It Just Keeps Getting Worse..

I am losing faith in humanity and society fast.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zgr3DiqWYCI

Finally someone that is able to reach into peoples living rooms has the balls to tell it how it is.

I would like to link the gold stupidity video where a female reporter says the gold is not backed by anything, unlike the US Dollar which is backed by the FED and the government.

but ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWyrjwXoIqA

...

facebookdude said:

I am losing faith in humanity and society fast.

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Honestly, the police can't win. If they are too tough, they get criticized. If they are too soft, they get criticized.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VzOUKODdZ4

This was the riot near my home town earlier this year. The police just sat back and let the rioters do whatever they pleased. They could have brought in the army and RCMP earlier to shut it down, but they didn't. They let people destroy the city and make fools of us across the world.

Why is it that young people think protests are the way to make change? Do you see old people out there protesting? Old people get on their phones and call their congress representatives or whatever or write hand written letters. If you call them daily, they will have no choice but to pay attention.

This is another example of something that started off as a peaceful protest and got out of hand real quickly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucM1cZIXl8Q

The story goes that a young girl threw a rock at a police officer during the original peaceful protest, and the police obviously responded with force against her and that is what set everyone off.

Steps to surviving a PEACEFUL protest:
1) Leave your backpack at home. Carry a purse or satchel for water/cell phone etc.
2) Don't wear anything to cover your face. If you aren't breaking the law, you have nothing to hide.
3) Do not touch or spit or wave your hands near a police officer.
4) Do not yell or even talk to the police. Mind your business and pretend they aren't there. If you need to speak to them, speak calmly and obey their commands at all times.
5) I will repeat the most important part, obey the police at all times.

If a police officer tells you to move, don't respond with "I'm not doing anything wrong man!"

I feel bad for people are pepper sprayed and thrown to the ground without doing anything wrong, but you have to understand that the police are simply trying to maintain control of an uncontrollable situation. They are out numbered 100 to 1. If they perceive something as a threat, they have to act. We also don't know if the police were responding to earlier actions that weren't caught on camera.

The clips in this report don't show that EVERY police response to a riot in Canada and the USA is video taped by officers who respond to the scene. The police want to cover there asses too and not get pinned down by edited footage that only shows one side of the story. The police don't care if you are video taping it. They ARE actually trying to help keep the situation under control.

I have seen police brutality before, this video shows a slight excessive use of force and slight over reactions. But I would rather a few protesters get slammed to the pavement then see an innocent person get attacked by some trouble makers or see properties burned to the ground like London or Vancouver.

How do the police tell the peaceful protesters from the trouble makers?

meh there are good and bad cops.

There are also cops that have common sense and those that do not...

The police aren't supposed to win lol. It was a peaceful protest and I did see a longer version of the video and all they were doing was chanting. I have been in a lot of protests in New Zealand and its been fine, we got our point across. The trouble makers got arrested but the bulk of the people were well behaved and the police respected that.

Also, you don't need to go anywhere with the Police UNLESS you're arrested.

How do you suggest we get our point across to the government? Sit at home calling people that are in a position of authority for weeks on end? Fuck that dude. I have better things to do. I would rather gather with my fellow man, get media attention and get the worlds attention.

Here is another video which shows more in depth some of the clips from the report:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU9Dx0x9h4A&feature=related

I think based on the events in Vancouver and the UK, the police were well within their rights to expect things to turn ugly. How do we know what would have happened if the protest on Wall Street turned into the Riot on Wall Street?

A riot on Wall Street would be devastating to the country right now. They are at an extremely weak point economically and rioters could cause near a billion dollars worth of damage within 24 hours. Trust me, there WERE people out there ready to riot.

Why do people think they had scarfs to cover their faces? They were waiting for the right moments. Read the comments on the YouTube videos encouraging people to get violent next time so they "take them seriously".

The camera people kept asking the police "Who are you protecting?" The city. The store owners. The people who need to get to work. If a store gets smashed or looted, it isn't just the direct damage costs that you need to consider. There could be 5-10 direct people who are now temporarily or permanently out of a job. That could have a chain reaction on hundreds of other jobs.

If your company stops ordering lunch from a small restaurant every day because looters smashed that companies store, that restaurant may have to cut hours or close down. And it continues down the line like that.

Nekylak said:

Well what exactly do you expect? There are good cops and bad cops, being on the police force, isn't much different than any other organization or group of people, the police is just another crew.

People will be people.

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The bad cops should be punished. Or at least have some repercussions.

facebookdude said:

The police aren't supposed to win lol. It was a peaceful protest and I did see a longer version of the video and all they were doing was chanting. I have been in a lot of protests in New Zealand and its been fine, we got our point across. The trouble makers got arrested but the bulk of the people were well behaved and the police respected that.

Also, you don't need to go anywhere with the Police UNLESS you're arrested.

How do you suggest we get our point across to the government? Sit at home calling people that are in a position of authority for weeks on end? Fuck that dude. I have better things to do. I would rather gather with my fellow man, get media attention and get the worlds attention.

