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"The pain and trauma caused by a legacy of systemic racism and police brutality against Black and Brown Philadelphians is immeasurable," Mayor Jim Kenney said in a statement.
Sensible states/cities dont reward those who cause chaos, this only serves to encourage people to do it in the future to win the "lottery"
I thought the same thing when I read this.
Most of the people who stormed the Vine Street Expressway were white though, at least from what I saw on the news when it happened.
"The pain and trauma caused by a legacy of systemic racism and police brutality against Black and Brown Philadelphians is immeasurable," Mayor Jim Kenney said in a statement.
Sensible states/cities dont reward those who cause chaos, this only serves to encourage people to do it in the future to win the "lottery"
I think the issues is "chaos" and disportionate response. I was at the art museum for those protest and pretty much outside of blocking traffic there wasn't any "choas"
So I would phrase it that sensible states don't brutalize those who protest.
There certainly was NOTHING being done that warranted tear gassing people.
The second problem imo is that they response was immediately brutal, not one effort was made to get people off the expressway. I was on the corner of 21st and BFP. Not one cop asked us to move, go home or anything. They went from zero to tear gas people up without so much as a please clear the streets.
I am the daughter of a nyc police officer, my oldest brother followed in his footsteps, there use to be a time where lethal force was the last resort, now it's used if you don't walk fast enough.
Money and court rulings also seems to be the only effective measure to bring about any type of reform
Last edited by eliza61nyc; 03-21-2023 at 01:10 PM..
I cant really say much about the Vine St incident, I do understand and support Peaceful protest though. As far as 52nd St though I did see all the coverage on that and saw bricks being thrown at officers and looting, so no we shouldnt reward peope who were outside. The police were trying to control something before it grew further out of control.
Quote:
Originally Posted by eliza61nyc
I think the issues is "chaos" and disportionate response. I was at the art museum for those protest and pretty much outside of blocking traffic there wasn't any "choas"
So I would phrase it that sensible states don't brutalize those who protest.
There certainly was NOTHING being done that warranted tear gassing people.
The second problem imo is that they response was immediately brutal, not one effort was made to get people off the expressway. I was on the corner of 21st and BFP. Not one cop asked us to move, go home or anything. They went from zero to tear gas people up without so much as a please clear the streets.
I am the daughter of a nyc police officer, my oldest brother followed in his footsteps, there use to be a time where lethal force was the last resort, now it's used if you don't walk fast enough.
Money and court rulings also seems to be the only effective measure to bring about any type of reform
Can I take you all on a brief language tour to illustrate the problem I believe eliza61nyc wanted to bring to the fore?
Consider these two words and two phrases, which I've paired:
"Guardian" / "to protect and serve"
"Warrior" / "fighting crime"
The phrase in that first pair is used by a number of police departments (LA's perhaps the best known) to describe their mission.
But it seems to me that the latter pair now describes the culture of too many police forces. Rather than stand guard, protect and serve, many cops see themselves as warriors against an implacable foe.
And those cops often see the communities they patrol as what they need to fight. Those who do forget that their mission is to guard them, protect their residents and serve those residents.
I like to trot out the example of Camden after the city disbanded its police force as an example of the difference between the two and what happens when the warriors become guardians instead.
Because the Camden City FOP lodge declined the new Camden County Police Department's offer of keeping their jobs, the county-run city police force got to start with a blank slate, hiring a completely new officer corps represented by the New Jersey state FOP.
The new police chief told the officers that their first job was to get to know the people who lived in the neighborhoods they patrolled. Which they did by holding cookouts, introducing themselves at neighborhood events and the like.
Crime fell in Camden in the wake of all this.
This is one reason I say that we need to bring Officer Friendly back. In too many of the communities that need good policing the most, s/he has left the beat. Bringing them back would IMO do wonders for the fight against crime by bringing back that ethos of protecting and serving.
This link features the general unemployment rate over the last twenty years. When Obama took office in January 2009, the rate was about 8%. It rose to 10% by that December - perhaps absorbing the end of GWB-era recession fallout - before falling to under 5% upon his departure in January 2017. I recall Trump taking credit that fall for the then-record low rate of 4.5% which would fall even further to 3.6% before the pandemic. FWIW during the Biden era, the rate just clipped the record at 3.5% before falling back into a tie for 2nd place.
Now generally speaking, the Black unemployment rate tracks two percentage points behind. So while even those figures are impressive, they still lag behind.
