A Git Repo to Document Police Brutality During the 2020 George Floyd Protests

https://github.com/2020PB/police-brutality

by novia • 6 years ago

288 190 6 years ago

akersten2• 6 years ago

I vouched for this. In other threads, an attitude I've seen is "well I'm just a tech worker, what can I possibly do to help?"

Projects like this are what you can do.

rrmm4• 6 years ago

Also just in general, make sure the people around you are registered to vote, get absentee ballots if they need them, understand how to complete, and send them. Make sure they vote.

DyslexicAtheist2• 6 years ago

but vote for who? Joe Biden has historically backed legislation for search and frisk, he is only a good choice for people who think "BlueLivesMatter"

_bxg1• 6 years ago

I don't see the source for the linked "Web App" here; just the markdown files. Would be good to be able to contribute to that as well.

NameDoesntExist• 6 years ago

The Web App repo is here [0]

0: https://github.com/ubershmekel/2020PoliceBrutality

war10253• 6 years ago

Am I the only one that gets the feeling these riots have nothing to do with George Floyd at this point and are just a massive boiling over of tension from Coronavirus lockdown orders?

haram_masala• 6 years ago

I'd say it's that, plus tensions manufactured by social media and angry clickbait, plus a general sense of increasing income inequality. Humans are sadly well-attuned to how well-off their fellow humans are.

phoe-krk• 6 years ago

I think that and the resulting unemployment boom certainly contributes, but you seem to miss the obvious point here - that the Black and Brown people of US have other objective reasons to protest about, too.

war10253• 6 years ago

Sure, Black and Brown people have legitimate things to protest. But all I see are videos of white kids throwing bricks and otherwise stirring the pot.

kyrra• 6 years ago

What is the objective reason they should be protesting?

RcouF1uZ4gsC3• 6 years ago

that the Black and Brown people of US have other objective reasons to protest about, too.

Speaking as a brown person, I am seeing a lot of white people in masks burning down and looting the livelihoods of black and brown business owners. I think I remember having read about something like this having happened before in history.

epistasis• 6 years ago

Of course it's about a lot more than George Floyd; he was just the latest and most undeniable of a long string of racist policing. People never had a chance to calm down from Breonna Taylor's murder or Ahmaud Arbery or that woman who tried to get police to attack a man in Central Park because he was black, the day before the murder of Floyd.

The protests have been greatly enhanced and made far stronger by the ridiculous amount of police violence. Without that, and without the continued racist action of the Minneapolis police, DA, and even medical examiner.

Ferguson wasn't that long ago, and everything is worse since then. I'm not surprised that it's this big.

newacct583• 6 years ago

Race riots are nothing new in the US. The Rodney King riots didn't have a virus to blame.

Seriously? Given the choice between "many decades of racial animosity and unfair police conduct" and "it's the lockdown", you really made that choice?

war10253• 6 years ago

The Rodney King riots were isolated to Los Angeles.

If these riots had stayed isolated to Minneapolis you'd have a point.

bpodgursky• 6 years ago

I don't think people are protesting against lockdown orders per se, but it's hard deny that the protests are getting huge crowds because people are (1) incredibly bored, and (2) have no job or school to go to instead.

(Not to deny the sentiment or validity of the protests -- maybe in an ideal world, the protestors would have gone otherwise, but IRL, would have been tired, bogged down in work or school, or otherwise distracted with life. Which currently doesn't exist).

rrmm4• 6 years ago

For me, it's the fact that police stood on some guys neck while he begged them to stop because he couldn't breathe.

Those sorts of things make me cranky. I suspect other people might feel the same way. Especially seeing as it's only the latest in a string of deaths like this.

jayd16• 6 years ago

When bellies are full and few hands are idle its easier to overlook the daily injustice. That said, the tensions aren't new and they aren't diminished or invalid either.

aaron695• 6 years ago

They are certainly extremely tied to C19, 'nothing to do with' is wrong.

I think the George Floyd killing is tied to C19 in it's extremity. To keep going like they did with vocal witnesses is very unusual.

The lockdown has affected both the police and public in a psychological way. We allowed ourselves to be locked up. At many levels our brains aren't happy.

Wearing masks has created change in protests and the way police act. It's anonymousing attackers and the attacked are also less human.

