The police were systematically slashing car tires during the protests. They initially lied and said they didn’t do it, or that it was a few random incidents, but when every car in a lot is slashed in all four tires, you know that’s a big fat lie. Now that there’s video of cops destroying property, they’ve changed the lie.
The Star Tribune has identified the officers puncturing tires as state troopers and deputies from the Anoka County Sheriff’s Office. The officers strategically deflated the tires to “stop behaviors such as vehicles driving dangerously and at high speeds in and around protesters and law enforcement,” said Minnesota Department of Public Safety spokesperson Bruce Gordon. The troopers reportedly targeted cars that “contained items used to cause harm during violent protests” such as rocks and concrete. The Anoka County Sheriff’s Lt. Andy Knotz said deputies were following directions from the state-led Multiagency Command Center.
Yeah, right. Lie, lie, lie.
Also of note: these are Minnesota state troopers, not the Minnesota Police Department. The city is talking about defunding their police, but the staties aren’t being touched. Maybe when they’re hit with all the towing bills and lawsuits, somebody will wake up and realize they’re just as corrupt?
Just look at these pretend-soldiers destroying private property!!!. Shock! Horror!
The gray car in the video above was the rental car of Luke Mogelson, a New Yorker writer who typically covers war zones and is now stationed in Minneapolis to write about the protests. As the protest on Sunday evening turned hairy, with law enforcement tear-gassing peaceful groups soon after curfew, Mogelson went to check on his car, showing his press pass to officers along the way. (Media were exempt from the curfew.) One officer took a picture of his press pass and said he would “radio it up the chain so everyone knew that car belonged to the press,” said Mogelson. When he came back later that evening to retrieve his car, officers informed him that the tires were punctured. “They were laughing,” Mogelson recalled. “They had grins on their faces.”
ACAB. Indisputably.
Gosh. Maybe I should respect the police perspective on all this.
It’s incredible they thought they could explain it with essentially a precrime argument, IE
I can’t believe it (metaphorical expression, of course) — SMH
“The troopers reportedly targeted cars that “contained items used to cause harm during violent protests” such as rocks and concrete.”
Oh, so that’s why US cars are so big and overpowered. Everyone’s always driving around with a ton of concrete and a bunch of rocks in the back. I never knew that about US culture. How… charming? Quaint? I don’t know what the right word is, it’s just so odd. Here in the EU we hardly ever drive around with rocks, certainly not as a matter of custom.
It’s also curious how police kept forgetting the real reason for their actions the first couple of times. Because that sounds legitimate to boot but looks a bit silly now after all those memory misfires.
Stab, stab, slithey. At around 1 hr 10 mins into the video.
Best part (for them, anyway), it’s taxpayers who will foot the bill.
As has already been said, that’s wilful destruction of property. There’s no justification EVER for police to ever do it. Soldiers on the other hand…..use it all the time, and call it scorched earth policy, or something…..
Further evidence of militarization of Police’s hearts and minds. When is it ever going to change?
So that’s the new procedure: If you spot something suspicious in a car, you don’t investigate, you don’t talk to the owner, you just slash the tires and move on.
Even their excuse ends up being just another argument for why you need to fire all of them.
I really need to get x-ray vision like the super troopers, the pooper scoopers have! They can see through mere steel and know rocks and concrete through a fucking trunk lid.
@mastmaker, we didn’t destroy anything that we didn’t absolutely have to. Maybe you’re thinking of the Soviet Union during WWII.
WTF do people think we were robocop wannabes? Damaging property unnecessarily only pisses off the locals, then you have to patrol around a world full of pissed off people! That’s a terminally stupid career move, unless your goal is to see if the body bag fits you.
The police in this country are as bad at lying as Inspector Bunker Baby. This is why it always takes at least 3 days for the police to release body cam footage and press reports. It takes that long for them to figure out a story and get everyone to memorize it. And still they fuck it up.
Accountability for thee, but not for me….
Something is lacking here.
.1. It’s due process.
These police executed those tires without a warrant, probable cause, an indictment, or a trial before a judge.
.2. OK, they were tires but still, this is a crime in itself, vandalism and theft of property.
.3. Speaking of due process, what will the penalty be for those cops?
If a citizen slashed a tire, they would be arrested and prosecuted.
The cops aren’t above the law or at least in theory they aren’t.
wzrd1 @6: So we had to destroy Dresden?
It’s obvious that the police in Minnesota think they are above the law.
Like the GOP, they talk about personal responsibility but don’t seem to have any ability to actually take personal responsibility.
So what is going to be the penalty or deterrent here, to keep them from doing it again or something worse?
IMO, there should be an investigation and the victims should be compensated for their losses plus pain and suffering.
And that money should come out of the Minnesota State Police budget.
PS I’m out of touch with what passes for the Zeitgeist of Minnesota.
When did it become the home of a lot of horrible people anyway?
Strangely enough, I have a fair number of relatives in Minnesota and I’ve been there a few times, just not recently.
