The county’s was to raise dat sweet sweet reasonable doubt
Earlier this afternoon, I went down to a protest near me. Local news covered it here:
https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=3644164655610710&ref=watch_permalink
Overall, I had pretty mixed feelings about it.
I live in an affluent suburb of Columbus, OH that is almost entirely white. It’s a complete bubble. I was stunned to see so many people here - I would guess there were several hundred. I don’t remember any other protest like this in my immediate area before. So that was good.
Most were high school/college-aged kids. Some of the signs were good - I especially liked this one:
As we were walking around, drivers seemed to be mostly supportive. There were a couple that yelled out “Hypocrites - all lives matter” and “Go the fuck home”, but people mostly honked and gave thumbs up.
There were a few police watching from a distance, but there was approximately 0% chance this was ever going to get violent. The closest I saw to any real animosity was this numbnuts who chose to walk up to the crowd and just chant “Hypocrites - all lives matter” in our faces. (I’m pretty sure this guy was driving by, saw the crowd and chose to stop solely to do this.)
I would guess that my immediate neighborhood would be at least 50% in favor of this guy vs. the protestors, to give you an idea of this area.
The crowd was mostly white - I probably saw fewer than 20 black people altogether. That isn’t super surprising given the demographics of the area, but it did seem a little strange, and it made me wonder whether we were just cosplaying protestors without doing any good at all.
Probably the biggest downside was a lack of organization. I think the biggest consequence of that was that when people were standing around, looking for someone to speak, it wasn’t clear who should play that role. So there were a few people that spoke eloquently, but there were a few people who stepped up like it was open mic night who just kind of spewed nonsense. Probably the worst was the one who started with “I’m from Sacramento. And in Sacramento, we don’t see color.”
Anyway, I left feeling like this served very little real purpose.
Edit: That’s probably too pessimistic. It was good to see a fairly large crowd protesting, and to know that at least some of this is creeping into the bubble I live in.
Very important for the ME who signed off on the county’s to face very real personal consequences. Lawsuits, loss of job, etc. Full internet nightmare treatment. Not because it’ll change what’s already happened, but because an example needs to be made so that the next government official in position to do a cover up on one of these does the right thing.
I’m legitimately stunned at a protest in Dublin, OH. That’s probably among the whitest, most Republican communities in the entire freaking U.S.
training a population with identical personality traits as those mere-moments-ago-abolished to act in an inverse manner.
God bless the optimists of the world
yes… the 1st itemized thing
I’m trying to figure out what difference if any, these autopsy results will make in the criminal case. Anyone know if they’re driving at something that would result in stronger criminal charges?
Maybe you’re correct. There’s a population of people ready to demonstrate to the world just exactly how it’s done, and what’s for so long eluded the species.
If only they were left to the experiment.
Yeah, I think it would be reasonable to think of this as a semi-pro version of The Villages.
(Which again reminds me that election results in certain voting districts in Florida are super predictive of how midwest battleground states are going to go. This was how Bannon knew that things were going substantially better for Trump on Election Night 2016 than the stupid-ass NYT Needle thought they were.)
The article is about “making incremental steps towards a system with an eye toward making the cops obsolete, even if not in our own lifetimes… Taking incremental steps toward the abolition of policing is even more about what must be built than what must be eliminated.”
These are the things they propose as starting points. You think these are roses and sunshine proposals that will give rise to the mafia?
- Training residents to intervene in disputes before calling police instead of calling on police as the first response
- Training campaign partners on combating homophobia and transphobia and developing strategies for addressing violence without calling the police.
- Diverting 1 percent (roughly $100 million) from the Los Angeles Police Department budget and directing it toward programs and services for young people that are alternatives to youth suppression?
- Advocating for more equitable distribution of investments in Los Angeles’ Downtown neighborhood such that they benefit all residents without displacement or fear from police violence?
- Eliminating the use of police forces in addressing mental health crises
- Ending the use of broken windows policing
- Banning cops that use excessive force from any employment in any type of law enforcement
I am not even for all of that, particularly the mental health one - but agree some incremental steps need to be taken - it’s just not clear to me what the eventual path is, even from those bullet points, for “abolishing policing.”
In my mind it just results in something that’s basically the police, but called the “not-police” or whatever. Or the society devolves into mob/mafia rule, as we’ve seen from multiple real world examples where a community polices itself.
I think any large society needs an organization to enforce law on behalf of the government. I call it the police, you can call it something else if you like, but this is a bare minimum to me. If we can’t agree on this basic point, there’s not much fruitful discussion to be had.
Meh… they removed a damaged windshield.
You can’t drive with a broken windshield I guess.
Some of you with deplorable bosses have it easy imo. My boss keeps constantly checking in with us about our feelings, and if we’re ok.
Whatever you are doing or feeling today, please jump on the team meeting call this afternoon. After all that happened this weekend I need to know if you are all ok physically and emotionally, and whatever support you need to process the feelings you and your family might be having right now. Work is still important to all of us, but work items you think need to get done today, you can take a break and think about it tomorrow, unless focusing on work is part of your coping strategy. I myself can hardly focus on work started yesterday. Let’s chat more when we meet at 1.
11PM curfew in NYC today
BUT WHOS GONNA PAY FOR IT BERNIE?!?!?! C’MON MAN, NO MALARKEY! SHOOTEM IN THE LEGS!
In the interest of doing something productive, is there an obvious best place to donate? In the absence of better info, I’m inclined to just donate here: