WTF Community

US in crisis - Black Lives Matter Fallout - National and local responses

General Discussion
#181

One dead, one in critical condition in early morning shooting at Capitol Hill protest zone known as CHOP

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/one-dead-one-critical-in-early-morning-shooting-at-capitol-hill-protest-zone/

Seattle police homicide and assault detectives are investigating an early morning shooting in the Capitol Hill protest zone known as CHOP that left one person dead and another in critical condition.

Seattle police said a 19-year-old man was pronounced dead at Harborview Medical Center. A second man suffered life-threatening injuries. Police have not identified the victims.

Sgt. Lauren Truscott, the department’s public information officer, said no suspects were in custody and the department urged anyone with information to call its tip line, 206-233-5000. Truscott said the department is reviewing public-source video and body-camera video for clues.

Footage from on the ground :point_down:

image
image1242×1202 420 KB

4 Likes
#182

This.

SmartSelect_20200620-224421_Twitter
SmartSelect_20200620-224421_Twitter1063×1658 702 KB

Defund the Police and Invest in Our Communities | Ben & Jerry’s

Bad at Solving Crimes

A comprehensive studyOpens a new window published in 2019 found that police across the US make a total of about 10.5 million arrests every single year, aggressively pursuing drug violations (disproportionately affecting Black people) and low-level offenses. (80% of all arrests are for low-level crimes, and only 5% for crimes that involve violence.) More than 10 million arrests is a lot! But all that activity doesn’t signal effectiveness: Only 40% of victims report crimes to the police (which speaks to a lack of trust), and police only solve 25%Opens a new window of those reported crimes. With spending on policeOpens a new window skyrocketing over the past six decades, you’d think it would lead to less crime and more effective investigations, but no.

American police do rank highly, though, in their use of force. As CNN Opens a new windowputs it, “American police shoot, kill, and imprison more people than other developed countries.” And given the racismOpens a new window in the overall criminal justice system, it’s sadly no surprise that Black people are more at risk than white people of being killed by police. Black men are up to 3.5 times more likelyOpens a new window than white men to be killed by law enforcement—in fact, 1 in every 1,000 Black men Opens a new window will die at the hands of policeOpens a new window. Maybe this is one of the reasons that the mayor of Boston recently declared racism a public health crisisOpens a new window.

And for all this violence, Americans spend about $115 billion a yearOpens a new window. New York City’s police budget, to cite just one hard-to-believe example, is about $6 billionOpens a new window, way way way more than the city spends on health and community services. Even in our own hometown of Burlington, Vermont,Opens a new window the $17.4 million spent on the police department accounts for about 22% of the city’s proposed overall budget, leaving vital community programs underfunded. Does it make any sense for Americans to pay billions upon billions of dollarsOpens a new window for a violent, racist, and ineffective system that causes so many people so much pain?

Time to Defund the Police!

Incremental reforms. Promises to do better. Increased training. We’ve tried thatOpens a new window. But American policing is fundamentally flawed—Band-Aids won’t fix it. So it’s time to do something fundamentally different. The good news is that many states and cities have clearly heard protesters’ demands and are already working to do just that:

This is a great start. But more must be done. George Floyd was murdered over a disputed $20 transaction at a grocery store. The response by the police took his life, failed his community, and made our world less safe. This Juneteenth, on what should be our nation’s true Independence Day, it’s time to liberate ourselves from a dangerous, racist model of law enforcement and work toward a new vision of building thriving communities where all people have what they need to be healthy and safe. Let’s dismantle the old system and build a new one that guarantees freedom and justice for all.

4 Likes
#183

Colorado to strip its police force of qualified immunity: Countless officers discussing resigning.

3 Likes
#184


image

NASCAR says noose found in Bubba Wallace’s garage at Talladega


image
image604×532 132 KB

3 Likes
#185

Eric Trump refers to racial justice protesters as ‘animals’ in rally speech


image
image580×608 160 KB

MAGAs are pushing fake outrage over people wanting to take down the statue of Teddy Roosevelt in front of the Museum of National History in Manhattan.

THIS would be the reason why, rather than anything specific about Teddy himself:

image
image600×900 177 KB

In fact, they have a whole exhibit ABOUT the controversial and problematic nature of the statue:


image

image

image

Roosevelt Statue to Be Removed From Museum of Natural History

The equestrian memorial to Theodore Roosevelt has long prompted objections as a symbol of colonialism and racism.


image
image
image592×520 157 KB

The statue, by the by, was originally made to symbolize racial unity and equality, but nobody looking at it now would see or feel that. It’s time is definitely past.’’

