All looters should be given due process and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty in a court of law.

Law and order, innit?

That's bullshit. What are people supposed to do? Something bad happened, the media covered/exposed it. What more can you expect? What do you want me to do? Go join the protest? Rage on the internet? Scream?

According to the former head of the NAACP "a young black man is 21x more likely to "encounter violence and have his life taken at the hands of the police" than a white young man".

Yawn, another "racism doesn't exist because poverty" take.

When you claim that only one in ten million will be "harmed" by police, but 1 in a thousand are killed by police, you are factually wrong, and whining about poverty doesn't change that. The abundant poverty in the black community is by design, not some unfortunate accident that has nothing to do with racism.

I agree, there are some bad apples everywhere, some are cops, one is POTUS, making it worse.

This hurts all of us and we should have A LOT of concern because when this happens fewer good people want to become police officers and deal with riots and hatred, and fewer current police officers want to get involved in arresting criminals who might resist arrest, so our whole society becomes less safe.

Going to a protest would be good. Maybe sitting down and listening to some black people tell you about their encounters with the police so you can see how wrong you are about how many black people are harmed at their hands?

Poverty being one outcome of structural racism. Class and race are not exclusive in the way you are suggesting.

Taking the numbers from the study at face value, this is 2.5X white men, but all men are several orders of magnitude more likely to die by hands of police than women.

So it seems the real takeaway from the data is we have a system of systemic oppression and police brutality against men generally, and focusing only on black men is really missing the larger picture and doing a giant disservice.

Also, just so we know what's going on, is Escapologist ninja editing his own posts, or is WN doing it?

I want YOU to recognize that society HAS VERY PURPOSELY created a situation where there is NO acceptable way for these people to communicate any abuse they perceive they are receiving.

- You spit on a black every day, and he simply says "hey I don't like it", and he gets ignored. It is not a big enough issue for busy people with lives to do anything about it. Just shut up, this issue will not be addressed as we don't care.

- You spit on black people every day and they take a knee to try and raise awareness in a peaceful from of protest, and the POTUS and the elite rich say "we will f*ck you up for daring to exert your first amendment rights. We have no sympathy for your issue and you need to shut up or we will drive you out of your jobs and ruin you financially. Just shut up, this issue will not be addressed as we don't care.


- The issue rises to protest and sporadic violence by certain factions. 'How dare you use violence and not just use peaceful protest? We need you to only use peaceful protest and then read point 2 again knowing you need to just shut up, this issue will not be addressed as we don't care.


So ya, we get it you have no sympathy and don't care. That is not new.

During slavery this was defined as the negro getting uppity. How dare they complain about their issues. How dare they speak up. it was not that they wee wrong. It was not that they were not getting abused. The OFFENSE was that they were disturbing the lives of others who did not have that issue and thus did not care.

They need to understand people don't care. They get no sympathy.

I plead the fifth.

Its amazing how all these people are running out into the streets. I don't even want to leave my house.

The alleged murder occurred on Monday, and the suspect was arrested on Friday. What are we angry about? Cops commit murder far less frequently than the general population. This cop committed a murder and was arrested. What's not working? You won't stop murder. What should I be concerned about? That a murder occured? I'd be concerned if he was not arrested, but again, you won't stop murder, even from cops from time to time.

That's bullshit. The media does pretty good job of voicing their concerns. What world do you live in where this murder was NOT a national news story and the racial grievances are not talked about, and the suspect was arrested. That was not good enough, so they had to loot Target?

And most importantly demanding politicians make real change to address these issues.

Politicians are, by there very nature self serving and lazy. They won't look to make hard changes unless they know they will get voted out.

People in positions of power and privilege who are NOT impacted by these things need to make it clear that regardless the politicians won't get their vote UNLESS they look to really address and fix them.

Instead what we get is a few words of 'boy that is terrible... that should not have happened' while emotions run hot in an attempt to placate people, and then not only moving on but telling people to shut up about these same problems when emotions are not as hot.

The best time to address these issues is when there is NOT a flash point incident.

Colin Kapernick showed that if you try to do that, if you try to raise awareness and make people talk about it when they are busy with their lives and just don't care, and don't want to be bothered by being reminded that those in power will attempt to crush you. Ruin your career and end you financially. So SHUT UP.

