Minneapolis Riots ?

[blhagstrom]

Wasn’t there but the law enforcement officers I know have said a lot of things would be so much easier and safer if people would just comply.

 

[RobRoy]

I lived in Chicago -- the South Side -- in 1968, including the spring riots following the killing of Dr King and, following a summer mostly spent in Provincetown (MA), back in time to see (the action was not far from our house) the the carnage @ the lakefront during the Democratic National Convention. I was just a kid but even then feared having to maybe go to 'Nam. Still, I saw CPD do things, mean things, that were utterly justified by what their opponents (Yippies, IIRC?) were layin' on "The Man".

There was some "summer ****" as well, while we were away in MA, so I agree w/ Heather re: "rioting gets to be like Summertime blues" in some places, some communities.

In all events, what's goin' down in Minneapolis reminds me of The Rodney King Incident... y'all recall that one, eh?

My wife lived in Elgin at the time. Boy, does she have some stories.

 

[Shominy]

Censorship. That's the real problem.
IBTL is not illegal.

Anyway, this continues to be a disproportionate situation in our Country. And it has gotten worse in the past decade or so.

 

[Mystic]

My wife lived in Elgin at the time. Boy, does she have some stories.

Elgin is a ways west of the city and in '68 was a pretty nice town. Trouble found its way to Elgin starting around the early 1990s w/ the rise and expansion of Aurora.

 

[RobRoy]

Wasn’t there but the law enforcement officers I know have said a lot of things would be so much easier and safer if people would just comply.

I confess that I watched quite a few videos five or so years ago of guys in "routine" traffic stops being beaten and even shot. Yes, they were all black people on the receiving end. But then it hit me one day. In every single case I said to myself, "I get pulled over roughly three times a year and I'm always very polite with the cops and I've never been beaten, dragged out of a car, or shot." But in every single one of these cases, "cooperation" is the exact opposite of what they were doing.

Now, I also understand that in certain neighborhoods there may be a lot of police harassment for various reasons, most of which involve it simply being a very rough neighborhood (I've some experience with that as well) so any interaction between cops and a person being singled out by cops is a delicate situation. But still, Chris Rock covered this well over a decade ago - and you have to choose your battles:

 

[ETLS]

Riots like this one will end when minorities are accepted as equal to whites. So probably never.

When EVERYONE is treated as human.

 

[PPstereo]

I'm just thrilled to see cops wearing cameras all the time overall. And civilians recording incidents.

That preserves the truth the bulk of the time and that's what matters most.

What really happens.

It makes sure criminals are charged as such and sniffs out poor police actions.

Lord knows being a cop is anything but easy in this day and age. I feel bad for em.

My cop friends are also thrilled with the adoption of cop cams. No reason all officers shouldnt have them.

 

[RobRoy]

Anyway, this continues to be a disproportionate situation in our Country. And it has gotten worse in the past decade or so.

I don't see it exactly that way. I see the US and EU quite similarly, except only one has armed forces. That is, each one is a federation of separate countries governed by an overarching agreement/constitution. So the US, to me, is really 50 separate "mostly sovereign" countries, all with different cultures, mainly just sharing a common language.Arizona is not NY and North Dakota is not California. They each have their own unique problems.

I've visited almost every state in the union and lived in quite a few. There is a reason I finally settled on Kentucky after Seattle.

This is not a US problem. It's not even a Minnesota problem. It is a Minneapolis problem.

 

[bbqjoe]

I lived in MN the first 17 years of my life; a good portion in the Mpls area.
After leaving and being in other parts of the country, it seemed to me that people in MN seemed more level headed and practical.
Maybe my perceptions were wrong, I kind of expected better of these folks.

 

[RobRoy]

When EVERYONE is treated as human.

That will never happen. It does not align with human nature. People have bad days. People have poor upbringing. People can be narcissistic. People can be a bit too sociopathic. Etc. And this causes other, equally flawed people, to do things they may regret later. There is a solution, but the subject is taboo here so I won't cross that bridge at this time.

 

[RobRoy]

I lived in MN the first 17 years of my life; a good portion in the Mpls area.
After leaving and being in other parts of the country, it seemed to me that people in MN seemed more level headed and practical.
Maybe my perceptions were wrong, I kind of expected better of these folks.

I really like Eden Prarie.

I used to live in Vallejo, CA and much of my family lives in Napa. The cities are quite close, but boy, have they taken different paths since I was there. Some are level headed. Some are "less so".

