One of the primary purposes of the police is to be able to break labor uprisings. This is so wrong and should be prevented in the strongest way possible. What do you all think? Is the U.S. constitution able to restrict police?
People from outside the U.S., what do you think of this type of idea?
Yeah that’s not realistic at all, labor disputes can get nasty and violent and the police are supposed to exist in part to stop violence between citizens. They are going to absolutely still want to be the wall between each group so that they can maintain peace and order.
Now maybe if we focus your idea in terms of forcing the police to not assist with union busting and strike breaking tactics that would be much more realistic since the cops do have a tendency to heavily favor businesses and the wealthy.
Another thought too is to have the police not arrest anyone that isn’t a violent threat at the protests, anyone that isn’t a violent threat just gets taken to a cool down area where they’re given water and whatever else they need and can leave once they’ve calmed down a bit, but three times in the cool down area gets you a trip straight home. This is also something that protest leaders should be watching out and doing to keep their people from getting in trouble and to keep from causing the protests to become chaos.
That’s an Arrest. A cop taking someone somewhere else against their will is an arrest.
Also if they’re not a violent threat sounds like no crime is being commited.
I’m not going to assume that you haven’t ever protested before, but it sounds like you haven’t, well I have, as the day goes on things get hotter, people get angrier, and mistakes and oversteps start to happen, and people start getting hurt, and in general protest leaders don’t have the experience necessary to cool things down, or they don’t have the control to cool things down, overall the goal of the day is to protest and make a difference and then go home without an issue, and it’s the protest leadership’s responsibility to try and maintain that goal for all of the protesters on their side, whom by the nature of leadership, they are responsible for.
No an arrest isn’t an arrest until the arrestee is taken to get processed, at any time in between the site of the incident to the station or jail the officer’s can absolutely just let the arrestee go, because it’s at the officer’s discretion to follow through with arresting a person.
So my point isn’t an arrest, sure the person is detained, but that doesn’t mean arrested, the officers can let that person go at any point prior to processing them for an arrest. So again, just a cool down period, some time to get that person hydrated and cooled down, and the officer involved explains to them why they are detaining them and how they can avoid being detained by not doing whatever they were detained for.
There are escalation patterns to violence, when you’re screaming in someone’s face for hours, or vice versa, it can cause you to lose your objectivity and lose yourself to anger. Micro aggressions happen throughout days of protesting, and as that stuff builds up in your mind you lose yourself to your anger.
So some examples of an escalation of violence that is violence:
Pulling on the officer’s or protestors shields, signs, or other accessories
Throwing stuff
Aggressively Invading an officer’s or protestors personal space
Physical intimidation attempts, including fidgeting with possible weapons
Again these aren’t necessarily crimes, so no arrest needed, but they can help cause things to spiral chaotically if protest leaders or officers let them lead to violence.
Also all of this all also applies to officers as well, if you’ve got Sgt. Hothead getting wound up and aggressive he and all who are following his cue need to go take a timeout before they’re the reason why the protests spiral out of control.
Now this all just applies to actual protests, when it comes time for direct action, like the burning of the police departments during the George Floyd protests, all gloves are off, the cops weren’t playing fair or nice so they fucked around and found out by having their departments burned down and having a much much more angrier group of protestors who were turning into rioters. Riots only happen when protest leadership fails to keep the bad actors from leading a mob, or when the police are so out of control and abusive that the only recourse is to destroy their shit and physically harm the cops.
Does that clarify my point for you?
tbh I’m not sure how I feel about protesting/striking in the street. It’s so easy to infiltrate and cause trouble, makes it easy for authorities to identify those not sympathetic to their power. And it’s so easy for the media to control the narrative. Even deciding which protests to cover gives the media power to control which ones might be likely to have success.
Not saying people shouldn’t, just not sure how effective they are personally. I feel like there are more effective techniques. Striking means not working, not picketing. Work stoppage combined with an effective social media campaign might be more effective then putting oneself in danger of arrest or violence.
Similarly, if one wants to defund the police running for office so there’s an anti-police candidate on the ballot (even if you can’t win) and can add the topic to the conversation might be more effective than going into the street and pissing off those with a license to kill.