Timex
5791
You feel safer where an SUV full of crazy racists drives through the streets, randomly shooting at people, and then is gunned down by an armed mob.
Ok man, you do you.
But, for the record… That ain’t normal. Like, that’s super fucked up. That’s something out of an action movie.
RayRayK
5792
They wouldn’t go in without police protection. I’d say there was a problem for the ambulance to get him out if it couldn’t get to him.
BTW, we’ve all seen pictures and video of the two idiots brandishing weapons dangerously outside their home in St. Louis as protesters marched by on their way to the Mayor’s mansion.
And just for the record – as a history and architecture geek – I feel like I need to widely correct one mis-apprehension about that house. I have seen it called a “McMansion”, with folks speculating that it’s facade made from resin, wood, and fake stone.
And no it is most certainly none of those things. That’s Portland Place in St. Louis, one of the most architecturally fascinating areas in the US. That house was originally built in 1909 by members of the Busch brewing family, and that facade is authentic quarried marble.
Carry on!
Timex
5795
So Ken and Karen aren’t just normal ambulance chasers? I’d imagine they gotta be really damn rich to live in that place.
Honestly, when I first saw it i thought they were standing in front of a municipal building.
This is the house, right? Very non elite, I’ll admit.
Edit: and I think I saw someone on twitter looked up the last sale price, which was around 1.5 million. Not chicken feed, but less than one would expect.
St. Louis real estate prices are friendly. Portland Place is in the city, not the suburbs. It’s a high-toned street but you don’t have to go to far to hit some very challenging areas.
There are some cities in the suburbs where the houses go for more.
ShivaX
5799
You live in it right now. The armed mob is just cops who probably aren’t there at the moment.
Because, let’s be real here, if a group of armed men jump in a Jeep and decide they’re going to start shooting people, people are likely going to be shot. Because cops don’t materialize from the ether, they’re scattered around the city. Now you can argue the threat of police showing up is why it doesn’t happen and you’re correct, but the threat of lots of citizens armed with weapons is basically the same deterrent.
In this case, the CHOP is probably safer than the rest of Seattle when it comes to this sort of thing, because you have a large number of guns, ready for use, in a small area. It’s akin to trying to rush a fortified position. If these jokers had done this across town, odds are no one would’ve been able to do much about it until the cops finally arrived.
This is how most mass shootings end up working out at the end of the day. Replace “crazy racist driving through the streets” with “mass shooter entering any building”. What’s the result? Almost every single time the mass shooter kills a shitload of people. The few times they don’t it’s usually because someone on site killed them before they could.
So the CHOP is safer than some random street corner in Seattle in the same scenario. It’s just a bigger target for that sort of act. But it’s also… well defended, so it’s a pretty hard target.
The sad part is that Seattle PDs reputation has gotten so bad that I think a majority of people here might choose the armed mob over the cops. And yes, it’s “super fucked up”. Our entire nation is.
Thank you. You articulated my perspective far better than I could.
Timex
5802
Come on man. This is the “good guy with a gun” argument that gun nuts are always pulling.
Having an area with a ton of armed folks, who all think they need to be the ones to kill people they think are the bad guys, is not a good situation.
In this case, folks seem to be giving the case a pass, because the people killed were “bad guys”, but honestly… Do we even know that? There’s no actual record of it. We don’t know who they are. We don’t know who shot them.
It was just, apparently, two groups of randos that were armed and started shooting at each other, and killed each other.
I mean, it’s the definition of lawlessness.
Timex, let me say you’re way out of your depth here. You live literally 3000 miles away. Several of us live here in Seattle, and have actually been there. I literally just came from the neighborhood, where I chatted with some restaurant owners I know a block away (Cafe Pettirosso). Their take was mostly that the SPD and Mayor have literally made the wrong decision at every point - first the violence against protestors, then the just abandonment of the area allowing the to CHOP form, the lies they’ve told to the media about the place etc. They don’t mind it being there, and certainly don’t consider it any worse that the status quo- the cops didn’t really respond to calls around the area anyway, despite their precinct being smack in the middle of it. Why? It’s historically been the gay neighborhood. Back in the '90s, we had the Q-patrol, volunteers who would patrol and keep folks safe from gay-bashing because the cops didn’t care. Lately, though, it has been getting ‘worse’, especially during summer nights. The place has gentrified with the tech money, and lots of white tech bros have moved in. There’s a big bar scene and stupid drunk bro crap is common. Not regular shootings, but I’m pretty sure the have been a couple over the years. Having a protest zone on their doorstep is practically a step up.
The only reason these shootings are happening is because Fox News and other right wing outlets are stoning the fire with misinformation (aided, as I said, by city government).
Timex
5804
But dude, this is stuff that actually happened.
You had a shoot out between folks driving through the streets, and a ton of armed folks on the streets.
It’s that really something you think is normal?
I don’t live in Seattle, but I’ve been there a bunch of times, and i don’t remember people walking around with rifles ready to shoot each other. Maybe i was just in the wrong part of town, but that’s not normal for Seattle, right?
Because it’s definitely not normal for other places.
RichVR
5805
So back to the wild west eh?
Tman
5806
I don’t recall you getting up on your stump when the far right took over the Michigan state building and calling it lawlessness, or did I miss that?
Right? There’s a lot of deeply weird reversal going on here. There are some things deeply and profoundly wrong with law enforcement right now, but we’re not better off with no law enforcement at all. That’s just anarchy.
Timex
5808
Seriously?
Uh, yeah, you did miss that, because i totally thought that insane and those people should have gone to jail.
Do you think that I think this is crazy because… Of some kind of political motivation? Because that ain’t it dude. Having a bunch of armed vigilantes is not good.
Honestly, the crazies in Michigan were kind of worse, because they were actually threatening elected officials.
But in this case, I’m not saying that the protestors are bad.
I’m saying that it’s a seriously fucked up situation, to have random mobs of people shooting each other in the streets.
And it’s super weird that I’m apparently the only person who thinks that.
ShivaX
5809
The difference is they think they’re going to be ready with their carry weapon when Shit Goes Down. Only… shit almost never goes down. And it’s a side arm. So, the odds of it happening approach zero.
True. Only that was the case before too. They called it the police department, which was at the same exact place.
There are quite a few people at the CHOP. It also has streaming cameras on it 24/7 every day since this started. And usually a hundred or two hundred plus people. I haven’t dug into VODs but I’m guessing one of the many, many CHOP 24/7 streams caught it.
Not really. It’s just not what you’re used to. It’s armed citizenry, which was the norm until the early 20th century really. Most big cities didn’t start getting PDs until the 1880s.
What are cops but armed citizenry at the end of the day? They’re not highly trained. They’re not even accountable. They’re more likely to kill you than any stranger you encounter. This is basically the same thing in a lot of ways.
Compared to the police state, it’s starting to look preferable to a lot of people.
I mean, the people who live at and around the CHOP prefer it by most accounts. Probably because the cops kept tear gassing them, beating them and otherwise abusing them with impunity.
Well, count me in @Timex’s side. I live in Tacoma, visited the CHOP, and I think this situation is super fucked up.
When I visited last Saturday, it was like a weird street fair. But I’m not giving it a pass when a drive-by happens and a bunch of people pull out their guns and light them up.
