To me, it was pretty clear that the police in Santa Monica and Long Beach allowed the looting to occur while treating the protesters like criminals from the outset. This isn't to say that other local precincts weren't significantly better in their treatment of protesters, but there's clear evidence that many police departments are either corrupt or completely inept in addressing violent crime.
This has been a long time coming, too. In the last few years, many police departments around the country have thrown their hands up and publicly stated they won't be bothering with most property crimes. The way they see it, the only crimes worth their time involve people not committing real crimes at all or crimes involving guns or knives. Anyone who doesn't get why people don't trust the police has been living under a rock. This goes beyond just racism.
The police seem to clearly be allowing looting on purpose. SoHo was looted two days in a row. Where were the NYPD? There are 10's of thousands of uniformed officers Maybe you can say the first day they somehow missed it, but two days in a row? Come on. I refuse to believe that they didn't see this coming - they brag about how they're "gathering intel" on terrorist groups, but they couldn't check twitter to see #soho trending?
They want the story to be about rioters so they're letting them riot. It's a way to shift the public opinion (same way some cops have been seen breaking car and store windows).
> Politicians who cross the MPD find slowdowns in their wards. After the first time I cut money from the proposed police budget, I had an uptick in calls taking forever to get a response, and MPD officers telling business owners to call their councilman about why it took so long.
I have no context on this, but just reading that sentence, why wouldn't a budget cut raise response times? Is there context that suggests they're lying?
Huh, interesting. I was presuming the police department propose their budget and then the city alters/approves it as they see fit. If they lower it then that would be fairly accurately described as "cutting money from their proposed budget". Is that different from how it works here?
"What you've been seeing is basically a cat and mouse game all night. The police have been here with a huge show of force, but they can't stop people, because they don't know that they've necessarily been looting. And so they're waiting for somebody to do something, police move onto the next block, and then someone does something."
I don't know one way or another whether this is the whole truth, but it appears to play a significant role according to the reporter.
What would you have preferred? If the police shows up and the looting does not stop, they can either use force (aka violence) to make it stop, or they can go home, essentially giving up the rule of law in the area.
Not showing up can be a tactical decision: you don't have to generate more bad press and more cries about police brutality and you also don't need to quasi-officially hand over the area to the looters.
The state's power isn't real as in "we can crush you", it rests only in everybody's fear of the state being able to crush them. If there's a chance that the state has to back down, not seeking the confrontation sounds like a smart choice to me, even if it comes at the price of a day or two of looting.
But they were already violent, just to the peaceful protesters. So why was there a massive police force at a peaceful protest, where they were already willing to brutally engage with the protesters, but not in soho where there were looters two days in a row?
Your argument can't possibly be "Because they didn't want to escalate" or "They didn't want people to think they're violent" when they did escalate and were violent elsewhere.
I am in full agreement that it was tactical - it allows them to punish a neighborhood and to shift the story.
The state's power is not just fear alone, it's legitimacy. What stops people from looting under normal circumstances is the belief that looting is wrong and will be punished, and people will agree punishment was justified.
Failing to respond to looting damages the state's legitimacy. Responding to looting and failing to stop it damages the state's legitimacy. Even responding to looting and successfully stopping it damages the state's legitimacy, because mass looting signals that looting has become more acceptable.
Oh, absolutely, but there are different levels of damage.
Germany has an issue with criminal clans from the Middle East, our law enforcement system isn't equipped to deal with them and our laws in general aren't either. The approach is pretty much "try not to engage", because while it's damaging to have "extended families" with hundreds of members where basically everyone of them has a criminal record, the other option is either locking up everybody (terrible idea in Germany) or trying to reason with them and failing (showing the state tried to handle it but failed). Not engaging is just the cheapest option and does the least amount of damage (I'm not suggesting that's necessarily true for the situation in the US, I don't know it well enough).
If the Leviathan shows its teeth and the problem doesn't go away, it has to bite. If it doesn't, everybody will see that the teeth aren't that sharp any more, and that will encourage more challengers.
