By David Futrelle
I‘ve run across so many videos of police misconduct and brutality aimed at George Floyd protesters, media, and even onlookers that I thought it might be helpful to gather them all in once place. Feel free to add more in the comments below and I can add them to the post.
Warning: Some of these videos are quite disturbing.
The casualness of the brutality in this first clip is striking. This is someone who has zero fear of ever being held accountable for his abuse.
Police initially said this man “tripped” and fell. Thankfully, he did not die from his head injuries but remains in the hospital in serious condition.
Protesters aren’t the only ones being assaulted by cops:
Here’s what that looked like from the point of view of the cameraman who got punched.
This is just a full-on police riot:
Make sure to watch this one until the end:
This tweet sums it all up:
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To add insult to, literal, injury.
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/06/57-buffalo-cops-resign-to-support-suspended-officers-who-pushed-down-elderly-man/
Alan Robertshaw – that’s an impressive display of solidarity.
Also quite* disturbing.
*American ‘quite’, not English ‘quite’.
So, time for radical measures about police ?
At that level, every cop need to be replaced. And the structures themselves might need to be replaced wholesale.
I tried to watch a few of these and just don’t have the spoons right now. Horrifying.
@Ohlmann
I feel like the best thing to do at this point might be get rid of police as an institution. There has to be a better system that doesn’t brutalize people this way.
@ Robert
Well, quite.
I note they’ve just refused to do that particular role. They haven’t actually resigned from the job as a whole or anything where they would no longer be paid. I’m not sure of the implications of that. If it’s a role you have to volunteered for, then presumably no consequences; but if it’s a potential part of their job description then arguably it’s something they could be sacked for under normal employment law. And if it amounts to industrial action then that might be a breach too.
There’s no “might” about it. The entire system of the police is a brutal, racist pile of shit and needs to be abolished.
@Nagfljar : depend of where the cutoff for “police” is. We probably still need the concept of enforcing laws and the concept of protecting people that need protecting (note that it’s something the current police do mostly for privilegied people). We probably don’t need armed cops in any capacity however, and arguably the law enforcement may only do investigations launched by the initiation of a lawsuit, instead of actively trying to catch law breakers via patrols and random controls. (which is used currently basically to oppress minority)
In countries who aren’t the USA, I think the police should be much more under the control and scrutiny of the judges, for which they act as the arm. In the USA, let’s say the colorful stories I have heard about the judges don’t inspire much confidence to me.
https://mobile.twitter.com/NotonW/status/1268679468308025345
Dunno how trustable this guy is. It seem possible to me, but not particulary likely to be true.
If it is true, then I feel really bad for the USA 🙁
Reading some of the commentary over what needs to change to make the police ‘better’ for their communities, would something like this work to make things safer for everyone?
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2020/06/01/sir-robert-peel-never-came-to-america/
Like, if all police departments all over the planet were rebuilt with those ideals as their foundation, would it work to keep everyone safe from the armed bullies around them?
This twitter thread is up to 311 videos of police brutality: https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1269017349727928320
@ redsilkphoenix
One thing not mentioned in that article, maybe because it relates very much to British society and class, is the original police uniform.
Police wore the standard uniform of a footman (a type of servant).
This would have been very recognisable at the time. I’m not sure what the modern equivalent would be. But the uniform very much emphasised that police were public servants; quite literally.
Also, at a time when firearms were completely legal, police were the only class of people prohibited from carrying guns.
Maybe sort of related; but it’s the 48th anniversary* of Angela Davis’ acquittal. Story here with some commentary on current events.
https://meaww.com/this-day-in-history-june-4-1972-african-american-activist-angela-davis-acquitted-killing-white-judge
(*depending on what time zone you’re in)
Minneapolis City Council is now at least broaching the subject of abolishing the police. So that’s good.
In other news, it appears that Lindsay Graham is about to be outed by a bunch of sex workers he frequents.
A few of the things that I think are essential:
Prosecute the lawbreaking cops. Dismantle and replace entire departments with something new.
Demilitarize the police. Take away all those toys that they’ve been showered with since 9/11. If there actually IS a situation that genuinely calls for a tank, that’s something that should be at the state or federal level.
