Comment by neartheplain | Hacker News Reader

Comment by neartheplain | Hacker News Reader

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The police in Portland were never overrun. Over the course of those 100+ nights they maintained discipline, held their secure perimeters, and succeeded in their mission to keep rioters from breaching e.g. the federal courthouse or their station buildings. In contrast, officers at the Capitol were completely overrun, isolated, and brutally beaten by the mob without hope or expectation of rescue. Some have said that while lying on the ground taking blows, cut off from backup and effectively abandoned by leadership, they thought they were going to die then and there [0].

They also failed in their mission to protect and secure the Capitol. While blame for that rests mainly on their leaders, at least according what I've read in the IG and Senate reports, I imagine it still weighs heavy on each officer.

[0] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/dc-police-officers-speak-o...

An event that only lasted a couple of hours is so much more dramatic than months long riots with the leadership throwing police line officers under the bus? Sufficiently so that there's literally an epidemic of suicides?

I'm not buying it.

Just look at the suicides if you aren't buying it....I won't pretend to know what those officers experienced. But when officers are saying they view the actions of their leaders as disgraceful, and talk about a feeling of abandonment, then just maybe we should believe what they say? Or continue to ignore their complaints.

Leader abandonment is hardly unique to that job. The conclusion of many Portland and similar officers was to retire, change job types, or change job locations - not suicide.

When facts don't add up I tend to conclude that there either are missing facts or some of the purported facts aren't actually facts.

"Do the research!", or how does it go?

I'm totally buying it. look at the scale of intensity. rioters are no fun. but they possess no existential risk to America, and withdrawl was a tactical option if needed. I'd also say few protest groups qualify as rioters. there is some rioting, some destruction of property, some physical force that did happen in the various month long "riots" ongoingly but for the most part at a very small scale. mostly I'd classify the groups as being protestors or a crowd, not rioters.

amassed violent insurrectionists threatening & overrunning a seated us congress, which you are sworn to protect, & where backup has not arrived, is a genuine horror the likes of which I never expected anyone in my lifetime would have faced.

I'm hearing violins reading this.

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