X6S1x6Okd1st3• 6 years ago

Riots happen when the social contact is broken.

For some people the primary social contact that is broken is long running systemic racism.

For some it's militarization of the police.

For some it's the US seemingly slowly sliding in facism

For some it's the economic Injustice of being told "the economy", i.e. the stock market is doing great while unemployment is at an all time high.

Etc

RcouF1uZ4gsC3• 6 years ago

Riots happen when the social contact is broken.

Were you saying the same things during the lockdown protests?

Pinegulf2• 6 years ago

Riots happen when the social contact is broken.

This strikes me as too simplistic solution. I tried to find papers on how demonstrations become riots, but my google.scholar-fu has failed. Anyone got good review papers on this? (If none exist, there is a goldmine there for social scientists.)

cycomanic2• 6 years ago

Trevor Noah gave an incredibly insightful commentary about this here: https://youtu.be/v4amCfVbA_c

I highly recommend watching it even if you don't like or usually don't agree with him. He frames this as a row of dominoes and the societal contract that black people constantly see violated.

nobody0• 6 years ago

MLK: "I think that we've got to see that a riot is the language of the unheard."

gindely2• 6 years ago

If you spend four years sowing discord and disorder, you reap what you sow. The president is to blame.

brigandish• 6 years ago

A laudable idea but why restrict it to the protests? There's a problem with police brutality in lots of places and at lots of times (even just the perception of it), perhaps a more standard way to report and record which can be replicated easily and hence, compared better, might be an idea. (As I was writing an issue opened up on this kind of point https://github.com/2020PB/police-brutality/issues/83)

It seems to me that the current set up excludes the vast majority of people (who are unlikely to know markdown, Git, or Github) which limits its effectiveness.

akersten2• 6 years ago

(Not the author) I like Git for the decentralization and ease of someone backing it all up. Agree that there's a huge usability cliff for anyone outside our circle that wants to contribute.

Maybe a good add-on project for someone is creating a website where potential new incidents can be submitted and evaluated, then pulled into the repo automatically if they pass muster.

demadog• 6 years ago

A simple google form or google sheet that feeds into the Git repo would open up contributions from the other 95% of the populace!

Cthulhu_11• 6 years ago

If Reddit wasn't censored, you could use that, but you'd need moderators to manage duplicates and spam. Backing up Reddit pages / posts / videos should be fairly straightforward. If anything it's a lot more accessible to anyone because you can e.g. post from mobile.

adjkant11• 6 years ago

Right now there is so much first person documentation of these acts pouring into Twitter, Reddit, Snapchat's Map, and Tiktok. This is the time to make sure there is a simple way to document all of this so it can be organized later. System perfection is the enemy of preservation here. Anything helps and taking time to make those UI layers could lose valuable documentation in the shuffle.

Git's UI will absolutely limit the contributing audience, I agree - Perhaps the author could add a simple form for people to submit through and then technical people could manually add them? Google Form/Jotform/Survey Monkey style?

jackpirate• 6 years ago

There's already a few more general repos out there. For example, this one focuses on US attrocities: https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/us_atrociti...

And this one is a general one about America's shit: https://github.com/mikeizbicki/american-shit (disclaimer: it's my repo)

Melting_Harps3• 6 years ago

Thanks for doing that, during the Hong Kong protests the (presumably) CCP were attacking doing ddos attacks and trying attack servers that hosted footage of the police illegally beating, arresting and pepper spraying lawful citizens protesting or simply just having the misfortune of being around one when the HKPF/PLA decided to get violent.

Here is the torrent hash if anyone wants to host it and seed:

9b85dd223c8f92c923f516ed77bbdfcb770f4dd8

I vouched for this. In other threads, an attitude I've seen is "well I'm just a tech worker, what can I possibly do to help?"

I hope something like this is done for these protests (Anonymous?) and undertaken by the greater tech community as the Police need to be held accountable for the brutality and callous inhumane behaviour towards citizens and journalists alike, that many on here simply accepted 'as other people's problems.' And in many cities the police have simply decided of their own accord to just shut off their bodycams. I spent most of the weekend following the events and after you weed through the BS bots, you actually see the numbers are there to make it happen in just about every city. It's really just a matter of coordination and Will.