My general point is: if we're going to give Presidents credit or blame for the economy, it should be shared proportionately. Trump proactively gave credit to himself that his supporters and even others who should have known to look at the literal bigger picture took as gospel.
Can I take you all on a brief language tour to illustrate the problem I believe eliza61nyc wanted to bring to the fore?
Consider these two words and two phrases, which I've paired:
"Guardian" / "to protect and serve"
"Warrior" / "fighting crime"
The phrase in that first pair is used by a number of police departments (LA's perhaps the best known) to describe their mission.
But it seems to me that the latter pair now describes the culture of too many police forces. Rather than stand guard, protect and serve, many cops see themselves as warriors against an implacable foe.
And those cops often see the communities they patrol as what they need to fight. Those who do forget that their mission is to guard them, protect their residents and serve those residents.
I like to trot out the example of Camden after the city disbanded its police force as an example of the difference between the two and what happens when the warriors become guardians instead.
Because the Camden City FOP lodge declined the new Camden County Police Department's offer of keeping their jobs, the county-run city police force got to start with a blank slate, hiring a completely new officer corps represented by the New Jersey state FOP.
The new police chief told the officers that their first job was to get to know the people who lived in the neighborhoods they patrolled. Which they did by holding cookouts, introducing themselves at neighborhood events and the like.
Crime fell in Camden in the wake of all this.
This is one reason I say that we need to bring Officer Friendly back. In too many of the communities that need good policing the most, s/he has left the beat. Bringing them back would IMO do wonders for the fight against crime by bringing back that ethos of protecting and serving.
Totally agree and both my father, brother and uncle, all retired cops have said the worst move was to get rid of beat cops. Once that happened it removed the "human" element.
I cant really say much about the Vine St incident, I do understand and support Peaceful protest though. As far as 52nd St though I did see all the coverage on that and saw bricks being thrown at officers and looting, so no we shouldnt reward peope who were outside. The police were trying to control something before it grew further out of control.
But it's hard to control something when you yourself are pouring gasoline on the fire.
So you go to a protests that is occurring due to the brutal murder of a innocent guy by police and you roll down the streets in armored vehicles, TANKS and cops dressed like the military and THAT’S what you think is the proper response. That's supposed to "gain control" It was a very weird experience seeing armored vehicles wiz by you like it was WWII
Now I know it's sort of Monday morning quaterbacking and again I wasn't at 52nd Street but on vine street the violence was started by the police Ironically in the supposed birthplace of democracy. Again, they were not destroying anything, they darn sure weren't engaging with the police because until tanks rolled in, there weren't any around. So basically they tear gassed, tazzed and beat folks for blocking traffic
Sorry but beating the crap out of people cannot be the only tool in your toolbox. Ironically I don't blame the cops as they were probably just doing what they were ordered to, so no I have no problem with the city being forced to pay for their stupidity.
Last edited by eliza61nyc; 03-21-2023 at 08:13 PM..
The problem with the "officer friendly" approach is recent history has shown that attempts to become one with the community hasnt prevented violence against the police and/or rioting that happens after nearly every use of force incident. Nobody in their reight mind would feel that the George Floyd incident was in any manner a proper use of force, but the police time after time are not given the benefit of the doubt in incidents such as the one in South where they shot the guy chasing them with the knife (mant more could also be cited).
The police are stuck in a no win situation while they try to control people who honestly we cant control as a society.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MarketStEl
Can I take you all on a brief language tour to illustrate the problem I believe eliza61nyc wanted to bring to the fore?
Consider these two words and two phrases, which I've paired:
"Guardian" / "to protect and serve"
"Warrior" / "fighting crime"
The phrase in that first pair is used by a number of police departments (LA's perhaps the best known) to describe their mission.
But it seems to me that the latter pair now describes the culture of too many police forces. Rather than stand guard, protect and serve, many cops see themselves as warriors against an implacable foe.
And those cops often see the communities they patrol as what they need to fight. Those who do forget that their mission is to guard them, protect their residents and serve those residents.
I like to trot out the example of Camden after the city disbanded its police force as an example of the difference between the two and what happens when the warriors become guardians instead.
Because the Camden City FOP lodge declined the new Camden County Police Department's offer of keeping their jobs, the county-run city police force got to start with a blank slate, hiring a completely new officer corps represented by the New Jersey state FOP.
The new police chief told the officers that their first job was to get to know the people who lived in the neighborhoods they patrolled. Which they did by holding cookouts, introducing themselves at neighborhood events and the like.
