Disclaimer:
I tried to contact a mod and none were on, if they feel this thread should be locked go ahead, but I needed to talk about it
Baltimore MD is on fire.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bal-university-of-baltimore-closes-amid-high-school-purge-threat-20150427-story.html#page=1
Violence and looting overtook much of West Baltimore on Monday, injuring more than a dozen police officers and leaving a store and several vehicles in flames.
As night fell, looters took to Mondawmin Mall and a Save-A-Lot and Rite Aid in Bolton Hill, loading up cars with stolen goods. A large senior center under construction at Chester and Gay streets was engulfed in a three-alarm fire crews were battling.
Fifteen police officers were injured in a clash with school-age children that began around 3 p.m., and two remain hospitalized, police Col. Darryl DeSousa said in a press conference Monday night. Earlier, police spokesman Capt. Eric Kowalczyk said one officer was unresponsive and others suffered broken bones
The incident stemmed from a flier that circulated widely among city school students via social media about a “purge” to take place at 3 p.m., starting at Mondawmin Mall and ending downtown. Such memes have been known to circulate regularly among city school students, based on the film "The Purge," about what would happen if all laws were suspended.
The flier included an image of protesters smashing the windshield of a police car Saturday during a march spurred by the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old man who suffered a spinal cord injury earlier this month after being arrested by city police.
Kowalczyk would not speculate on whether the incident was related to Gray’s death.
I think basically all of us here would agree that police violence is abhorrent
but what we are seeing here is beyond a response to that and I am sitting here shaking
half my extended family is in baltimore and they will be in my thoughts tonight
Hope you and yours stay safe.
Posts
This shit is fucked up.
Afraid the cops will take out their anger over this incident on any other protests that happen.
But, this is maybe a bit much
They also just burned down a senior center
NSFW:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVTlYvi35Xk
I went to the worst highschool in my county, which is one of the worst counties in the US if not for DC being right there
this is no surprise
Not sure who else lives there
I'm reading reports that the senior center fire is not related to the riots
Edit: It's still awful that it's happening , though. But I'm glad to know that it wasn't an intentional fire.
I sincerely hope this isn't true.
cops have already fired on and pepper sprayed protesters as of this afternoon
http://www.ibtimes.com/baltimore-protests-2015-police-fire-crowd-protesting-after-freddie-gray-funeral-1898701
they don't wait for excuses
Its impossible to tell right now but it is one of several reasons being given
there absolutely were fliers going around to this effect.
Hope this is true
also one of the most unfortunate coincidences ever
What a stupid fucking movie.
Apparently there were tweets from students to this effect
I don't think anyone knows if those tweets actually contributed to tonight's events, though
Very few things that are called or related to the word "purge" are good.
Well, this should be....interesting, to say the least.
Haven't seen it, but from what I read of the plot synopses for the two movies, the kids have completely missed the underlying point of the Purges in the movies: population control through the death of minorities and poor, orchestrated by the government. To call this the Purge is either stupid beyond belief or it's going to be very appropriate when all's said and done.
Happy first day on the job Loretta Lynch!
The worst thing the cops did in this situation (aside from killing fucking unarmed men in custody, jesus christ) was responding to a goddang high school flier with a ludicrous, anger-at-police-stoking show of force
De-escalate, for fuck's sake
I hope everybody's safe, and I'm beyond relieved that nobody's been killed.
But holy crap am I sick of people saying that some busted up drug stores "tarnish" the "cause" of pointing out that cops shouldn't fucking kill people.
This is really bad if kids are being endangered like this. Like hey, 100 cops in riot gear with guns and smoke grenades vs. teenagers with backpacks. Yeah I'd be scared shitless too, and would probably act out.
It would be like if I got a patient calling in mad at their bill and I yelled back at them to try and show them I'm superior.
No but like
It could totally fucking happen any day now man!!!!!
God
Shit sucks. It sucks the conversation will be, 'what can we do to stop civil unrest from escalating/deter civil unrest' rather than, 'why are people inciting civil unrest?'
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better
bit.ly/2XQM1ke
They don't tarnish it, but they don't help either. At "best" they provide a nice convenient distraction from the real issue, and at worst, they become a flimsy pretense for more authoritative overreach.
Freddie Gray is arrested by police, placed in leg irons and put into the back of a van with no seatbelt. The police deliberately try and drive in a way as to injure him as he's in the back of the van. The police manage to sever his spine, and don't request medical aid until several hours later. Gray slips into a coma and dies a week later.
Earlier today Gray's family held a funeral for him, and deliberately asked that no protests be held. The groups that were officially protesting this did not schedule a protest for today, the riots seem to be a related response from other groups, particularly young people.
Too bad trickle-down "economics" doesn't let our society afford things like that.
I wouldn't say that. There are absolutely cases where a cop needs to use their weapon.
It's really, really rare though.