{"id":47730,"date":"2020-12-18T17:00:24","date_gmt":"2020-12-18T22:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sidebarforplaintiffs.naomifein.net\/?p=47730"},"modified":"2020-12-18T17:00:24","modified_gmt":"2020-12-18T22:00:24","slug":"how-do-you-transform-a-protest-into-a-riot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sidebarforplaintiffs.naomifein.net\/?p=47730","title":{"rendered":"How do you transform a protest into a riot?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York Police Department gave us a vivid demonstration during the peaceful protests over the murder of George Floyd.<\/a><\/p>\n

Here’s how you do it:<\/p>\n

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An Unprepared N.Y.P.D. Badly Mishandled Floyd Protests, Watchdog Says<\/em><\/h1>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cI look back with remorse,\u201d Mayor Bill de Blasio said after a city oversight agency found the department\u2019s tactics \u201cproduced excessive enforcement.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

A peaceful, impassioned<\/em> protest is treated by cops as if the passion<\/em> is violence. And any of us New Yorkers knew it as it was happening. If we weren’t on the streets ourselves we watched the TV reports, saw with our own eyes how the police were dressed in heavy riot gear with weaponry. The protesters were not. Most of them were wearing masks, although the police were not.<\/p>\n

What happened was blown up by Trump and his cronies into “Violent Protests In Anarchistic Cities!” and the right-wing propaganda networks spread that punchy, fact-free line.<\/p>\n

I don’t watch or listen to propaganda but I do read readers’ comments in both the New York Times and the Daily News. When I read a person parroting the “violent protests in anarchistic cities” line, I understand where they got their “opinion.” Are these people not aware that, like babies, they’ve been fed mislabeled crap instead of apple sauce?<\/p>\n

Propaganda-created fear <\/em>of violence and riots is not in actuality violence and riots.<\/p>\n

When stores covered their windows with plywood sheets, it did not mean that the windows were about to be broken. It meant only that the store owners were buying into police warnings about potential riots.<\/p>\n

Here, on the Upper West Side, Bloomingdale’s discount store covered its windows in anticipation of the presidential election on November 3. I should not have to report there were no riots during the elections, unless you want to consider voting an act of insurrection. And if it were, it certainly was not against Bloomingdale’s or West Elm.<\/p>\n

In 1992, after the California police brutality trial over the Rodney King beating acquitted the four cops, riots broke out in Los Angeles. Civil unrest and protests spread throughout the country.<\/p>\n

In New York, businesses shut down early and barricaded their windows. People — a majority of whom were of color — marched in protest. From my front stoop, I personally witnessed a march down Seventh Avenue. Two guys picked up a garbage can and threw it through my cleaners’ window. The two guys were white. Aside from such minimal damage, there were no riots in New York. A protest, no matter how angry, is not a riot.<\/p>\n

There were a couple of civil unrest incidents in that year, 1992. Here’s what Wikipedia lists for New York City in that year (my bolding):<\/p>\n