A Long Hot Summer begins (a dumpster fire chat)

[101Walterton]

Far reaching - BLM

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/arti ... d=12336288

[BostonBeaneater]

[muppet hi fi]

Big bang and flash about an hour ago; same thing - volume, proximity, flash - last night. A squad drove by and shined their light on two young white guys hanging on the corner (well after curfew), and drove on. I watched with binocs for a bit after, brother and I decided it was just dumb kids with an M-80. Tonight - three SP Fire and Rescue pumpers, six cops. Fire fighter sees me looking out my window, asks if I saw anything, told him just what I saw/heard and last night. Man said "thank you". They looked all over the auto body repair shop right across the street (with three NAPA Auto parts vehicles with their windows/windshields smashed) , took off. So some punk thinks it's OK to make things go 'bang' at night. Lot of that going around...

[matedog]

Apparently an erroneous report. They have since addressed it.

Lots of choppers out tonight. We are pretty far from the action but it’s not quiet here. I plan on driving through downtown tomorrow morning since I feel pretty out of touch from things.

[muppet hi fi]

Minnesota Attorney General Kieth Ellison will take over the criminal investigation. Damn good call from Gov. Walz. I would expect Chauvin to be up-charged and the other three cops to be formally charged with something.

[matedog]

Apparently an erroneous report. They have since addressed it.

Lots of choppers out tonight. We are pretty far from the action but it’s not quiet here. I plan on driving through downtown tomorrow morning since I feel pretty out of touch from things.

Rolled down Broadway in downtown oakland this morning. It was pretty quiet. Only saw one active broken glass window but A LOT is boarded up so hard to tell the extent of the damage. On the way home saw that the Sprint store around the corner got smashed. Apparently a lot of shit went down in the well to do suburbs yesterday which is weird.
First photo shows how most buildings looked with boarded windows with graffiti. Second shows some actually really great artwork on the boards from a clearly talented spray paint artist.

[Spiff]

Minnesota Attorney General Kieth Ellison will take over the criminal investigation. Damn good call from Gov. Walz. I would expect Chauvin to be up-charged and the other three cops to be formally charged with something.

Yes, this is a great move, and one demanded by George Floyd's family and the demonstrators.

I also hope this means that the other three will be charged, too. I had only very slim hopes that Freeman would also charge them, but it's not a sure thing that Ellison will, although the odds are a little better.

I'm sure the local GOP assholes will find something horrifying to say about this, whatever Ellison does.

I wonder if the tweet he sent out (see page 1 of this thread) will come back to haunt him.

When Ellison briefly spoke last night, he made a point to say that under Minnesota law, it's really tough to convict an officer.

But fuck, if he's not sent to prison, the blood that will spill in the streets here and elsewhere will be like nothing that's ever been seen before in this country.

[WestwayKid]

Been a weird couple of days around these parts. We get the "special alert" on our phones at 9 pm advising us that there is a curfew in place and while my little portion of Milwaukee has not had much going on...I've spent the last two nights listening to a steady symphony of police sirens in the distance.

We drove up to my girlfriend's brother's house (about 2 hours north of Milwaukee) yesterday and you'd never know anything was going on. With the exception of our urban areas, most of Wisconsin is very, very white. It's hard to know how they feel about any of this.

We have a small protest scheduled for Friday. Not so much of a protest, but we're going to our local police station to hopefully have a peaceful discussion. We're one of the smaller municipalities in Milwaukee County, but one with a reputation for targeting people of color. That said, the new chief of police has been decent about talking with us (I'm with a local group that was organized to work for equity in our school district). It should be interesting.

[WestwayKid]

I've been trying to stay out of social media "discussions" right now, but I have been pushing back against the common white person trope of "I don't see color" which is complete nonsense (in my opinion).

[Flex]

We have a small protest scheduled for Friday. Not so much of a protest, but we're going to our local police station to hopefully have a peaceful discussion. We're one of the smaller municipalities in Milwaukee County, but one with a reputation for targeting people of color. That said, the new chief of police has been decent about talking with us (I'm with a local group that was organized to work for equity in our school district). It should be interesting.

This is a really good effort to take some action, let us know how it goes.

[JennyB]

Thank you, Spiff, for the updates. I am glad you are safe and you are absolutely right about the rioters.

Here in metro St. Louis, there was a well attended peaceful protest (which I would have attended, but it was my kid's birthday and I am also still a little scared about being in crowds during a pandemic - sorry, Clashy) in Clayton. Clayton is a wealthy suburb of St. Louis that also houses the St. Louis County Council buildings. The protest was peaceful. Later that night, a riot happened in Ferguson, perpetrated mainly by white people (I don't know if they were far right or far left, or both). Black owned businesses were destroyed. They are harming the very people they claim they want to help. These guys remind me of the rioters from Woodstock '99. They just want to break stuff. Stay in your fucking lane, Chad, and let black people take the lead.

