Comments on: Occupy Oakland: video shows police officer throwing "flash grenade" into crowd trying to help injured protester

By: travtastic

travtastic — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 21:58:00 +0000

If they didn’t have their crowd-control weapons, how would they subdue the crowds who were angry that they were using their crowd-control weapons?

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 21:52:00 +0000

That’s like saying that because a cop carried his sidearm to work on patrol, he INTENDED to use it on someone.

I believe that’s called a false equivalency.

By: Derek Balling

Derek Balling — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 21:48:00 +0000

Or he can count the number of seconds between when it first appears on camera and when it goes off, and know that that amount of time is lower than the cook-time for that class of grenade, and therefore it must have been cooking in the cop’s hand first for some period of time.

By: Derek Balling

Derek Balling — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 21:46:00 +0000

Oh c’mon, that’s a completely bullshit argument… That’s like saying that because a cop carried his sidearm to work on patrol, he INTENDED to use it on someone.

You bring the tools you think you might conceivably need. There’s a ginormous protest going on. Protests don’t always go well. You might conceivably need crowd dispersal and subdual tools.

By: travtastic

travtastic — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 21:18:00 +0000

I also hate for you to be the devil’s advocate here. No one is forcing you.

Quite the same as no one forced that piece of shit to flashbang a medical evacuation.

I don’t see anyone who even looks like they might be moving towards the cops. And you know what the reasonable response would be, if they did move forward?

Stand your ground peacefully, or move.

By: AlexG55

AlexG55 — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 21:12:00 +0000

They are required to in the UK- well, constables and sergeants are, but the higher ranks are so unlikely to be at the “sharp end” in a riot that the police have jokes about it. Unfortunately, as Cowicide referred to upthread, they often hide these numbers- there was quite a lot of complaint about it during the London G20 protests.

Unless you’re referring to big numbers like football players have…

By: jimh

jimh — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 17:50:00 +0000

Actually, I can do both. I can blame the powers higher up, as you say. But ultimately, this has to do with individual accountability- that particular officer had a choice to make in that moment. And the officer chose to throw a flash grenade into the crowd that was rushing to the aid of an injured man. So, yeah, I blame him for making that choice. And I blame his superiors who put him there with a grenade to throw.

By: jimh

jimh — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 17:42:00 +0000

(Stuck at) over 185,000 views now!
EDIT: 370,000!

By: my_belly

my_belly — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 17:13:00 +0000

And the police HQ is about 5 blocks away. They don’t need to come prepared for everything.

By: Rise and Fight!

Rise and Fight! — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 16:05:00 +0000

I just hope this doesn’t turn the narrative to Cops vs Protesters. Cops are getting screwed and are part of the 99% as well. It’s more than somethings that simple. Some thoughts:

http://www.riseandfight.net/2011/10/occupywallstreet.html

By: Teller

Teller — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 15:35:00 +0000

In the aftermath, Oakland Mayor Quan and other progressives-in-office have been hand-wringing like wind turbines, having made their East Bay bones as protesters in the past.

By: Ronald Pottol

Ronald Pottol — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 15:02:00 +0000

Editors picks are by the sources, I believe they can tag a very limited number of stories that way per day, but it is not under googles control, that is from the originator.

By: Ronald Pottol

Ronald Pottol — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 14:53:00 +0000

Open carry (unloaded) is perfectly legal here (no more handguns after dec 31). Not saying it is a good idea.

By: CSBD

CSBD — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 14:43:00 +0000

As of 2010 Oakland does not have the money to respond to the following crimes:

burglary
theft
embezzlement
grand theft
grand theft:dog
identity theft
false information to peace officer
required to register as sex or arson offender
dump waste or offensive matter
discard appliance with lock
loud music
possess forged notes
pass fictitious check
obtain money by false voucher
fraudulent use of access cards
stolen license plate
embezzlement by an employee (over $ 400)
extortion
attempted extortion
false personification of other
injure telephone/ power line
interfere with power line
unauthorized cable tv connection
vandalism
administer/expose poison to another’s

http://jonathanturley.org/2010/07/13/oakland-police-announce-they-will-not-respond-to-various-crimes-like-burglary-grand-theft-and-other-crimes/

But they do have enough money to crack skulls and stop peaceful protests.

By: bardfinn

bardfinn — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 14:10:00 +0000

The mere act of having a flashbang at hand, at a continuing protest / assembly, is /prima facie/ PROOF that the police intended to use it in response to the /current/ conditions, as opposed to the /actual/ method of keeping dispersal weapons secured until a dispersal order is given.

That police /always intended/ to use that flashbang on a non-violent lawful assembly.

By: Brooklyn Imbecile

Brooklyn Imbecile — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 13:50:00 +0000

The tea party demonstrators were actors paid by FoxNews.

By: Stephen Olsen

Stephen Olsen — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 12:49:00 +0000

All you did was describe the circumstances that could have lead to this happening. It doesn’t excuse it in anyway.

From the video you can see that he walked back from the barrier at a normal pace and then threw the grenade casually, as if he didn’t want to be seen throwing it.

again though, we can all appreciate the concept of saying “oh he must have…” but that doesn’t mean that what happened was ok. “Oh I thought I was only supposed to feed my dog once every 4 days, I read something wrong online, what had happened was I had just gotten off the phone with my mother….”

