So far, everyone who has said that cops reacted this way for absolutely no reason has been misinformed or lying when I go investigate. It’s actually quite surprising how frequently these blatantly wrong claims keep coming up.
Often there is an assumption that because they didn’t see what started it, it must have been nothing. You might think they didn’t have a good enough reason, but I have yet to see police in any city deploy OC for no reason at all.
I'm sorry, this is like pulling a single line out of a book and using it to bolster a specific argument. In other words, there's loads of context that's missing. Your video has less than 10 seconds of context. What happened just before the video starts? What happened 15 minutes before?
It's just a boring sit-in for hours before the clip starts. There is literally no context. The next night there isn't even an umbrella pretext, they just start spraying around 11:40pm after peaceful sit-in from 5pm.
This is a great example of what I said. I’ve seen this video from multiple perspectives. It is absolutely not the case that it started for no reason at all. That’s a total lie.
There are no “pretexts” happening. These conspiracy theories are absurd.
From the ground video of this same incident, it was seen that protestors were pushing on the fence. They then deployed umbrellas, some of which were deployed over the barrier. An officer swats a pink umbrella out of his face and grabs it. The protestor tries to pull it away. A tug-of-war struggle ensues. Another officer notices there is a struggle and rushes in with his pepper spray to get the girl off.
The whole time, the crowd was told they are NOT allowed to cross this street. They can cross any other street. The precinct is this way. They form a plan to “push through” earlier, and they chant to let them through.
on the other side, there are clearly projectiles being thrown, and before the cops deploy flashbangs, you can see some flashing from the crowd side - not sure what that is.
You might think they overreacted. You might think he shouldn’t have started the scuffle with the umbrella. You might think they shouldn’t have raised their spray over a combative protestor pushing the barricade and mouthing off from 12 inches away from a cop’s face. That’s all fine to debate. But there is a clear pattern of escalation, tension, and confusion. The cops did not just say “let’s fuck up some protestors!” out of nowhere and then fire. And they definitely didn’t set up a pretext. You guys sound like Alex Jones with that shit.
You are correct, in that "something" also starts it. It isn't that a cop just decide to start violence. But that "something" usually doesn't warrant the amount of violence. ESPECIALLY given that the protest is about police brutality.
In the incident we were both referring to, you claimed "the protestors were pushing the fence" So what? That doesn't necessitate macing the entire crowd.
"They deployed umbrellas" (In Seattle!) Again, no response warranted.
"They deployed over the barrier" Wow, such violence from the crowd! No, that doesn't warrant a response either.
"An officer swats a pink umbrella" And DESTROYS it. This is the incident that sparks a ton of mace and flash grenades... And yet you claim the cops didn't react for no reason? Yes they did. If the cop didn't grab the umbrella, and start whacking it with a weapon, then the violence wouldn't have occured.
The girl, on one side of the fence has her umbrella destroyed by the cops, and is started to be beat at with a stick... And a fellow cop sprays her with mace to "get the girl off"? Why not just NOT rip the umbrella from her in the first place?
We’re saying a lot of the same things. I feel like you didn’t read my post carefully, and you’re making some wrong assumptions about my post.
Why do you equate my post with something that resembles saying that anything the police did was justified?
Unlike the parent, everything you said about the incident is accurate. You’ve interjected your opinion on each event of the incident, which is fine. You’re having an honest conversation. We can’t have those when we start out with hyperbole, omissions, and fabrications. Case in point, you’ve suggested alternative actions that could have been taken, which would not have been possible if we went with the original narrative. After all, if they do this for “literally no reason”, there’s no possible fix for that.
Emphasizing de-escalation sounds like a great idea. On a subsequent night, they changed their procedures to put the fence about 100 ft in front of them. That would ensure that they could not feel “threatened” or agitated by protestors partially encroaching the barrier. It also solves the problem of a mouthy kid getting right in your face and cussing you out, which might trigger a negative reaction. It looked like it went a lot better that time.
You're just spouting falsehoods that are not shown in the video.
The protestors had umbrellas for hours; they were not "deployed" shortly before officers initiated violence. Protesters were up against the fence for hours and did not push it forward substantially. The umbrella the officer grabbed wasn't in anyone's face.
Note that 12,000 complaints were filed about SPD's overuse of force after that night.
> you can see some flashing from the crowd side - not sure what that is
Bud, that's a camera.
> But there is a clear pattern of escalation, tension, and confusion.
I totally agree with that statement. SPD repeatedly escalates peaceful situations into violent ones.
> The cops did not just say “let’s fuck up some protestors!” out of nowhere
At 7:00 in the video the protesters pushed the fence a couple of meters forward and almost broke the police line, that is not peaceful protesting. Pushing up a blockade against police is very aggressive, and can't be done by a single bad apple either. If protesters had been acting like this for hours then it makes sense that the police sprays them.
You’re still doing it man. Come on. Be objective. You can still be accurate and think they were in the wrong. But you’re drawing lines that were not there, mixing up unrelated events, and failing to acknowledge the contributions to the escalation on the protestor side.
Often there is an assumption that because they didn’t see what started it, it must have been nothing. You might think they didn’t have a good enough reason, but I have yet to see police in any city deploy OC for no reason at all.