If nothing else this is a stark reminder of what your tax money is going towards, and it isn't going towards roads, schools or whatever absurd notion most use to justify the ever growing militarization and expansion of a Police State in the US.

The thing I don't get was that in the late 80s and 90s activism and tech/hacking oriented people were pretty much one and the same, namely Cypherpunks. Specifically in the Valley!

cinquemb2• 6 years ago

The thing I don't get was that in the late 80s and 90s activism and tech/hacking oriented people were pretty much one and the same, namely Cypherpunks. Specifically in the Valley!

Alot of those folks were co-opted… at least according to folks like Bill Blunden (belowgotham.com) and John Young (cryptome.org)

Melting_Harps3• 6 years ago

Alot of those folks were co-opted… at least according to folks like Bill Blunden (belowgotham.com) and John Young (cryptome.org)

I don't know who those people are, nor have I taken the time to analyze their work. But let's assume that some were co-opted, you do realize that ultimately it doesn't matter because the few that weren't are responsible for some of the greatest innovation in citizen's use of cryptography and a non-state issue currency, those being: Wei Dai, Nick Szabo, Hal Finney, Adam Back, Timothy May.

Hell, these people inspired a certain loud mouth Cyberpunk who went on to create wikileaks, and tried to expose covert Nuclear armament by the US prior to that, you may have heard of him as he's currently being used as political football in an extradition case: Julian Assange. And he motivated a guy who went to to work on TOR (Jacob Applebaum) and a former NSA contractor that revealed the extensive abuses of the the Intelligence Agencies around the world (Edward Snowden).

What I'm getting at is that these kind of movements are useful precisely because they do not rely on a single entity or person to steer the actions of said movement.

throwaway3910034• 6 years ago

There's one from NYC that says: "A police officer forcefully pulls off a protestors face mask and pepper sprays him. The protestor had his hands up in surrender when this happened."

From https://github.com/2020PB/police-brutality/blob/master/repor...

If you look at the video though the guy was pushing towards the officer against the officer's hand. What do you expect to happen when you decide to aggress on an officer instead of back away?

Here's the video they link https://twitter.com/_doreenpt/status/1266994439039455232

How many other incidents are there in this repo that are unfairly listed/described?

tasogare• 6 years ago

A complementary repo which would be interesting to make to give a more complete view of the situation is one listing the destructions, lootings and physical agression made by non-police forces.

mquander2• 6 years ago

I watched that video. You have clearly mastered the application of Newton's third law, by pointing out that when someone pushes you away with their hand, you are also pushing against their hand. We only disagree about whether it's correct to pepper spray someone in the face when this happens.

throwaway3910034• 6 years ago

The guy did not take a step or two back, like everyone else seen in the video was doing

edit: I just walked the video again. you have to be crazy if you don't think the guy was encroaching on the officer's space

booleandilemma3• 6 years ago

I saw that video. The guy clearly shuffled in place. He did not step back, and therefore did not obey the cop's order.

booleandilemma3• 6 years ago

Is there a Git repo to track the stores that have been looted/burned to the ground?

gremlinsinc5• 6 years ago

Maybe they should do that, but make sure to exclude the ones that are insured. Because that's not a net loss.

Also be sure to include the ones that police are responsible for like this car that the Riverside Sherrif busted out for no reason: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_XERvsXvSU

zanmat0• 6 years ago

Its not a net loss if they have to increase their prices to pay for the new higher premiums?

These failures to understand basic economics are frightening.

Cthulhu_11• 6 years ago

It is being logged, but in police and insurance reports. Maybe a freedom of information request could get you access to that data.

My question though: Why are you interested in that information? Is there something you want to prove or emphasize?

itsbits• 6 years ago

Just wanted to know why protests are still continuing? Aren't Police involved with the incident are charged?

mistermann4• 6 years ago

Some people claim it is in part due to decades of injustice with more lip service than real change from politicians of all political stripes.

nsilvestri• 6 years ago

The one officer who was immediately involved has been charged; the other three have not. However this case is more of the straw that broke the camel's back. It's freshest in our minds and is the face of the protests, but as a whole the protests represent decades of tensions boiling over.

sukilot2• 6 years ago

A dozen more people have died on all sides and combinations so now it's self-perpetuating chain reaction into civil war.

