Perhaps, and stay with me here because I might be going out on a limb, our police forces need to be reeled in, just a bit.
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Let’s not be the monsters we hate.
This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.
We are aware of all internet traditions.
Peak wingnut was a lie.
Second rate reporter says what?
JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?
Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.
“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.
Usually wrong but never in doubt
rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius
Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.
A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals
Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.
“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.
My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.
A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.
I was promised a recession.
Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.
Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.
Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.
Only Democrats have agency, apparently.
Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.
Let’s finish the job.
Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?
bbleh
Hey, those volunteer nurses can be dangerous. And they’re armed with wet sponges and OTC painkillers in (plastic) bottles!
Gin & Tonic
Maybe not enough coffee yet, but I don’t understand. People are sheltering inside the church. Storm Troopers are outside it, facing out. Do they think they are protecting the church? Are they trying to prevent people who are not already in it from entering? Sure, it’s a gripping image, but I wish I knew the context.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@Gin & Tonic: Here’s what was happening in the church:
cmorenc
Yes please some context. Are the police arresting anyone at the church? Are they preventing anyone from entering or leaving? At what point did they arrive? Not asking this to try to absolve the police, the sheer number of them of itself begs for an answer but OTOH we shouldn’t automatically jump to the most malevolent possible conclusions. For example, if it’s simply a show of intimidation, that’s bad, but worse would be if they were actually there to arrest those inside.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: I saw this on the same twitter account as the tweet t the top:
WaterGirl
@cmorenc: I agree that context would be helpful, but that massing around the church cannot possibly be intended as anything else besides pure intimidation.
Gin & Tonic
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix: OK, sure, but are the storm troopers there to prevent people from entering to take a leak or get medical attention? On the left side there seem to be a bunch of regular people and no police line. Could you walk around the cops and go in?
I’m not trying to be an asshole here, I just understand the power of images and how that power can be manipulated, and I’m still not sure what this one image is showing. But I’ve got stuff to do, so maybe I’ll check back later.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@cmorenc:
Hmm, I don’t know. Hard to tell. /s
If you want more context, here’s a long piece on the cop riots in Brooklyn, MN, which included pepper spraying, tackling and punching journalists.
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2021/04/17/law-enforcement-response-swift-on-sixth-night-of-protests
bbleh
@Gin & Tonic: @cmorenc: @WaterGirl: I can’t imagine what beneficial purpose there could be for such a large number of heavily-equipped police there.
The question is not, is it bad; the question is, how bad is it?
Bill K
I can’t take that picture at face value. Even if they wanted to block off the church, the police could do it with a few guys at the entrances. Since it’s so close to the rioting, I wonder if they are just practicing maneuvers or taking roll call before marching down the block. Maybe the location was chosen as a form of intimidation of the church, but I am dubious that there is an actual blockade going on.
rp
What we need is a new salt march, with waves of protestors marching towards the police.
Betty Cracker
We need to massively rethink how policing is done in this country. It won’t be easy, but it must be done. IMO, our sick gun culture exacerbates the problem, and we’ve all seen how hard it is to make any progress on that front.
In the meantime, automating as much routine traffic enforcement as possible could cut down the number of encounters that go sideways. We should do that immediately.
MattF
Shock and awe, I guess. I’ll just note in passing that, despite appearances, these militarized police are not dealing with ISIS or Islamic terrorists. Maybe, horrifyingly, some car in the church parking lot has a broken tail light.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Betty Cracker:
In Ohio, I’ve read those traffic enforcement cameras have been found to be unconstitutional and state laws are being proposed to curb the use of handheld radar guns. So in Ohio, at least, that’s not happening any time soon
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
“To Flex and Harass”
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@MattF:
A dangling air freshener or maybe over dark window tinting….
Expletive Deleted
I hate everything about the photo, it is certainly not a calming or helpful presence in any way and speaks to a terrible policing culture. Not the least combined with literally every other they’re doing.
That said, it does appear the photo is of them them staging to march out rather than blockading;
https://twitter.com/scottsphoto/status/1383624638236819458
scav
@Bill K: I can’t really imagine what purpose a “maneuver” such as standing a gazzilion deep, shoulder to shoulder with synchronized club management facing in multiple directions could have beyond threaten / intimidation — well, maybe they’re all repressed close order marching band affectionados that all somehow lost their really big drums? How much practice does one need to stand shoulder to shoulder while confirming you’ve come to work?
