I'd guess that what's been going down across the country the past couple of days is not news to anyone at this point.
Has the unrest been happening up-close and personal for anyone here?
It would be interesting to read first-hand accounts to compare with how things look on the news (as it always is).
I've noticed that there have been many more reports coming out of provocateurs getting caught or accused of being such by acting very strangely for protesters, which has probably always been the case in situations like this but it's apparently getting tougher to get away with it. That guy dressed in black with the umbrella was clearly a cop and the umbrella was his sign to other cops that he was an undercover (some departments assign a "color of the day" that undercover cops wear so that there's less chance of their being mistaken by uniformed cops as being civilians and therefore at great risk of being mistakenly shot, which has happened more than a few times). But since cops were shooting people with "rubber" bullets the provocateurs need to have something that identifies them to other cops at a distance, hence the umbrella in a city where no one owns a fucking umbrella. Plus like one guy pointed out, "he walked like a cop," lol. Which was true IMO.
And then there's the "boogaloo" psychos who just want to watch shit burn apparently (and call themselves that without a hint of irony). It might be time for the protesters who have a point and a purpose to prevent those who don't (and in many cases aren't even really "protesters" at all) from setting shit on fire. Or from setting the wrong shit on fire, as it were. I think a huge opportunity was wasted when the police station was torched; it would have been MUCH more productive and interesting to go through all the drawers and filing cabinets and seize the records, communications gear (radios) and computers to take home and analyze.
It was mentioned during one livestream I was watching from LA that due to the pandemic nearly everyone who is getting arrested is being processed and released a few hours later. So everyone involved in last night's unrest will be out of jail by tonight, at the latest. They also mentioned that police were processing those who've been arrested as slowly as possible to keep them off the street and as a punitive measure since in some cases people arrested on the early side had to sit there zip-tied on the sidewalk for 4 or 5 hours. Too bad none thought to stash a "zip tie removal tool" in their waistband (I can envision a few designs that would pass a frisk).
Although it's technically "too soon" to laugh about any of this, I still couldn't help it when it became apparent that in LA even the rioting and looting is centered around and dependent upon cars. Police helicopters were trying to track small groups of vehicles that would drive into a quiet neighborhood, start smashing and looting, and then flee when the police showed up en masse (also in a long line of police cars and SUVs). There was some mention of lots of people pointing lasers at the helicopters to make it harder on them. They'd drive off to do it again in another neighborhood. And unlike in '92, this time they're (also) hitting the high-end retail (and residential!) areas (not only in LA). Now THAT will get the attention of more of the people who generally ignore this kind of stuff, assuming it won't affect them. Still, it would be really interesting to know how many stores being trashed and burned were really insurance scams. With so many businesses likely on the edge of going under it's not hard to imagine that some will choose to try to get a check rather than declare bankruptcy.