Cthulhu_11• 6 years ago

Because charging the individuals does not mean things will change. It won't mean they get a conviction, and it doesn't mean the police force will reorganize, demilitarize, retrain to use less force, or become not racist.

And the other side hasn't de-escalated either, with the president deploying the military. Earlier you could at least hold the police using excessive force accountable - assuming they didn't hide their badge number, which some did. Now, there's faceless, badgeless (not even an indication what branch of the military they're from) soldiers stepping in.

The protesters demand change, not a few individuals being held accountable. For every Floyd that died, there's hundreds if not thousands more of unjust incidents.

sneak• 6 years ago

Please put the media clips into the repo. The original links will frequently disappear from the censorship platforms. Don’t just link, mirror the videos.

alphachloride• 6 years ago

The organization for this repo has only 2 repositories in their github profile: this one .... and Atom the text editor. Wat.

orwin2• 6 years ago

Seeing US police act almost make me believe French BAC is a peacefull police force trained for violence deescalation.

I don't understand how you can not have the equivalent of CRS/Bereitschaftspolizei.

freeone3000• 6 years ago

We do. SWAT teams absolutely exist. You're seeing them here.

411111111111111• 6 years ago

Uh, nobody questioned that you've got trigger-happy and overgeared specialists on a powertrip.

That's not what CRS/Bereitschaftspolizei is though. I've only ever seen them running around entirely without protection or with shields to stop people doing dumb shit.

orwin2• 6 years ago

It is not SWAT, it is police forces trained especially to keep protest from degenerating. Negotiator able to defuse situations, will only charge or fire (with water cannons or rubber bullets) on order but have the right to refuse them if they feel the situation can be calmed down.

adjkant11• 6 years ago

This tweet has a good two minute video of some of these cases, for those who are questioning if this is "valid" as I have seen in many threads.

https://twitter.com/JordanUhl/status/1266917228752056320

ebg135• 6 years ago

This one is from a link further down. I think it tells pretty much everything. https://twitter.com/stephtseo/status/1267680737915924480?s=0...

asiachick5• 6 years ago

I don't see what you seem to see in that video.

I see an umbrella put way over the fence. I see a policeman grab an umbrella that was way over fence. I see then someone else reach across the fence in response to the police grabbing the umbrella. I see the police then react to that person reaching across the fence.

I don't see blame. I just see tinder, a spark, and an escalation.

I'm fully 100% for "Black Lives Matter" and 100% against police brutality and the militarization of the police. But that video is too ambiguous convince all people. It's the same with the CNN reporter. People who want to see racism see a black reporter get arrested. People who don't want to see racism see 3 people getting arrested, one black, one white, one latino? Yes, racism exists but that video is also not proof of it.

axegon_9• 6 years ago

Probably a bit of a controversial opinion but in some cases I can sympathize with the police officers. The reality is that the vast majority of them likely condemn the events around George Floyd's death. They are also regular people with families, children and friends they have to provide for. And they have the exact same problems that many of us do. Their daily work involves keeping things in order, which is something I respect. That said, the first video I opened at random[1] shows a small number of people blocking a road in what looks more like a civil war scene rather than a protest. And the authorities are greeted with "F-U" and people tossing objects at them. The people in uniforms are ordinary people. Put yourself in their shoes and tell me: having all the problems you have, seeing all the destruction, which in all cases is no longer a protest, people shouting "f-u" and throwing stuff at you: You can be the most mentally stable human being but everyone has a limit. Many of those men are possibly working overtime, in extreme conditions and I bet they would much rather be with their kids or sick parents for instance. With this idea in mind, I personally can't picture myself being able to remain calm and not overstep my boundaries sooner or later.

Now putting myself in the shoes of the protesters: seeing the same destruction, destroying of properties, cars and businesses, I'll call it a day because this is no longer a protest. I'd go back home and wait for this to be taken care of and join a civilized protest once this has been taken care of. A civilized country should be able to hold a civilized protest. And having spent most of my life in eastern Europe, you can say I know a thing or two about protests. Last large protest I was a part of was in ~2013 irrc and the aftermath was very different. The night after each of those protests, everything was spotless clean, people thew all their garbage in the bins, nothing broken or destroyed. People were coming with their children and pets and being completely comfortable with it. There was a completely unrelated incident of a gas explosion at a Chinese restaurant, which burned a nearby shop. People gathered donations fo the shop owner to recover. Incidents with police? Practically none during ~3 months of daily protest. And we are talking eastern Europe - the police officers are anything but the nicest people on the planet.

