Is your city rioting?

[QuarterMillionMan]

Another Target being looted and more fires elsewhere. Senseless destruction and civil unrest.

[QuarterMillionMan]

Orange county now sending reinforcements. And bigger fires now showing up. Looks like some sort of warehouse. Fire departments showing up with police escorts. Crowds not as dense and splintering off. Trouble makers.

[QuarterMillionMan]

1000 National Guard comes at midnight. They should have ordered them 2 days ago. Los Angeles is becoming the next Minneapolis.

[docstudent]

I live in one of the “so-called” affluent areas, and 90% of my neighbors carry a mortgage and work full time jobs. There is no one lounging in the pool at 1PM in the afternoon, so affluent we are not. With that said, I fully understand how anger can be misdirected and messaging gets lost in the process. I know that the “opportunity gap” has left so many people outside of the bounds to pursue their American dream. This site has been a place, where race has been a non-factor in how I engage and learn more about finances. However, I will chime in when I believe a comment is culturally insensitive and lacks basic decency. I hope that we continue to learn ways to be even more financially independent and inclusive. Peace and Prosperity!

[~bs]

I think the entire covid situation made this thing much worse than it would be otherwise. It created tons of tension in communities, both along racial and income lines. This incident was basically the spark that set it all off. Watch for more power kegs to blow in the future.

[QuarterMillionMan]

News crews entered some of the looted businesses, graffiti every where, bare shelves, glass all over. The news helicopter said cars are driving around looking for easy looting so police pulling over those cars. No more fires. Smaller crowds. Helicopter said never seen so many blue & red flashing lights before. It is 11:20 pm now in Los Angeles and seems like things quieted down a lot.

[~bs]

If you are a law abiding citizen, remember it is your RIGHT to bear arms and protect yourself and your family. Remember, the police exist to enforce laws, not to protect you. In any case, in this type of civil disturbance, they won't be able to respond to a criminal assaulting in time. Only the very wealthy can afford to have body guards protecting them. There is nothing rational about a riot, people that otherwise wouldn't hurt others individually can and WILL when in mob mentality. There is no rioting in my city, but I am glad for the protection that my guns afford me.

[~bs]

Actually my friends tell me that on social media that majority of comments they see are people justifying the riots as a wake up to systemic racism and deserve to be able to express themselves due to being oppressed after all these years. And these comments are from people I know personally who are not associated with white supremacy groups or criminals.

Yeah. like i said earlier. The covid situation is stirring A LOT of unrest. This event was just the spark that set it off. They're basically using this as an excuse to lash out for ANY perceived societal injustice, whether justified or not.

[mumof2]

I don't believe this Minneapolis incident had anything to do with racism.
You don't get pinned down and man handled by police unless you are resisting arrest and being a problem.

Was the cop too rough? For sure, but that does not make this racism. That A-hole cop probably would have treated any other arrest resisting white, asian, hispanic, etc. person the same way.

I'm sorry but he wasn't resisting arrest they showed that he didn't and he had his knee on his throat for over 8 minutes..it was plain and simple murder and yes it was racism they wouldn't do that to a white person that has been shown over and over again

[mumof2]

The biggest (and only) point I will make is that riots & chaos are NEVER justified. Protests very well may be. But at the point a protest devolves into violence, rioting, much less days on end of vandalism, destruction, looting, injury/killing, and so on, any shred of justifiable indignation is totally lost. They aren't bringing attention to any cause or injustice. They're taking advantage of chaos & destroying their own community, putting their neighbors & friends in fear & danger.

Corn18 is completely right -- MLK is an American hero because he understood how to effect dramatic change, and how to change the hearts/minds of an entire nation & culture, without resorting to mindless, stupid violence.

I don't have any tolerance for rioting, regardless of the underlying issue. I hope the governor & local authorities shut it down rapidly.

They have said over and over again whenpeople riot that it has been shown that people are paid to be destructive and I read a couple years ago that the police put undercover people in there to be destructive to make it look bad...and most go to other places and are destructive...its mostly not the people who are there...that is just the media hyping everything up

[mumof2]

I feel bad for his wife and family. They're likely suffering fallout from this as well. I will say that I HIGHLY doubt this is the guy's first rodeo when it comes to abuse of police powers, just the first time he killed someone. There's a pretty clear pattern of cops that abuse their powers will do so, and do so regularly unless forced to stop. And the police tend to protect their own (and not the community) to a fault, and do not engage in meaningful discipline, training, etc. for these "bad apple" cops. I also don't think this was race motivated, as far as real racism is concerned. He likely has abused his power against other ethnicities in the past, including his own.

But, I would say that he probably is more aggressive towards blacks than he would be towards other races, indicating prejudice. Part of this is human nature, blacks do commit a disproportionately large amount of crimes on a per capita basis. Perhaps in an ideal world, everyone would get treated the same, but in reality a 90 year old granny isn't going to be treated the same as a 30 year old black man, even if both are suspected of similar crimes. On a traffic stop, a 20 year old asian college student isn't getting the same treatment as a MS13 gangbanger covered head to toes in tattoos.

Can i ask what "real racism" is...this was a racist crime..it is not in human nature to be prejudice against others it is something that is taught....and many more POC are a lot worse off when it comes to schooling and job prospects...and they are stopped and harrassed a lot more...so until things change in america when it comes to the poor-rich areas where people can get the same education and the same opportunities then people will change and I know a lot of doctors who are covered in tattoos so that has nothing to do with anything

[amastewa93]

We live in Buckhead (Atlanta) and Friday night was pretty horrific. We could see fires and people looting from our apartment. Protests continued last night but a curfew is in place with 3,000 National Guard troops deployed across the state. It is a crazy time to be alive.

[Fishindude77]

Here is something I read on another site that pretty well sums things up, in my opinion:

I believe most of those protestors can care less about George Floyd. I think many just want to feel as if they belong to some sort of social justice movement and others are just a bunch of animals looking to destroy property and steal.
We have the fake news, we now have FAKE OUTRAGE .
I don't believe racism is a big problem, but I do believe its a money maker for a lot of news organizations, colleges, and politicians.
I do believe many blacks dislike whites. There is racism everywhere and there always will be. But as I said, its not nearly as bad as the media purports it to be.
The black culture is self destructive and needs to be addressed by individual blacks and black leaders. Why isnt it? There is a lot of money to be made in the business of racism.

[rennigade]

They have said over and over again whenpeople riot that it has been shown that people are paid to be destructive and I read a couple years ago that the police put undercover people in there to be destructive to make it look bad...and most go to other places and are destructive...its mostly not the people who are there...that is just the media hyping everything up

This happening during occupy wall street. The police could not break up peaceful protests. Their workaround was to plant plain clothes officers in the crowd, and those undercover cops would start to vandalize things. At that point, police were then allowed to intervene and start arresting and clubbing people. This doesnt seem to be the case in this situation.

[disneysteve]

I don't believe racism is a big problem, but I do believe its a money maker for a lot of news organizations, colleges, and politicians.

What a truly disgusting thing for someone to say. The fact that there are people who actually think and believe that is deeply disturbing.