Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff
by stickdog99 » Fri Jun 12, 2020 5:07 pm
Harvey » 10 Jun 2020 17:31 wrote:^However fine it may be, I won't watch it. John Oliver is dead to me for many of the reasons you stated. His Venezuela shit piece was unconscionable, that alone crossed every red line I have.
by stickdog99 » Fri Jun 12, 2020 5:13 pm
JackRiddler » 11 Jun 2020 21:26 wrote:.
Mike O'Meara, New York City Patrolmens' Benevolent Association (PBA) chief: "Stop treating us like animals and thugs." Speech helpfully illustrated with street footage.
by Belligerent Savant » Fri Jun 12, 2020 8:36 pm
by JackRiddler » Sat Jun 13, 2020 11:48 am
QUESTION OUR AUTHORITY AND BECOME OUR ENEMY
(By John Gallagher, Jr.)
https://twitter.com/JohnGallagherJr/sta ... 5970443264
Bruce Springsteen’s song “American Skin (41 Shots)” is a tender, moving ode to Amadou Diallo. Diallo was a 23 year old Guinean immigrant who was shot 19 times by 4 plain clothes cops outside his NYC apartment in 1999. 41 shots were fired. He was unarmed. The cops were acquitted.
When Bruce debuted the song in Atlanta in 2000 it was considered controversial. The largest police union in NYC was like “That’s it! The Boss is cancelled!” They called for the NYPD to boycott Bruce and refuse to offer security for his upcoming shows at Madison Square Garden.[1]
Listening to the song now, it’s hard to imagine what made them so mad. It isn’t angry or accusatory, just sorrowful. It offers up the simple, powerful refrain...
“You can get killed just for living in your American skin.”
It is a stunning song. Give it a listen.
The fact that it made the NYPD so mad tells us a lot about why they are doing what they are doing right now. The party line has always been the same...
Question our authority and become our enemy. It doesn’t matter if you’re a famous rockstar or a citizenry demanding reform.
Last Sunday, Ed Mullins, president of the second largest police union in NYC, tweeted Chiara de Blasio’s arrest record after she was arrested protesting. It included her license info and address. Chiara is the Mayor’s daughter. She’s 25. Mullins has been on the force since 82.
The Sergeants Benevolent Association’s account was briefly suspended because posting people’s private information without their knowledge, also known as doxxing, is a dangerous violation of Twitter Rules. The tweet was removed and Mullins quickly regained control of the account.
In February, Mullins tweeted that members of the NYPD were “declaring war on Mayor de Blasio and did not respect him.” He also tweeted a video that referred to black people as “monsters” and public housing as “war zones.” This is the head of NYC’s second largest police union.
This week he put out a statement praising officers for their recent performance during protests. He proclaimed that the NYPD answered to a “higher power” and will “win the war on New York City.” Then he went on Fox News and begged Trump to call in the National Guard to occupy us.
He told Laura Ingraham that the NYPD was “losing the city of New York.” I guess I’ve been naive all this time because I didn’t realize it belonged to them.
Yesterday the NYPD sought and was granted the right to arrest anyone and hold them for more than 24 hours in crowded jail cells without arraignment while the covid-19 pandemic still looms. This is a rare and stunning suspension of habeas corpus.
To recap, the president of the second largest police union in New York City publicly declared war on both its mayor and its citizens in the last four months. It’s not making many headlines right now but it seems like a red flag and a pretty big deal to me!
The thing about Mullins is, cops love him! He’s been a union boss since 2002. They love that he visits Trump in D.C. and trashes the Dem Mayor and owns the libs on his divisive, partisan Twitter account. How do you change that? How do you fix what doesn’t see itself as broken?
Make no mistake. The police are in full on revenge mode now and it will only get uglier. If a Springsteen song can get under their skin and set them off then surely they are fuming at having their absolute power and immunity threatened and defied so brazenly on the world stage.