[JennyB]

I have a question. I feel safe asking this in here, and I want to ask people who are far smarter than I.

I totally agree with the dismantling the police sentiment. I continue to be absolutely disgusted by their racism, misogyny and corruption. So what does dismantling entail? Again, I know this is probably a really stupid question, but what is the best way to handle actual criminals? Murderers, child molesters, people who commit fraud (and not bouncing a fucking $20 check like George Floyd, but actual Wall Street bullshit fraud). What is a good, realistic solution?

[Flex]

I have a question. I feel safe asking this in here, and I want to ask people who are far smarter than I.

I totally agree with the dismantling the police sentiment. I continue to be absolutely disgusted by their racism, misogyny and corruption. So what does dismantling entail? Again, I know this is probably a really stupid question, but what is the best way to handle actual criminals? Murderers, child molesters, people who commit fraud (and not bouncing a fucking $20 check like George Floyd, but actual Wall Street bullshit fraud). What is a good, realistic solution?

I'm blatantly stealing this from elsewhere on Twitter, but I saw this and thought it was a good start of tangible things that could be done:


1. Body cameras and dash cameras everywhere.
2. Repeal minor infractions (e.g., selling loose cigarettes) that risk great harm for near zero (usually negative) benefit.
3. No military equipment for police.
4. End qualified immunity.
5. Outlaw police unions.
6. End the drug war, which impacts all but minorities especially.

I put it in roughly what I consider easiest to most challenging to do. These are incremental improvements, though, and doesn't answer the question of "what does getting rid of the police altogether" look like, and I'll need some more time to respond to that idea (and others may have answers as well), but my basic premise is that rooting out systemic racism and realigning any kind of peace-keeping force to be truly community focused and publicly accountable will so radically transform what we consider "the police" that they'd be something new entirely. I'll work on a fuller response today.

[JennyB]

I have a question. I feel safe asking this in here, and I want to ask people who are far smarter than I.

I totally agree with the dismantling the police sentiment. I continue to be absolutely disgusted by their racism, misogyny and corruption. So what does dismantling entail? Again, I know this is probably a really stupid question, but what is the best way to handle actual criminals? Murderers, child molesters, people who commit fraud (and not bouncing a fucking $20 check like George Floyd, but actual Wall Street bullshit fraud). What is a good, realistic solution?

I'm blatantly stealing this from elsewhere on Twitter, but I saw this and thought it was a good start of tangible things that could be done:


1. Body cameras and dash cameras everywhere.
2. Repeal minor infractions (e.g., selling loose cigarettes) that risk great harm for near zero (usually negative) benefit.
3. No military equipment for police.
4. End qualified immunity.
5. Outlaw police unions.
6. End the drug war, which impacts all but minorities especially.

I put it in roughly what I consider easiest to most challenging to do. These are incremental improvements, though, and doesn't answer the question of "what does getting rid of the police altogether" look like, and I'll need some more time to respond to that idea (and others may have answers as well), but my basic premise is that rooting out systemic racism and realigning any kind of peace-keeping force to be truly community focused and publicly accountable will so radically transform what we consider "the police" that they'd be something new entirely. I'll work on a fuller response today.

Thank you. That sounds entirely reasonable and doable. And should be done. Thank you for explaining this to me.

[Dr. Medulla]

I have a question. I feel safe asking this in here, and I want to ask people who are far smarter than I.

I totally agree with the dismantling the police sentiment. I continue to be absolutely disgusted by their racism, misogyny and corruption. So what does dismantling entail? Again, I know this is probably a really stupid question, but what is the best way to handle actual criminals? Murderers, child molesters, people who commit fraud (and not bouncing a fucking $20 check like George Floyd, but actual Wall Street bullshit fraud). What is a good, realistic solution?

I'm blatantly stealing this from elsewhere on Twitter, but I saw this and thought it was a good start of tangible things that could be done:


1. Body cameras and dash cameras everywhere.
2. Repeal minor infractions (e.g., selling loose cigarettes) that risk great harm for near zero (usually negative) benefit.
3. No military equipment for police.
4. End qualified immunity.
5. Outlaw police unions.
6. End the drug war, which impacts all but minorities especially.

I put it in roughly what I consider easiest to most challenging to do. These are incremental improvements, though, and doesn't answer the question of "what does getting rid of the police altogether" look like, and I'll need some more time to respond to that idea (and others may have answers as well), but my basic premise is that rooting out systemic racism and realigning any kind of peace-keeping force to be truly community focused and publicly accountable will so radically transform what we consider "the police" that they'd be something new entirely. I'll work on a fuller response today.

I'll add this piece from Ilya Somin, a libertarian and legal scholar. While I certainly don't agree with him on plenty of stuff, I do respect him as a thoughtful and principled libertarian who doesn't check party id before he decides where he stands on an issue: https://reason.com/2020/05/31/how-to-cu ... ow-not-to/