 

[Chrisxo55441]

I own a four-plex 3 blocks from the police station that they are protesting at, i need to go and mow and check a tenant issue but im worried about leaving my truck in the alley there was lots of windshield smashing and car break ins last night, plus they were looting business's a few miles away in the uptown area which is a pricey area last night. they are talking national guard now. i saw one of the videos of the target looting and there were a couple young girls like 8-10 running in there and stealing, sad very sad

 

[RobRoy]

Elgin is a ways west of the city and in '68 was a pretty nice town. Trouble found its way to Elgin starting around the early 1990s w/ the rise and expansion of Aurora.

Yep. It was "gentrified" but stuff was going on under the surface. One example: Her father drove her to a party and as they arrived at the house, her father saw two black guys going in. He had a bad feeling about them and he refused to let his daughter go to the party. My wife knew those two boys. It wasn't all that long after that that the two boys ended up in prison. They had been involved in some "anti-government" shenanigans that were a felony.

Of course, her father's motivation was almost certainly at least partially racial, and based on the racial tension at the time. At that particular time and place, not trusting someone simply because they were black was a bit more reasonable. Kinda like Fred Reed, who used to write articles about his "ride along" with chicago and DC police during the graveyard shift mentioned that when you saw a car load of white boys driving through some neibhorhoods, it was about drugs. i.e. they profiled white guys, based on time of day and location. It's how cops think. When something doesn't look "right" for the time and place, the good ones pay attention. And this involves race, age, attire, etc. It all gets folded into the mix.

 

[Andyman]

Wasn’t there but the law enforcement officers I know have said a lot of things would be so much easier and safer if people would just comply.

Watching the videos, Floyd seems to be fine when they remove him from his SUV and ask him to sit on the bench, which he does. He seems to be very compliant and certainly not resisting.

Next thing we see is him on the ground with the knee on the neck. I wonder what happened to change the situation?

I also wonder why the cop didn't lighten up a bit, especially when witnesses asked him to and he was obviously being recorded. I get that every cop can tell you tales about other officers who let their guard down for a second and got killed, but I just don't get why he couldn't lighten up just a bit...Or why his partners didn't intercede either.

This entire situation is so sad on so many levels

 

[PPstereo]

Yeah the anti profiling mentality leaves me the way side also.

Imagine a Sherlock Holmes novel with crime science removed.

 

[Pio1980]

There's a sense of unaccountable authoritarian entitlement with LEOs with poor to no training to acceptable standards in a system that enables and shields flagrant repeat offenders. The departments/agencies that display these characteristics do no service to those with impeccable ethical standards. Unfortunately for those, the self-oversight that should deal with it is lacking presence and ability to enforce ethical standards with the miscreants in the other agencies.

 

[RobRoy]

...plus they were looting business's a few miles away in the uptown area which is a pricey area last night.

This is where it can get ugly. As long as they are just burning down their own "throw away" neighborhood, it is sort of containable. If they branch out to other, more civilized areas, there will be hell to pay. Remember the armed Korean shop owners on the roofs of their businesses during the LA riots. It would be that, but at a whole other level.

 

[RobRoy]

There's a sense of unaccountable authoritarian entitlement with LEOs with poor to no training to acceptable standards in a system that enables and shields flagrant repeat offenders. The departments/agencies that display these characteristics do no service to those with impeccable ethical standards. Unfortunately for those, the self-oversight that should deal with it is lacking presence and ability to enforce ethical standards with the miscreants in the other agencies.

Sometimes it's just about the job not paying well enough to attract quality applicants. And how long can a person, working as a police officer, watch injustice happen all around them and even when they DO arrest someone, they just find them back on the street the next day or week. After a few months or years of this, it can challenge the integrity of any person. It's why I can't imagine, in this day and age, aspiring to be a cop. My personal solution is to conceal carry and figure I won't need a cop unless I find myself in the middle of this sort of mayhem.

But then, this speaks to why I left Seattle for rural KY.

 

[Pio1980]

There seem to be two basic schools of enforcement authority, "community policing" involving constructive interaction, and adversarial policing, generating a "them vs us" interaction with a "heads-I-win, tails-you-lose" attitude.
The results of one vs the other should be obvious.

 

[Mystic]

The bright side: They don't appear to be worried about the virus, social distancing, masks, &c.