But what did we expect? In 2017, our POTUS gave a speech on camera in which he gleefully encouraged New York cops to be violent when performing arrests as rows of uniformed police officers laughed and applauded from the bleachers behind him. Where did we think this would lead us?[2]
If you would like to learn more about Amadou Diallo there is a great episode of the @netflix series TRIAL BY MEDIA, that tells his story. You can also donate to the Amadou Diallo Foundation here.
by Sounder » Sat Jun 13, 2020 2:09 pm
Anyone dig into CHAZ here yet? Surprising, if not.
As with most developments/events of this era, assessments/reporting will vary wildly depending on echo chamber of choice.
I believe we have a couple RIers from Seattle, no? It'd be ideal to obtain an 'on the ground'/within bike-riding distance report of developments, or even anecdotes from other locals in the area.
How much longer can that newly formed would-be sovereign State last? And how will it end?
by Belligerent Savant » Sat Jun 13, 2020 6:07 pm
...police violence, and Trump’s daily assaults on the presidential competence standard, are only part of the disaster. On the other side of the political aisle, among self-described liberals, we’re watching an intellectual revolution. It feels liberating to say after years of tiptoeing around the fact, but the American left has lost its mind. It’s become a cowardly mob of upper-class social media addicts, Twitter Robespierres who move from discipline to discipline torching reputations and jobs with breathtaking casualness.
The leaders of this new movement are replacing traditional liberal beliefs about tolerance, free inquiry, and even racial harmony with ideas so toxic and unattractive that they eschew debate, moving straight to shaming, threats, and intimidation. They are counting on the guilt-ridden, self-flagellating nature of traditional American progressives, who will not stand up for themselves, and will walk to the Razor voluntarily.
...
Probably the most disturbing story involved Intercept writer Lee Fang, one of a fast-shrinking number of young reporters actually skilled in investigative journalism. Fang’s work in the area of campaign finance especially has led to concrete impact, including a record fine to a conservative Super PAC: few young reporters have done more to combat corruption.
Yet Fang found himself denounced online as a racist, then hauled before H.R. His crime? During protests, he tweeted this interview with an African-American man named Maximum Fr, who described having two cousins murdered in the East Oakland neighborhood where he grew up. Saying his aunt is still not over those killings, Max asked:I always question, why does a Black life matter only when a white man takes it?... Like, if a white man takes my life tonight, it’s going to be national news, but if a Black man takes my life, it might not even be spoken of… It’s stuff just like that that I just want in the mix.
Shortly after, a co-worker of Fang’s, Akela Lacy, wrote, “Tired of being made to deal continually with my co-worker @lhfang continuing to push black on black crime narratives after being repeatedly asked not to. This isn’t about me and him, it’s about institutional racism and using free speech to couch anti-blackness. I am so fucking tired.” She followed with, “Stop being racist Lee.”
The tweet received tens of thousands of likes and responses along the lines of, “Lee Fang has been like this for years, but the current moment only makes his anti-Blackness more glaring,” and “Lee Fang spouting racist bullshit it must be a day ending in day.” A significant number of Fang’s co-workers, nearly all white, as well as reporters from other major news organizations like the New York Times and MSNBC and political activists (one former Elizabeth Warren staffer tweeted, “Get him!”), issued likes and messages of support for the notion that Fang was a racist. Though he had support within the organization, no one among his co-workers was willing to say anything in his defense publicly.
Like many reporters, Fang has always viewed it as part of his job to ask questions in all directions. He’s written critically of political figures on the center-left, the left, and “obviously on the right,” and his reporting has inspired serious threats in the past. None of those past experiences were as terrifying as this blitz by would-be colleagues, which he described as “jarring,” “deeply isolating,” and “unique in my professional experience.”
To save his career, Fang had to craft a public apology for “insensitivity to the lived experience of others.” According to one friend of his, it’s been communicated to Fang that his continued employment at The Intercept is contingent upon avoiding comments that may upset colleagues. Lacy to her credit publicly thanked Fang for his statement and expressed willingness to have a conversation; unfortunately, the throng of Intercept co-workers who piled on her initial accusation did not join her in this.
