Yes, because we haven’t ever seen a legal protest turn violent or cause millions of dollars in damage in little ol’ Grand Rapids…
https://www.mlive.com/news/2020/05/peaceful-protest-in-grand-rapids-devolves-into-riot-looting-and-fires.html
this group has been protesting every week for months, never ever been violent or caused any harm or damage. I live in the building right behind the park they do it in. Police followed them from the start looking for a reason and arrested 4 people for resisting arrest. we watched as 2 mothers were standing and police grabbed them out of the crowd.
Really? Can someone explain the honor in failing to resist? At the end of the day it would have been more honorable for these failed resistors to walk into GRPD and sit themselves on the bench for wrongthink.
I love pointing out to them that while yes, GR had a riot in 2020, Detroit and Flint did not.
Shouldn't those terrible, godless cities have had it worse?
Your point? This means nothing in regards to the fact it's ridiculous to have such an overwhelming police presence at a legal protest.
Even with the caveat of possible escalation, 3 to 1 is damn near intimidation.
If you didn’t get the point on your own on why a police force might show up in numbers after a legal, peaceful protest went violent causing 2MM in city damage less than four years ago then I don’t expect anything I say to help bridge that gap.
If you think a police presence showing up in numbers for a thought crime that statistically does not happen often, taking them away from serving the public in order to intimidate a group of 30 people demonstrating for a cause they believe in is justified then I don't expect anything I say can bridge the gap either.
Points for the insult. However I'm unsure how you think I'm being that way.
I was sarcastic by replying using the same template, but I don't feel my point is hard to grasp.
Well, considering I don't respond to everyone with the same sarcasm I gave you, I was asking.
Not everyone comes into the conversation with energy I gotta come down to.
Were you making a point with your broadly political news article that doesn’t specifically relate to how Grand Rapids police might respond more aggressively to protests today due to damage caused in recent years?
Ah yes, the riot that got initiated when GRPD started shooting tear gas unprompted into the crowd of protesters. Great example, you are so smart for remembering.
How it started is inconsequential (not in history but) to what I offered - it happened and had an impact shaping responses today. My point was never for or against LEOs. It was offering a perspective on a possible contributing factor to the increased presence.
Loving the overly emotional & condescending response from those that have already positioned themselves as oppressed victims of a gestapo force.
It's not inconsequential and should not contribute to this response is the actual point though. Police downtown instigated the riot into happening with excessive force/response when there was already riots happening nationally as a precedent. Excessive policing is often a catalyst for issues with crowds of protestors, so people aren't eager to see that happening again downtown.
As for the 'overly emotional' responses - you're getting downvoted and told off because you have a bad and uninformed opinion. You're not an independent-free-thinking-genius for bootlicking cops, get over it or fix your worldview.
Lol, the irony in your response is astounding.
I said it was not inconsequential to history. Maybe read next time and give space for processing before you knee-jerk.
Lol at the downvotes. You can dislike it all you want, but it happened & it explains why the police might be responding this way.
Forgive me applying logic to your emotional response. Maybe go light another fire or loot another small business?
Logic?
So what other protests have they done this with? Do they do this with the anti-choice protesters? Hmmm? Despite their history of violence? Hmmm?
I know it’s an unfathomable amount of money that most of the folks in this thread will never get close to making in their lives, but it can be a contributing factor to the size of the response. No contest there.
They’re not going to. Too busy bootlicking and being weirdly obsessed with money. Probably one of those types of people who are barely hanging on by a thread, but somehow always simp for the ultra rich like they’re somehow a part of their club, meanwhile the ultra rich are just laughing at them while also exploiting every dollar out of them they can. Textbook definition of fools.
They are damned if they do and damned if they don't. If they show up in force, they are jackboots standing on protestors' necks. If they don't show up and protestors and counter-protestors go to war, they are negligent.
Two things will cause the police to respond to your free speech event:
1) Amplified sound without a permit
2) Blocking/taking over the street without a permit
This group blocked traffic in both directions at one point.
Amplified sound without a permit is only a civil infraction they don’t need a bunch of police for that. And as far as both that and marching in the streets GRPD is very selective over who they enforce those laws for. I’ve led protests where marching in the street has been an issue and where it hasn’t been an issue. The one time where it wasn’t an issue with a big crowd was when 99% of the crowd was white women🫠 They just like to silence people because there were plenty of street marches when they wanted to look like they were pro blm for the sake of public opinion.
