Today's News (2020/6/1): Police Violence, Sabotage, and Ratfucking Edition

[solarbird]

UPDATED - if you only saw nine items, refresh
Ratfucking and sabotage, followed by police and rightist violence.

1. White nationalist group posing as antifa called for violence on Twitter
2. Lancaster officials say group of armed, white men infiltrated protests, instigated violence Sunday
3. Report: Over 100 Militant Groups Have Been Promoting Second Civil War on Facebook [Updated]
4. UNCONFIRMED: Police stashing bricks in Boston. Boston peeps, help out here?
5. How 'vehicle ramming' became a rightist tactic.
6. Louisville police, National Guard shoot and kill Black chef known for giving free food to cops & homeless
7. Louisville police chief fired after no body camera footage of shooting
8. This Weekend, Police Responded to Protests Against Police Violence With Even More Wantonly Brutal Violence
9. De-escalation Keeps Protesters And Police Safer. Departments Respond With Force Anyway.
10. you want a link to the stream where the huge chunk prior to this moment was 100% peaceful? this is a POLICE RIOT.

----- 1 -----
White nationalist group posing as antifa called for violence on Twitter
Other misinformation and misleading claims spread across Twitter on Sunday night and into Monday related to the protests.
June 1, 2020, 4:03 PM PDT / Updated June 1, 2020, 5:57 PM PDT
By Ben Collins, Brandy Zadrozny and Emmanuelle Saliba

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/twitter-takes-down-washington-protest-disinformation-bot-behavior-n1221456

A Twitter account claiming to belong to a national “antifa” organization and pushing violent rhetoric related to ongoing protests has been linked to the white nationalist group Identity Evropa, according to a Twitter spokesperson.

The spokesperson said the account violated the company's platform manipulation and spam policy, specifically the creation of fake accounts. Twitter suspended the account after a tweet that incited violence.

As protests were taking place in multiple states across the U.S. Sunday night, the newly created account, antifa_us, tweeted, “Tonight’s the night, Comrades,” with a brown raised fist emoji and “Tonight we say 'F--- The City' and we move into the residential areas... the white hoods.... and we take what's ours …”

This isn’t the first time Twitter has taken action against fake accounts engaged in hateful conduct linked to Identity Evropa, according to the spokesperson.


----- 2 -----
Lancaster officials say group of armed, white men infiltrated protests, instigated violence Sunday
JEFF HAWKES | Staff Writer
1 June 2020

https://lancasteronline.com/news/local/lancaster-officials-say-group-of-armed-white-men-infiltrated-protests-instigated-violence-sunday/article_fc43b00c-a41d-11ea-ae65-5ff4808aa46c.html

A small group of armed men, possibly white nationalists, infiltrated Sunday’s protests in downtown Lancaster to instigate violence during a largely peaceful demonstration, city officials said Monday.

Mayor Danene Sorace at a hurriedly called news conference asked local demonstrators to cancel protests because they could entice outside agitators to return and incite violence.

Police Chief Jarrad Berkihiser told reporters police observed white men wearing body armor, some with guns on hips.

"We also saw definite evidence that we believe white nationalist groups were here," Berkihiser said. "Any time my officers were pelted with rocks or water bottles filled with cayenne pepper, it was coming from Caucasian individuals in the crowd."


----- 3 -----
Report: Over 100 Militant Groups Have Been Promoting Second Civil War on Facebook [Updated]
Whitney Kimball
4/24/20

[EDITOR: I don't know _when_ updated, but I doubt it stopped happening.]

https://gizmodo.com/report-over-100-militant-groups-have-been-promoting-se-1843051231

God help us if Mark Zuckerberg’s next congressional hearing is on the subject of the Bloody Insurrection of 2020. As HuffPost first reported, a scourge of far-right extremist accounts on Facebook appear to be gearing up for a meme-inspired civil war amid the covid-19 outbreak.