And surprise then that when a flash point incident like this happens, people boil over when they were prevented via threats for discussing it peacefully prior.

So deploying 500 national guardsmen last night did nothing. The city really, really burned and i was watching it on livestream. Pretty unreal. Walz is calling up the rest of the 13k guardsmen now.

Of protests, rioting (meaning burning and destroying stuff), and looting it's the rioting that has been the most effective imo. Protests, while they feel good when you're in one, are just too easy to ignore. Everybody is protesting something all the time so it feels like business as usual. Looting is just being a petty thief. The burning tho. You could just feel the pain and anger in the flames and it felt deserved and like justice. To be honest it was pretty surprising to see that there are so many angry people in Minneapolis because that's just not how Minnesota sees itself. We think, or thought, of ourselves as inclusive and friendly and non-confrontational and nice and educated. If this happened anywhere else we would be sitting here thinking about how they deserve it and how we're so much better than that place.

Ferguson happened in 2014. Like all white Minnesotans I spent the last 6 years drinking craft beer and imaging that the "police and black people" thing was being worked on. Elect a black guy as mayor; elect a black guy as police chief, surely the problem will be fixed. Well the whole state needs some time on the couch.

However the rioting has to stop. I watched the live streams last night and most of the people fell into 2 categories: 1) College sophomore dipshitts having fun in a world with no rules and enjoying the rock concert atmosphere after months of being locked down, and 2) Chaos Tourists playing call of duty and destroying stuff. They almost, almost, burned down Midtown Exchange, the second largest building in Minnesota, saying "If we burn this it'll be visible from outer space!" It's an apartment building. You could see people through the windows and a guy in a wheelchair in the lobby. It was horrific to watch knowing that there's no police or fire or anybody that would come save those people. This is a really dangerous situation and has to stop.

How many days does it usually take to arrest someone who is on video committing murder? And how many press conferences are held saying that the DA doesn't think they committed a crime?

And yes, we want to have a whole lot less murders. That's an achievable goal. There are numerous worldwide examples.

The suspect was arrested. What do you want to change? To stop people from commiting murder?

Its pretty simple, charge all the officers involved and give the guy who kneeled on his neck first degree murder. Your politicians in Minnesota won't do that though.

Their needs to be a fundamental change in the police brotherhood. Whatevever their current training is always turns them into violent *******.

You not going to make dent focusing on a population that commits murder orders of magnitude less than the general population.

So, taking less than a week to arrest a suspect is reason enough to loot Target. Gotcha.

Oh, how stupid of me. I forgot we can only work on one thing at a time.

But even sparing that, you just said yourself that cops commit more murders than the average person, so singling them out to be at the top of the list makes a ton of sense!

That is a BS attitude.

Policing in America needs to be addressed and changed. Overall and not just from a racial standpoint. It has become increasingly militarized and militant. The whole idea of the police being servants of the people is almost dead and that is a problem.

The police take jobs swearing to Serve and Protect, the citizens. The citizens are not only their boss but their charge.

Do you know that the police have the absolute lowest standard of culpability when it comes to killing someone? How does that make sense?

If you or i feel threatened in the street and we have a gun we cannot just shoot someone 'because we felt afraid and want to get home to our family". We need to FIRST identify a real threat. See a gun or otherwise be really threatened. Simply mistaking a cell phone for a gun will not protect us.

A member of the military in a war zone, who is also around citizens non combatants is held to the same standard. They cannot shoot unarmed citizens saying " we felt afraid and want to get home to our family". They must FIRST see a gun or other identified threat before killing.

ONLY police have a legal defense of "...we felt afraid and want to get home to our family" even IF THEY DO NOT identify any weapon or threat. The law actually allows them to use the ASSUMPTION or PERCEPTION of threat as a defense.

'Sorry it was only a cell phone in your hand. Sucks to be you. I thought it might be a gun and did not want to wait and confirm so I shot first. Again, sucks to be you and dead'.


How is it possible that Police, the sworn PROTECTORS of the people have the absolute lowest bar when it comes to using violence on the people?

That won't change unless the people in power, who are almost never the victims start to care and demand change, even though it does not impact them.

I can't say I'm surprised that a guy who thinks only one in ten million black people are ever harmed by police in their entire lives thinks that looting the Target is strictly about the murder of George Floyd.

see my prior post.