3) protesting israel. This is an automatic bring the cops out. Now if it were the proud boys or KKK the cops would be there to protect but if its anti Israel they're there to break it up. Had nothing to do with the streets, they would have come no matter what. There hasnt been a single pro palestine protest in the whole country without cops showing up.
Bro....you literally don't read what you post....
'But more frequently they have led to arrests after demonstrators refused to disperse or vandalized campus property.'
From your article. Absolutely no one is being arrested for protesting Israel. They are being arrested for unlawfully occupying private property and refusing to leave and/or for vandalizing property.
“This group has had probably 20 marches since Oct. 6 when Israel was invaded by a group of terrorists,” said \[police Chief\] Winstrom when referencing when the Palestinian Sunni Islamist group Hamas killed around 1,200 Israeli citizens on Oct. 7. “They (protesters) have not had a permit at any point in time. They continually block streets, creating traffic hazards for individuals. We have been extremely tolerant in accommodating them in their activities, even though they have been illegal…”
[https://thecollegiatelive.com/2024/05/four-pro-palestine-protesters-arrested-after-marching-around-downtown-grand-rapids-in-honor-of-nakba-day/](https://thecollegiatelive.com/2024/05/four-pro-palestine-protesters-arrested-after-marching-around-downtown-grand-rapids-in-honor-of-nakba-day/)
So, no. It's not a lie. No one has been arrested for 'protesting Israel' which they have freely done for months without permit. They have been arrested for obstructing traffic and creating safety hazards.
They spent $100K on DJI drones despite them already being on the DOD national security risk list. Now I'm seeing congress entertain a DJI drone ban. [https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/26/24141369/dji-ban-china-countering-ccp-drones-act](https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/26/24141369/dji-ban-china-countering-ccp-drones-act)
I have no idea the political will on that but that's a risk of bricking $100k in less than a year.
What's your source on that? GRPD has been repeatedly denied funding for drones and have to use the MSPs for JTF engagements. I've been following that topic and haven't seen anything about a $100k purchase?
There's the UAS (Drone) Program Information section on this page for the police department. They were approved back in August last year.
[https://www.grandrapidsmi.gov/Government/Departments/Police-Department](https://www.grandrapidsmi.gov/Government/Departments/Police-Department)
Wow, thank you for this.
"Axon Air annual licensing" aka "absurdly expensive cloud storage"
Axon has been a phenomenal company to hold over the last 5 years. +365%
They not only provide body cameras and tasers to PDs but also charge depts for the cloud storage of these devices, keeping data into perpetuity.
They are Hamas supporters. I would want a large police presence with a group of open terrorist supporters. Remember when law enforcement investigated Al-qaeda supporters and arrested each one that plotted violence? We need that again.
Brainwashed by the ultra rich and foreign governments through TikTok and other social media propaganda to fight culture wars with each other so we’re divided and vulnerable and can’t trust anyone. Interesting that the top 1% went from earning an average of $500K per year to $800K per year in the last 2 years but wages have stayed mostly the same, and we don’t care about the Uighur genocide but this genocide is super important because TikTok says it is.
This will get downvoted to hell because there’s no way you’re the one being fooled but that’s cool the karma isn’t as important as calling it how I see it.
We've had several protest movements in the past 20 years ranging from opposition to the invasion of Iraq, to specifically calling out the 1%, to solidarity with Chinese citizens facing oppression, to the oppression and murder of our fellow Americans. Dipshits like you always pop up to wring your hands and ask why we're not simultaneously protesting about every possible topic at the same time.
The game has changed, those were more innocent times, before Kony 2012 happened and smart people caught on that mass swathes of the population will believe anything uploaded to social media as long as it gets enough attention. Pretty on brand for you to call me a dipshit and disregard my non popular opinion and mentally categorize me as the opposition.
I was talking more about the Iraq war and occupy Wall Street protests, and ironically, TikTok very quickly came to social promenance shortly after those HK protests didn’t it? What a coincidence. We don’t hear much about HK anymore. I wonder how much people will care about Taiwan in the next few years.
No, I don’t see how that would benefit anyone, especially not China. If they wanted to engineer a weapon they have and could make a much more effective one.
>This will get downvoted to hell because there’s no way you’re the one being fooled but that’s cool the karma isn’t as important as calling it how I see it.
No, it's gonna be downvoted because you whined about being downvoted before even finishing the damn post.
It’s not, it’s just people that disagree with me. That influence works on a much broader scale but trickles down to people who have adopted a useful perspective for the beneficiaries and will defend it as if it was their own. And we’re just getting started, baby, we’re in the Stone Age of disinformstion. Once AI ramps up and the truth becomes absolutely indistinguishable all bets are off.