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Comparing New Zealand and the USA is not a fair comparison at all. The USA is the greatest super power in the world and handles things a lot differently than other countries, especially after all the other riots this year around the world. When is the last time a protest got anything accomplished on a national government level is the USA?

Protest is usually viewed as an aggressive action by default, and is only allowed in the USA due to the constitution which gives "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Yelling and screaming is not the same as chanting, and it is not a peaceful action.

Once the protesters start engaging the police with swearing and yelling and insults, it is no longer a peaceful assembly and the police can arrest them on a number of charges. The police do not have to charge you with a crime, they can hold you for usually up to 24 hours without any charge if they have reason to suspect you of a crime. This is not just an american thing, most countries allow this.

Another thing, I am not 100% sure if its like this in the USA, but in Canada, you can be detained if you do not present the police with identification and your full name and address when asked. That is a common thing for police to detain you on until the situation calms down since a lot of these people don't bring their ID with them to the protests, and they are scared to give the police all of their information because they believe they will get in more trouble.

I know that comparing New Zealand protests to U.S protests is not fair but it is a good example of a peaceful protest and the only example of a protest I have experienced. I am not sure what you are trying to prove stating all the things you can get arrested for because I'm sure most people are aware of them. I'm saying in the video you can clearly see a man walk up to two woman and spraying them with pepper spray and walking away. After he had done that, no one attempted to arrest either of them. Which begs the question, why did he even do that?

facebookdude said:

The bad cops should be punished. Or at least have some repercussions.

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How do you know they wont be? Because the YouTube guy said they wont be? How do you know who is a bad cop and who is a good cop? I will give you the most common scenarios which get mixed up when people post these YouTube videos and cause so much controversy.

A woman or man is getting told to "get back" by the police. They respond with "We aren't doing anything wrong" instead of obeying the police. The police push forward, the protesters push back. Someone throws something at the police and the police see them, but are unable to apprehend them at that time, but they are easy to spot because of their clothing and police are obviously training to look for things like that.

Fast forward a ways. The person who threw something is back mixed into the crowd, and is spotted by officers and they see their chance to grab that person so they make their move. They do so, and the people who didn't see the actions of that person earlier see it as an unprovoked attack.

As I said, the police are there video taping everything as well because they DO want to follow the law and use only necessary force. They want any officers acting badly to be held accountable as well.

So again, how do you, as a bystander who was not there, know who is a good cop and who is a bad cop? Video doesn't show the whole store in this case. There is NO evidence on any of the footage of the police acting outside of their rights.

facebookdude said:

Also, you don't need to go anywhere with the Police UNLESS you're arrested.

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facebookdude said:

I am not sure what you are trying to prove stating all the things you can get arrested for because I'm sure most people are aware of them.

I'm saying in the video you can clearly see a man walk up to two woman and spraying them with pepper spray and walking away. After he had done that, no one attempted to arrest either of them. Which begs the question, why did he even do that?

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That is the reason I posted that response. You said you don't need to go anywhere with the Police unless you're arrested. That is simply not true. Detention without charge is a very common practice in situations where it isn't worth prosecuting someone. A criminal record can ruin someones life, so instead of prosecuting them, the police will usually just hold them and release them a few hours later and tell them to go home.

Yes, we can see the man walk up and pepper spray them and walk away, but we really don't know his side of the story why he did it. Pepper spray isn't commonly used to arrest people. It is used to deter people from gathering and to disperse them and encourage them to go home.

I will give you a real analysis of why he did it, first the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZ05rWx1pig

The best view of the scene a full minute before the spray:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMoKsZp5iao&feature=related

You can see from the 2nd video, they are trying to detain someone, and the person resists detention which is what started this whole scene.

The protesters are grabbing the fencing and shaking it, knocking it over, and pulling it back and forth which they should not be doing. At 55 Seconds of 2nd video, we see an officer engage a woman for an unknown reason (she was the one shaking the fence earlier in the video) and we can see a woman grabs the officers arm to try to break his hold. She realizes she is wrong and lets go pretty darn fast.

It seems the police were trying to get them to move away from that area, as you can hear a woman ask "Into the parking garage? Is that where you want us to go?"

So with the tensions of the person resisting detention and the people not moving along like they were asked, the officer over reacts a bit in order to disperse them. And it seems to have worked. No permanent damage done. He used the Pepper Spray just as he was trained to do. To disperse crowds quickly through the least amount of force possible.

Are you saying that shaking a fence warrants the use of pepper spray? Be careful here because 27 people have died after being sprayed with it.

facebookdude said:

Are you saying that shaking a fence warrants the use of pepper spray? Be careful here because 27 people have died after being sprayed with it.

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Be careful? You think I am saying it is reasonable to risk the peoples life?

It is not a normal assumption to make that someone getting pepper sprayed will die. The police who use it are simply using it to gain more control over the situation, not to physically harm the people. It is a deterrent.