...
Max himself was stunned to find out that his comments on all this had created a Twitter firestorm. “I couldn’t believe they were coming for the man’s job over something I said,” he recounts. “It was not Lee’s opinion. It was my opinion.”
By phone, Max spoke of a responsibility he feels Black people have to speak out against all forms of violence, “precisely because we experience it the most.” He described being affected by the Floyd story, but also by the story of retired African-American police captain David Dorn, shot to death in recent protests in St. Louis. He also mentioned Tony Timpa, a white man whose 2016 asphyxiation by police was only uncovered last year. In body-camera footage, police are heard joking after Timpa passed out and stopped moving, “I don’t want to go to school! Five more minutes, Mom!”
“If it happens to anyone, it has to be called out,” Max says.
Max described discussions in which it was argued to him that bringing up these other incidents now is not helpful to the causes being articulated at the protests. He understands that point of view. He just disagrees.
“They say, there has to be the right time and a place to talk about that,” he says. “But my point is, when? I want to speak out now.” He pauses. “We’ve taken the narrative, and instead of being inclusive with it, we’ve become exclusive with it. Why?”
by SonicG » Sat Jun 13, 2020 8:37 pm
by JackRiddler » Mon Jun 15, 2020 12:12 pm
Tech by VICE
Actors Dressed as Black Panthers in Atlanta Protest Say They’re Sorry
“I apologize to the OG’s for using [Black Panther imagery] and to my people for going about it the wrong way,” one of the marchers said.
By Ben Makuch
Jun 12 2020, 12:02pm
A SCREENSHOT OF A PHOTO OF SPIIKE G (LEFT) AND MICHAEL PIERINO MILLER (RIGHT) AT AN ATLANTA PROTEST, POSTED FROM PIERINO MILLER’S INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT.
Last week, a group of armed men and one woman, wearing body armor and carrying what looked like AR-15s, appeared at Black Lives Matter protests in Georgia. Some of the group, who were all clad in black, wore berets with the supposed imagery of the Black Panther movement, while a single white guy among them wearing the same uniform, stood out.
“I just want everyone (that’s here) to know that we are the New Black Panthers,” said the lone woman in the group through a megaphone at one of the protests in Decatur.
“We're here as a visual representation of equality,” she continued, “you have a right to bear arms. You do not need a license to carry a rifle. You need a license for a handgun. When we represent our rights people see and they understand.”
Days after that the group mysteriously reappeared carrying weapons at an Atlanta BLM march, except now it claimed to be a new group: Black Panther Revolutionaries Atlanta Chapter. In Facebook posts on Tuesday, the actual leader of the New Black Panthers Party, Hashim Nzinga, denounced the fake Black Panthers as a “most likely FBI led group” and clarified that his organization, under no circumstances, has white members. (The New Black Panthers Party has been condemned by original Black Panthers, and the Southern Poverty Law Center has listed them as a hate group.)
Images and video of the group went viral on Twitter and were picked up by tabloids. In a viral thread, a Twitter user suggested that these people were actors, and had some convincing evidence, including that the patches the group used weren’t Black Panther insignias, but from the 66th Infantry Division.
At least two of these people are Atlanta-based film and television actors, VICE has confirmed. The two explained why they were at the protest and why they wore what they wore—both said they are not actually affiliated with any official Black Panther movement, but, like almost everyone at the protests, they care deeply about the Black Lives Matter movement and the fight for racial justice after the police killing of George Floyd.
The news that the group are actors was also reported and confirmed by the Atlanta Journal Constitution last night. VICE independently verified and spoke to another member of the group for more details.
The one white man in the group, Michael Pierino Miller, whose IMDB credits include roles in shorts and an appearance as an uncredited extra in Avengers: End Game, published an Instagram story promoting the “Black Panther Revolutionaries.” But when asked what the group was exactly, he made his profile private and told VICE it was all a misunderstanding.