> The state's power is not just fear alone, it's legitimacy.
For the people that don't require laws and punishment to behave morally, yes. For those that do, they obviously don't care about legitimacy or that looting (or any crime) is wrong, otherwise they wouldn't commit it. It's only those people that any society needs to worry about, and it's only those people that the state needs to convince that it is stronger than them.
> Germany has an issue with criminal clans from the Middle East, our law enforcement system isn't equipped to deal with them and our laws in general aren't either.
There is a big disconnect between the crime statistics in Germany, that show low crime levels by international standards and recent reductions in crime levels, and what the German public believe about the prevalence of crime in Germany due to alarmist tabloid reporting.
Sure, but that doesn't change the fact that the (real and perceived) level of some clans are terribly high. And I still believe that "don't touch it" is the right call to make, the cost of trying and failing is too high, and the probability of succeeding is small.
> If the Leviathan shows its teeth and the problem doesn't go away, it has to bite. If it doesn't, everybody will see that the teeth aren't that sharp any more, and that will encourage more challengers.
But that's effectively what doing nothing does. The state has teeth (the police) and it doesn't bite.
That's a completely unambiguous signal to both criminals and law-abiding citizens. And the results of this policy anywhere in the world is the problems have just grown in size and gotten worse.
> because while it's damaging to have "extended families" with hundreds of members where basically everyone of them has a criminal record
Remember when these "extended families" were an order of magnitude smaller and we applied the same policy of non-intervention? And look what that got us!
When are we finally going to apply the only acceptable course of action?
> But that's effectively what doing nothing does. The state has teeth (the police) and it doesn't bite.
Kind of, but not really. If you send the police to confront the looters, you are showing your teeth, you're saying "this will stop right here and right now, or else". You have to have a plan for the "or else" part.
If you don't send the police, you're not saying anything. Everybody is aware that the police exists, but unless you assert your power, there is no challenge.
This is obviously not a possible long-term strategy, because not having any power and never asserting the power you have are functionally the same. I don't think that anybody assumes the rioting will be a long-term problem though, so that may not be an issue.
> When are we finally going to apply the only acceptable course of action?
We won't. We're doing harm-reduction, both on a society level and, for politicians, on an individual level (and for management in large companies). Kick the can down the road. Attacking the big problems before they become unavoidable isn't something our systems are set up to do, not causing disturbances is incentivized, be that in law enforcement, dealing with dead industries surviving only on subsidies, education, pollution and emissions, health care, public infrastructure etc pp. "Spending $5m on that bridge now will save us lots of money in the future" isn't what the public sees - it's "they want to waste $5m on a perfectly fine bridge".
The looting is giving them political cover to attack those who directly threaten their identity. It's quite clear from their other actions where their priorities lie.
They have no (personal) reason to stop the looting, and at the same time, occupying their attention, the opportunity to strike out at that (very personal) threat.
> You decided you were better off without me, fine, save your own store.
For what it's worth, this is why people hate cops! No one said anything about all cops being worthless, and you're saying that victims of crimes deserve it for not praising police brutality.
The expectation of the public is that police should prioritize deterrence and investigation of property crimes above assembling a massive show of force to deprive peaceful protesters of their 1st amendment rights to free speech, to peaceably assemble, and to petition government for redress of their grievances.
Cops that are busy kettling up protesters for later official intimidation and violence are not available to respond to crimes happening elsewhere.
Business owners are better off with insurance, alarms, and dedicated private security that won't abandon their protective duties every time they feel like pepper-spraying a liberal in the face for no apparent reason.
Please don't descend into strawman arguments and false dilemmas.
It is not a binary choice between the militaristic, public-hostile police we have now, and no police at all.
As it is, the police in schools frequently do inappropriate things, such as bodyslamming 40kg girls or putting children in handcuffs for acting up in class. A school security guard, charged with protecting the students and staff, with no authority to arrest or punish anyone, would do fine.
