these people in jail, do something other than say. "Well... The guy was sitting in the van wrong, he didn't have his safety belt on." Which is hard with a severed spine. (They are using that as their defense.) Because this will continue until someone actually stands up for the people getting abused due to the corrupt cops.
     
  8. Amaury Legendary Hero

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  9. Patman Bof

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    The Gandhi way can work, but I don' t think it' s nearly as advertised that it can fail too. Big time. Our politicians usually mind our strikes and protests about as much as they fear couch potactivists. I' m not a riot enthusiast myself, but some people can' t think of subtler ways to show they' re ****ing pissed.
     
  10. Misty gimme kiss

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    I wouldn't really call supporting the police in reaction to protests over police brutality "peaceful." By supporting the aggressor, you yourself are made complicit in the violence -- even if the "aggressor" is a system rather than an individual -- because you are allowing it to continue.
     
  11. Amaury Legendary Hero

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    I guess what I meant to imply was that when people are protesting against the police, that's when the protests turn to rioting because people have decided that every single police officer is bad. However, when they're protesting against the people protesting against the police, it doesn't seem to, at least from what I've seen, turn as violent as the protests against police.
     
  12. Meilin Lee RPG (Red Panda Girl)

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    The article mentioned that it was planned months in advance, not in response to recent events. But yeah, talk about bad timing...
     
  13. libregkd -

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    Last edited: Apr 28, 2015
  14. Misty gimme kiss

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    That implication doesn't sit well with me, either. For starters, riots have regardless of the cause and whether they have a cause at all. College students in New Hampshire began rioting at a Pumpkin Festival last October and cost the event an estimated $90k. When the San Francisco Giants won the World Series last year, people destroyed & vandalized property, resulting in forty arrests and two shootings. When the Canucks lost to the Bruins in 2011, fans vandalized local businesses, set fire to and looted cars, creating an estimated of $1mil in damages. Protests turn to riots sometimes, but the fact remains that mainstream media coverage and public perception is remarkably different when the rioters are white versus black people taking a stand against systematic violence and racism.

    Recent police protests have operated under the banner of #BlackLivesMatter -- that's the heart of their message. That black people have been treated with violence by police officers, occasionally when they have not committed any crimes (not to say that committing a crime makes it okay for an officer to respond with excessive force, either), and hundreds of black lives have been lost to no consequence or punishment for the officers responsible. That a city's population should not be 67% black and 29% white yet "black residents accounted for 86% of the vehicle stops made by Ferguson police and nearly 93% of the arrests made from those stops, according to the state attorney general. FBI statistics show that 85% of the people arrested by Ferguson police are black, and that 92% of people arrested specifically for disorderly conduct are black (USA Today)." Protestors are responding to real, present, and country-wide issues here. They have not decided that "every single police officer is bad" -- protests have been within their rights -- but ask that all police officers assume responsibility for addressing these problems. Even if a police officer has exhibited no racist behavior, excessive force used, etc., even if their hands are completely clean, they are responsible for responding to these problems because they are part of the police force. There's a theory in philosophy that, at its heart, states that you are responsible for everything you do, everything that is done to you, and everything that is done to other people. While it's an extreme and heavy burden, it makes every person responsible for speaking out against injustice, even if it does not directly involve them.

    If these protestors believed that all police officers are evil, why waste their time with peaceful protests? Why meet with the DOJ? They're looking for justice to be served, not to perpetrate more violence. Unfortunately, as I've said, violence can happen. But broken windows and destroyed buildings are nothing compared to the loss of (black) lives.

    The pro-police rally hasn't resulted in any kind of violence because take a look at how it's met by the police force and treated by the media... whereas #BlackLivesMatter protestors have been routinely met with excessive response from police officers, fired upon with tear gas and rubber bullets, and treated as criminals by the white media.
    That is true, but wide-scale protests over police brutality have been going on since the murder of Mike Brown in August. I imagine they planned this rally in response to the media attention on Ferguson and the many, many areas who have either joined in solidarity or taken up the cause in response to deaths in their own areas. The article also mentions that the Baltimore protests galvanized this pro-police group.
     
  15. Sara Tea Drinker

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    I was watching a show tonight a few hours ago called: Alaska State Troopers.

    This is Alaska, no offense to anyone who lives there, but it can be a very cowboy state. Very much like up North in my state of Maine, you have a lot of people with guns with nothing to do except drink a lot of the time. My mom is sometimes afraid of going up there because of this very reason. The Fourth of July up there is horrendous, everyone, from 1 to 99 seem to have alcohol in their hands. Under age or not, doesn't matter... And the troopers have to deal with them because most of them camp out in the woods and drink excessively non-stop for days on end. And one clip showed a high powered military grade rifle with scope in one of the troopers hands he just confiscated from some campers, they have to deal with this every year for days on end, and the days last up to 20 hours a day.

    These guys are stressed, exhausted (I would say they're going around the clock trying to keep everything clean.), probably scared. (They're running after under age drinkers in a state that practically awards you for having guns.) And the only time I saw a guy get even close to violent was when a under age kid who kept on kicking and punching him every time the trooper tried to catch him. Every time he tackled the guy he just calmly kept him in a head lock and told him to stop fighting. He didn't punch him, he didn't shoot him, he didn't do anything except tell him to calm down, even when the guy broke free several times he never really did anything to him.

    That is how a cop is supposed to handle things. I remember recently a State Trooper in California yanked away a phone a woman was filming with, stomped on it until it broke and kicked it back at her.
     
  16. Anixe Hollow Bastion Committee

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    Peaceful protests and marches have been going on everyday for more than a week and driving near and the through the city recently, it's completely surreal and horrifying (yet also predictable) to see the entire world media focus on the riots from the last couple of days instead. It's hearbreaking seeing the city I grew up around being destroyed but more importantly, it has to be and is very eye-opening to many of us of the underlying reality that has been within the Baltimore Community.

    Maybe this has been said in one form or another but I just want to let people know that what the media is covering is not the true face of the majority of Baltimore and that there is an even stronger support system of volunteers and members of the community helping out in the city (clean ups, offering places to stay, giving out food, etc.). Although I empathize with those who decided to express their anger through violence, there just should be more effort in focusing on the protests that have happened and will happen and truly listening to the voices of the oppressed.
     
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  18. Amaury Legendary Hero

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  19. Sara Tea Drinker

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    It is also the first time this has happened in a very long time, if at all.

    I am glad this finally happened, it has frankly been pissing me off seeing cops breaking the laws and getting away with it. I am for cops, like I said before: I have experienced good cops and bad cops. Two cops when a guy who was following girls home from work took interest in me and tried to drag me over the counter where I was working and alone at the time. (He waited for customers to leave before coming in and doing this. I called my mom and asked her to come after work, but he hung around and someone called the police after I started freaking out.) The two cops said it was a "cultural misunderstanding" and he "didn't understand how to get women because he's from China." They were two young male cops, and there were six people in the store who testified that the guy was going to do something to me if he had the chance. They put it down that it was my fault and I just misread the situation, that I was leading him on.

    The other time I encountered a cop was during a bullying moment aftermath when I was walking home. I was in a severe state and some people called the cops. They were nice, helpful, and one even encouraged me to press charges. She was also the only person I spoke to that wasn't friends and/or family that told me I had a chance to sue the guy for his actions. She was also the first person, after years of begging organizations, contacting lawyers with no replies, begging my boss and getting nothing, who gave me results. Who gave me hope.

    There are all types of cops in the world, hopefully this will teach the bad ones to stop being so liberal with their decisions.
     
  20. Misty gimme kiss

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