UncleEbeneezer
@Betty Cracker:
Here’s my fantasy list:
1.) Serious Gun Control
2.) Repeal Officers’ Bill of Rights Laws (that make them almost untouchable)
3.) Eliminate Qualified Immunity
4.) Move All Non-Violent Business (traffic stops, mental health crises response etc. to Groups like Cahoots)
5.) Make Weapon Access for Police Only Unlocked Remotely (other countries do this)
6.) Clean House: Purge LEO’s of Anyone With Ties to White Nationalist Groups
7.) Civilian Oversight Committees With Subpoena Power and Disciplinary/Firing Authority
8.) Greatly Expanded, Proactive Use of Pattern/Practice Investigations by DOJ (currently about 3/year, should be HUNDREDS!)
These are all VERY hard lifts, some damn-near impossible, I fear, but if we did these our incidents of police violence would drastically decrease to be comparable to other countries and we wouldn’t be a damn laughing/crying-stock of the world on policing. The good news is cities/towns ARE doing many of these things now, but they are hard to implement and we have 18 THOUSAND different police forces in the US.
gvg
They look like Star Wars storm troopers. That is intimidation. Someone needs to be fired IMO. They shouldn’t be on church property. I don’t think they want the protests to end. I think they think it makes them look more necessary to the low info easily spooked “nice” citizens. Just the way that looks, is so bad, that whoever ordered all those cops to be there should be fired. Democracy shouldn’t look like that. And I don’t believe it has an innocent explanation.
mali muso
@gvg: Come sit by me.
This is the same police force whose first reaction to the protests over the murder of Daunte Wright was to hoist the fascism flag over the police HQ. Defund them and disband them.
scav
@gvg: They’re definitely playing to the camera and the insulated audience permanently threatened by those people. They’ve probably also really hoping for funding as well as really cool additional toys to play with from army surplus (look! we played with all the ones we already have!).
Betty
@mali muso: They are state troopers so this seems to be on the Governor.
cain
@Gin & Tonic:
Ask yourself why there is a SWAT like team fully armed, in riot gear, at a church that seems to just letting people use their facilities to take a break.
Do you think you need that many cops dressed like to be stationed at a church for any reason? While at the same time there are images everywhere of cops not exactly being on the up and up.. arresting medics, photojournalists, you name it..
I’m not inclined to give cops the benefit of the doubt given what I’ve seen for the past 3 days.
ETA – I understand they might be staging to go on a march – but get the fuck out of the Church premises. You can do that shit somewhere else.
cain
@rp:
Then what.. each group goes up and get their ass kicked to be replaced with a new line? I don’t think the cops work that way – I think they’ll just pepper spray the shit out of you and then hit you with rubber bullets.
different-church-lady
Hitchcock’s famous example of how editing and context work.
Betty Cracker
@UncleEbeneezer: Sounds good to me. I saw a startling set of statistics the other day on the per capita risk of a citizen dying in an encounter with police, broken out by country. Ours is just ludicrously high in comparison to peer nations.
Someone on Twitter had an interesting suggestion: create a line item on property tax bills for the amount the taxpayers are shelling out on wrongful death/injury settlements due to police misconduct. It’s tens of millions in some places.
Cities and towns can’t fix roads or build parks with that money. Maybe average Joes who don’t really give a shit about police reform because they don’t think they and their families are at risk would care if they understood the cost that comes out of their pockets.
As Kay noted the other day, we’re really getting a shitty work product from most police departments. It’s true: unsolved crimes, unprocessed rape kits, etc.
It’s not that the horrors we keep seeing inflicted by cops would be justified even if they solved 95% of crimes. But the context is important too — the status quo is lose-lose for every damned one of us.
rp
@cain: Well…yes. The point is to turn public opinion against them by creating a powerful visual.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@cain:
Wear gas masks and body armor
West of the Rockies
@mali muso:
Disband them? What precisely does that mean?
different-church-lady
Streble is the photographer
mali muso
@West of the Rockies: To be honest, I’m not exactly sure, but from what I hear from my friends on the ground in MN, something drastic needs to change. I don’t know how you can reform something so fundamentally broken and warped at its core.
Dan B
@Gin & Tonic: This is one photo. It’s important to look at the pattern(s).
The “context” needs to zoom out and look at more than just the ability of journalists and medics to seek shelter in the church.
Is it a ‘good look’ to mass this many police in riot gear around a black church? Who’s managing the media? And I don’t mean reporters. Management is important for governmental bodies. If you look suspicious to the camera you’re not in charge of the narrative. You’ve lost it.
Is this image calming the situation, is it making it worse, or is it having no effect? Or is it encouraging radical right wingers to join the fight?
This image looks provocative therefore it is a provocation. The cops look prepared to bust heads. Is this beneficial for our future? Is this a message we want to send to our already troubled community?
Perception is an important aspect of context. Judgements are made in split seconds. The rational mind struggles to catch up and usually harbors unsettling doubts.