Crime fell in Camden in the wake of all this.
This is one reason I say that we need to bring Officer Friendly back. In too many of the communities that need good policing the most, s/he has left the beat. Bringing them back would IMO do wonders for the fight against crime by bringing back that ethos of protecting and serving.
The problem with the "officer friendly" approach is recent history has shown that attempts to become one with the community hasnt prevented violence against the police and/or rioting that happens after nearly every use of force incident. Nobody in their reight mind would feel that the George Floyd incident was in any manner a proper use of force, but the police time after time are not given the benefit of the doubt in incidents such as the one in South where they shot the guy chasing them with the knife (mant more could also be cited).
The police are stuck in a no win situation while they try to control people who honestly we cant control as a society.
I dunno. However he managed to do it, did you ever see the video of Malcolm Jenkins' ride-alongs?
Organized (or disorganized) protests aren't the same thing as everyday property or violent crime. I think the reason the cops don't get the benefit of the doubt any more is akin to the reason we q***r folk were despised by so many for so long:
Too many people didn't know one, or didn't know they knew one. (I wrote this column after the co-author of the book that argued that a "getting to know ue" PR approach would be the most effective way to win the equality we sought — a college classmate — died.)
Go back to eliza61nyc's comment about what her retired-police-officer relatives told her. What the CCPD chief did was in essence tell the new officers to walk beats.
I'd be inclined to give the testimony of someone who has access to first-hand testimony from cops extra weight. Even more so when I consider that these retired cops sound to me like the antithesis of the head of FOP Lodge 5, who I consider the symbol of everything that's wrong with current police culture.
I should note that "Black Lives Matter" is not an organization but a diffuse movement of many disparate groups, some informal, not all of whom share the same goals.
The two formal groups associated with the movement are the Movement for Black Lives and the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation. Both are nationalist (as opposed to integrationist) organizations, and the Global Network Foundation (which often simply calls itself "Black Lives Matter") is also anti-capitalist. The MBL is an umbrella organization.
In contrast to the Black Panther Party, another radical left-wing Black nationalist group active in the 1960s,* it seems to me that the various BLM groups do not engage in anything resembling community service. (The Panthers were known within Black communities for running free breakfast and daycare programs for children.) According to the Wikipedia article on it I linked above, the Global Network Foundation concerns itself more with lobbying and other political activities.
*There's a reason some of the action in the first "Black Panther" film, principally involving Killmonger, takes place in Oakland, Calif.: That city was the birthplace of the Black Panther Party, whose first goal was to oppose what it saw as police mistreatment of Blacks in that city.
While diffuse, there is or was actually an original BLM group that set the stage for local and other groups using the ''BLM'' name etc as the term BLM even became a catch-phrase in the social ''justice'' movement. Yet the original BLM founders knew to set-up their ''master'' group in an opaque manner and were able to collect $90 million+ in its 2020 manipulated George Floyd shake down. Its fund raising was handled by an Oakland based organization run by old school domestic terrorist Susan Rosenberg.
That's why the local BLM groups etc were complaining that didn't receive anything from that vast shake down. BLM founders like all true Marxists love other peoples' $ and like to own high end real estate. These side show BLM groups are what the original BLM founders would call ''useful idiots.''
The original Black Panthers were also Marxist based yet did have actual community services as described including replacing cops in the community. BLM was more about $ and political power (ie Obama had the BLM founders at a White House meeting due to their political similarities; LBJ and Nixon did not have White House sit downs with the Panthers). The Panthers wanted political power yet weren't able to shake down the gov't, white folks, or corps but did have some popular wealthy white ''limousine liberals'' help.
BLM is a lie, the Panthers were at least more ''legitimate'' and addressed community issues. Went into open war against the cops-gov't and, of course, lost. Much later co-founder Newton shot/killed on the street, Seale made capitalist $ on barb'q sauce (like a true Marxist), Carmichael died of cancer. BLM leaders are currently living in LA Hollywood Hills mansions.
The SF Bay Area was ground zero of late '60s radicalism: Panthers in Oakland (Netwon's home town); Student Radicals in Berkeley; and the Hippies in San Francisco. Later the SLA/Patty Hearst, Jim Jones/ Peoples' Temple, and even the domestic terrorist group known as the Manson Family originated there. Makes sense that the 2020 BLM shake down $ collecting ran through Oakland.
Last edited by MPK21; 03-22-2023 at 01:11 PM..
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