One of the things that really rankles with me is the complicit, passive and dehumanising language used by a lot of the media covering this. The phrase "black man dies in police custody" is utterly bereft of detail, context or humanity. It needs to read "George Floyd murdered by police".
Watching the US eat itself from the outside is utterly heartbreaking, especially as my own misguided nation takes so many cues from you in hamfisted emulation. Stay safe but stay angry you guys.
And now the president of the United States is threatening to kill American civilians on Twitter. While white people are crying “these thugs are damaging property and trespassing!”
After a white racist cop murdered a man on fucking camera.
This country is so fucked. Can’t wait to leave it.
This is some crazy shit. They arrested a CNN camera crew and the whole thing was filmed. The crew has since been released, but the whole thing is ridiculous.
blatz wrote: Haven’t watched it yet but it sounds like Freeman and the FBI just announced they may not be able to prosecute due to undisclosed evidence.
Freeman's completely bizarre comment during the press conference was walked back about 2 hours later by his office:
blatz wrote: Unicorn Riot is great. But, you know. They’re on Twitter so it can’t be real.
The 3rd precinct is on fire. The police have completely lost control of the situation. Gonna be another long, tense night.
Gonna be a long, hot summer in America if they don't arrest those four cops and try at least one of them for murder. Freeman better pick up the pace, because we now have seen that it just took them mere minutes to arrest a reporter just for covering the story.
The police need to understand that almost everybody now has a cellphone that can take pictures and video, so they are going to be under intense scrutiny from here on out. Every major city in the U.S. has had a comparable murder by the police, so the protests may spread. The cops can hide behind their badges and their unions, but good luck hiding from an angry mob. The police couldn't stop the Third Precinct from burning down, and their homes could be next. Who watches the watchmen? Today, the whole world is watching.
The icing on the arrested reporter's story was that he was a POC and his white reporter buddy was just down the block in the same area and was not arrested.
There's an Agent Provocateur story floating around as well. Yeah, it's Twitter, but Agent Provocateur is definitely in the cop playbook.
And to make it even more interesting, there's the Washington Post story, that the victim and the had worked security together at a club.
While there have been a lot of urban riots over the years, how many have resulted in the sacking of a police station ? That's an indicator of how bad this has become.
In 2017, there was a protest that lasted weeks at the Minneapolis 4th Precinct station, after the shooting of Jamar Clark. The police claim that Clark took a gun away from an officer, and that's when they shot him, but multiple eyewitnesses say that Clark was lying on the ground in cuffs when he was shot. He died the next day. Although the protesters did not burn down the 4th Precinct station, the police felt sufficiently threatened that they shot five protesters. That incident probably paved the way for burning down the 3rd Precinct station.
In America, we supposedly have a government for the people, by the people, and of the people. but the fascist MPD doesn't represent the progressive citizens of Minneapolis. They have trampled the laws that they are supposed to enforce, and now they have lost the authority to enforce those laws. And now they have learned that they can't defend their own station from an angry mob. We're going to need a new police department, because this one has gone rotten.
Last edit: 29 May 2020 13:26 by Shellhead. Reason: link added
More rioting last night. There was some looting in my area yesterday, so the city enacted a curfew. I didn't even know about the curfew yesterday, and violated it by going jogging at 8:15 PM. There are reports that as many as 80% of the people getting arrested at the riots are from out of state, and that right-wing organizations are doing at least some of the burning and looting.
While they finally arrested Chauvin (aka Knee Cop) yesterday, it looks like the fix is in. The official coroner's report claims that Floyd didn't die of asphyxiation, but of complications due to his underlying health conditions and "potential intoxicants" in his system. In other words, they think they can bullshit everybody and sweep this under the carpet. If Chauvin doesn't get some jail time, America will be burning this summer.
ubarose wrote: All indications point to last night not being about Floyd, but rather being alt-right agitators and Boogalooers fanning the flames of chaos.
There are indications of the fires being set with some level of expertise and pre-planning which strongly points to the Boogalooers.
This is exactly what happened here in STL when people rioted after Michael Brown was killed. The ones doing the burning were all rumored to be people from out of state who were taking advantage of the situation.