“No affiliation with original black PANTHERS or ‘The New Black PANTHERS’” he said in an Instagram message to VICE. “I joined my brothers day one of protests and gladly took and wore what was handed to me,” he added, though he didn't say who handed the outfit to him. Pierino Miller didn’t appear to have carried a weapon in any of the photos and made it clear that “Nobody was paid” to wear the faux-Black Panther outfits or attend any of the protests.
Pierino Miller referred VICE to Spiike G, an actor, writer, stuntman, cameraman and director, who appeared at both protests in a Black Panther uniform. Posts on his account show that he uploaded episodes of a fictional action series called Justice, "about an African American vigilante who stands up against police brutality and injustice in the black community. We all know cops get away with murder, but not in freedom city. In freedom city they have to answer to Justice."
Until recently, on his Instagram account Spiike had posted videos and pictures of himself with Pierino Miller and others, from the Decatur and Atlanta protests, but those images have been deleted. He then issued a mea culpa from his account, citing his long standing activism in the Black community dating back to the murder of Trayvon Martin in 2012 and said he is not a Black Panther.
“I apologize to the [New Black Panther Party] OG’s for using [Black Panther imagery] and to my people for going about it the wrong way,” he said in a caption to an Instagram post. “We wanted to uphold the ideas and views as the OG’s so we threw in [Black Panther]. Bottom line we love our black ppl and we want to protect our black ppl.”
When VICE contacted Spiike, he said he preferred to do a video interview then subsequently didn’t answer any of the several questions regarding the Black Panther Revolutionaries Atlanta Chapter, but told the AJC that he got the uniforms at an army surplus store.
He said he "wanted to be a symbol of hope" for protesters. "It wasn't for fun or anything like that."
by JackRiddler » Mon Jun 15, 2020 1:18 pm
by Harvey » Mon Jun 15, 2020 2:49 pm
by JackRiddler » Mon Jun 15, 2020 4:15 pm
JUNE 9, 2020
Media Are Slowly Starting to Be Serious About Police Violence
BRYCE GREENE
https://fair.org/home/media-are-slowly- ... -violence/
LAPD officers attack homeless man Charf Lloyd with projectiles, in a photo taken and posted to Facebook by Kirk Tsonos.
As the George Floyd protests against police violence erupted around the nation, a massive amount of evidence of police brutality was widely captured through social media. Unfortunately, very little of it made it to mainstream outlets until much later.
For days, Twitter and Facebook were filled with videos of heavily armored police forces indiscriminately pepper-spraying marchers, firing flashbangs at crowds containing children and elderly, and shooting projectiles at people standing outside their own homes. Marchers walked away from protests with all manner of bruises and bleeding wounds, and several lost teeth and even eyes to police projectiles. To many of those immersed in the social media environment, looted or burning buildings seemed relatively unimportant compared to the state violence meted out to the population.
Though the first weekend of the protests saw fires, looting and unruly activism, media coverage generally lacked any serious analysis of the abusive police conduct. Media coverage not only demonized legitimate outrage at a broken system, it whitewashed the role police played in spreading violence and chaos. Since some of the protesters committed destructive acts against property, the assumption seemed to be, none of the protesters had human rights.
USA Today: George Floyd death protesters spread violence, destruction across U.S. cities
USA Today (5/30/20) put together a montage of fires and broken windows to explain the George Floyd protests to its audience.
USA Today (5/31/20) ran a piece, “Peaceful Protesters Lament Violence at George Floyd Demonstrations, but Understand the Rage Behind It.” The only violence discussed at length was the vandalism, looting and instances of fires set during protests. The piece briefly mentioned tear gas and arrests, but did not include them in its examination of how police “overreact” to peaceful protesters.
The Washington Post (6/1/20) and Reuters (5/29/20; republished by New York Times, 5/29/20) followed similar patterns, as did a USA Today video (5/30/20), titled “George Floyd Death Protesters Spread Violence, Destruction Across US Cities.”
A major New York Times article (5/28/20) described “skirmishes” with police. The language implied a parity between unarmed protesters and heavily armed and armored militarized police. One of the most common terms used to describe police violent incursions into protesters’ space was the benign word “clashes.”
