How despicable.

pucho812 · Sep 16, 2020

hodad said:
so I guess that means that you're equally outraged by the Reinoehl killing and Trump's happiness with it, and that you find the unwarranted murders of US citizens--guilty or not--by police as despicable or even more despicable than the actions of the protesters?
If I wanted to sound like a left version of a right winger, I'd say, "Well, cops in LA, man--you know they did something to deserve that." But that's not my bag.

I don't know enough about it to comment. too busy worrying about my own city.

living sounds · Sep 16, 2020

pucho812 said:
If you look at the OP, I find it despicable that not only would someone do such an act, people showed up to the hospital to block the ER entrance and exit as well as shout demands hoping the two officers would die. I think we all can agree that was despicable behavior there.

Agreed. But there isn't much to be drawn from it, other that in a war everybody looses, and that there are always some idiots who can be counted on to do the wrong thing. Unless somebody wants to draw a distorted picture...

What is more relevant than the incident broached here ist that at the scene outside the hospital, L.A. deputies tackled and arrested an NPR reporter. And her videos contradict their claims about the incident.

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ZiDls37g1wcJ:https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/09/14/la-sheriffs-josie-huang-npr/+&cd=20&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=de&client=firefox-b-d

As Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies tackled Josie Huang to the street on Saturday night, the reporter for NPR affiliate KPCC screamed repeatedly she was a journalist. Deputies arrested her anyway, leaving her with scrapes, bruises, a five-hour stay in custody — and an obstruction charge that carries up to a year in jail.

Police claimed Huang, who also reports for LAist, didn’t have credentials and ignored demands to leave the area.

But those claims are contradicted by video Huang shared on Sunday showing her quickly backing away from police when ordered to do so and repeatedly identifying herself as a journalist. Huang said she also had a press badge around her neck.

NPR executives and reporters groups condemned Huang’s arrest, demanding her charges be dropped and the sheriff’s department explain why officers forcefully tackled her.
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“We hold the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department accountable to provide answers for the excessive use of force in the detainment of our colleague,” the Asian American Journalists Association said in a statement. “The Los Angeles chapter of AAJA demands an investigation and apology for her arrest.”

An independent monitor who oversees investigations into the sheriff’s department also launched a probe into her arrest. “What surprises me the most is that once she was identified as a reporter that they transported her, that they cited her,” L.A. County Inspector Gen. Max Huntsman told the Los Angeles Times on Sunday.

As protests have swept the nation this year, journalists covering the unrest have faced regular threats of violence and detention by police. In many cases, officers have fired tear gas and less-than-lethal rounds at reporters and arrested them even after they’ve clearly identified themselves as journalists, The Washington Post’s Paul Farhi and Elahe Izadi reported.

‘The norms have broken down’: Shock as journalists are arrested, injured by police while trying to cover the story

Huang said that is precisely what happened to her on Saturday.
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Like dozens of other reporters, she had gone to a news conference outside St. Francis Medical Center, where doctors were treating two officers who had been shot in the head in an ambush earlier that night. Afterward, she was typing notes in her car in a parking garage when she heard a commotion in the street, Huang recounted in a Twitter thread on Sunday.

She ventured outside, with her press ID hanging around her neck, and found a few men waving flags and taunting deputies. As the police chased one man and then tackled him, she followed at a distance, filming the incident with her camera’s zoom function.

Suddenly, as seen in a video she shot, one deputy yelled, “Back up.” In her next video, Huang backed quickly away as a number of officers marched toward her, and then knocked the phone from her hand and took her to the ground.
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“I’m a reporter,” she yelled. “I’m with KPCC!”

Her phone continued recording during her arrest, capturing her telling officers that they were hurting her and yelling yet again that she is a journalist. Another bystander’s video shows Huang being roughly pulled to the ground while a number of officers piled on top of her.

Huang said she was held in custody for five hours and deputies refused to uncuff her to let her put a face mask back on. When she complained her leg was bleeding, they told her it was a “scrape,” she said.

Early on Sunday morning, the sheriff’s office told a different story in recounting her arrest. The department said that as officers were struggling to arrest a protester, “a female adult ran towards the deputies, ignored repeated commands to stay back as they struggled with the male and interfered with the arrest.”
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Huang “did not identify herself as press,” the department claimed, “and later admitted she did not have proper press credentials on her person.”

Asked by The Post to clarify those claims in light of Huang’s videos showing her clearly identifying herself as a reporter, a department spokesperson declined to comment citing an ongoing investigation.

NPR officials called for Huang’s charges to be dropped.

“Her arrest is the latest in a series of troubling interactions between our reporters and some local law enforcement officers,” Herb Scannell, chief executive of Southern California Public Radio, said in a statement to the Times. “Journalists provide an essential service, providing fair, accurate and timely journalism and without them, our democracy is at risk.”

pucho812 · Sep 17, 2020

local news tells a little bit different story here.

Yes she was arrested. But there seems to be differences as to what exactly transpired VS her video VS what was said. Apparently the sheriffs officers were arresting another person and she stepped in the middle of it. According to the sheriffs she did not have proper credentials on her person at that time, and ultimately was trying to be in the middle of things. I've see the video I dunno what to think yet. As a person who knows several in law enforcement, it's a weird time, under a microscope for everything from everyone, even the great ones who do their job impeccably. Being in the press does not give you carte blanche to step in the middle of officers doing their job even with proper credentials. But I dunno on this one.

Recording Engineer · Sep 17, 2020

Most definitely despicable. I don’t need to wait for an investigation to make that comment. I don’t need to hear a single comment defending such words or actions.

But we have the highest elected leader in this country who has a very long history of never condemning, sometimes defending, and sometimes even spewing words or supporting actions just as despicable.

Still, somehow, I hear endless defense of such things for him, which I find just as despicable.

I hear constant whining of how no one ever praises the good he’s done because he’s hated so much. Well it’s hard to see such things when you’re standing in a pile of dung and your leader keeps helping to dump it on your head.

Expect so much more of this to the election and beyond. It’ll be much much worse if he looses this election, and you can bet he’ll be right in the forefront encouraging it all.

crazydoc · Sep 17, 2020

Recording Engineer said:
Expect so much more of this to the election and beyond. It’ll be much much worse if he looses this election, and you can bet he’ll be right in the forefront encouraging it all.

I'm afraid that it won't matter who loses this election - violence will ensue.