By Linh Nguyen
Along with rubber bullets and pepper spray, some police forces are using their own modes of transportation as a weapon against protestors during the George Floyd protests.
Of the many, many viral video footages of police brutality against protestors that surfaced on the internet, police forces are caught plowing into protestors with their cars, trampling over protestors with their horses and battering protestors with their bikes.
In Lincoln, Nebraska, at 2:30 am on May 30, a crowd of protestors surrounded a moving police vehicle with its siren on, forcing it to slowly back up and look for an exit route. The vehicle turns into an empty street as protestors continue to follow it and attempt to stop it. The car turns and travels forward. Some protestors block the vehicle’s path as it inches forward.
1️⃣4️⃣ Lincoln, NE: doing a Tiananmen Square with a police SUV through a line of unarmed protestorshttps://t.co/9GWn664AOq
— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) May 30, 2020
The video footage shows the vehicle starting to move faster while a protestor was still in front of it, before swerving away and speeding off.
Another video shows police forces in New York City intentionally hitting protestors with their cars.
3️⃣ New York City, NY: doing an intentional hit-and-run with a car door to an unarmed protestor standing in the non-vehicular bike lane https://t.co/QOlTCWqWi4
— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) May 30, 2020
In this video, protestors are standing in the bike lane, yelling at the passing police vehicles. As one vehicle passes by, the passenger door opens, striking one of the protestors, and then quickly closes.
In another video from New York City, a pair of police SUVs plow through a crowd of protestors.
Also in today's criminal justice news, a pair of NYPD officers in SUVs decide to do a Tiananmen Square – quickly running over several unarmed protestors for sport
— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) May 31, 2020
https://twitter.com/lindseyadler/status/1266897942104899584
The video captures the crowd throwing water bottles and a traffic cone, among other objects, at the vehicle. The second SUV arrives and does not stop as it hits the protestors. The first SUV follows suit and quickly runs through the barricade, hitting more protestors.
Defense Attorney Greg Doucette calls these attacks with cars as “doing a Tiananmen Square,” in reference to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in China where the government’s militia tanks were sent to Tiananmen Square to remove the demonstrators. These student-led protests sought to end corruption within the Communist Party, for democratic reforms and freedom of the speech and press.
Other officers in the nation patrolling the protests on less conventional modes of transportation also used those to attack protestors.
In Atlanta, Georgia, video footage shows a bike officer shoving protestors with his bike.
https://twitter.com/Brittm_tv/status/1266497944796225538
In Houston, Texas, an officer on a horse trampled over a protestor, enraging the other protestors as they began to throw objects at the officers.
Also in today's criminal justice news, police in Houston TX trample a peaceful protestor with a horse for sport
— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) May 30, 2020
On Twitter, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner responded to the video and apologized to the victim.
“You have the right to march, demonstrate and protest peacefully. A part of our job is to enable you to do just that safely. What happened with mounted patrol should not have happened and for that please accept my apology.”
The victim said she plans to take legal action against the Houston Police Department regarding the incident.
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You know I deplore police violence. But clearly, you only deplore police violence, DG – I say clearly based on the articles you select.
I also deplore protestor — I should say looter/anarchist/vandal (to distinguish from peaceful/nonviolent protestors) — violence. Why do you not run stories about these incidents as well – violence against people/property/police?
So then what happens – you run these articles – JB & KO cite only incidents of ‘protestor’ violence to prove you are wrong — when in fact, the problem is violence, on all sides.
NOT anger. Anger is understandable. Anger is needed to move the changes forward. Destruction is where anger is channeled against the cause.
Can’t KO and JB ‘lower’ themselves to cite incidents where ‘their side’ has done wrong? Can’t the Vanguard ‘lower’ themselves to admit when ‘their side’ has done wrong? Can’t this space not be a TV “Counterpoint” BS pit two intolerable, intractable sides against each other – and instead work towards some humility, points-of-understanding, points-of-agreement, acknowledgement of the other viewpoint. Shooting at each other from across a political battlefield will just give us more of the same.
My “side” (assume you mean my political/ideological side).
I have said that I abhor ANY government official abuse of power. Government has no higher authority in our system, so evidence of government official abuse of power requires swift and absolute mitigation and justice. Police officers are government officials that are privileged to be able to carry deadly weapons and use physical force in carrying out their documented mission to serve and protect.
Frankly, because I am, I hate mean, selfish and self-serving behavior of any type when it materially harms another person unnecessarily and without just cause. Basic human decency… treat others as you define being treated well.
There are angry, mean & malevolent humans that do terrible things. Cops are human and so some do terrible things. Protestors are human and so some do terrible things.
