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Notes -
Major Protests in Las Angeles
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/live-blog/paramount-california-home-depot-protest-rcna211650
Earlier the LAPD had to rescue a group of federal agents surrounded by, ahem, 'boisterous' protestors.
In response, the feds are federalizing the national guard to deploy to LA:
Gov. Newsom doesn't like the idea:
Of course, that last bit is patently false- see above- but the current situation on the ground is very much fog of war.
So why this protest now? As far as I can tell, this all started when federal agents arrested David Huerta for obstructing an ICE raid(https://ktla.com/news/local-news/union-president-among-44-arrested-in-los-angeles-ice-raids/). David Huerta, for those of you who don't know, is president of the SEIU, America's more aggressively left wing federation of labor unions(the AFL-CIO is moderately pro-Trump). He released the following statement:
Maybe-maybe not a call to arms, but the SEIU absolutely does not play around when it comes to protests, so put two and two together- and the union released its own statement, separately, which is more clearly combative:
Again, not unlawful incitement. But most people would interpret that as mildly threatening. Newsom is maintaining that this was an arrest for 'observing'- patently a lie, given video evidence.
This has the potential to be a domestic test of Trump. I'm of the impression that the SEIU, like most unions, Does Not Play By The Rules when it would mean not getting their way, so selective prosecution under RICO is possible, but more than likely Trump will just make himself look strong and Newsom weak by cracking down on LA protestors. This is a pretty core federal power and assaulting a federal law enforcement officer is almost definitionally something with federal jurisdiction for prosecution; presumably the feds can access the database of everyone who clashed with the LAPD to charge them too.
Riots during Trump admins have been politically genius. If the admin Does What It Takes to restore order, he confirms the image the left has painted of him of being a dictator. If he just lets them run their course (which he has done every time thus far) his presidency looks chaotic and people yearn for normalcy.
Puts him in a double bind.
(If you ask me, if you're in a double bind anyway you should do the right thing.)
Nope. If he does what it takes to restore order, then as long as the Guard doesn't shoot anyone too sympathetic, he wins. The left has overplayed their hand on rioting.
They've at least got to be better than the LAPD, right?
If that was an American reporter and the National Guard, it'd be front page banners on every news site in the US (including Fox except the headline might suggest she had it coming). Since it's an Australian reporter, the LAPD, and a rubber bullet (that was in fact non-lethal), it'll just be an amusing footnote.
The summary here -- "US Correspondent Lauren Tomasi has been caught in the crossfire as the LAPD fired rubber bullets at protesters in the heart of Los Angeles." seems wrong. There's no crossfire, in fact no other shots, as far as I can tell, and it doesn't even look like a miss (unless there was someone just out of frame who was up to something), it looks like the cop shot her on purpose, though I can't imagine why.
I'd bet that, ironically, the root cause is the same as the root cause of the protests becoming riots in the first place: because we're violent apes, and we evolved to rely on our own little groups' capacity for violence to protect us from all the other little violent groups, we therefore excuse even unprincipled violence by guys on "our side" rather than cracking down on it and risking intra-group conflict undermining our inter-group conflict. This gives sociopaths opportunities just as soon as they join whichever group gives them the most opportunities for their particular flavor of sociopathy.
When he saw someone who annoyed him, he got to make her suffer with no immediate consequences. It probably felt pretty sweet! The cops surrounding him didn't even turn to look and see what the hubbub was about, and he didn't even glance around to double check on that. He had about as much expectation of being punished by the other cops as the car-torchers had of being punished by other protesters. This asshole is doing more to undermine the support for aggressive law enforcement than the protesters are, and the jackasses waving Mexican flags in front of their barbarian pyres are doing more to undermine the opposition to mass deportations than the ICE and cops are, but because they're all superficially signaling commitment to their groups' cause, they don't get called on it by their other group members.
In general I'd guess police sociopaths are much smarter than rioter/arsonist sociopaths, because they found a group that will pay them overtime while they get to fuck around. Perhaps shooting a woman while a camera was pointed at her may have been going too far, but it is the LAPD, so even if some minor discipline eventually occurs we'll probably never know the details.
Do you have a different video that provides more context than the one I've seen?
You've written up a whole story, psychoanalyzed this officer and based on very scant video. We have no context for what was occurring around her, or the officer, we have an incredibly narrow field of view and for all we know someone adjacent to her could have been throwing something and the shot was errant.
I'm making a lot of soup from very little meat here, I admit. The LAPD chief later said "I know that situation you’re referring to, with the member of the media. We saw that, we’re very concerned about it and we’re looking into that.", so hopefully there'll be more context later; I'm not finding anything in a quick search now.
It's hard to imagine what any exculpatory context will look like, though. I am somewhat sympathetic to anyone who tries to enforce Niven's Law 1a ("Never throw shit at an armed man.") but ends up accidentally enforcing Niven's Law 1b ("Never stand next to someone who is throwing shit at an armed man."), but I'd be surprised if that applies in this case. There's about 4 or 5 seconds after she's hit before we hear the sound of anyone (not necessarily the original cop; the camera has turned by this point) firing a second shot, and in the brief bit of that we have on video her assailant is lowering his gun barrel, not trying to adjust his aim or get another round ready, so he at least doesn't seem to think he's in any kind of imminent danger.
It's possible that he legitimately thought he spotted some danger before the shot, but realized it was a false positive and calmed down immediately afterward? That may be what happened in the famous Austin case from 2020: the video of a kid standing by himself harmlessly and getting his skull literally caved in by a beanbag round looks pretty damning, but the kid was apparently repeatedly throwing shit at the cops earlier, and the cop who shot him had just gotten multiple (incorrect) verbal reports that the kid now had a large rock in hand. The exculpatory evidence has a bit of a "cops closing ranks to protect a cop" vibe to it, and even the police report noted that there was no way the kid had a large rock as claimed, but the DA who dropped the case is so famous for conflict with the cops ("ran on a platform of ending prosecutions for low-level drug possession to focus on violent crimes, holding police officers accountable for misconduct, and pursuing restorative justice ... advocated against cash bail and promoted diversion programs to prevent felony convictions ... was asked to leave the funeral of fallen Austin Police Officer ... due to Garza’s history of prosecuting police officers") that I can't imagine him dropping this case unless he was confident he couldn't win it.
I have family that were in law enforcement and I am very much aware of my pro-blue default nature but I also have some vestigial libertarianism that counterbalances my bias.
I'm not even saying you're wrong, I just think it's too early to judge (the soup/meat analogy is perfect).
If anything the last 10+ years has taught me is patience, especially with incidents like these.
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I mean, it's the LAPD. You've got a choice between evil or incompetent, and it's probably better to select the healing power of "and".
LASD is a totally different organization to LAPD and the worse of the two, IIRC.
Fair. My impression is that LASD has a lot of the same issues, but I'll admit I've got less current evidence on that.
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