I certainly don’t intend to visit there ever again.
@6 wzrd1
“…we didn’t destroy anything that we didn’t absolutely have to…”
Who? What? When? Where? That may be true in your case, but otherwise? “We” seem to have a pretty good history of “having to” break people and things. The whole war in Iraq; one big, fucking broken mess.
Colin Powell called it “You break it, you own it.”
Own it.
wzrd1: “@mastmaker, we didn’t destroy anything that we didn’t absolutely have to”
fucking lol
I’m puzzled. Why did the intending-rioters leave their rocks and concrete in their cars, rather than take them along to the riot?
rocks, concrete…
I don’t know, sounds like phantom visions from the fever swamp. Fog of War. Disinformation. Remember cement milkshakes?
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/milkshakes-thrown-in-portland/
Asymmetrical warfare in the urban jungle battle space; enemies with stones; Gaza in America… or something. Steroid psychosis? Who knows?
@ 2 Komarov
Here in the EU we hardly ever drive around with rocks
Strange where I live in Canada, it is not unusual to see cars parked on the side of the road and people loading up with rocks.
Heck, I know one person who spent three days driving around Eastern Ontario nad Western Québec looking for just the right rock.
Strangely enough we don’t have many riots.
@raven, you missed willful destruction of private property, which is above simple vandalism.
@microraptor, Dresden was a UK decision, allies to fucked up shit in committee.
My military opinion will remain silent, no, it won’t. The “laws of war” prohibited indiscriminate bombing of civilians, but Germany did so, so a reprisal was performed, as abominable as it was.
Random bombing of civilians met firebombing from hell on two cities, after (Google it) how many UK cities were indiscriminately bombed?
Ain’t pretty, welcome to the flawed real world. Japan had less reprisals due to their not being signatories of the Geneva Conventions.
It ain’t pretty, it sort of works, waiting for your improvement.
@greenspine, if someone shot at us with rifles, we replied in kind, an RPG changed the landscape and our response.
I’ll never apologize for what kept us alive and was lawful action.
We called in MEDEVAC flights against policy for civilians in the middle of that goat screw of the week.
Leadership had two considerations, lawful orders and the motherless bastard called military necessity.
And if someone shit out a god and judgement day, I’ll not apologize then for killing bastards that murdered women and children in a marketplace. Ever. You try treating them some time, see how your high saddle views change!
@KG, I’m as much confused as Trump’s bullshit about “blanking” communications of devices that operate at significantly different frequencies. But, a skull fracture was “justified” or something.
Laughably, some moron will score my nascent M1911 purchase as Trump’s 2A bullshit.
Nope, the old one was worn down enough to require replacement, so I sold it to my brother in law – via the legal method of background check and whatnot.
It’s a precision machine, not a weapon of warish. Yeah, had the same and the work I’ll have on it done, but not some maniac race gun bullshit, just a driver of tacks out of paper at range for monetary prize.
I’d rather slam the slide on my own dick than harm someone with that precision machine.
It’s enroute, so I’ll pop by, do the paperwork and even money, pick it up in a week or two. No competitions scheduled currently, hell, another source offered a three month wait.
What am I gonna do with it off schedule? Use it as a paperweight, insecurely at that? Go Crazy Eddie?
Nope, leave it inside of the safe.
Investments are protected, after all!
My wife having the second half of the combination is irrelevant.
Hero, no, realist yes. Imperfect worlds require imperfect solutions.t, at
Trump embraces 2A bullshit, a perfect suicidal solution, just like his fascist heros.
Disgrace them, rather than allow others to embrace them, that’s how eugenics had a massive pause!
So you’re saying that the Americans who firebombed German cities were Just Following Orders?
, explained the knuckle-dragging
policegoon, .@microraptor, to the victors goes the right to write history books.
Germany did massively violate standing Conventions standards and paid in reprisals, some of which were above and beyond the call of proper, but the UK wanted to make a point.
To quote the fictional character of Superman, “Nobody stays good in this world”.
And to be honest, I’d have also ordered their bombings under those conditions of total war, as well as Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
For the last two, likely I’d decorate my ceiling with brain matter.
@blf, oddly, that’s my explanation on lawless enforcement officers disgracing their great public trusts. The difference between us is, I can hit my target with less than 40 rounds, they can’t.
Welcome to the real world, where Martin Luther King, Jr lived as well. Militants and pacifists did their thing, those that be decided, ridiculously easily, to deal with the pacifists.
I’m quite cool with that, incremental advancement.
And to be honest, prefer to harm paper targets, rather than humans.
I’ve enjoyed a public trust via access to classified information, LEO’s have a greater public trust in being permitted armed access to our more secure facilities that include schools and the privilege of arrest. Betraying that trust should come with a massively aggravated charge always.
Alas, we have a monster in thief who’ll just happily order gunning down people simply enjoying their first amendment rights.
Rights diluted by calling them privileges are rights obviated.