Even when outlets described the rampant police violence against protesters, the language used still protected police from scrutiny. Media Matters (6/2/20), examining how media headlines sanitized police violence, found multiple uses of passive voice to avoid ascribing agency. For example, instead of declaring that police were targeting journalists, Reuters (5/31/20) merely wrote, “Journalists Targeted in Attacks.”
Reuters: Tear gas fired on protesters near White House as Trump speaks
Reuters (6/1/20) reported that tear gas apparently fired itself at protesters while Trump coincidentally happened to be speaking.
Media Matters also found outlets describing inanimate objects committing violence instead of attributing actions to officers. For example, the Independent (5/31/20) ran the headline, “NYPD Vehicle Rams Crowd of Demonstrators in Brooklyn,” while Reuters (6/1/20) had “Tear Gas Fired on Protesters Near White House as Trump Speaks.”
Even coverage of police abuses sometimes attempted to falsely equate these abuses to protesters’ actions. For example, a USA Today (5/31/20) story that showcased police attacks on journalists tried to implicate protesters in attacks on journalists, writing, “Members of the news media appeared to be targeted, by police and protesters alike.”
The only case presented involving demonstrators was when protesters outside of the White House chased down and yelled obscenities at a Fox News camera crew as they chased them away. No physical violence occurred other than someone throwing water on the crew. For some reason, this minor incident was included in a long list of police using rubber bullets and arbitrary arrest to subdue reporters.
The Intercept (6/4/20) ran a piece by Trevor Timm of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, which noted that assaults on journalists have come overwhelmingly from police–83% of the time, according to the Foundation’s numbers, not counting dozens of arrests of journalists by police. At least some of the remaining assaults were not by protesters, Timm noted, citing an attack on Philadelphia TV reporter Jon Ehrens by “what appears to be police-aligned white nationalists.”
Slate (5/31/20) was one of the first outlets to focus on police violence as its own phenomenon in a headline “Police Erupt in Violence Nationwide.” This article included some of the ample evidence of police violence widely distributed through social media.
Perhaps the increasingly overt abuses of journalists prompted outlets to be more critical of police. In one high-profile incident, CNN reporter Omar Jimenez and his crew were arrested on live TV despite clearly identifying themselves as press. Another incident saw a local news crew clearly and deliberately targeted with pepper balls by police. These incidents, along with days of massive social media backlash against police violence, likely contributed to the broader refocus on law enforcement abuses over the course of several days.
NYT: Mayor de Blasio, Open Your Eyes. The Police Are Out of Control.
New York Times editorial (6/4/20) on New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio: “As evidence of police abuse has mounted, he has averted his eyes.”
By mid-week, outlets were starting to bring serious attention to police violence. The New York Times (6/4/20) published an editorial headlined “”Mayor de Blasio, Open Your Eyes. The Police Are Out of Control,” with a subhead reading, “This Is Not What Serving and Protecting Should Look Like.” Newsweek (6/4/20) ran a piece centering state violence, headlined “Protest Leaders Largely Calm Amid Unrest as Police Violence Tests Mayors and Governors.” Pieces from the Washington Post (e.g., 6/6/20) also show increased scrutiny of police brutality.
Critical coverage of police tactics has an enormous effect on how elected officials and police officers view abuses by their forces. The threat of negative representation in the media puts pressure on them to seriously address abuses — at least the obvious abuses caught on camera. Even after many mayors indicated that abuses wouldn’t be immediately dealt with early in the week, cracks in that facade are beginning to appear.
On Sunday, a veto-proof majority of the Minneapolis city council pledged to disband the city’s police department, asserting that it can not be reformed. House Democrats on Monday put forth a bill to address (rather timidly) some complaints about police.
Two officers involved in forcefully knocking down and injuring a 75-year-old man, then lying about it, have been suspended from the Buffalo Police Department. Six Atlanta police were booked on charges involving excessive force after tasing and dragging two college students out of their car; a Philadelphia police commander was charged with aggravated assault for bludgeoning another student in the head. Only sustained media attention to such abuses will create the conditions for ongoing calls for justice to be answered.
