Today's roundup of police violence videos is lighter than previous days. More than likely not because police were any kinder. I spent less time on Twitter today, where I repost these videos.
Friday:
- A first-person story from the middle of a police phalanx in the Bronx yesterday night. "Some of the scariest shit I've ever seen in my life... I saw them beat the shit out of several total compliant people - many of whom were women"
- Several Tampa officers kneel on a woman's neck on the cement, protestors yell at them to get off, they are then pepper-sprayed
- A policeman pulls a black motorist to the back of his car to arrest him, the man asks many times what for, the officer finally says speeding (and now for resisting arrest), another officer pulls up and together they violently tackle and choke him
- Police in the Bronx kettle protestors before curfew time, and begin beating them
- Officer whispers to a group of gun-toting Proud Boys (far-right neo-fascist group) to hide inside buildings because they are about to tear gas protestors, "so we don't look like we're playing favorites" (meaning that if they stuck around and the police were seen exclusively NOT attacking them, someone may notice)
- A group of police with bicycles becomes disturbingly violent with protestors, one bashing a man over the head directly with his baton before he and another pin him to the pavement
- A video from Fulton St showing high-ranking NYPD officials directly instigating an extremely dangerous stampede and smashing a detainee's face into the ground (Mayor De Blasio said the next morning he thinks they showed restraint)
- A man violently ripping George Floyd flyers out of a small child's hands and threatening her as she tries to pin them to a fence, before cycling away
- Two officers put a black man in a severe choke hold on the ground until he goes unconscious because he was selling water without a permit
- A news piece detailing the death of inmate Jamel Floyd Wednesday at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Sunset Park after corrections officers pepper-sprayed his face
- A list compiled by an Adweek reporter of over 240 instances of journalists being hurt, arrested, wrongly restricted or targeted by police while covering protests
- A couple on the Upper West Side are arrested while standing on their front stoop and cheering on passing protestors
- The news that Derek Chauvin illegally voted in Florida elections in 2016 and 2018, a third degree felony
- A story from 1992, when NYC Mayor David Dinkin (a black man) attempted to create an independent civilian agency to look into NYPD misconduct, and the resulting police protest/riot fueled almost entirely by beer and flagrant racist acts
- And more
I also watched the first half of the Netflix documentary 'LA 92' last night. The extraordinary similarities with what's happening today, especially through that lens of news anchors and on-the-street interviews, left me feeling hollow.
Tomorrow is another day.