[1] https://twitter.com/XruthxNthr/status/1266903223220097024

miguelmota• 6 years ago

A civilized country should be able to hold a civilized protest.

The protests started out peaceful but became less peaceful when the police showed up and tear gassed innocent crowds. There's people literally getting arrested for practicing their right to assemble and right to freedom of speech.

axegon_9• 6 years ago

That is the thing about collectivism though. Imagine one person throwing a bottle from the crowd at the police(something which can be seen in tons of videos). The idea of collectivism implies that the crowd itself is no longer innocent at that point. Not to mention the destruction of public and private properties. The words "rights" and "responsibilities" go hand in hand and people love ignoring that fact.

craftinator4• 6 years ago

I witnessed this in Portland over the last 5 days.

The Portland police bureau came out to the game locked and loaded, full riot gear, trucks modified to hold ten cops hanging on the outside, tear gas, flash bangs, pepper balls, rubber bullets, riot batons, helicopters, spotlights. And, they decide to starts gassing protesters half an hour before curfew begins...

Protests started loud but moderately peaceful; no thrown objects, no fires, no damaged buildings. Cops tear gas and shoot them for "obstructing traffic". After a few hours of this, the crowd starts throwing water bottles, breaking windows, hurling the tear gas grenades back. This back and forth goes on through Sunday night.

Portland mayor Ted Wheeler gets a LOT of flack from important people who spent their weekend coughing on tear gas and waking up to sirens, painful screaming, and flashbangs, instead of drinking fine wine at nice restaurants and walking the Pearl District. He tells the cops no more violent riot control measures.

Monday night hits, something like 10,000 protesters take the streets and bridges, organized, geared up with cones, leaf blowers, shields, gas masks, body armor. The cops stay put. They don't even come out of their staging area. Protesters spend the evening chanting, talking to passersby, and policing bald headed agent provacateurs wearing German camo to hide their swastika tats. It was beautiful, the air was breathable, and there were no reports of looting or damage.

booleandilemma3• 6 years ago

I wonder how many people on this thread have participated in the riots, theft, and destruction of our local businesses?

I wonder how many have told a cop to go fuck themselves in the past 24 hours.

Judging by how quickly you were downvoted, I'm guessing quite a few.

axegon_9• 6 years ago

Which means everyone is missing the point. It doesn't matter if you personally participated in the riots, theft, and destruction: you are in the crowd of people which is a collective and as such, is treated as a collective. There is no other way around it. It's easy to think about it as an ordinary situation, but this is much like war. Only a handful of the population is actively engaged in a war but the damage is reflected upon everyone.

arel• 6 years ago

With this idea in mind, I personally can't picture myself being able to remain calm and not overstep my boundaries sooner or later.

It's their job to remain calm and lawful under all circumstances.

They have the full force of state sanctioned violence at their disposal.

Watch some of the hundreds of videos on Twitter now and see if you can't see a rotten and brutal culture in US policing.

gremlinsinc5• 6 years ago

Or just go here: https://old.reddit.com/r/2020PoliceBrutality

muglug2• 6 years ago

I think most of what you’re saying is not controversial, but I think you’re missing a lot of context. Those officers, and the protestors, exist in a country that still treats black people as second-class citizens in a variety of ways. Hell, the current President spent years saying the previous (black) President was illegitimate.

You want to see the protesters and officers as equal, but they’re not - the protesters are trying to change the status quo, the officers by and large want it to stay the way it is, and often want to make things worse for minorities (“Make America Great Again”).

Sympathy for the officers is fine, but remember they can quit whenever they want. Black people can’t quit being black.

axegon_9• 6 years ago

And looking at the images of complete destruction, who do you think is the big winner here? Isn't it Mr. "Make America Great again"? I think that's playing beautifully in his hands and many of the people who had turned against him are now back under his wing.

Sympathy for the officers is fine, but remember they can quit whenever they want.