Featured image: Slate photo depiction (5/31/20) of police violence. (Photo: Jason Redmond/Getty Images)
by JackRiddler » Mon Jun 15, 2020 4:24 pm
Early test results show few protesters caught COVID-19
By CHRISTOPHER MAGAN | cmagan@pioneerpress.com | Pioneer Press PUBLISHED: June 12, 2020 at 4:36 p.m. | UPDATED: June 13, 2020 at 8:59 a.m.
https://www.twincities.com/2020/06/12/m ... rotesters/
by JackRiddler » Mon Jun 15, 2020 4:32 pm
by JackRiddler » Tue Jun 16, 2020 3:16 pm
Cordelia » Tue Jun 16, 2020 2:02 pm wrote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tR6mKcBbT4
From 5:02 on, Chappelle nailed it.
by JackRiddler » Tue Jun 16, 2020 3:56 pm
www.msn.com
Police detain armed militia members after man is shot at Albuquerque protest
Katie Shepherd
7 hrs ago
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/polic ... r-BB15xraS
Protesters in Albuquerque wrapped a chain around the neck of a bronze statue and began tugging, chanting, “Tear it down,” shortly before sunset on Monday. Their efforts to pull down a monument of Spanish conquistador Juan de Oñate suddenly stopped as four shots rang out.
a man in a military uniform: Albuquerque police detain members of the New Mexico Civil Guard, an armed civilian group, following the shooting of a man during a protest over a statue of Spanish conquerer Juan de Oñate on Monday, June 15, 2020, in Albuquerque, N.M. A confrontation erupted between protesters and a group of armed men who were trying to protect the statue before protesters wrapped a chain around it and began tugging on it while chanting: “Tear it down.” One protester repeatedly swung a pickax at the base of the statue. Moments later a few gunshots could be heard down the street and people started yelling that someone had been shot. (Adolphe Pierre-Louis/The Albuquerque Journal via AP)© Adolphe Pierre-Louis/AP Albuquerque police detain members of the New Mexico Civil Guard, an armed civilian group, following the shooting of a man during a protest over a statue of Spanish conquerer Juan de Oñate on Monday, June 15, 2020, in Albuquerque, N.M. A confrontation erupted between protesters and a group of armed men who were trying to protect the statue before protesters wrapped a chain around it and began tugging on it while chanting: “Tear it down.” One protester repeatedly swung a pickax at the base of the statue. Moments later a few gunshots could be heard down the street and people started yelling that someone had been shot.
(Adolphe Pierre-Louis/The Albuquerque Journal via AP)
Most people instinctively turned toward the noise, videos from the scene show. A few screamed. Just yards away, a group of militia men sporting militarylike garb and carrying semiautomatic rifles formed a protective circle around the gunman.
Subscribe to the Post Most newsletter: Today’s most popular stories on The Washington Post
The gunshots, which left one man in critical but stable condition, have set off a cascade of public outcry denouncing the unregulated militia’s presence and the shooting, although police have yet to announce an arrest or describe exactly what happened. The victim is also unidentified.
“The heavily armed individuals who flaunted themselves at the protest, calling themselves a ‘civil guard,’ were there for one reason: To menace protesters, to present an unsanctioned show of unregulated force,” New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) said in a statement. “To menace the people of New Mexico with weaponry — with an implicit threat of violence — is on its face unacceptable; that violence did indeed occur is unspeakable.”
Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller (D) said the statue would now be speedily removed as an “urgent matter of public safety” until authorities determine a next step.
“The shooting tonight was a tragic, outrageous and unacceptable act of violence and it has no place in our city,” Keller said in a statement. “Our diverse community will not be deterred by acts meant to divide or silence us. Our hearts go out [to] the victim, his family and witnesses whose lives were needlessly threatened tonight.”
Hide pop-up video player for 24 hours.
