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tenderfoot

(8,424 posts)
Wed Aug 26, 2020, 11:07 AM Aug 2020

The Police Take the Side of White Vigilantes

Who are the cops for? Over the last week, all across the country, in ways large and small, they’ve shown us.



In Philadelphia on Monday night, the cops made it fairly explicit on whose behalf they police the streets. As they unleashed tear gas on unarmed protesters marching on Interstate 676, getting caught on camera spraying gas directly into the faces of harmless, seated demonstrators, across town they Link to tweet
" target="_blank">allowed an actual roving mob of men armed with baseball bats and other improvised weapons to violate curfew and move about with impunity. Or something more than impunity: an endorsement. Residents reported attempting to get the police to arrest or disperse the would-be vigilantes and being mocked and dismissed.

“We don’t take sides,” Philadelphia’s police commissioner said the next day. “Our mission is to always protect all persons.” That is what she is supposed to say. But the untruth of that claim is well documented. Over and over again, cops take sides. They do so in broad daylight and at night, on cell phone–captured video and behind mysteriously nonfunctioning body cameras.

In Chicago last weekend, a man in tactical gear with a long gun Link to tweet
" target="_blank">brandished it menacingly at protesters. “Open carry” of firearms is illegal in Illinois. The police had a quick chat with him and sent him on his way unmolested. As police departments have everywhere else, this one gassed and beat unarmed demonstrators who were protesting police violence. “We don’t tolerate police misconduct—ever,” the mayor said. But they do. They have tolerated it among Chicago police officers for 100 years.

What would lead a police department—not a few misbehaving officers but every officer on the street, in this instance—to dismiss a heavily armed man as no threat (to either their own safety or the safety of the community) in one case, while, in another, viewing an unarmed local activist as so much of a threat that multiple cops decided to surround and Link to tweet
" target="_blank">brutally beat him with batons?

The incidents in Chicago and Philadelphia are evidence that American police across the country share a coherent ideology. Armed white boys don’t code as a threat to them; “anarchists” and angry black people do (even if the protesters are the ones at least attempting to engage in constitutionally protected behavior, while the roving white gangs are flagrantly violating the law). That disconnect, the galling image of watching the law so obviously tossed aside under certain circumstances, highlights a fundamental truth about what’s happening across the United States. The police are not using brutality to enforce “the law.” They’re using the law to enforce something else: a particular social order that is, to them, worth fighting for.

more: https://newrepublic.com/article/157981/police-take-side-white-vigilantes

13 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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still_one

(91,965 posts)
1. Witnesses in Kenosha say that the shooter walked right by police officers who did NOTHING to
Wed Aug 26, 2020, 11:13 AM
Aug 2020

apprehend him

Yes, there is something rotten in the police force in Kenosha

Anyone who doesn't think that if trump wins a second term we will not become a police state, isn't paying attention


chowder66

(9,011 posts)
8. Video shows him walking up to the police trucks and cruisers, hands up, pushing his gun around
Wed Aug 26, 2020, 04:40 PM
Aug 2020

his hip towards the back (getting it out of the way), hands back up. The trucks roll right past him, the cruisers don't seem to care either. He was just walking around while people were shouting he's the shooter, he shot people!!

It is very disturbing to say the least.
This is in the main video where he shoots the protestors which I didn't know at the time. I thought I was just going to see him walking by cop cars.

rampartc

(5,265 posts)
2. there was a goof quote a day or 2 ago from irish republican bernadette devlin
Wed Aug 26, 2020, 11:17 AM
Aug 2020

"you can always tell what side the police are on by which direction they are all facing."

Nululu

(833 posts)
4. White Supremecists
Wed Aug 26, 2020, 12:32 PM
Aug 2020

In Portland White Supremecists like the Proud Boys came, brandished guns and left. Police did nothing to them but attacked peaceful protesters later.

radius777

(3,624 posts)
7. BLM, cameras and social media is revealing what the cops are,
Wed Aug 26, 2020, 12:59 PM
Aug 2020

nothing more than a RW militia... which is why they are so quick to kill non-whites and liberals.

The police unions have to be broken to solve this issue, and qualified and politically neutral people hired who will serve the entire community and not simply racist white America.

Response to tenderfoot (Original post)

maxrandb

(15,192 posts)
13. I think I can answer your question
Wed Aug 26, 2020, 05:48 PM
Aug 2020

You asked

What would lead a police department—not a few misbehaving officers but every officer on the street, in this instance—to dismiss a heavily armed man as no threat (to either their own safety or the safety of the community) in one case, while, in another, viewing an unarmed local activist as so much of a threat that multiple cops decided to surround and brutally beat him with batons?

The ones with the guns AREN'T THREATENING THEIR POWER

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