Truly crimes worthy of being wounded, maimed, and killed without either indictment or trial.

This comment breaks the site guidelines, and some of your other comments have been doing that also. Would you mind reading https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here? Note that they include:

"Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."

"Don't be snarky."

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

It's obviously not easy to stay in the mode of curious conversation when discussing the most conflictual topics of the moment, but the intended spirit of this place requires all of us to try.

Portland lost their injunction in front of a judge yesterday. I’m assuming they put forward their best evidence and the judge said they “provided no evidence these allegedly illegal seizures are a widespread practice”.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/645981db-2a88-3304-ae89-094ca25...

That separate ruling does not affect a ruling by a different federal judge, barring federal agents from interfering with journalists and legal observers; this ruling includes potential future enforcement against individuals and their supervisors if the judge’s ruling is not obeyed by individuals acting under federal authority or directed by federal agencies.

https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2020/07/judge-inclined-t...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23934702

Imagine going before a Federal judge, whose Courthouse is under attack by people trying to burn it down, and then argue before the judge that Federal officers aren't warranted.

I would not want to show my face in that court ever again.

Federal judiciary can be maddening unwilling to hold executive security apparatus to account. I'm reminded of the NSA surveillance lawsuit, that was shrugged away with the same "lack of standing". And the same question lingering -- then, your honor, who exactly _does_ have standing?

It creates a catch-22-enhanced version of Who’s On First[1][2], except it’s Who Has Legal Standing? It results in judges being hesitant to rule as they ought due to intentional muddying of the jurisdictional hierarchy of bureaucracy and who is able to claim standing and harm. It’s a shell game designed to disempower everyone in the courtroom to the boon of those who can never or will never be brought inside one.

What if change through the courts is impossible because it would take longer than any one person’s life to acquire standing to sue, and have the case heard?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who%27s_on_First%3F

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTcRRaXV-fg

If it’s true that rioters are attacking with hammers, certainly the use of less-lethal force is justified. Do the police not have the right to self-defense that every other citizen has?

There was the incident of a protester holding a boombox over their head, and getting shot in the face with a "less lethal" munition that cracked their skull.

Another where a person was riding their bike away from a protest and got hauled into an anonymous van and held without cause.

Self defense is ok, these actions are not. One "protester" being violent does not warrant collective punishment of all/any protesters. It warrants defense from, and the arrest of, the violent ones.

Except citizens get prosecuted, fired, judged as to weather or not it was indeed a justified use of force. The pd does not have any such accountability or review.

Calling the police's capacity for violence merely "the right to self-defense" is absurd. Qualified immunity goes so far beyond the rights of normal citizens that there really is no possible comparison. Not even the fever dreams of the most radical libertarian encompass qualified immunity for civilians.

The police in the United States are a paramilitary force, equipped with military gear, and in many cases with military training -- the only thing military thing they don't have is the uniform code of military justice, which forbids things like the use of chemical weaponry and war crimes.

No one picked up in Portland by an unmarked car was killed maimed etc..

So if I were to grab you off of the street, question you, refuse to answer your questions and drop you off 30 minutes later without physically harming you... you'd be fine with that?

That's actually happened to me (except out of my house, not off the street) when my house was misidentified as the location of a domestic violence call.

It was disturbing and a little frightening, but yes, in hindsight I am fine with it. I hope they found the right house and found the person they were looking for.

No. I also wouldn't call it killing or maiming.

You are not a Federal Agent.

Please don't make things even worse by posting like this (or https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23835194). We ban accounts that do that.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The hammer attack was waiting in ambush and could have caused a death if the officer that came out the door didn't have protective gear.

Yes. The attack in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7vlKbR3Gcs

Do you know what a hammer will do to a skull? The dude was not nailing up boards, he was at the door waiting to ambush.

I don't support what's going on on the police side, and think they seem to be intentionally escalating to draw out events like that to use politically, but there is no excuse for what that hammer guy was doing.

I've been watching the violent portion of these protests and have been impressed how much restraint the police and feds have shown. It's very interesting how differently these situations are perceived depending on your political perspective and sources of information.

Same here. Video of the arrests the last few nights don’t seem out of line to me.

The feds stay locked up in the courthouse, the “protestors” breakdown the barriers erected, start fires, then the feds rush them and grab who they can.

These are not “innocent” protestors just exercising their 1st amendment rights. At least not in the videos I’ve seen.

The feds are marching through streets blocks away.