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A comment on Constitutionally, Religious Gatherings Must Enjoy the Same Rights as Protests. Parent comment

Re:Constitutionally, Religious Gatherings Must Enjoy the Sam... by HarryHirsch on Monday June 08, 2020 @07:14PM (#23461822)
The police can hold someone for 72 hours if there is probable cause, until the prosecution can put a case together. That said, you do ask how many people actually needed to be held because of suspicion of serious crime, and how many were held because the cops want to harass protesters and discourage protesting. Since everything is recorded by police anyway you do wonder why they keep anyone longer than necessary.

Anyone who mentions rioters and does not talk about police brutality needs to examine their motives carefully.

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Re:Constitutionally, Religious Gatherings Must Enjoy the Sam... by downerending on Monday June 08, 2020 @07:29PM (#23461935)
> Anyone who mentions rioters and does not talk about police brutality needs to examine their motives carefully.

Why? Does a rioter murdering someone somehow balance out a bad cop murdering someone? No. You just end up with twice as much awful.

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Re:Constitutionally, Religious Gatherings Must Enjoy the Sam... by mindslight on Monday June 08, 2020 @08:02PM (#23462183)
Talking about the few protest associates committing crimes while ignoring the police committing crimes and backing each other up while doing so shows that you are only invoking the law as a tool to harm those you disagree with.

Most of the rioting has been started by the police themselves, using this nonsensical wedge of a "curfew" to justify opening fire on peaceful crowds. When crowds are attacked by marching lines of thugs, it's no surprise that they will attempt to defend themselves, creating mayhem.

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Re:Constitutionally, Religious Gatherings Must Enjoy the Sam... by downerending on Monday June 08, 2020 @08:11PM (#23462237)
> Most of the rioting has been started by the police themselves

I reject that completely. If you riot, you choose to riot. The rioters I have seen shooting and stabbing people, and kicking them in the head while down are criminals. There is no passing of that buck.

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Re:Constitutionally, Religious Gatherings Must Enjoy the Sam... by mindslight on Monday June 08, 2020 @08:24PM (#23462313)
> I reject that completely. If you riot, you choose to riot

How does this aphorism not apply to the police? When they open fire or march on a peaceful crowd, they are choosing to riot. If their goal was to prevent crime, they would deploy small units into the protest crowd to catch troublemakers directly.

> The rioters I have seen shooting and stabbing people, and kicking them in the head while down are criminals. There is no passing of that buck

Agreed for those specific people. But the vast majority that get arrested have done no such thing. Rather they started off peacefully protesting, and were then attacked by the police for exercising that right. If the arrestees were all that violent to begin with, there is no way they would have become so concentrated for so many to get arrested.

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Re:Constitutionally, Religious Gatherings Must Enjoy the Sam... by downerending on Monday June 08, 2020 @09:44PM (#23462792)
> When they open fire or march on a peaceful crowd

As far as I know, the last time that happened in the US was May 4, 1970. A terrible, terrible day.

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Re:Constitutionally, Religious Gatherings Must Enjoy the Sam... by mindslight on Monday June 08, 2020 @10:20PM (#23462996)
>> When they open fire or march on a peaceful crowd

> As far as I know, the last time that happened in the US was May 4, 1970. A terrible, terrible day.

There are plenty of videos and stories of police firing and marching on peaceful crowds during this round of protests, if you care to look. I don't know what your intent is with writing off five decades of protests, but bluntly ignoring this is counterproductive to any hope of mutual understanding.

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Re:Constitutionally, Religious Gatherings Must Enjoy the Sam... by downerending on Monday June 08, 2020 @11:03PM (#23463210)
I'll bite. When's the most recent incident of two or more police officers firing on peaceful crowds with live ammunition meant to kill, using handguns, rifles, or shotguns?
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Re:Constitutionally, Religious Gatherings Must Enjoy the Sam... by mindslight on Monday June 08, 2020 @11:33PM (#23463413)
Adding qualifications to rule out current events is weaseling. Cops are shooting crowds with rubber bullets, gas canisters, and pepper balls, resulting in maiming and death. A non-cop doing the same thing would be on the hook for second degree murder.

Aside from the shooting I did also say marching, which is another way cops purposely escalate the situation and then claim they were just doing their job.

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