[Rama Set]

An excellent way of dodging the question.  Shall I just assume you don't know or that it is in fact illegal to injure someone for passing a cell phone near their person?

It is not clear what someone is doing when they go up to a police officer in riot gear during a protest and starts passing a phone over the equipment on their body, but computer crimes or destruction of government property are both crimes, and is not unreasonable to assume. A less perceptive officer might interpret it as intimidation by approaching officer and passing shiny objects close to him. Probably lucky he was only pushed. The video I posted is slowed down, which means it happened faster.

It is amusing how you guys are now defending our right to approach police officers and pass our phones over the equipment on their persons. This is clearly not an innocent old man who was only asking for directions and was brutally pushed by meanie policemen.

You still haven’t answered my question. Do you know if that officer’s actions were legal or not?

[Tumeni]

An excellent way of dodging the question.  Shall I just assume you don't know or that it is in fact illegal to injure someone for passing a cell phone near their person?

It is not clear what someone is doing ....

It appears that you don't really know whether this is an offence or not

This is clearly not an innocent old man who was only asking for directions and was brutally pushed by meanie policemen.

His innocence or not has yet to be established. He IS, by most standards, an old man. "Brutally pushed"? Absolutely, and that's why the officers concerned have been charged. 

You appear to be advocating summary punishment, possibly to the extent of brain injury, for crimes unproven, without due process. That's not "amusing", that's tragic.

[Tumeni]

Why do you have to be American to have a view about whether an incident is acceptable or not?

Tumeni has never had experience with American police (so what?) except for the random video clips which start with showing a police officer with his arm up in the air about to bring a police baton beating to someone's head, or a police officer in the process of pushing someone.
(so you agree police are beating citizen's heads with batons, and pushing them)
From this he concludes that the police are "out of control" and randomly beating people.
(No, I conclude this from an American Civil Defence Lawyer's database, now over 400 instances of police brutality and over-reach, along with a number of other sources. You can watch the random beatings for yourself, everyone seems to be concluding this apart from you)

If Tumeni had actually had any experience with American Police he would have known that they operate by strict rules of engagement in a highly litigatious society.
(Rules which they seem to be ignoring at the moment. There are numerous instances of casual brutality, and the use of the general public for target practice and sadistic beatings. There are now instances of the police seeking revenge on members of the public that they perceive to have assaulted them during the protests.)
That police officer likely isn't beating innocent people for no reason at all, as Tumeni would like us to believe.
(Oh, yes he is... hence the compilation of videos by a Civil Defence Lawyer)
And considering the nature of the environment these videos originate - violent protests - these people may have been doing anything from assaulting the officers, trying to grab their sidearms, or making direct threats to their lives.
(Except that many of these instances, nothing like this is taking place, and the police are meting out casual brutality to small gaggles of protestors on virtually empty streets. Folk are standing around, and the PD breezes in to shoot at them for sport, or batter them with batons for sport. Or the folks are walking away, and the police chase after them JUST TO BEAT THEM WITH BATONS for ... not walking away fast enough?) 

So this thread really seems to be about a foreigner who did not grow up around the American police, learn about American police or American law in his school system, who did not watch American shows about the American police (ie. 'Cops'), who has no direct knowledge of the American police, and had no friends or family members who are American police (as many in America do), and who is posting here making wild, wacky, and frankly absurd assumptions from internet clips he finds online.

Tumeni's replies in parenthesis, and coloured in the above.

American Civil Defence Lawyer's database - https://time.com/5849839/police-brutality-george-floyd-protests-spreadsheet/

There's over 400 now, take your pick; whether you're American or not.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/1/d/1YmZeSxpz52qT-10tkCjWOwOGkQqle7Wd1P7ZM1wMW0E/htmlview?pru=AAABcql6DI8*mIHYeMnoj9XWUp3Svb_KZA#

[AATW]

It is amusing how you guys are now defending our right to approach police officers and pass our phones over the equipment on their persons.

You have been asked this a few times and not answered so I'll have a go: is doing that illegal. It is a yes or no question.
If no then he does have the right to do that.
If it is then fine, why didn't they arrest him?

This is clearly not an innocent old man who was only asking for directions and was brutally pushed by meanie policemen.

Right. And for once you have actually provided some evidence for that so point cheerfully conceded.
It does sound like he's an agitator, a real life troll if you will. But part and parcel of being a police officer is dealing with people like that.
Sorry, but that's the job. If you can't do that without shoving people to the ground so hard they need medical treatment then maybe you're not cut out for the job. There does seem to be a problem with police brutality, how widespread it is I'm not sure.