Why protesters around the world are targeting statues as symbols of racial oppression
UP NEXT
UP NEXT
Recent protests against Oñate statues in New Mexico mirror similar calls to tear down Confederate monuments amid a rise in Black Lives Matter demonstrations following the death of George Floyd, the man killed after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes.
In the hours leading up to the violence on Monday, protesters faced off with members of an armed militia that calls itself the New Mexico Civil Guard and counterprotesters toting “All lives matter” signs.
One group sought to tear down a monument to a Oñate, a 16th century despot who massacred indigenous people. The other set out as self-designated protectors of the statue, creating a heavily-armed presence at the park in Albuquerque’s historic Old Town. Aside from a few small scuffles over signs near the monument, the protest had largely been peaceful, though tense at times.
Then, a white man in a blue T-shirt appeared to rile the crowd, according to video obtained by KOB4. People erupted in shouts and the man took a few steps back. A masked protester swung a skateboard and struck him in the shoulder. The man back peddled out of the crowd, but continued to exchange shouts with protesters.
Someone in the video encouraged people to follow the man and get his license plate number. Several people followed him, and one tackled him to the ground. As he tried to stand back up and three people tried to hit him again, the man in blue pulled a gun and fired four shots, striking one man and scattering the crowd.
In a second video that captured the moments following the shooting, the gunman sat in the middle of a road as the New Mexico Civil Guard militia members formed a circle around him. One man carrying a semiautomatic rifle, camouflage fatigues and a military-style helmet kicked the handgun away from the man and stood with his foot on top of the weapon.
Police responded to the scene with tear gas and flash-bang explosives to force the crowd back. Officers detained several members of the militia group, according to reporters and witnesses at the scene. Video showed officers placing the apparent gunman into a cruiser.
Police have not released any information about the suspected shooter or said whether they believe he has any connection to the armed militia.
The militia, which identified itself to a New York Times reporter covering the protest Monday, has a controversial history. The right-wing group has repeatedly shown up at Black Lives Matter protests in recent weeks with guns and militarylike garb.
On Facebook, the group has shared materials encouraging people to arm themselves, promoted military training on infantry tactics and “ambushing,” and shared multiple posts opposing the leveling of monuments to Confederate figures in the South and Oñate in New Mexico. Members of the group recently told the Eastern New Mexico News that their aim was to protect businesses from damage during protests. They claimed they had been in contact with police and were following guidance given to them by officials.
Militias like the New Mexico Civil Guard and other armed, far-right counterprotesters have been a controversial presence at Black Lives Matter protests across the U.S. At an Albuquerque protest earlier this month, video of police talking to an armed militia group spurred allegations that officers were coordinating with the group in an official capacity, although police denied the claim.
At least one New Mexico lawmaker viewed the militia’s consistent presence at protests as suspicious enough to warrant further inquiry. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) called on the Justice Department to investigate the shooting Monday night.
“This is not the first report of heavily armed civilian militias appearing at protests around New Mexico in recent weeks. These extremists cannot be allowed to silence peaceful protests or inflict violence,” Heinrich said on Twitter Monday night
Some critics have drawn contrasts between police response to largely peaceful and unarmed Black Lives Matter protests and the heavily armed, militia-led demonstrations against coronavirus restrictions in April and May. Monday’s shooting also led some critics to note that the armed militia members and alleged shooter were taken into custody by police without incident, but the Black Lives Matter protests are responding to incidents where police have shot and killed unarmed black men.
“Notice how calmly they’re all being detained,” former housing secretary Julián Castro tweeted Monday night. “Don’t tell me George Floyd and Rayshard Brooks and Eric Garner — who did not harm anybody — couldn’t be treated differently.”
Meanwhile, the chief of police vowed to investigate any group that sought to stoke violence at the protest.
“We are receiving reports about vigilante groups possibly instigating this violence,” Albuquerque Police Chief Michael Geier said in a statement. “If this is true [we] will be holding them accountable to the fullest extent of the law, including federal hate group designation and prosecution.”
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 177 guests