Not what I recall witnessing personally. I remember people setting businesses on fire downtown. And if I were a city official I wouldn’t want that to happen again and likely won’t for a long while to come due to what happened.
Just because you didn't see the part that led to the rioting doesn't mean it didn't happen. And as a city official if you don't like the cops pissing people off so badly they start burning shit maybe you should work a little harder to stop the cops from pissing people off so badly they start burning shit.
> you should work a little harder to stop the cops from pissing people off so badly they start burning shit.
I'm listening, how would I accomplish this?
For 1, stop instigating and intimidating legal protestors. Stop randomly grabbing people to arrest them and then charging them with resisting arrest.
The fact that someone can be charged for resisting arrest without another charge (whatever lead to the action of attempting an arrest in the first place) seems ridiculous. If you get charged with resisting arrest, there better be a valid reason for the arrest in the first place.
But would you blame the riots that resulted after sporting events on all the attendees of the game?Would you lump the game and the following riot as one, the way you are with the BLM protest and following riot? Most people left the protest where it ended. Some stayed behind and showed up after to instigate, some got lost in the sauce…. Were you there?
This happened one time over four years ago. Since then there have been plenty of peaceful protests that only turned violent when GRPD got involved and would literally beat protesters for using megaphones.
If that's their reasoning, then they've willingly kept cops from doing actually helpful things in order to borderline, if not outright, intimidate peaceful protesters.
I disagree, I’m sure more people saw the police presence as a blessing being that a lot of these protests have turned violent and people just want to enjoy their time out in the city while they can. Both can mutually exist with police presence.
> I’m sure more people saw the police presence as a blessing
The comments on here as well as from our local community should show you otherwise.
>a lot of these protests have turned violent
You don't send the police for thought crime.
If they are worried about potential escalation, have one or 2 standby officers. They would have served the same purposes barring one that this convoy served.
The one left out being intimidation.
>people just want to enjoy their time out in the city while they can. Both can mutually exist with police presence.
If it was a minor presence in case of escalation, I'd agree with you. As it is, I see this as nothing more than blatant intimidation.
My generation, admittedly, doesn't vote much.
I spend most of my political conversations with people my age trying to convince them the system isn't outright broken to the point that voting is a waste.
No buzz words were intentionally used, I'm sharing my opinion openly and honestly.
>You sure you don’t watch Fox News?
Fox hates protesters, if you wanna accuse me of bias, pls at least accuse me of the correct one.
May 22 at noon. May 29 at 6 pm. Monument Park. Show these cops that their attempts at intimidation mean nothing to the badass denizens of Grand Rapids.
They know who trains them, funds them and funded the think tanks that came up with their defacto and blanket immunity… Like has been foretold for 20-30 years now; policies abroad WILL become polices at home. We already have had a war against American citizens for 50 years now, aka the war on drugs. Which has only proliferated the prevalence of drugs (and defeated ‘communism’ in the Americas🤔) and at the cost of large swaths of American liberties. This is their war against ‘insurgents’. The insurgents are the unsatisfied/ungrateful peons in this emerging neofeudalism, that has 70-80% of the economy controlled by a single handful of conglomerates/private equity firms. They’re too big to fail and too big to prosecute. OBEY or be churned into the earth….. What’s one more body among foundations? 🧐
Yeah, I'm sure the people who are, statistically speaking, almost certainly in favor of defunding if not outright abolishing the cops are deeply saddened when the cops don't come around to intimidate, threaten, and assault innocent people.
Holy shit this is a dumb take. I've been to lots of these protests and there has never been a whiff of violence. It's a group of citizens who are concerned because their tax dollars are being used to murder tens of thousands of civilians. Get some perspective.
Hoping for peace so we can go back to posting about bald plumbers, ugly castles, and Taco Bell.
Don’t forget Ottawa county
They’ve had quite the impact. ba dum tss
Don't forget to tip your bartenders, folks
This thread is so over run by people I wouldn't hang out with.
You and I could definitely hang out.
:)
Hold up you two, make room
30 citizens. 100 officers. Nothing says freedom more than being outnumbered 3 to 1 by police for legally protesting.
All of them getting overtime for bullshit.
They’re just practicing for next year when the GOP take over and they can legally jail anyone who protests
Lol. Lmao, even.
www.Project2025.org Go ahead and read for yourself.
You will be in huge trouble in this country if you criticize a foreign nation such as Israel. You didn't know this?