Police are called on to handle a LOT of things that their should be other, dedicated public servants for. How many welfare checks have resulted in the subject bring hurt or killed by police that were sent to help them?
Police performance being measured by metrics like arrests need to go. All those do is incentivize police to arrest people without cause.
End civil asset forfeiture. It literally turns police into highway robbers.
End the War On (Some) Drugs. It exists to feed the prison-industrial complex with slave labor.
Speaking of the prison-industrial complex, ending that will be a necessary part of reforming police. Especially for-profit prisons, which create a demand for convicts.
@WWTH:
Where’s that coming from (re: Graham)? I haven’t seen it in any of my usual sources…
I’m always a bit uncomfortable at that sort of outing, as with outings of all sorts, but what the hell, it’s Lindsay Graham, bring it on. (Just without too many details, please, I don’t need to know whether his nethers resemble any sort of mushroom.)
@WWTH
Do you have a link? Are the sex workers male or female? Somehow I’m not surprised by this development.
In general, I have no problem with people hiring sex workers so long as they do not harm the workers, but when someone is as hypocritical and bigoted as Lindsay Graham, I feel like that needs to be exposed.
@Catalpa:
Also ableist. Many people with disabilities and mental illness (some POC, some not) have died or been seriously injured at the hands of these thugs. And that is what they are, thugs.
@Ohlmann
I’m glad they’re considering that possibility (supposedly). I hope they have been doing so since before Trump got elected.
There’s a lot of discussion in that Twitter thread about how the mechanisms of power transfer in the US are “automatic”, but at the end of the day that doesn’t matter, and people looking at the US need to understand that. Everything in this country falls back on violence. Cops are unaccountable because cops enforce the law, and therefore have the power to do so arbitrarily or not at all. The Secret Service is supposed to remove Trump if it comes to that… but what matters isn’t what they’re supposed to do, it’s how much they like him and are willing to wield their guns on his behalf. Etc. The facade of a social contract has been demolished. The only thing preventing a civil war right now is that Trump hasn’t given the word go. The minute he comes out and says it, the cops (and many in the military and Secret Service) will be ready to start massacres.
People outside the US need to understand this. Our country was built on slavery, genocide, and sadism. Those things are the reason we became a superpower, and now that the mask of sanity is being cast aside, y’all other countries need to be ready for literally anything from our leadership. You are not dealing with people who can be reasoned with – they will only respond to overwhelming displays of force, because that is unfortunately how everything works in this fucking disgusting broken country.
Here’s a better link for that twitter thread:
https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1266751520055459847
@Cyborgette:
Exactly.
@Ohlmann:
Why is it hard to believe? It’s the job of governments to plan for dangerous scenarios: war, pandemic, civil unrest, economic collapse etc. They’re frequently not good at it, particularly the British government nowadays, but it won’t have escaped their notice that Trump has made it clear he’ll cry foul if he loses. So the EU will need to figure out what to do if the US descends into fighting and economic free-fall, and it’d be better for them to plan now rather than in a panic five months from now.
Thread on Lindsay Graham.
https://twitter.com/SeanHardingXXX/status/1268672970265964547?s=20
Doesn’t specifically name him, but who else would a homophobic Republican senator with the initials LG be?
@WWTH:
Man, the 2020 writers are really throwing everything at the page. At this rate, I’m expecting alien contact by August.
If this is true, I hope it’s just the first instalment in a wave of kompromat against various figures.
Looking at the Twitter thread and the comment about how gay escorts make bank whenever Republicans get together, I’d love to see a major news outlet present a report on how the sex worker community is looking forward to the Republican convention whenever its location is determined. Or maybe one about the sudden panic among sex workers in North Carolina who were counting on it to get them through the summer. The problem is that most people would assume it was from The Onion.
@Moggie
Or that it will be revealed that Trump was an alien the whole time. And also was Tyler Durden.
The real issue with kompromat like this is that no voters will care. The Republicans can handwave it away as “fake news” and not a single voter will be swayed. We are past the time where truth or any specific value mattered to them. It’s fun to gossip and speculate about, but Lindsay’s career is unlikely to be affected.
This is in some way reminding me of Jacob Wohl’s laughably bad attempt to frame Warren as having hired an escort, the difference being that this seems far more likely to be real.