Someone hung the photos of 6 Black victims of violence by nooses from a tree in Milwaukee

The photos included Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, Botham Jean, Ahmaud Arbery, Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin.

Protesters are trying to tear down the statue of Andrew Jackson in DC.





image
image594×604 167 KB


image
image602×518 147 KB

https://www.ajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/today-the-finest-georgia-legislature-approves-hate-crimes-bill/qgyUSzdZ33F9mdCRD9umVK/

4 Likes
#186

For the US Crisis thread, which is currently overloaded so I can’t post more there (have been adding to the last post I made):

‘State-sanctioned violence’: US police fail to meet basic human rights standards

Report finds not one police department in the 20 largest American cities are compliant with international rights laws

Video in second post:
image


Crowds gathered in Charleston, South Carolina, to celebrate the removal of a statue of slavery advocate and former Vice President John C. Calhoun from the city’s Marion Square

Crews Begin Removal Of John C. Calhoun Statue In South Carolina

3 Likes
Day 1251:
#187

Take that…a Black Lives Matter street painted sign due to be created outside Trump Tower courtesy of Mayor de Blasio

New York City appears set to receive a “Black Lives Matter” street mural outside Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan, according to a statement from Mayor Bill de Blasio’s (D) office.

“The president is a disgrace to the values we cherish in New York City. He can’t run or deny the reality we are facing, and any time he wants to set foot in the place he claims is his hometown, he should be reminded Black Lives Matter,” Julia Arredondo, the mayor’s spokeswoman, said Wednesday, the New York Daily News reported.

The statement will be painted along Fifth Avenue between 56th and 57th streets in front of President Trump’s notable Manhattan building sometime before July 4.

4 Likes
#188

NASA renames DC headquarters after agency’s first Black female engineer, Mary W. Jackson

Seattle-based Northwest Tap Connection & Shakiah Danielson - #HELLYOUTALMBOUT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fr-FyI-3wZ0&feature=youtu.be

4 Likes
#189

A NZ connection to this story “The Chicks” were a very popular duo here in the 60’s. Now the name lives on. :slight_smile:

Grammy-winning country group The Dixie Chicks have dropped the word Dixie from their name, now going by The Chicks.

The band’s social media accounts and website were changed on Thursday to the refer to the new name for the band, which is made up of Martie Maguire, Natalie Maines and Emily Strayer. The band also recognised that the name was already in use by a band in New Zealand.

“A sincere and heartfelt thank you goes out to ‘The Chicks’ of NZ for their gracious gesture in allowing us to share their name. We are honoured to co-exist together in the world with these exceptionally talented sisters,” the band said in a statement.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=12343176

4 Likes
#190

OMFG! MISSISSIPPI IS CHANGING ITS RACIST FLAG!
image

Mississippi appears to have enough votes to change state flag, senior lawmaker says

A senior Mississippi state lawmaker said enough votes appear to be in place to remove the flag’s Confederate emblem, with a vote possible on Friday.

4 Likes
#191

Powerful Op-Ed

You Want a Confederate Monument? My Body Is a Confederate Monument

You cannot dismiss me as someone who doesn’t understand. You cannot say it wasn’t my family members who fought and died. My blackness does not put me on the other side of anything. It puts me squarely at the heart of the debate. I don’t just come from the South. I come from Confederates. I’ve got rebel-gray blue blood coursing my veins. My great-grandfather Will was raised with the knowledge that Edmund Pettus was his father. Pettus, the storied Confederate general, the grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, the man for whom Selma’s Bloody Sunday Bridge is named. So I am not an outsider who makes these demands. I am a great-great-granddaughter.

—

4 Likes
#192

I think about this often.

My mother’s side of the family came in through the north.

My father’s came in through the south.

I don’t know all of the branches, though I know many, and going far back.

I know that on my father’s side, my direct ancestors, from whom I have my surname, owned other human beings.

I know the names of these ancestors. I know where they did it. I know the plantation they owned still stands as a museum, having been taken from them after the Civil War (and I am glad it was taken).

I know there are African-Americans who share my surname.

I know my surname is so rare that it is almost certain we are related either by blood or because my ancestors owned theirs. Or both.

I am friends with some of them on Facebook, because my father reached out to people with our last name before his sudden death in 2013.