[Tumeni]

https://imgur.com/gallery/oyGj55X

"aggressive cops are exactly the ones you need on the street" - Head of Police Officers Federation

[Tumeni]

From their own bodycams - police punch owner of a store, the owner who called them to report a robbery, breaking his jaw

https://imgur.com/gallery/sdTSnNo

[Tumeni]

Police attack medical stations, letting off multiple explosive devices in a confined space. Remind us all again what those "strict rules of engagement" are...

https://imgur.com/gallery/0LlzuaF

"The Seattle Office of Police Accountability says it is processing roughly 12,000 individual complaints against officers in the wake of the demonstrations held over the weekend."

https://www.kuow.org/stories/12-000-complaints-filed-against-seattle-police-after-weekend-of-protests

12,000. Just in Seattle. Just in one city.

[existoid]

Another thread should/could be started titled "Are the American protesters out of control?"

Very few people, if any, are saying that the cop who killed Floyd George should not have been arrested (as he was last week). That was a clear tragedy, and the four cops involved should stand trial. And they are.

And there are hundreds of example videos of other cops doing bad things that they absolutely shouldn't - beating up innocent folks, etc.  All these should be condemned.

However, the idea put forth that policing in general should be done away with is pretty ridiculous to me.

Reformed? Yes. Do away with Qualified Immunity? Probably. Require body cams and other measures to reduce the ability of cops to lie about incidents? For sure.

But to have a city without agents meant to protect from and investigate crimes? Absurd.

During the riots, it's absolutely zero surprise to me that murderers (not cops, just civilian murderers) took advantage of the riots last weekend in Chicago. Two quotes from the Chicago Sun Times:

"While Chicago was roiled by another day of protests and looting in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, 18 people were killed Sunday, May 31, making it the single most violent day in Chicago in six decades, according to the University of Chicago Crime Lab. The lab’s data doesn’t go back further than 1961."

A reverend of a church in the south side is quoted as saying:
"'On Saturday and particularly Sunday, I heard people saying all over, ‘Hey, there’s no police anywhere, police ain’t doing nothing,’' Pfleger said."

here's the full story:
https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2020/6/8/21281998/chicago-violence-murder-history-homicide-police-crime



I am a strong advocate of 2A as well. But things will get much, much worse without police.

We need to eliminate police brutality, not police as an institution.

[honk]

The subject may have moved on by now, but for the benefit of everyone who isn't Tom, The Conservative Treehouse is a nutty fringe website, and of course Martin Gugino wasn't somehow "hacking" the cop with his phone.

[Tumeni]

Another thread should/could be started titled "Are the American protesters out of control?"

Good Luck with that.

I look forward to it with keen anticipation. Let's see all those videos of protestors in full riot gear, with an array of military-grade weapons jumping on the oh-so poorly-defended police officers.....

Look up Camden, New Jersey. 

[Tom Bishop]

The subject may have moved on by now, but for the benefit of everyone who isn't Tom, The Conservative Treehouse is a nutty fringe website, and of course Martin Gugino wasn't somehow "hacking" the cop with his phone.

What do you mean by fringe website? Did they doctor his blog and twitter posts that they link to, and the video of him approaching an officer and passing a device over the equipment on his body?

[Tumeni]

... the video of him approaching an officer and passing a device over the equipment on his body?

You admitted the video you posted was slowed down, and it also shows a small part of the interaction, not the whole thing.

I see a man with a helmet in left hand, phone in right, merely gesticulating with the phone hand as he makes his point.

Seen this trick before with YouTube ISS disbelievers - they post a slowed-down snippet of one hand gesture by a weightless astronaut, and dress it up to be "Astronaut passes invisible object from one hand to the other" when, if you look at the full thing, it's simply him reaching for a hand-hold to steady himself.

I see Trump has been drinking of the same conspiracy well as you have ....

[Tumeni]

Here's how some protestors in LA were treated;

https://imgur.com/gallery/b3TXIt2

and another take on it;

https://imgur.com/gallery/VUoTkgJ

... but, by all means, let's have another thread started on how the protesters have been mistreating the police that were in their custody....

Portland Police now trying to get revenge on journalists who tweeted about the protests...

https://imgur.com/gallery/n3kDwbm

...and the wave builds, until it becomes a Tsunami; in February, New Mexico officer announces to suspect that “I’m going to f*** choke you out, bro.”, before... choking him to death.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/officer-video-saying-he-ll-choke-you-out-man-dies-n1228886

LAPD officer charged with assault today, having punched and beaten, in April, a homeless man who was already handcuffed. In the cellphone video, you can see he's so far out of control that his colleague has to dodge at least one of his punches, and struggles to get near....

https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/lapd-officer-charged-with-assault-after-video-shows-him-beating-man/2377468/

[existoid]

... but, by all means, let's have another thread started on how the protesters have been mistreating the police that were in their custody....

If this was in response to my comment, that's not what I meant....

