I would, too. Which is why I am opposed to tactics that are escalating the situation.
Why aren't you?
At this point...mild responses to the rioting haven't been successful in ending the riots.
They just burned down a police union building a day ago.
Leftists claim Portland police set their own building ablaze—but Antifa proudly admitted to the crime
Rioters claimed that the police did it themselves (which is pretty absurd at this point) and that's despite the fact that Antifa took credit for it.
It doesn't seem like a gentle approach is going to put an end to this mess. People need to be arrested and face consequences for their actions. If "peaceful protesters" are enabling this stuff...then they need to call it quits or face consequences as well.
Police are being attacked...
Portland Police Command Defends Bureau’s Aggressive Tactics and Describes Protesters as “Agitators”
They have every right to defend themselves.
Nope, but peaceful protestors can turn into rioters, and rioters can turn into insurgents, if you allow things to continually escalate for long enough. That's precisely why I bring up de-escalation. I'd like to not let it get that far.
We're past the point of "peaceful protesters" in Portland. They're burning down buildings and assaulting police. They've caused at least tens of millions of dollars in damage so far.
Claiming these are peaceful protesters at this point is blatantly false.
De-escalation tactics are. If it gets to the point of insurgency, that's when the strategy will have to change.
What's a "de-escalation" tactic in your mind? Abandoning the city to the rioters? There's a lot of people who live there who arent involved in the riots and deserve safety and protection like anyone else.
All major movements have violent factions.
Really? The Women's March seemed to go off without assaulting any police or burning anything to the ground.
Frankly, I could list plenty of groups and peaceful protests that didn't involve anyone being killed. It's telling that the Unite the Right protest that brought together armed neo-nazis only resulted in 1 killing....yet Black Lives Matter supporters who have been "protesting" and rioting for months have killed far more people.
Yup. And they're going to continue as long as failed tactics are being used.
Nah...the elected officials have to grow a backbone and start throwing these people in jail. That seems to have worked better than anything else. Seattle tried de-escalation and it resulted in rioters taking control of several blocks of the city and eventually multiple murders. It ended when they finally moved police in and arrested anyone who refused to leave.
Nope. I am able differentiate between the peaceful protestors, and the radicalized factions that intermingle with them.
No offense...but there's a lot of hypocrisy coming from people making that argument. They want police to hold other police accountable when they see them breaking the law....they want police to change a police culture that they believe hides and dismisses wrongdoing by police. They believe that if one cop does wrong and the other cops do nothing to stop it....then they're all guilty.
We can apply that same thinking to protesters. If protesters see another protester throwing rocks at police...they should turn that protester over to the police for arrest. If they enable a protesting "culture" that allows people to burn down buildings and assault people....then they need to change their culture. If "good protesters" do nothing about the "bad protesters"....then they're all bad protesters.
It's extremely hypocritical that these people don't agree with the whole "a few bad apples" argument when it comes to police....yet they immediately make the same argument when it comes to protesters
I am on the "side" of criminal justice reform - from police, to courts, to prisons.
None of those things require violence and destruction. Frankly, they're demanding a lot more than "reform" at this point.
I know. Police currently suck at their jobs, though. Here are the clearance rates for crimes with a victim in 2018,
Clearances.
Depends on the police and crime levels. There's communities where police clear a majority of crimes, even murder. There's also communities where they don't.
The main differences between the two are...
1. The level of crime. The more crimes, the less time and resources the police can devote to each crime.
2. The level of funding for the police. The better funded they are, the more resources they can devote to solving crimes.
3. The communitycomcooperation with police. When people speak with the police and are willing to help them solve crimes...the easier it is to solve crimes. Believe it or not, there are communities where parents will call the police on their own child if they know their child has committed a crime. The opposite is just as shocking....there's communities where people believe that people shouldn't "snitch" on criminals even if the crime they committed is serious or damaging the community.
That's part of why I'm in favor of reform. This one size fits all, jack of all trades model - in which cops are responsible for everything from traffic to mental health to homicide to writing tickets for spitting gum on the sidewalk to drugs - is trash. I'd prefer if their funds and resources were directed entirely toward crimes with a victim, and we leave everything else to specialists. End the worthless "war on drugs" and put the money toward crime reduction through community investment. And a whole bunch of other things, but that's the most relevant stuff for police.
I'm not against police reform....but sadly, I don't see any real plans for fixing the issues you're talking about.
The main reason police deal with traffic violations is that people are armed. If we put unarmed civilians in charge of that...it's just a matter of time before they get killed and either refuse to do the job unarmed or demand the police assist them. We can say the same thing about mental health calls...domestic disturbance calls...etc. I've no doubt that some of these ideas may work well in places where the chances of running into an armed civilian are slim to none, but that's not the US. Here, there's always a chance that a civilian is armed....and asking unarmed specialists to deal with them is basically asking them to gamble with their lives.