That's not always the case. As I said, often those people have to provide for someone and put food on the table each night. I know exactly what it is to be a kid and seeing an empty table in the evening.

jtjbdhsjjdnd• 6 years ago

As an outsider (maybe I am wrong) US will continue their bad treatment of 'black people' as long as you continue calling them 'black' and supporting it at the official level. It is just racial segregation in disguise.

curryst2• 6 years ago

I agree with you, I think there is a failing on two parts: firstly, police are ill equipped (training wise) to handle this and it was a systematic failure to deploy them like this. Secondarily, police (I would guess their union) have continually pushed to expand their ability to use force, giving the impression that they are well equipped to handle this.

On the first, I firmly believe that you should always deploy people who are accustomed to a more difficult or dangerous task. Managing large crowds of potentially violent people is far beyond the typical danger police face (usually peaceful, or one or two dangerous people). On the other hand, this is one of the scenarios the National Guard is trained for. And the level of force is likely lower than what they have trained for. The current response is like handingba Sev1 incident to an intern. They're just as or more likely to cause more damage as they are to help.

On the second point, handing armored vehicles and body armor to a group that isn't well versed in their use and effects on the opposing force is a bad idea. The outcome is inevitably the "five foot drop". When you your electronics don't work and you don't know how to fix them, people tend to give it a hard smack to see if that works. Likewise when your day to day policing doesn't work, deploying your heaviest armaments probably seems like a good idea.

I do still hold the officers accountable to a degree. The degree of force is incredibly one sided. However, more than them, I blame the system that put them in a situation they are so unequipped to handle.

axegon_9• 6 years ago

On the second point, handing armored vehicles and body armor to a group that isn't well versed in their use and effects on the opposing force is a bad idea.

This may be a topic of another discussion but I wouldn't call it a bad idea in a country where everyone and their dog has firearms, just saying...

wsatb• 6 years ago

I get a lot what you're saying regarding the police. I think there's a lot that needs to change, and the mental health of our police needs to be included. Not only are they probably working insane hours, in lots of stress, but it's quite evident lots of them have become completely desensitized from violence. You don't come out of the womb being okay with hitting people that are not a threat.

That said: it's increasingly evident that they're very poorly trained. You see the same strongman tactics in every city. They gang up on a single person, sometimes 4 or 5 of them, all hitting, all kicking, and continue to do this once you're on the ground. If you've ever watched Live PD, you see a ton of this same behavior, all the time, all across the country.

At the same time, there are some really bad cops out there (and the cynic in me tells me they're more common than we're lead on to believe), and also lots that just don't have the mental fortitude to do the work, but are still doing it anyway. Those people need to be weeded out, and we need to better equip them with tools that are not weapons.

Cthulhu_11• 6 years ago

While I do want to sympathize with the police officers, at the same time each and every one of them is complicit in what has happened - there is not enough accountability in the police force, not enough emphasis on de-escalating, on respect of people they suspect of wrongdoing - especially if they're PoC.

Why was Floyd pinned to the ground until he suffocated when all he supposedly did was use a fake $20 bill? (supposedly because innocent until proven guilty). Why did none of the other officers present step in? All of them are guilty IMO.

As a police officer, you need to keep your colleagues in check. The problem right now is that there's vast groups of policemen who have no qualms with using excessive violence, especially against PoC, and they protect each other. I suspect that goes up the chain of command all the way up. For one, the US President himself hasn't condemned the actions of the police, not in the Floyd case, not in any other case of police violence. And that makes them complicit.

mehrdadn6• 6 years ago

Just a heads-up: before you get angry, bear in mind the situation is evolving and that the context and the timing information are very relevant. Here's why: at least in NYC, I know the protest leaders and the NYPD police chief got together just a day or two ago to have a dialog and try to mend things so they can work together instead of against each other. [1] They don't hate each other, and in any case, both sides realize they need the other's support. They just want to be able to work together to keep things peaceful. And it seems like they're giving each other another chance to do things right, and it's important that they get that chance instead of having more tensions flare again as a result of anger from 3 days ago.

So, before you get worked up about what happened, check the date, and try to see if there's any local news in the city that might indicate something might have changed in the meantime. You won't necessarily see these on frontpage headlines, so it might take a bit of digging. (I've found actual videos from local news reporting on the ground much more helpful than textual articles from national outlets here. It seems to me it's just too difficult to capture all the relevant dynamics, emotion, and nuance in text.)

