• Awoo [she/her]
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    4 years ago

    Watched the police charges tonight live. Portland protesters need to wise up and stop scattering which leads to easy dogpile arrests by the cops and no group to threaten dearrests. Then the scattered protests just go along with the forced-march tactics being employed. It's embarrassing watching it work over and over again. No group solidarity whatsoever, in the UK with the cops employing fucking horse charges it doesn't scatter the crowd as much as 10-20 american cops running at disparate disorganised americans.

    It shouldn't be this easy for them anymore. They've been at this for weeks now. Portland need to wall up, wise up and trust being a group more. They will charge and hit the group but get no arrests if you STAY GROUPED. The threat of a large group prevents arrest attempts and these group dogpile beatdowns from happening.

    Honestly really painful to watch. I have no idea why protesters here in the UK that have literally never protested before don't scatter like flies as much as they do.

    • mrbigcheese [he/him]
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      4 years ago

      cause american cops will just fucking kill you if you fight back

      • Awoo [she/her]
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        4 years ago

        Not if you're in a group of a hundred people they won't. Get slapped with a stick maybe but it's way too dangerous to yank out individuals from an angry group due to the threat the crowd poses. Yeah of course they're going to kill you when they can dogpile 5 cops on top of one fool on their own because a massive crowd of people just scattered to the wind when like 10-15 cops charged for literally the first time of the night... Every night.

        • mrbigcheese [he/him]
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          4 years ago

          i dont think people from other countries get how dehumanizing cops here are towards other people. its true youre safer in groups but people know if they resist or fight back even slightly theyll get the shit beat out of them and if they really fight back and resist theyre putting themselves in a situation they may very well not come out of alive. like police doesnt give a shit here and theyre well armed and equipped and these people just havent ever really had any sort of direct confrontation experience with police so its hard to train groups of random people in any meaningful way on the spot. these organizers should definitely teach these tactics tho

          • Awoo [she/her]
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            4 years ago

            Have you ever been hit by a horse? Those fuckers weigh a tonne, kick and bite. Our cops come in swinging batons, headwounds from baton attacks is not uncommon.

            https://youtu.be/hLWm60hEgRU

            Horse charge. Oh, people haven't actually scattered? Horse charge fails miserably to achieve its intended purpose and one cop is paralysed from the event.

            Police charges in Paris:

            https://youtu.be/4cgnEQ3Nf8Y?t=48

            Foiled by not scattering. Having barricades. Actually fighting back. Don't tell me the French cops are soft, they're absolutely not, they beat people to death whenever they get the chance.

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7isLhaNYgkU

            This charge/scatter attempt half-works but because protesters are actually fighting back and mounting a real defence the police are unable to continue pressing without reforming their line and protesters didn't realllly scatter, they just retreated in on single direction.

            One thought I'm having is that I can't actually tell who the hell is there to seriously protest and who just wants to have some fun shouting at police and recording video, this results in the protesters who are actually there on the scene not really knowing who is going to stay grouped -- the result of not knowing if you have group solidarity or not is that everyone scatters in self preservation. There's a whole lot of gawkers.

            Either way from what I've seen spectating often is that Seattle and Washington seem way better at their shit than the Portland crowd. Portland is out there every single night but when Seattle and Washington are out there they're out there for reals. I'm just dead surprised Portland don't seem to be getting better in any way or paying attention to how they're getting wrecked by the same tactic night after night with zero adaptation. Put up a small barricade they have to run around/split during a charge and they'll think twice about charging or something. Be more prepared, it's the same scatter over and over.

            • Baader [he/him]
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              4 years ago

              This! Us police doesn't use any new tactics. There is a reason for black block tactics.

            • LangdonAlger [any]
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              4 years ago

              Portland has struggled to keep numbers up. The city is much smaller than DC, Seattle, NYC, or just about any other metro area. Small numbers plus nightly dozens of arrests means fewer veteran protestors to hold the line.

    • QuillQuote [they/them]
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      4 years ago

      I'll remember this for the future and pass it on to my comrades on the ground, thanks comrade o7

      • Awoo [she/her]
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        4 years ago

        I've watched it happen again and again and it's so painful. You see these people with 3 cops on top of them and if there was a group there:

        1. Wouldn't be 3 cops on top of them because they're be too scared of the group going for a dearrest.
        2. If there were 3 cops on top of them, there would be a dearrest by the group.

        Getting scattered is what is handing initiative to these cops every night and then they take groups of them on these forced marches that I can only assume is intended to scatter them in multiple different directions over wide distances. Once spread across wide distances by these scatter tactics there's very little opportunity for them to regroup and the crowd disperses within the next hour or so.

        I don't know if it has something to do with the environment or something (wider streets? Idk) because we simply don't have those absolutely massive width roads but crowds just don't scatter here like that which is why our cops force us into containment via kettling instead.

      • Awoo [she/her]
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        4 years ago

        American leftits need to get their shit together organization wise

        I'm not even sure it's this. I just don't understand what is causing the scattering over anything else. They get so easily dispersed it's like none of them are actually there to be a group, it's like a bunch of individuals instead of a group.

        I'm just trying to figure out what it is that causes them to be this way after many nights of experience that should have resulted in people sitting down and asking themselves how to adapt each day.