Also relevant: protesters are starting to teach themselves how to deal with tear gas.
You're assuming the police actually WANT to de-escalate. They generally do not. (If you are suggesting the police in "far-left strongholds like Portland" behave or are motivated qualitatively differently than police in other cities... nope).
They want to scuffle, they want to punish people who have verbally antagonized or threatened them, or who they think deserve it; they want to protect challenges to their authority and maintain control of the situuation, or think they need to crack down hard to avoid a total social breakdown (the opposite of de-escalation) -- they have a variety of values and priorities, avoiding a "riot" is seldom one of them. ("Winning" the riot is).
Here in Baltimore, the last few months of protest had very little property destruction or scuffling. Some here wanted to credit the restraint or intentions of "proestors" -- I think it's far more likely that the police administrators this time, somehow, got the forces in the street to actually avoid escalation.
I am a middle-aged leftist who has been at many many protests. Every "riot" I have been near was initiated by escalation by police, including chemical weapons use, agitating the crowd to respond, bringing more response in turn. If the police avoid escalation, it doesn't happen. This isn't always what the leftist radicals want to admit either -- they may want to think it's "the people" who are in control of things, who are angry enough to rise up or something. In fact, it's the folks who are trained to act together, with the better weapons and the (usually) disciplined command and control structure, who have pre-existing relationships of working together as a team -- who largely determine whether to escalate or de-escalate -- and this isn't that surprising.
The police usually don't actually want to de-escalate, they want to knock heads. By "the police" I mean both the "white shirts" and the "blue shirts". Sometimes the decision-makers might have preferred not to escalate, but literally would not be able to control those they ostensibly control though; the police are there for a fight.
I don't think the riots were the result of police escalation, that strikes me as an attempt to sell snow to eskimos. I think they were the result of people realising they could get away with it, which is why they stopped when the national guard stepped in. People aren't torching car dealerships and looting flat screen TVs from Walmart because of the police, they're doing it because it's fun.
I am not denying some kind of provocation from the crowd. What we're talking about is if the police respond with escalation or de-escalation. Separate from an issue of "fault", just an objective observation of what happens.
I'm not talking about whole-scale insubordination from the police. I'm saying individual cops and unit-leaders have discretion of when to respond with what force -- like cops do generally.
I think one reason the national guard makes a difference is because they have very different training, risk-tolerance, different ingrained norms about when it's appropriate to use force against civilians. Military is trained to try to avoid using force against civilians; police not so much because that's literally their job. We are seeing lately how often the police respond to any perceived risk with overwhelming force -- that is what they are trained to do. National guard, when facing civilians, are trained to use it as a last resort, police seem trained (whether explicitly or implicitly) to use it as a first resort, at least when dealing with certain populations (protestors, poor people) where traditionally mainstream society sees them as "dangerous". Honestly, I think the national guard is a lot more likely to respond to "provocation" from civilians with de-escalation or just holding ground; the police much more likely to respond by escalation, some form of violence against the crowd in general, in a way that brings an escalated reaction.
1. Left-right is a completely different axis to authoritarian-liberty. I’ve known both an anarcho-communist and an anarcho-capitalist.
2. The idea that the US Democrat party is “far-left” is hilarious from here in Europe.
> What’s the best way to stop them from starting? What de-escalation methods are proven to work?
The ELI5 answer is “political competence”. These are things that would take at least a degree module to understand fully, not a comment thread.
Just to add to this:
Right-wingers who fantasize about Seattle or Portland being "far-left" really need to visit and see that capitalism is alive and well there (thriving, actually), private property has not been abolished, the workers don't own the means of production, and massive socioeconomic inequality still exists.
None of these would be true if Seattle or Portland were really "far-left".
They can still cause significant injuries when abused, but they are far more humane than teargas and rubber bullets.
[0] https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/dakota-pipeline-protests/d...
Tear gas has a similar problem: a tear gas cartridge in the face may blind you (or worse). Wikipedia says "As with all non-lethal or less-lethal weapons, there is some risk of serious permanent injury or death when tear gas is used. This includes risks from being hit by tear gas cartridges that may cause severe bruising, loss of eyesight, or skull fracture, resulting in immediate death. A case of serious vascular injury from tear gas shells has also been reported from Iran, with high rates of associated nerve injury (44%) and amputation (17%), as well as instances of head injuries in young people." [1]
1. Don't have a despotic government. If you have a despot, like in Belarus, that despot should not have access to these weapons.
2. Don't kill people in the course of law enforcement. This happens far too frequently in some places. Police that do this should not have chemical weapons.
3. How many recent riots are down to other causes? How many recent uses of teargas are legitimate and necessary? If there is no legitimate need for teargas, get rid of it.
Tear gas won’t manage gentrification and economic inequality, and overarching societal reform won’t manage a riot in progress.
Right tools for the job and all that...
[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/31/portland-pr...
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/2/21278285/peaceful-protest-...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/26/opinion/blm-p...
[3] https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/19/opinions/aggressive-police-pe...
[4] https://www.vox.com/2020/6/12/21279619/protesters-police-vio...
[5] https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/police-keep-using-fo...
It’s impossible not to see an obvious strategy of police provocation, hilariously on display in [2], but tear gas as a tactic to disperse groups of people can’t seriously be argued not to work, as shown in that very same [2].
[0]: “...the protests largely ended the same way for days: with tear gas, rubber bullets and arrests.”
[1]: “The vast majority of people began to disband, while some stayed behind to continue protesting.”
[2]: “Minutes later, the march ended in chaos as the police lobbed flash-bang grenades and sprayed the protesters with tear gas and pepper spray.”
[3]: focused on strategy
[4]: ‘officers have met peaceful protesters...with disproportionate and brutal force, often for no reason but to “disperse” a crowd.’
[5]: focused on effects of tactics
The people being dispersed won’t always be peacefully protesting injustice, and the police themselves won’t always be the subject at hand.
I also specifically mentioned it as a tool for managing a riot in progress, not provoking the current protests occurring across the US.
[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2020/06/03/all-t...
[1] https://www.newsweek.com/nypd-sergeants-benevolent-associati...
[2] https://www.thedailybeast.com/norman-oklahoma-councilwoman-a...