The Tech Transparency Project (TTP), a research group focused on exposing large platforms’ misconduct and influence, released a report finding that 125 Facebook groups are promoting the “boogaloo,” a term far-right groups use to refer to a wishful Civil War sequel. The boogaloo appears to have mutated from a joking 4chan meme into a real-life movement of militiamen (“Boojihadeens”) late last year. But the TTP found a surge in boogaloo interest over the past few months, correlating with social distancing measures. According to the report, over 60 percent of the Facebook groups cropped up in the past three months and, as a whole, have attracted over 36,000 members in the last 30 days.

In a statement to Gizmodo Friday night, a Facebook spokesperson said that the company has “removed groups and Pages who’ve used this and related terms for violating our policies.” “We’re reviewing the content referenced in this report and will enforce against any violations,” they added. On Monday morning, dozens of boogaloo-themed pages, including ones mentioned in the TTP report, were still accessible on the platform.

Boogaloo promoters have been attending anti-quarantine protests, events with ties to pro-gun activists. The report says that the Boojahideen have been hearing dog whistles from the president lately, greeting his “LIBERATE” tweets with cheers. “TTP found that some members of private boogaloo Facebook groups reacted to the president’s rhetoric with memes of celebration,” it reads, “and traded details of anti-quarantine protests in Richmond, Virginia, and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.”


----- 4 -----
alexis isabel
twitter.com/lexi4prez
1 June 2020

https://twitter.com/lexi4prez/status/1267650008351989761

[EDITOR: THIS IS NOT CONFIRMED. REPEAT: NOT CONFIRMED.]

wondering where all those piles of bricks being planted all over cities are coming from? look no further. this is insane.

[EMBEDDED VIDEO]


----- 5 -----
Ari Weil
twitter.com/AriWeil
31 May 2020

https://twitter.com/AriWeil/status/1267271819817480193

[THREAD]

This weekend has seen countless cases of brutality towards protesters. I want to talk about one specific tactic, vehicle ramming, and how it took hold in 1) the American far-right, 2) mainstream conservatism, and 3) US law enforcement over the last 5 years

[NEXT]

I've spent the last year studying VRAs. I'll try to provide some context for these incidents in this thread; in particular how various aspects of the extreme and mainstream right-wing celebrate them online. [cw: graphic images and videos below]

[THREAD CONTINUES AT LINK]


----- 6 -----
Louisville police, National Guard shoot and kill Black chef known for giving free food to cops & homeless
June 1, 2020

https://occupydemocrats.com/2020/06/01/louisville-police-shoot-and-kill-black-chef-known-for-giving-free-food-to-cops-2/

The nationwide protests and riots against police brutality have been met largely with more police brutality over the past few days. The countless incidences of wanton cruelty and shocking violence from police officers in every city — including a consistent and deeply alarming pattern of targeting reporters and journalists — have made the protesters’ anger all the more justified.

Those tensions are unlikely to abate following the murder of yet another Black man at the hands of a trigger-happy and unrestrained police force. David McAtee, 53 years old, was shot and killed early this morning after police and National Guard opened fire this morning on a crowd outside of a Dino’s Food Mart.

Police say that someone in the crowd opened fire on the cops and Guardsmen and they “returned fire,” hitting and killing McAtee. Unconfirmed reports say his body was left in the street for over twelve hours.

No police or National Guardsmen were injured.


----- 7 -----
Louisville police chief fired after no body camera footage of shooting
Chris Otts
Jun 1, 2020

https://www.wdrb.com/in-depth/louisville-police-chief-fired-after-no-body-camera-footage-of-shooting/article_faa2ba10-a443-11ea-9309-c39cfd65671a.html

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer fired police chief Steve Conrad on Monday after learning that police officers did not record body-camera footage of the fatal shooting of David McAtee, a black man, in west Louisville in the early morning hours.

"This type of institutional failure will not be tolerated," Fischer said.

Conrad's firing comes only a month before he was set to retire after leading the department for eight years.

McAtee was killed amid a gunfight involving LMPD officers and National Guard troops who were trying to disperse a crowd at Dino's Food Mart, a gas station-restaurant at 26th Street and West Broadway.