In fact, if anyone's involved, I would suggest putting this information in the repo here as well. You don't want to add fuel onto a fire that was already under control a few days ago, and you want to know when (or whether) good progress is being made. Ultimately the goal is to find a working model that others can hopefully emulate.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJGT06zIUiY&t=2m32s

panic• 6 years ago

It's hard to believe that report when it doesn't name any of the people or organizations they met with. As far as I know, the protesters don't have any leaders that could negotiate on their behalf.

mehrdadn6• 6 years ago

I don't know, maybe he's wrong about them being leaders. I'm happy to read more information about this; I just don't have more info unfortunately. Does it really matter if they're leaders or not though? It's not like it doesn't count if the situation improves without the leaders being involved, or without us knowing what their names might be.

adjkant11• 6 years ago

While coming to the table is important and I think reacting thoughtfully to this is important, I think it's important to note that these incidents of police brutality are being documented a lot more due to the current events and scale but these are far from isolated to these protests. It's simply much easier to avoid being recorded in day to day life while everyone has their cameras out for these.

As far as rational, controlled, and motivated anger goes, what day these events happen on should not stand in the way. This needs to be harnessed to enact massive structural change of course, not online flame wars or unproductive methods of protest. Still, that very anger you see is also able to be used to motivate many people to add in ways they may not have before. White people are starting to understand that they can be used as literal shields [1] against police brutality, and that should not be lost in this. There is much to be gained in a positive way from this anger.

I do appreciate your general sentiment here, I just wanted to underscore that the anger here, particularly that felt by POC, has deep roots beyond these incidents and can be used positively. I think that caveat is where we agree - how to harness that anger.

[1] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EZJ5P_gWAAADwpQ.jpg https://twitter.com/michellebhasin/status/126747635543387750...

johnnyfaehell5• 6 years ago

Just a heads-up: before you get angry, bear in mind the situation is evolving and that the context and the timing information are very relevant.

"Before you get angry about police brutality, remember context is important!" Are you serious?! Some people are talking to the police chief so you shouldn't be angry that they are blockading people on to a bridge. Or angry that they are driving SUVs into people. Or violently pushing people to the ground. And that's just the NYPD. A department where the commissioner was praising the department for their restrain, if that's restrain wait until they stop holding back.

Giving each other the chance to do the right thing? What are you talking about? What do the protesters need to do? Stop proetesting?

So, before you get worked up about what happened, check the date, and try to see if there's any local news in the city that might indicate something might have changed in the meantime
So, before you get worked up about what happened, check the date, and try to see if there's any local news in the city that might indicate something might have changed in the meantime. You won't necessarily see these on frontpage headlines, so it might take a bit of digging. (I've found actual videos from local news reporting on the ground much more helpful than textual articles from national outlets here. It seems to me it's just too difficult to capture all the relevant dynamics, emotion, and nuance in text.)

Are you nuts? So if it happened 3 days ago and the police are saying sorry but not laying charges, it's a-ok? There are no real nuances here. You have police shooting rubber bullets are people's faces, spraying them with pepper spray while they have their hands up, tear gassing people. All while not facing criminal charges.

In fact, if anyone's involved, I would suggest putting this information in the repo here as well. You don't want to add fuel onto a fire that was already under control a few days ago, and you want to know when (or whether) good progress is being made. Ultimately the goal is to find a working model that others can hopefully emulate.

No, you want to add fuel to this fire if you want this problem to be solved. Working models can be found in nearly every civilised country in the world.

Stop telling people not to be angry and start being angry.

xupybd3• 6 years ago

Getting angry could cause more innocent people to get killed. Some are working towards a better future in these protests. Others are just getting inflamed and doing things they might regret.

Adding emotive fuel will only cause more harm

mehrdadn6• 6 years ago

"Before you get angry about police brutality, remember context is important!" Are you serious?!

