Felony Charges for 6 Reporters at Inauguration Protests

Re:Felony Charges for 6 Reporters at Inauguration Protests by brndnmtthws on Friday January 27, 2017 @12:15AM (#13497904)

I was there. Protests were peaceful, until the cops started throwing grenades and arresting folks. I took some photos from a distance[1], and also posted a couple videos to twitter[2][3]. There was a heavy police presence on Friday (inauguration day), which was in stark contrast to Saturday (the Women's March), in which the police were noticeably absent. Not surprisingly, there was no violence during the Women's March because there were no police to antagonize people.

I remember watching a journalist who'd been pepper sprayed by police wash his eyes with bottled water, just outside the restaurant we'd stopped at for lunch.

We live in troubling times.

[1]: https://goo.gl/photos/GfrxTZV4sADJqtgH7

[2]: https://twitter.com/brndnmtthws/status/822520102973095936

[3]: https://twitter.com/brndnmtthws/status/822530371841622017

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Re:Felony Charges for 6 Reporters at Inauguration Protests by Meekro on Friday January 27, 2017 @12:22AM (#13497938)

So you're saying that the police antagonized people, and that made them so angry that they set a limo on fire? That doesn't ring true to me. It makes much more sense the other way: the police were there because they were needed, to protect bystanders and property from the mob.

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Re:Felony Charges for 6 Reporters at Inauguration Protests by scrollaway on Friday January 27, 2017 @12:25AM (#13497947)

Police is always there during these types of protests. There's plenty of peaceful protests with police around.

It's absolutely possible that, if the police starts being violent, the violence spreads very quickly and cars get set on fire. Crowd control has a lot of strategy to it...

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Re:Felony Charges for 6 Reporters at Inauguration Protests by huragok on Friday January 27, 2017 @12:33AM (#13497974)

99% of people walk a march and 1% torch private property (a limousine): clearly the "mob" is in the wrong.

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Re:Felony Charges for 6 Reporters at Inauguration Protests by olalonde on Friday January 27, 2017 @12:47AM (#13498014)

That's a pretty uncharitable interpretation of parent's comment. I read it as "to protect bystanders and property from the mob [that was violent]".

And his point seemed to be that police being "noticeably absent" from peaceful protests is more simply explained by the fact that those protests were peaceful rather than police presence being the source of violence.

Police brutality is a real issue but indiscriminately blaming the police every time they show up doesn't help the cause.

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Re:Felony Charges for 6 Reporters at Inauguration Protests by huragok on Friday January 27, 2017 @01:07AM (#13498086)

> Police brutality is a real problem but blindly blaming the police every time they show up doesn't help the cause.

Let's not give the police the benefit of the doubt. Time and time again across the nation it has been shown that law enforcement is not for the populace-at-large but for the betterment of the state and its agenda - whoever the party in charge.

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Re:Felony Charges for 6 Reporters at Inauguration Protests by jeffdavis on Friday January 27, 2017 @01:20AM (#13498124)

Do you have evidence that the police arrested the peaceful ones?

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Re:Felony Charges for 6 Reporters at Inauguration Protests by jeffdavis on Friday January 27, 2017 @01:18AM (#13498115)

Thank you for the report. But without specifics about the circumstances of the arrest I still can't make an informed opinion yet.

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