NOTE… SARCASM… I see more bad attorneys out there than I see bad cops. Especially DAs like Mike Nifong. So let’s do away with attorneys… especially DAs. They are all corrupt and should be eliminated so the world will be a better place… all sunshine, rainbows and unicorns!
Or, how about we just focus on Mike Nifong since he is the one that did the bad deeds?
It isn’t my “side” as much as common sense, IMO, to demand we stop with the ritualistic identity politics groupism BS and focus on individual behavior. You know… the content of character and NOT the color of skin or uniform.
David, like most liberal social justice activists (yes, groupism… but politics… which I view as like team sports since it is a free choice and not something you are locked into), looks only for articles that back his worldview that America is generally a racist and oppressive country caused by certain groups that he puts on the bad side of the groupism identity ledger, while putting his global arms around all those victim groups he assigns to the good side of the ledger. It is virtue signaling 101. But it is not a good look. It is divisive tribalism that does nothing but cause more divisive tribalism. It breaks with Dr. King’s ideas and principles that all people should be created equal and treated as individuals and not part of a defined group to be maligned and denigrated.
And I say this will 100% conviction as I malign and denigrate liberal social justice activists for doing the same.
What “my side” thinks…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NhMBEgzvow
This is so hypocritical as to be hilarious! From a person who talks about the “captains of industry” and the “parasites” who pull them down. (And your confession of belief in Ayn Rand’s paradigm identifies at least one of your sources of tribalism.) The very problem is the ritualistic identity politics that has been practiced in America for four centuries as a means of social control. And now those who have been the most ardent proponents, even the point of idolizing the traitors who led the Confederacy, hate having the tables turned on them.
BTW, Morgan Freeman is a celebrity who can’t even see his own exceptionalism. He has no special knowledge that’s any better than the rest of us. (I don’t ever point to a “left leaning” celebrity as an endorsement of my position. In fact, I usually see that as undermining the credibility of a point.)
What I find ironic is now the Vanguard is citing incident after incident where the cops did wrong but when I was posting incidents of rioter wrongs I was moderated for doing so.
There is a cop in the Bronx, who was brutally hit by a car, still in ‘serious condition’ by someone identified being with the protestors… that’s not “pay-back”, not justice, that’s just WRONG! [apparently they apprehended the driver, down in the Carolinas…]
What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side
In another ‘random story about rioting’, former Police Chief David Dorn, shot and killed by looters in Saint Louis.
https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/retired-police-captain-shot-to-death-at-st-louis-pawn-shop-in-slaying-caught-on/article_d482138c-0224-5393-bd87-9898bebb3fd1.html
“They just killed this old man at the pawn shop over some TVs … c’mon man, that’s somebody’s granddaddy.”
“Y’all killed a black man because ‘they’ killed a black man??? Rest in peace.”
For those of you who are thinking he doesn’t count as much as a black man because he’s a former cop: F— You. Seriously: are you hurting for this man as deeply as you are hurting for George Floyd? Why not? What’s wrong with you? What would you say his worth is a black man who is also a cop . . . about 3/5 of a black man perhaps? Sheeeeeesh!
I dare you to take this post down, Davis Vanguard. If you do, you’ll be erasing this man’s murder. I’ll bet if I was posting about a black man being killed by police you’d leave it up. I dare you to run just one article about this man or any other innocent being killed in this chaos by someone other than cops.
David Dorn
Say HIS name.
So, DG is just posting random stories about ‘protestors’ (etc.) being mistreated by police. What’s the difference. Violence is violence. If you are only looking at ‘one’ side, that’s censorship. Yeah, yeah, it’s a private blog. It’s still wrong. And what’s the point of policy if you are going to let a moderator’s political beliefs trump policy?
Nice double entendre in last sentence (particularly the last two words)… intentional, or Freudian? 90 points if the first, 55 points if the latter…
Quite intentional . . .
Amen, X 3…
Review the song, “For What It’s Worth” (Buffalo Springfield, 1966)… hey, hey, everybody needs to look ‘what’s going down’… nobody’s right when everyone is wrong… at least, IMHO… nothing new under the sun…
As a pacifist, I approve of Alan’s post. Do we not, as a society have enough problems with the current pandemic and economic recession without resorting to violence regardless of political or ideologic position?
TW, I approve of your approval.
Though note, I am not a pacifist. I believe in nonviolence as a tactic that is the most powerful, effective and least destructive, 90% of the time (random number, but a large percentage). I reserve the other 10% of the time to being an annoying arse when that is most effective.
And, there are times (small %-age) of times when one does not “turn the other cheek”, except to feint, right before delivering a ‘haymaker’ to the aggressor… trying, not to kill, but to stop the aggression…
Also amen X3