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Comment by doomslice | Hacker News Reader

Maybe this will change your mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=20m04s&v=cJOgGsC0G9U

I admire the restraint on display here, but if even one of those guys had been black, the cops would have iced every one of them. Imagine someone grabbing a cop's gas mask at a BLM march and not being dead 2 seconds later.

Are you aware an unarmed white woman was shot and killed by police at the capitol that day?

Yes, on average black folks are treated more unfairly than white folks by police, but exaggerated claims like “the cops would have iced every one of them” help no one.

She was climbing through a barricaded door through a broken window with a person with a drawn gun on the other side protecting who knows who, armed or not the outcome was kind of a given when she decided that was a good idea. Not the best comparison to put up against the treatment of BLM protestors throughout the year.

There was at least one person near her in the video of that women getting shot who was clearly armed with an assault rifle. She may have been unarmed but was storming the chamber with other armed people. The security on the other side had good reason to believe she was a dangerous threat.

The guy with a carbine in the video is a police tactical officer. The main question about this scene is not why the secret service officer shot the woman who defied a lawful order by entering the chambers through a broken window and over the top of a barricade. The question is why she hadn't been shot long before.

Yeah, you're right, the original video I saw was tightly shot and only showed the weapon. There was a similar video released later where those officers where coming up a staircase from behind.

There is no such thing as an 'assault rifle'. It is a made up term.

If you're going to operate at the intersection of gun nuttery and prescriptive English usage, it would help you to be right. The US Army "Small Arms Identification Guide" defined the term at least 50 years ago.

https://web.archive.org/web/20190904213732/http://031d26d.na...

Sad to see moderators not delete these kind of useless uninformed messages as they used to do just couple years ago

I believe you are thinking of the term “assault weapon”, which was a term invented to help ban semi-automatic military-style rifles, that arguably aren’t significantly deadlier than other less scary looking semi-automatic rifles, but are politically more convenient to ban.

“Assault rifle” is a valid term but it only refers to automatic rifles, which were already effectively banned for civilians.

I don’t know whether that rifle (carried by a police officer) is automatic or semi-automatic.

> treatment of BLM protestors

How many BLM protestors were shot and killed by police?

I’m genuinely curious, as I’m not aware of any.

I'm going to assume your question is in good faith, and try to provide a factual set of people who died (that I'm aware of).

* Sarah Grossman was pepper-sprayed at a demonstration and later died in the hospital from acute respiratory issues.

* David McAtee was fatally shot by police at a protest : https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/01/us/louisville-protests-man-sh...

* Sean Monterossa was killed while kneeling with hands raised when shot to death by police because they mistook a hammer in his pocket for a gun. https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Attorney-identifie...

* Aubreana Inda was sent into cardiac arrest, 'dying' three times, after being shot in the chest. https://www.kuow.org/stories/this-26-year-old-died-three-tim...

There are countless incident reports of 'less lethal' ammunition being aimed at faces. Less lethal is still lethal. This woman was placed into a medically induced coma: https://timesofsandiego.com/crime/2020/06/02/family-of-woman...

And several incidents of police using their vehicles or horses to ram, trample, or assault people (e.g. by opening a car door to hit protestors as they drove by). Those could easily have been lethal, though they weren't in this case.

Edit: I know this is all super polarizing stuff, but I'm trying to provide a specific and direct answer to the question above.

LAPD shot a man named CJ Montano in the head with a 40mm foam round. He was standing with his hands up in the middle of the road when they shot him.

Yeah, I tried to not list too many events that 'only' resulted in maiming, loss of sight, or permanent injury, because the parent poster specifically called out deaths. But yes, there were many incidents like you described where the police clearly used force in potentially lethal ways.

Hyperbole, this kind of stuff happened all the time at BLM protests. There is literally hundreds of videos of this stuff. No one was getting 'iced'.

Were they enforcing arbitrary curfews and trying to incite their own police riots or defending VIPs? Police seem to choose to escalate only when faced with certain groups.

Kindly produce a link to a video where someone at a BLM protest grabs and removes a police officer's gas mask.

No, it's not hyperbole. I was at the Portland protests this summer, and nothing even close to this happened. They'd have gone to mass use of tear gas and less lethal munitions long before that point, and if by some improbable chance a context like the above video push into a building arose, there's no question in my mind the CBP and related agency unmarked officers would have just straight up opened fire.

There are two standards at work in how protests are treated. This is a factual matter, not an opinion. It doesn't mean every protester on the left is a blameless, as obviously that's a straw man position on its face. But the disparity in how violence is used, and in particular how early its used is very clear. You can't just handwave that away. Likewise you can't handwave away that showing up with military style gear and loaded firearms is a defining feature of right wing protests that is not duplicated on the left.

There is video of DC police putting a bit of stick about later after the curfew

Strongly disagree I firmly believe the reason the police held back so much was the number of guns in the crowd. They want to make it home at the end of the day too.

It appears that one long squirt of pepper spray broke up that situation.

It does not. Only shows the security had everything under control and only let them in specific areas

Also the protesters look pretty tame. Looks more like the crowd at a festival pushing each other.

It's a real testament to the effectiveness of the BLM protests that the police took a good hard look at themselves and decided to use a light touch from here on out.

Armed terrorists in MI invaded the state Capitol in May, before the murder of George Floyd. Police there took a similar hands off strategy. Are you being facetious?

Yes, of course I am.

The police shot and killed an unarmed woman, Ashli Babbitt.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55581206

She had clear instructions to proceed no further, then climbed through a broken window towards Secret Service members who had guns drawn.

She was partway through the window to the hallway that leads directly to the congressional chambers and was attempting to get past the Secret Service members.

You don't mess with the Secret Service -- they have a very uncompromising view on protecting elected officials and will absolutely draw lines in the sand and firmly enforce them.

Edit: Secret Service were present, but the officer who shot was not a member. He was, however, protecting the immediate vicinity to where congresspeople were sheltering in place.

FiveThirtyEight recently covered a study that does indicate police have always been issuing a lighter touch to alt-right/conservative movements.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polices-tepid-respo...

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