George Floyd protests

[Seabass]

Rioters, Looters, and Thugs: This Is How Trump Has Described the George Floyd Protesters

[JimC]

An interesting article on the future of US policing:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-09/ ... s/12334542

Illustrating the point I made in an earlier post, from the middle of the article:

...There are nine police forces in Australia. In the US, there are 18,000.

Every city, every county, large and small, has their own police department. Each has different training, cultures and leadership...

And this:

More than 1,300 people die at the hands, knees or guns of police in America every year. Floyd will add to that number.

What is different about his death is that a white police officer is being held accountable. Protests demanding an end to police brutality and racism have multiplied at home and abroad.

If his killing hadn't been witnessed and filmed by horrified citizens, none of this would have happened.

Floyd's name would likely have been in the Minneapolis papers and on television portrayed as a black man who died while resisting arrest.

Now everyone knows his name. Countless millions watched him die.

It's impossible to tell if this is the turning point demanded by so many or just another expression of anger punctuating the latest outrage before the next act of police brutality.

[Hermit]

I'm absolutely not defending past actions of our state police forces (although I think we have moved on from the Rum Corps, and even the notorious corruption in NSW and Queensland in the 70s). My main point was to point out the incredibly localised and parochial nature of US law enforcement, and suggesting that this makes needed reform much harder.

Oh yes, the days of Sir Robert Askin and Sir Joh peanuts, during which corruption was so rampant that the cops hardly even tried to hide it any more (not that they could if they tried), are definitely over. Compared to them our current police forces look almost squeaky clean. I was just having a little fun.

[Brian Peacock]

Oh lord, Nancy Pelosi et. al. taking a knee. They honestly have no shame, these people. They look like a badly choreographed amateur theatrics production in an old age home.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52969375

At her age she should be careful. Your knees will always let you down in the end.

[laklak]

Riots and Looters and Thugs! Oh my!

[laklak]

This is why taking a knee isn't always the best idea.

[Brian Peacock]

We've all been to bar mitzvahs like that.

[laklak]

Then the mazel tov cocktails come out.

[Brian Peacock]

[JimC]

The Third Jewish People's Revolutionary Brigade, if memory serves me right...

[Tero]

Will Trump's supreme court strike this down? It steps on state rights!

NPR
The plan would trigger "the establishment of a 'National Police Commission' study, so that we can figure out best practices that can used across all departments that we would at least direct funding and resources toward in that direction," he said.

https://www.npr.org/2020/06/09/87335622 ... eform-plan

[laklak]

Can't see it, it's a survey, they'll use the results to "direct" Federal funding. They start making actual laws and it will be roundly and soundly opposed.

[rainbow]

https://www.shutupandtakemymoney.com/am ... ters-meme/

[Tero]

The neighborhoods I posted earlier in the thread, in St Louis, have exactly this problem.

But even before the pandemic, millions of people in the United States were struggling with access to groceries — and the problem has gotten even worse for them.
In 2015, an estimated 39 million people, or 12.8% of the US population, lived in "low income and low access areas," according to the USDA's most recent data.
The areas are defined as those where a "significant" portion of the population lives more than a mile from the nearest supermarket or grocery store in urban areas, or 10 miles away in rural areas. The poverty rate is either 20% or greater, or the median-family income is below or equal to 80% of the statewide median family income.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/09/business ... index.html

[Joe]

George Floyd and Derek Chauvin "bumped heads" while working at nightclub, former coworker says

As mourners in Houston honor the life of George Floyd in Minneapolis, CBS News is learning new details from a nightclub coworker about alleged history between Floyd and Derek Chauvin, the former officer who is charged in Floyd's death. According to a former coworker, not only did they know each other, but they had a history of friction.

Floyd and Chauvin both worked security at a nightclub at the same time. Coworker David Pinney said the two men had a history.

"They bumped heads," Pinney said.

"How?" CBS News asked.

"It has a lot to do with Derek being extremely aggressive within the club with some of the patrons, which was an issue," Pinney explained.

The Floyd family says they believe what happened on May 25 was in part personal. Their lawyer has called for Chauvin to be charged with first-degree murder, "because we believe he knew who George Floyd was."

"Is there any doubt in your mind that Derek Chauvin knew George Floyd?" CBS News asked Pinney.

"No. He knew him," the coworker said.

"How well did he know him?" CBS News asked.

"I would say pretty well," Pinney replied.