Dan B
@UncleEbeneezer: I’d add balancing the Supreme Court and all overworked* federal courts. Until that is accomplished “Qualified immunity” will remain the functional law of the land.
*All of them.
different-church-lady
@Dan B: it is not impossible to acknowledge that this one photo is being misrepresented and also acknowledge there is a great and dangerous problem with policing.
Bobby Thomson
FSM, I can’t believe how many of you are willing to give these pigs the benefit of the doubt. At BEST, it’s intimidation. At BEST. Y’all would have been arguing in ’64 whether pix of fire hoses and dogs were taken out of context.
WaterGirl
@different-church-lady: That’s good to know. But even if they are not LITERALLY blocking entrances to the church, they have taken what was a safe haven and turned it into something that wouldn’t feel at all safe.
Mission accomplished, even if they aren’t blocking entrances.
Any way I look at it, their formation screams INTIMIDATION.
Bobby Thomson
@gvg:
THIS! GTFOH with your “as long as they weren’t physically blocking the door I don’t see what the problem is” bullshit.
bbleh
@different-church-lady: Classic strawman argument. They weren’t shooting people on sight either, but that doesn’t make their highly intimidating presence, in that place, outfitted that way, and positioned that way, beneficial or excusable.
Ask yourself, if YOU had just been harassed or beaten by cops, and you were looking for shelter, and you saw THAT, would you just march right through it?
Fatuous nonsense. Please delete your account.
geg6
@Bobby Thomson:
As the great rikyrah says, no lies told.
Soprano2
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): We used to have red light cameras here, but then they were declared unconstitutional in MO and they took them out. I don’t hold out much hope that at least in the short term these things can be automated. People want to be able to run red lights when there are no cops around.
different-church-lady
@bbleh: it’s not an argument. It’s an attempt to establish veracity.
Ksmiami
Bachelor degrees at a minimum- pension performance based including points for de-escalation, limited hardware, more training, bust the police unions. This has got to stop.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Whatever the details it looks like that Police Force thinks it’s an army of occupation and not there for public safety.
West of the Rockies
@different-church-lady:
Well, there you go again…*
Trying to establish context and accuracy… some kids never learn.
*creaky old man Reagan voice-over
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Sounds like this is an easy to do and would just solve a lot problems. Even if you accept the claim that what is driving this violence is police fear of getting killed themselves, reducing the number of times they are at risk is a good thing.
Ruckus
Tactically, and really there is extremely little reason to think otherwise about this police department and what they have done and how they have reacted, the only reason to do this was intimidation and to keep anyone from seeking shelter at the church. They might say they are there to protect the church but the only thing they are protecting the church from is anyone moving in or out. How big is this town/county that they have that many police available? Is there a cop anywhere else in town?
Do not forget that most police departments think only in tactical terms, how to stop or prevent. I’d bet in many cases they think tough enforcement will make other people besides the one being stopped no longer do whatever it is that the cops don’t want. And in most cases what they want is 100% compliance. We have been at war for over half my years on this planet and most cops think they are at war with the public and only being tough will work on lawbreakers who hang stinky cutout xmas trees from their rearview mirrors or driving while black, or not having their tags on at a time when the USPS can’t get an envelope 15 miles in 12 days. I can’t imagine how long it takes to get a letter across the country, say a tax return. (I sent mine off 6 weeks ago, I have no idea if it’s gotten to Sacramento yet)
trump achieved what republicans wanted, he fucked up the government at a lot of levels. It has to be understood that republicans do not want government. Period. The military, fire department, the police, maybe. Every thing else they want to make money off of in some way, grifting mostly because there is not actual effort for them to do that. republicans do not want government, never forget that. They haven’t wanted it for my entire life, and if you look at history they haven’t wanted it for well over the last 100 yrs. They don’t want less expensive medicine, especially not for those they hate, and that’s a long list. They don’t want government. It gets in their ways of stealing profits and how high those profits can be.
Edmund Dantes
Simple test for all those worried about the context and we really need to give them the benefit of the doubt.
would this be appropriate behavior at a polling place? They are just doing “maneuvers” or “ready to March out” what’s the harm?
Robert S
The police are the canary in the coal mine. The Right-wingers are working to tear down our democracy to preserve their hold on power. The police departments are on the cutting edge of this. They’re lashing out at their communities because they cannot cope with civilian review.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Ruckus: This Army at occupation mentality has been going on since the 70s with the War on Crime and Drugs. Go read former San Jose police chief McNamara’s critic of the whole War on Drugs.
Ruckus
@different-church-lady:
There is a reason those cops are several deep all around the church. And it isn’t to reassure the church or the neighbors that it was safe.