By: Leafworth

Leafworth — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 12:40:00 +0000

Candidly, I’m surprised this is the only incident so far and that no one’s been killed. Blaming the Police is futile most of the time. They are ultimately controlled by, and answer to, City Hall or other civilian authorities. If you want to blame someone for how the Oakland PD conducts themselves, you have to look a little further up the food chain.

Oh, and guess who controls City Hall?

By: Andrew Davies

Andrew Davies — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 12:39:00 +0000

As my girlfriend said about a different recent protest, “If it’s the job of the police to protect people, then who will protect protesters from the police?”

By: snusles

snusles — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 11:37:00 +0000

Maybe Eric Schmidt is worried his Bilderberg buddies will give him the heave-ho?

By: teapot

teapot — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 09:34:00 +0000

Good point on the editor’s picks box, but to be fair it’s not a huge part of the page, nor is it featured on the news search results page. It’s not as if the whole page has the taint of human opinion. I just can’t imagine that Google management would choose to push any one agenda on this issue, particularly when many of the OWS protesters are far more tech savvy than general internetters and therefore more likely to notice such sneakiness.

IRT the view count, I agree that it’s annoying and unbelievable that something as simple as ‘how many times has this been looked at’ cannot be accurately tracked live but if, as Jardine claims above, the videos are distributed to several servers to manage the load then keeping track of total view count becomes much more complicated code-wise and the potential costs of having accurate view count live (network load) outweigh the benefits (essentially nothing).

In the case that you are right about them playing games the thing I can’t figure out is what is it that Google would be gaining by doing so.

By: Cowicide

Cowicide — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 08:54:00 +0000

Google News is an automated news aggregator, no human being edits it

Incorrect. Since just before OWS started, there’s been Editors’ Picks in Google News within the sidebar. It’s not just an automated news aggregator anymore. And, I stand by my comments. Google could have stepped up and properly disseminated the news that was readily available, but they didn’t.

The view count issue has already been addressed (It’s ‘stuck’ because the video is, as we type, going viral, meaning the view count cannot be accurately tracked).

I’ll concede that I’m probably wrong that they are specifically targeting that video’s view count. But at the same time, it’s still bullshit that just because a video is “viral” it suddenly renders it a technological impossibility to use a counter with it. If that was the case, then certainly the like/dislike button would be too much overhead for popular videos as well. It gets “stuck” because Google is becoming more inept as their monopoly grows. It’s not a technological impossibility to keep a counter updated at least every hour just because it’s getting lots of traffic.

By: teapot

teapot — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 07:58:00 +0000

I suspect Google is screwing around with things. I mean, just look at how their Google News page was in the beginning… they outright ignored the OWS even after it gained traction. And even when Google News finally did start to show headline links, they were all negative towards OWS until much later.

C’mon Cow.. I agree with a lot of what you usually have to say but this is bordering on fringe conspiracy. The view count issue has already been addressed (It’s ‘stuck’ because the video is, as we type, going viral, meaning the view count cannot be accurately tracked).

There is nothing funky going on with stories on Google News. Google News is an automated news aggregator, no human being edits it – it’s basically just google results for sites Google deems as reputable news organisations. The apparent lack of OWS stories, followed by a large number of negative OWS stories is merely a reflection of how the mass media sites dealt with the OWS movement over time (First: ignore. Second: discredit. Third: actually report).

By: teapot

teapot — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 07:24:00 +0000

People need to stop suggesting it’s just ‘bad apples’ in the police force who are responsible for this behaviour. Collective punishment for all cops will be required before the crooked, self-protecting, quasi-criminal organisation known as the Police Department actually starts punishing these ‘bad apple’ cops for their actions.

How about everyone who can find one gets their hands on a battery powered stereo and takes it to a protest day bumping “Fuck tha police” by NWA? Double-awesome if you could set up a pirate radio broadcast of the song on loop so everyone’s stereo would sync.

No points for subtlety, but at least the message is clear and it doesn’t involve bashing their heads in with bats (as I’ve previously suggested).

By: David Neil

David Neil — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 06:57:00 +0000

It looks like he was hit by shrapnel from the tear gas canister (or is that a Flash/Bang) that goes off at exactly 0:10. He’s about 10 feet away behind the guy in the black sweatshirt and the person in the orange, in the right third of the frame. About a half second after the flash, you see him fly backward and hit the ground, between 0:11 and 0:12. So I don’t think he was hit by the canister, but by shrapnel from the device. Outrageous that they’re using devices that are tossing out shrapnel that can do that kind of damage.

By: Cowicide

Cowicide — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 06:45:00 +0000

What kind of unjust conditions would drive you to protest and what form would your protest take?

Neither. They are cowardly just as much as they are contented to be ineffectual serfs for the rest of their timid, spineless lives.

By: Cowicide

Cowicide — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 06:43:00 +0000

Thank you for that video, EK. Great song, great message.

By: miasm

miasm — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 05:58:00 +0000

for anybody still living in denial and trifling around with the herd logic that people at these protests should expect this type of treatment; I want to know from you:

What kind of unjust conditions would drive you to protest and what form would your protest take?

By: Guest

Guest — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 05:51:00 +0000

Professionals fail to the level of their training.

By: ExactKnowledge

ExactKnowledge — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 05:38:00 +0000

One dead in Oakland? Four dead in Ohio. Ohio with lyrics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI7-m919ynU

What if you new him and found him dead on the ground. How can you run when you know?

How many more? Why?