Minneapolis
Some random thoughts, subject to amendment and editing:
(1) If there’s no new great revelation forthcoming, then just from the video, these cops were definitely in the wrong, and deserve what they (should) get.
(2) I don’t think that our generally being for cops or against the black undertow should mean that we should in any way justify what happened here, once again, provided we already know everything we need to know.
(3) In the last three incidents involving Minneapolis-St. Paul and area cops and deaths of civilians: George Floyd, Philando Castile and Justine Ruszczyk, of the cops involved in those incidents, you’ve had a Somalian, a Hispanic, and a Vietnamese. Which speaks to how the affirmative action mania in law enforcement recruitment, hiring and promotion is probably making these things worse, not better.
(4) It may be unfair, but it’s just a fact of life: When left with uncertainty otherwise about a given matter, people make assessments and judgments about the matter based on the behavior and antics of those who do or claim to have taken a strident solid side on the matter.
In the Floyd matter, the apparent facts are squarely against the cops.
However, people are going to interpret otherwise merely because of these riots and protests with benefits. I can guarantee you that a lot of people who were on Floyd’s side of the matter based on the initial video are starting to question their assessment as they watch video of the riots.
Bad optics, bad PR.
(5) Remember, these things are not expressions of hopelessness, they’re impressions of actual or perceived power. They’re victory celebrations by any other means. Remember my axiom that, when it comes to the history of race riots in the United States that involve black and white issues, before 1963, they were almost entirely white-led and were almost always precipitated by frustration over black violent street crime, while after 1963, they were almost entirely black-led and almost entirely were precipitated by a questionable police or law enforcement action that resulted in the death or serious injury of a black civilian.
(6) The cops are not going to respond to these incidents too intensely, because the “best practices” strategy on small scale urban riots is to let them burn out on their own energy. Which is why, five years ago, then Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, during that city’s riots, used the words “space to destroy,” which was merely and very inelegantly parroting the establishmentarian strategy. Which is, to keep the enforcement wall at a Goldilocks zone between too far out and too close in, too far out and they can destroy too much, while too far in only fuels their anger (remember, they’re already mad at cops).
(7) The MSTP area was a sitting duck for this kind of event, because it’s a stew pot of the worst pathologically altruistic pandering white people, the worst domestic black people who moved there for the generous welfare, and now, relatively recent immigration from black East Africa. It’s the same reason why the largest white-black racial gaps when it comes to education, crime, prosperity, incarceration, etc. are found in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
(8) Contra the mayor of Minneapolis, if George Floyd was white, he still would have died, but the event would have only been local news and only for a very short time. Needless to say, among other things, a certain Minneapolis Target will still have fully stock shelves right now. In fact, it did happen to Justine Ruszczyk in his own city, and that eventuated a payout that the mayor himself had to sign off on.
(9) As a generality, in MSTP, blacks are doing the looting and stealing, white Antifa types are doing the destructive violence.
(10) Over the weekend, both the Minnesota Governor and Minneapolis Mayor tried to float the “it’s all outsiders-white supremacists-Russians-etc.” Everyone knows that’s typical CYA, because no politician wants to blame publicly their own constituents.
(11) But, to that point, “out of town” are weasel words. Because some of these looters or rioters may have come from as far away as St. Paul. Really though, during Ferguson, we got the “out of town” BS, when “out of town” simply meant mostly from other places in the metro area. I snarked back then that “some came from as far away as Jennings.”
(12) I do think the first autopsy report on Floyd moves the needle in my head, but not enough to where I’m either on the cop’s side, or to the point where I think that there won’t be a court conviction against him.
(13) MSTP and elsewhere, does anyone else see a big “petard hoisted own” quality to these riots and looting? Hell, I even saw a gang of em take out after CNN HQ in Atlanta.