If you'd like to be angry, at least please don't misquote me. The sentence you put quotes around is a modification of what I wrote, not a quote.

chrisco2553• 6 years ago

You know a 77 year old retired cop was killed in St. Louis last night, holding his cell phone to call police about looters. You gonna protest his death too? Or do you just want an endless vicious cycle of blood feuds for the next 3000 years?

grey-area2• 6 years ago

Just a heads-up: before you get angry

A man was murdered in broad daylight.

mehrdadn6• 6 years ago

That's not what I was talking about?

mehrdadn6• 6 years ago

Update: and it indeed seems things have now started taking a positive turn:

The eighth night of protests saw less violence, fewer police clashes and more acts of civil disobedience.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/03/us/us-protests-wednesday-geor...

master_yoda_1• 6 years ago

what about the looting on the street?

razius• 6 years ago

Why not go the other way as well, do one with how many police officers have been killed by protesters.

netsharc• 6 years ago

You're free to start one...

ghthor• 6 years ago

If you're going to document violence, do it on both sides and try to document without any bias. Don't let your agenda cloud your judgement about what narrative to tell.

MisterBastahrd2• 6 years ago

Here's a thread by T. Greg Doucette, a public defender and 1st amendment litigator who is white and conservative-leaning but who also attended an HBCU.

https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1266752393556918273

The thread was at 185ish at last count. It has been growing since he started it on May 30.

sbmthakur2• 6 years ago

Nice. Is there any repo that tracks all the riots?

Cthulhu_11• 6 years ago

Why do you ask, and what is your end game?

sbmthakur2• 6 years ago

I have no end game.

sagebird• 6 years ago

GIT (and github) is a terrible tool for general purpose collaboration of non-technical people.

Something like shared google doc would fit better.

Perhaps google docs, or other collaborative tools are actually able to scale to 30+ users? What is the largest google doc collaboration that you have seen work out?

bskap• 6 years ago

I think Google docs has a limit of 100 concurrent users on a doc

Nemo_bis• 6 years ago

You can also contribute to the press freedom tracker. https://pressfreedomtracker.us/

dang2• 6 years ago

See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23393914, which is still on the front page.

adjkant11• 6 years ago

Hi dang!

If I may ask, why is this one not on the front page? It seems to offer something significantly different that that older link which only links to an article indexing police brutality against journalists, while this is against all people. It appears to have enough upvotes to be on the front page - did some other part of the weighting system bump it off or is there a manual flag/bump on it?

Appreciate all your efforts here and hope that doesn't come off as confrontational or accusatory.

dang2• 6 years ago

We downweighted it as a follow-up submission [1]. Follow-ups are by definition repetitive, and repetition goes against curiosity which is the root principle here [2].

I'm sorry, because this seems like a good project, and as a reader I approve. But as a moderator, the perspective is different—the quesiton is always, is there enough SNI (significant new information [3]) to support a significantly different discussion? in this case vis-à-vis https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23393914, which has been on the front page all day? The answer seems to be no, because the comments in this thread aren't about the specifics of the repository—they're just about the general topic of police brutality. In other words this thread just gets sucked into the stronger gravitational field of the more generic topic, which unfortunately is what happens to most posts that fly too close to a large hot planet (i.e. a hot ongoing thread).

All that said, I'm tempted to contradict myself ("very well then I contradict myself") and dump the other thread in favor of this one, because I can feel there's something interesting here. So how about a compromise: if someone still feels like this post is interesting after, say, two weeks have gone by, they can email hn@ycombinator.com and we can arrange a repost. I was originally going to say one week, but that's sort of on the cusp between now and the future. Two weeks is more on the future side.

[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

[3] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

p.s. People who say "hope that doesn't come off as confrontational or accusatory" are the least of our worries :)

samh• 6 years ago

You people are credulous and mad. Goodbye Western civilisation.

nojvek• 6 years ago

This is awesome. However it’s still pretty vague. Can there be any meaningful action from this ?

Is there a way for a civilian to get access to the officer’s body camera recording and identify which cops are the trigger happy ones.

Basically a more targeted list that says “These officers violated the first amendment constitutional rights of citizens to peacefully assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances, this is the proof, please file charges”.

We are protesting because the police are unaccountable for their actions. How do we move to a place where we can hold them accountable and there is a quick as fair process for justice to be served.

Melting_Harps3• 6 years ago

While we're on the topic, here is another useful program that removes metadata from images on github, of anyone can take the time to look over the source code and verify it does what it says that would be super useful:

https://everestpipkin.github.io/image-scrubber/

throwaway3910034• 6 years ago

This is just inciting and encouraging violence against police, increasing a feud between the left and the police

A Git Repo to Document Police Brutality During the 2020 George Floyd Protests

Related Stories