2756

Registered Democrats, then. I’m on that list.

2757

I’ve wondered about this, myself, albeit I’m in the burbs and it was a sense of shame for staying put. I went so far as to gather what I’d need to head to the city and join the protests and then heard the National Guard got called in and noped out. It’s a bad feeling in my gut to sit back down in my desk chair.

2758

Protesting While Black just became a criminal offense.

2759

Cop uses knee-to-the-neck method. Last night. On camera.

Second cop forcefully stops it.

2760

Oh it’s worse than that, protesting at all will subject one to all sorts of shit under the Patriot Act, like indefinite detainment without trial.

2761

Maybe belongs in the inequality thread, but this rang true for me

2762

I can’t believe they’re still putting their knees on those people’s neck. I mean after all this, after all this pain and literal death, they still do that. I don’t know what it’s going to take to change these forces when they can’t even get the one thing, correct the one thing that sparked this particular moment in time.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s been years, decades, heck generations in the making, but that was the spark.

2763

At this point, if you are a police chief, you have to just start firing cops after a single incident, immediately. You can address it long term with training, but right now, the guys still using that method, during protests about it, are the ones that are going to be impossible to be taught.

Of course the unions will have something to say about that, though.

2764

Step one is ban police unions. Sorry, you had your chance. Fuck you.

2765

That’s what I keep thinking to myself. I know the unions wouldn’t currently let that happen with the contracts in place, but at some point they have to find some semi-rational “middle ground” (what’s rational seems to be firing these assholes, of course, hence the quotes).

2766

Same in Ferguson, MO. This included the chief of police marching with the protestors:

There were still some late-night idiots, with rocks thrown at the police station, etc. But the department has come a long way since Michael Brown was killed in 2014. Things can get better, if people vote in local elections.

2767

Wish they could. Unions should demand the highest standards, not protect the worst among them. But we both know that ain’t happening.

2768

I think taking a knee is maybe not the best way to show support right now if you’re a cop.

(I’m happy they’re trying)

2769

They’re doing it in solidarity when protestors are doing it.

2770

Yeah that specific case seems like a mirroring effort, not a spontaneous one. I’ll applaud many efforts that don’t end with rubber bullets to an eye, media arrested and knees on the neck.

2771

Yeah, in context it’s fine and good. :)

2772

I don’t know why they don’t arrest them. If you or I engaged in the same act, we would certainly be arrested immediately, on the scene. And in any event prosecutors have to charge these guys, at the very least with the same urgency they apply to charging non-cops.

2773

I think it says something that I can’t even imagine a world where a police officer is arrested on site after doing something like that. They didn’t even arrest that cop who shot that guy in his apartment, and she was off duty.

And cops know this, and people who want to be cops know this. The rules absolutely, positively, do not apply to you if you are a cop.

2774

Which is ridiculous because being arrested is not the same as being convicted. People get arrested and released all the time, but somehow doing it to a cop is the worst thing ever. They should’ve taken all four of those guys, arrested them and then figured out the charging. It’s not unheard of… they do it all the time with the general public.

2775

Oh I forgot in all this – the governor said that multiple state systems were hit by a “sophisticated” DDoS attack last evening.

I have a hard time believing that came from anywhere but the alt-right white-supremacist fucks.