I am saying that the situation was getting out of hand, and the officers basically just thought "Enough is enough." The situation IS being investigated currently because he may not have followed the proper guidelines, but it wasn't like he went out their to specifically attack an innocent person. He felt her presence was adding to the chaos and had ordered all of those people to move along and they weren't listening, they were arguing with the police in many cases.

Pepper Spray is going to be used more and more commonly in crowd control because it works. If someone has any asthma or other prior respiratory issues, they should not be placing themselves on the front line of a protest which is getting out of hand.

Once the police start arresting people, that is your cue to move along to a different venue. If you are sitting there face to face with the police, you have to understand they are reacting on split second decisions that they feel are the correct call.

The protesters put themselves in that situation. From the second video I posted, it is so obvious that things were at a breaking point. Shouting "Shame shame shame" has NOTHING to do with protesting against government spending.

The moment the protesters changed their protest to chants against the POLICE it was out of hand. They completely forgot why they were there. They even said "We are on your side" to the police, but then why were they chanting "SHAME SHAME SHAME" every time the police arrested someone?

I hate stupid hippie pussy protestors.

rakoom2002 said:

I hate stupid hippie pussy protestors.

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Haha, best comment of the thread. Most protesters are hippies.

They roll out of bed, show up with their $0.25 poster board and expect to make a difference. They stand in front of businesses that are making a difference while chanting and drinking their Starbucks coffee and go back to their parents home and cry foul.

The problem with protesters in the US is that people protest over dumb things and when there does become an issue serious enough to protest against, the thought of being "one of those stupid hippies" is enough to keep people away..

If the police order you to disperse, and you refuse and start arguing, you can be arrested for failing to follow the orders of a law enforcement officer, which is a misdemeanor here in Missouri. Don't know about New York.

If New York does have a similar law, then once the crowd was told to disperse and refused, then the use of non-lethal minimum force would be authorized. (In which the use of pepper spray would be authorized. Pepper spray is still considered non-lethal force, along with riot batons, tazers, and beanbag shot.)

Missouri also has a law called "The 20-Hour Rule", which means you can be apprehended (not arrested, there is a difference) and detained for up to 20 hours without formal charges being filed against you. After 20 hours, the prosecutor must either file formal charges or release you. This essentially means that any law enforcement officer can haul you to jail for suspicion, not actually have to charge you with anything, and release you after 20 hours without having to tell you or anyone else a damn thing.

(And, just so you know, I'm an ex-cop. Spent 8 years in law enforcement.)

In my honest opinion, if all she got was a dose of pepper spray in this particular situation, she ought to consider herself lucky. She could have gotten cuffed, stuffed, and spent some quality time in the local Greybar Hotel.

EDIT: I just read that Missouri has extended the 20-Hour Rule to 24 hours, and is trying to get it extended to 48 hours. I've been out of law enforcement for several years, and wasn't aware of the rule change.

Reference: http://blog.jeffcitylaw.com/?p=726

Randy569 said:

If the police order you to disperse, and you refuse and start arguing, you can be arrested for failing to follow the orders of a law enforcement officer, which is a misdemeanor here in Missouri. Don't know about New York.

If New York does have a similar law, then once the crowd was told to disperse and refused, then the use of non-lethal minimum force would be authorized. (In which the use of pepper spray would be authorized. Pepper spray is still considered non-lethal force, along with riot batons, tazers, and beanbag shot.)

Missouri also has a law called "The 20-Hour Rule", which means you can be apprehended (not arrested, there is a difference) and detained for up to 20 hours without formal charges being filed against you. After 20 hours, the prosecutor must either file formal charges or release you. This essentially means that any law enforcement officer can haul you to jail for suspicion, not actually have to charge you with anything, and release you after 20 hours without having to tell you or anyone else a damn thing.

(And, just so you know, I'm an ex-cop. Spent 8 years in law enforcement.)

In my honest opinion, if all she got was a dose of pepper spray in this particular situation, she ought to consider herself lucky. She could have gotten cuffed, stuffed, and spent some quality time in the local Greybar Hotel.

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Hmm. And in New Zealand you don't have to go anywhere with the Police unless you're arrested: http://www.norml.org.nz/Rights/index_old.htm

I thought it would be the same in most places. Yet again I say, I'm so glad I don't live in the United States of America.

facebookdude said:

I thought it would be the same in most places. Yet again I say, I'm so glad I don't live in the United States of America.

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Yeah this place sucks

facebookdude said:

I am losing faith in humanity and society fast.

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Because some protesters got their butts kicked?

Children are starving to death right now this very moment. Protesters getting their butts kicked is the last of my worries.

Sorry brother but I expect more from a "losing faith in humanity thread" than some protesters getting their butts kicked. There's a lot more horrible things going on in this world than that.

If enough people mob that area, they will shut down all of Wall Street. The Police will start shooting people then. If they all carried pepper spray, the Police would have had an appropriate level of respect. Firearms would have been better. This is the kind of thing that happens when you give up your weapons to the government. They can do anything they want to you, and all you can do about it is cry, bitch and whine.