I mean that just as there is a portion of police who are clearly bad actors - and we have video evidence of it - there is a portion of the protesters who are clearly bad actors - and we also have video evidence of that. 

Have you not seen any videos in the past week of arson, looting, and beating up other folks (not cops, just other civilians) ?  If you really actually have seen none of this, and you've only seen videos and news about cops being ruthless and brutal, then I would first say you have quite a limited range of news sources and you need to read more. 

All the cops who are committing actual crimes (especially against innocent folks) should be condemned.  And all the protesters who are committing actual crimes (especially against innocent folks) should be condemned as well.  I think this is very reasonable.

Here's a particularly heartbreaking story:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Milw6_UBc0A







 

[AATW]

The subject may have moved on by now, but for the benefit of everyone who isn't Tom, The Conservative Treehouse is a nutty fringe website, and of course Martin Gugino wasn't somehow "hacking" the cop with his phone.

What do you mean by fringe website? Did they doctor his blog and twitter posts that they link to, and the video of him approaching an officer and passing a device over the equipment on his body?

Why are you still dodging the question about whether what he did was illegal?
If it was illegal then why didn't they arrest him. If it wasn't then while he might well have been provoking them, dealing with that sort of thing is literally part of their job. If they can't do that without shoving a 75 year old man to the ground so hard that he needs hospital treatment then maybe they're not well suited to that role.

[existoid]

The subject may have moved on by now, but for the benefit of everyone who isn't Tom, The Conservative Treehouse is a nutty fringe website, and of course Martin Gugino wasn't somehow "hacking" the cop with his phone.

What do you mean by fringe website? Did they doctor his blog and twitter posts that they link to, and the video of him approaching an officer and passing a device over the equipment on his body?

Why are you still dodging the question about whether what he did was illegal?
If it was illegal then why didn't they arrest him. If it wasn't then while he might well have been provoking them, dealing with that sort of thing is literally part of their job. If they can't do that without shoving a 75 year old man to the ground so hard that he needs hospital treatment then maybe they're not well suited to that role.

To be fair, it's possible what he did was illegal and they didn't arrest him because they have to triage things - if they are going towards more rowdy folks elsewhere they could be calculating that they need to deal with more critical offenses from others elsewhere and don't have time to deal with him.

That said, I think whether what the old man did was strictly illegal or not is moot and immaterial. These cops acted brutally, neglectfully, and shamefully. And that's what matters here.  The right move for them should have been to just walk around him, I'd think.

[totallackey]

The whole issue of this 75 year old guy is an instance of begging the question.

There is no doubt as I have written earlier, the way the police conduct their business and affairs in the US changed the moment departments eliminated the "walking beat," in urban neighborhoods and migrated toward daily rounds in the armored squad cars.

The 75 year old guy doesn't go up to random strangers performing his phony, "lemme scan you," act with his cell phone. He only does this to police, specifically to gain this type of reaction.

The white man, Catholic version of Nathan Phillips.

He knows the circumstances, lived through it, watched how the department transformed, and instead of peacefully seeking redress, has shitbaggedly acted this way ever since.

[Roundy]

... the video of him approaching an officer and passing a device over the equipment on his body?

You admitted the video you posted was slowed down, and it also shows a small part of the interaction, not the whole thing.

I see a man with a helmet in left hand, phone in right, merely gesticulating with the phone hand as he makes his point.

Seen this trick before with YouTube ISS disbelievers - they post a slowed-down snippet of one hand gesture by a weightless astronaut, and dress it up to be "Astronaut passes invisible object from one hand to the other" when, if you look at the full thing, it's simply him reaching for a hand-hold to steady himself.

This is standard arguing technique for Tom. It's not that different from his threads asking "What's a squirrel doing on Mars?" because a collection of rocks captured from a certain angle looks vaguely like a squirrel.

[Tumeni]

I mean that just as there is a portion of police who are clearly bad actors - and we have video evidence of it - there is a portion of the protesters who are clearly bad actors - and we also have video evidence of that.

Not relevant to the topic, though. The question was "Are the police out of control?", because the police are taxpayer-funded, should answer to the people, but are routinely mistreating the people, apparently just because they feel they can. 

The core point is that most of the instances referred to go far beyond the realm of reasonable action, when the general public are being casually brutalised and attacked, simply because the police fear no repercussions.

The journalist is on his knees, and is ordered to lie flat on his stomach by police. While in this position, he holds his press card, and announces his credentials as a number of police pass by. Most ignore him, but the last, almost casually, with no reason beyond the fact that he can, gives the journalist a squirt of pepper spray in his face. This is not legitimate crowd control, this is not reasonable force, this is plain and simple malice, just for the sake of it.

There's almost 500 examples in the links I posted above.

[Tom Bishop]

Innocent old man