You literally said “this is why people hate cops” right before saying that nobody said that about “all cops”.
There are other examples all over this thread. Nobody is complaining about a specific cop, they’re generalizing everything to “cops”. That’s what that is.
you're saying that victims of crimes deserve it for not praising police brutality
How do you expect anyone to take you seriously with such absurd fabrications? Anyone can scroll up and easily see that I did not say any such thing.
> I guess it's too much to ask that police obey the law they are supposed to be enforcing.
Historically, we see that any group given power eventually starts abusing it. For modern definitions of abusing power, anyways. Past societies would have seen it differently, perhaps the divine right of kings or some such nonsense.
A fascinating example would be the wealthy nobles of the late (western) Roman empire. They shielded citizens from military service, and in exchange expected work from them, generally on their vast estates. After the collapse of the empire, this relationship eventually evolved into the feudal lord/serf relationship. Also, Diocletian's reforms didn't help, but that's a topic I'll leave for another post.
I guess this is kind of a long-winded way of saying this, but what you're asking for does seem unreasonable in the long term. Human beings don't seem to work that way.
That all being said, the long term I'm referring to is the 250+ year timeline. We might be able to goose the current system along for another few generations if we do it right. If it's worth it or not depends a bit on your perspective.
I’m not sure why you made this comment. As far as I can see, nobody is doing your first sentence, and we all agree on the second. Police should definitely obey the law!
> You decided you were better off without me, fine, save your own store.
How should we have read this sentence?
Why couldn't you have instead said, "You decided you were better off without a shitty abusive police officer, fine, call me or other police instead." ?
I'm not sure what it is you're suggesting they do. If they arrest the looters, you will complain of "police brutality", since as a rule, criminals do not go into custody willingly. If they do not, you will complain of "looting". They also can't individually go after looters in this situation - too dangerous. Whatever they do they have to do as a group, without dispersing.
The looters take advantage of the chaos. The chaos seems willingly and knowingly caused by the police. I would at this point consider the police atleast somewhat responsible for the conditions that lead to the looting.
Are you living under a rock? Reddit has a compilation thread of dozens of examples of police escalating situations, attacking press, pushing old men with canes to the ground, shooting residents ON THEIR doorstep, randomly grabbing civilians and assaulting them. The list doesn't seem to stop.
Since 2001, police have taken more American lives than all other terrorist activities combined.
Oh please, nice try. You'd have to be desperate to make that assumption, just like the previous person that tried to pull that.
Supporting protestors and civil unrest doesn't mean you support violence, but I'm not a naive child that thinks great change happens without bad things accompanying it.
Extraordinary enough? A birds eye view, of a protest that was peaceful for hours, until police grab for an umbrella, and start attacking the crowd.
Here's an ant's eye view of the same event, by the way. @26:30 - the gas masks arrive, @28:20 - the gas masks take their place in the line, @30:00 - the umbrella gets grabbed, and the crowd gets attacked.
This was also the case at Fairfax and 3rd in Los Angeles. Violence erupted only when the police arrived, not before. They escalated the moment they arrived.
This does not align with my experience. I off 3rd street, right by the La Cienega where significant looting occured. I intentionally walked outside while looting/vandalism was occurring and there was absolutely no police presence whatsoever except for police helicopters.
I walked down third street until I reached the point where the riot police set up a barricade and didn't allow the protesters further. It was really a peaceful scene where the police were setup, and I thought it was being handled very professionally with the goal to not incite violence (There were also 6 police helicopters circling the area) Everywhere the police were not there was looting.
The amount of misinformation being circulated is staggering.
This has been a long time coming, too. In the last few years, many police departments around the country have thrown their hands up and publicly stated they won't be bothering with most property crimes. The way they see it, the only crimes worth their time involve people not committing real crimes at all or crimes involving guns or knives. Anyone who doesn't get why people don't trust the police has been living under a rock. This goes beyond just racism.