I know that I spend every day striving to ensure that my ancestors, who enslaved others, are rolling over in their damn graves because I eschew everything they stood for. Everything they embraced and perpetuated.

And still it haunts me. Because I am descended from people who owned other people. And I can’t change that, as much as I wish I could.

It hurts, to know I am related to people who hurt other people so deeply their scars are still felt generations later.

And that’s still a fraction of the pain black Americans feel living in a society that continues to ostracize and oppress them.

We need to do better. We need to be better. For people whose wounds we’ve never allowed to heal.

4 Likes
#193

Note the part where Barr is doubling down on his accusation of foreign interference without evidence. He is also putting ANTIFA in the same boat as the boogaloos, even though only the latter have been linked to serious violence. This stinks of scapegoating.

AG Barr creates task force focused on ‘countering anti-government extremists’

The move comes amid civil unrest demanding racial justice.

Attorney General Bill Barr has directed the creation of a new law enforcement task force that will be focused on “countering anti-government extremists.”

In a memo sent around the department Friday, Barr mentions both the antifa movement and the right-wing boogaloo movement as among the groups that the department has sought to disrupt from carrying out coordinated acts of violence around the country this past month.

“The ultimate goal of the task force will be not only to enable prosecutions of extremists who engage in violence, but to understand these groups well enough that we can stop such violence before it occurs and ultimately eliminate it as a threat to public safety and the rule of law,” Barr says in the memo.

Barr has assigned U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Craig Carpenito and U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Erin Nealy Cox with leading the task force, which will also include members from the FBI and other U.S. attorneys offices around the country.

The announcement comes amid civil unrest demanding racial justice in the country, sparked by the killing of George Floyd in May.

Barr said earlier this month that the federal government has evidence that the radical left-wing antifa movement as well as other extremist groups have “hijacked” legitimate protests around the country to incite violence and said certain “foreign actors” are seizing on the unrest to sow discord in the U.S.

In a news conference at the Justice Department alongside other department heads, Barr and FBI Director Chris Wray had both singled out the antifa movement – which President Donald Trump has also blamed for violence – in their opening remarks, though the DOJ has not provided direct evidence of widespread involvement of antifa followers in the violence seen thus far across the country.

The day before, however, the DOJ announced the arrest of three men connected to the far-right boogaloo movement who were allegedly plotting to incite violence at protests in Las Vegas.

Barr has taken a hard line against protesters in the past. He came under fire for the order to push back a protest in front of the White House to make way for President Trump’s photo op at St. John’s Episcopal Church, though he said law enforcement officers were already moving to push back protesters from a park in front of the White House when he arrived there and he says he did not give a command to disperse the crowd, but he supported the decision.

Barr said that officials on the ground had identified “instigators” who were throwing projectiles and otherwise making the perimeter an unsafe area.

In a wide-ranging podcast interview with Republican Sen. Ted Cruz posted this week, Barr addressed the department’s investigations of acts of violence in recent weeks surrounding the protests of the Floyd’s death. Barr said the department has “about 500 investigations underway,” and still only singled out the antifa movement by name – -- even though no federal indictment has publicly tied the movement to a charged individual.


image
image465×680 104 KB

4 Likes
#194

The Flag is coming down…!

4 Likes
#195

Hell.
https://twitter.com/SJPeace/status/1277082346634776577?s=20
image




image
image592×616 128 KB


image
image594×530 143 KB

3 Likes
#196

Trump thanked ‘great people’ shown in Twitter video in which a man chants ‘white power’

Trump Retweets Video Of Apparent Supporter Saying ‘White Power’

Trump promotes video of a supporter saying ‘white power’

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/28/trump-promotes-video-supporter-saying-white-power/

2 Likes
#197

Trump tweets pics of protesters to his base urging them to find and arrest these people.

This won’t end well.


image
image592×578 86.3 KB


image
image614×562 159 KB


image

3 Likes
#198

This is very moving piece from the descendants of Frederick Douglass - to mark Fourth of July.

4 Likes
#199

Update on the Seattle protesters who were struck by a car; one has died.

Seattle protest: Two women seriously injured by car

Footage posted on Twitter showed a white car speeding along the highway, before swerving to avoid two stationary vehicles positioned as a roadblock, then hitting the two people.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jtXAP06qzA

1 Killed, 1 Injured After Vehicle Careens Into Protesters In Seattle

3 Likes
#200

Trump Supporters Who Painted Over ‘BLM’ Mural Charged with Hate Crime

4 Likes