The death of McAtee, who ran a bar-b-que stand near the area of last night's incident, has further inflamed community tensions about police brutality after four nights of consecutive protests over the March killing of Breonna Taylor.


----- 8 -----
This Weekend, Police Responded to Protests Against Police Violence With Even More Wantonly Brutal Violence
By Meagan Day
1 June 2020

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/06/george-floyd-protests-police-brutality

In cities throughout the United States this weekend, we witnessed a terrifying spectacle: a brutal police riot, waged with frightening savagery, against average citizens whose unforgivable crime was daring to criticize police violence.

In more than 140 American cities this past weekend, protesters blocked traffic and marched, demanding an end to racist police violence and justice for George Floyd, who was killed by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin last week. The police greeted the protesters with brutality.

Police shot rubber bullets and tear gas. They used extreme force against journalists, medics, and random bystanders. They rammed their vehicles into crowds, aimed their fire at people on balconies and porches, and shoved and tackled peaceful protestors to the ground. Some police made bigoted remarks to protestors as they confronted them, while others celebrated as they hit their targets with projectiles. The police blinded at least two people and killed at least one.


----- 9 -----
De-escalation Keeps Protesters And Police Safer. Departments Respond With Force Anyway.
By Maggie Koerth and Jamiles Lartey
Published Jun. 1, 2020

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/de-escalation-keeps-protesters-and-police-safer-heres-why-departments-respond-with-force-anyway/

MINNEAPOLIS — Last Wednesday, Marcell Harris was hit by a rubber bullet. He had joined the second day of protests in this city over the killing of George Floyd, a black man who died after a police officer kneeled on his neck for more than eight minutes while bystanders filmed. Though these protests began with peaceful demonstrations outside the city’s 3rd Precinct, interactions between police and protesters had escalated. Police unleashed pepper spray, projectiles and tear gas. Protesters threw water bottles, built barricades and destroyed nearby property.

Harris said he had used his backpack as a shield and maneuvered close enough to take the baton of the officer who shot him. On Thursday night, he returned to the same spot to watch the precinct burn. With no police presence to be seen, he and other protesters were celebrating a victory. “I’m nonviolent,” he said. “But this feels emotional. George Floyd popped the bubble. It feels like the beginning of the end.” The end of what? “What we’ve been going through,” he said, referring to heavy-handed and often deadly policing of African Americans. “All the bullshit.”

Watching a peaceful protest turn into something much less palatable is hard. There has been a lot of hard the past few days, as people in dozens of cities have released pent-up anger against discriminatory police tactics. Cars and buildings have burned. Store windows have been smashed. Protesters and police have been hurt. When protests take a turn like this we naturally wonder … why? Was this preventable? Does anyone know how to stop it from happening?

Turns out, we do know some of these answers. Researchers have spent 50 years studying the way crowds of protesters and crowds of police behave — and what happens when the two interact. One thing they will tell you is that when the police respond by escalating force — wearing riot gear from the start, or using tear gas on protesters — it doesn’t work. In fact, disproportionate police force is one of the things that can make a peaceful protest not so peaceful. But if we know that (and have known that for decades), why are police still doing it?


----- 10 -----
izaacmellow
twitter.com/izaacmellow
Replying to twitter.com/SeattlePD
1 June 2020

https://twitter.com/izaacmellow/status/1267679820600668161

oh really? you want a link to the stream where the huge chunk prior to this moment was 100% peaceful?
this is a POLICE RIOT.
#seattleprotest
#fuckthepolice
#blacklivesmatter

[EMBEDDED VIDEO]

Comments

[dewline]

Twitter is catching the saboteurs in action and are under no illusions.

Some police forces also see what's going on for what it is, while others are clearly subverted from within.

The Louisville mayor did the right thing to re-set the tone there.

I will take what clear-eyed hope I can from these facts.

[rmd]

Some of the "oh god, caches of bricks" people are talking about are piles of bricks that have been around for weeks or months because of normal brick work being done. (Someone, Sarah Taber, maybe? had pics from Feb, for instance, on twitter yesterday.) I don't know what's up with that video clip, though.