And even if it was it is an extremely stupid way to get that message across. It screams power. Yes they are facing away from the church, sure they may have a path to the front door. But this is exactly the kind of force that exists to get complete compliance from exactly the people who would normally go into this church. It is a tactical move to show the citizens of the area who is in charge and who shall be obeyed. A ring of cops one deep around the church would protect it and would not be intimidating as this so much is. Except a ring even one deep would not be normal. No matter how they stand, this many cops in one place is a shout out to power, who has it and who will use it. It’s called overwhelming force for a reason.
Ruckus
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I fully understand, others may not. Most police departments have not gotten better at their job, most have forgotten what their job is and believe they are quasi occupation armies, against everything they don’t like.
This is not new, it’s not intended to be anything but a warning and given the recent past in this town there is not other meaning possible, overwhelming force is on their side.
scav
Rest of that town must be a useless or devastated wasteland with only that iconic building as the solitary jewel requiring an overwhelming police presence to stand manfully against the ravening mobs. Nothing else in the town requires protection.
The Thin Black Duke
Is it only the white folks here that are giving those fucking cops the benefit of the doubt? Must be nice. Black folks can’t afford to.
mali muso
@The Thin Black Duke: No lie told.
LeftCoastYankee
It took like 45 seconds to click through on twitter and understand this isn’t the church that’s being targeted for harboring people, and the picture is of the police forming up to protect the police station on an earlier day.
That said, it’s still a powerful image which reinforces what is wrong with policing today. So much of their training and effort is in crowd control, which is used to control crowds protesting their crimes.
This picture could be in any major US city. This is what policing looks like today. De-funding this will not make us less safe. There are no crimes being solved here, no innocent people being protected and served.
trnc
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix: Church of the Master is correct, but the tweet linked in the original post shows the wrong church and police action. See correction here.
lowtechcyclist
Defund that police force, right down to $0.00.
The only point this display could possibly have is intimidation. The only way to counter that is to disband the force that engages in such a display. Given the numbers there, and given the higher-ups that had to have okayed it, there probably aren’t enough ‘good apples’ left to be worth sorting out from the bad ones.
Not to mention, given everything else they’ve got to handle, if they can spare that many cops for this photo op…well, just count up the number of cops in that picture, and, if the city or county governments don’t want to defund the department entirely, they should still reduce the police budget by enough to pay the salaries and benefits of that many superfluous cops.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Correction for this tweet:
This Twitter thread explains. OP retweeted it
scav
They chose a church not a handy parking lot or a street intersection or a handy vacant lot to assemble in. That wasn’t an accident. They’re playing to the cameras, to their suburban scared of everything viewing audience, acting out their shared heroic self-image of cultural warriors.
WaterGirl
@The Thin Black Duke:
I get the whole “don’t rush to judgment” concept, and I’m generally in favor of not rushing to judgment.
But I don’t understand how anyone can look at that photo and see anything other than Police State INTIMIDATION.
It reminds me of the unidentified storm troopers who were standing on the steps of the capital.
Ruckus
@UncleEbeneezer:
Very few other countries have the gun culture that we have, I can’t think of any. We have a constitutional amendment – completely, irrationally misinterpreted of course – which has been taken to mean you can own, open carry, armed to the point that people would believe that male must have a detachable penis, that he lost (thinking of the picture of the man in the bakery with 3 or 4 pistols and extra MAGAZINES – which is far more than most carried in Vietnam, an actual war) and that does not take into account the hidden/concealed weapons.
We are a country at war, but it’s a war among ourselves. For the very structure of our government and it’s ideals. We had an insurrection of our capital, people wanting to do as much damage to it as possible including killing/maiming police. These were conservatives trying to destroy any vestige of a viable government. They didn’t want to return to the last guy as president, they wanted to return to the accession of the KKK and the rich, so they could have a white nation and the scraps.
Ruckus
@Soprano2:
Where I live new signal controls have been added. The signal timing changes with the traffic flow. So that at night you don’t sit there waiting, waiting, waiting for the green and run the red, the signals are shorter duration. During peak traffic times they stay green slightly longer for the heavily traveled directions. Traffic flows better in all directions.
Searcher
Jesus, can’t these guys just take up LARPing or go to a Renn Faire like a normal person?
Jay
Back in the olden days, when Trafalgar Square hosted “events”, there would be several pairs of unarmed, radio equipped “Bobbies”, wandering through the crowds, occasionally having a chat with some dude, ( always a dude), who was getting a little too rowdy.
If you wandered out onto the smaller side streets, you would see bus after bus of Riot Cops, just sitting there, with the Riot Cops having a cuppa, a bickie, a smoke, chatting with passers bye.
And this was during the IRA London Bombings.
ns
You should run an update/correction when you get a chance, and we should demilitarize the police forthwith.