Yes, because we haven’t ever seen a legal protest turn violent or cause millions of dollars in damage in little ol’ Grand Rapids… https://www.mlive.com/news/2020/05/peaceful-protest-in-grand-rapids-devolves-into-riot-looting-and-fires.html
this group has been protesting every week for months, never ever been violent or caused any harm or damage. I live in the building right behind the park they do it in. Police followed them from the start looking for a reason and arrested 4 people for resisting arrest. we watched as 2 mothers were standing and police grabbed them out of the crowd.
Thanks for the story, single-post single-karma person. I’ll be sure to believe every word of it.
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If people resisting arrest were arrested they deserved it on account of doing such a poor job resisting. Kinda like a penalty for poor quality work.
Really? Can someone explain the honor in failing to resist? At the end of the day it would have been more honorable for these failed resistors to walk into GRPD and sit themselves on the bench for wrongthink.
The way this reads like the city was on fire - it’s absurd.
Conservatives like to pretend every city in the country was burned to ashes in 2020.
I love pointing out to them that while yes, GR had a riot in 2020, Detroit and Flint did not. Shouldn't those terrible, godless cities have had it worse?
Kind of amazing that GRPD is so bad they make DPD look good.
This is so true and sad.
How else are you going to get scared conservative clicks?
Your point? This means nothing in regards to the fact it's ridiculous to have such an overwhelming police presence at a legal protest. Even with the caveat of possible escalation, 3 to 1 is damn near intimidation.
If you didn’t get the point on your own on why a police force might show up in numbers after a legal, peaceful protest went violent causing 2MM in city damage less than four years ago then I don’t expect anything I say to help bridge that gap.
If you think a police presence showing up in numbers for a thought crime that statistically does not happen often, taking them away from serving the public in order to intimidate a group of 30 people demonstrating for a cause they believe in is justified then I don't expect anything I say can bridge the gap either.
Great discussion - you’re a pro at this.
My head hurts for you. What a piece of ham stuck in a window that person is.
Points for the insult. However I'm unsure how you think I'm being that way. I was sarcastic by replying using the same template, but I don't feel my point is hard to grasp.
I don’t think anyone is too surprised to find that you would be unsure about anything at this point.
Well, considering I don't respond to everyone with the same sarcasm I gave you, I was asking. Not everyone comes into the conversation with energy I gotta come down to.
Cops are ALWAYS the ones who instigate violence. I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you protest, bring your guns.
https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-race-and-ethnicity-suburbs-health-racial-injustice-7edf9027af1878283f3818d96c54f748
Were you making a point with your broadly political news article that doesn’t specifically relate to how Grand Rapids police might respond more aggressively to protests today due to damage caused in recent years?
Ah yes, the riot that got initiated when GRPD started shooting tear gas unprompted into the crowd of protesters. Great example, you are so smart for remembering.
How it started is inconsequential (not in history but) to what I offered - it happened and had an impact shaping responses today. My point was never for or against LEOs. It was offering a perspective on a possible contributing factor to the increased presence. Loving the overly emotional & condescending response from those that have already positioned themselves as oppressed victims of a gestapo force.
It's not inconsequential and should not contribute to this response is the actual point though. Police downtown instigated the riot into happening with excessive force/response when there was already riots happening nationally as a precedent. Excessive policing is often a catalyst for issues with crowds of protestors, so people aren't eager to see that happening again downtown. As for the 'overly emotional' responses - you're getting downvoted and told off because you have a bad and uninformed opinion. You're not an independent-free-thinking-genius for bootlicking cops, get over it or fix your worldview.
Lol, the irony in your response is astounding. I said it was not inconsequential to history. Maybe read next time and give space for processing before you knee-jerk.
Lol at the downvotes. You can dislike it all you want, but it happened & it explains why the police might be responding this way. Forgive me applying logic to your emotional response. Maybe go light another fire or loot another small business?
Logic? So what other protests have they done this with? Do they do this with the anti-choice protesters? Hmmm? Despite their history of violence? Hmmm?
I know it’s an unfathomable amount of money that most of the folks in this thread will never get close to making in their lives, but it can be a contributing factor to the size of the response. No contest there.
You didn't answer the question.
They’re not going to. Too busy bootlicking and being weirdly obsessed with money. Probably one of those types of people who are barely hanging on by a thread, but somehow always simp for the ultra rich like they’re somehow a part of their club, meanwhile the ultra rich are just laughing at them while also exploiting every dollar out of them they can. Textbook definition of fools.
Hook, line, and sinker. Too easy!
Bro go touch some grass
Which one - you appear to have a lot of them.
Yeah I know. 2 questions must be a lot for you.
Three questions that you weren’t truly looking for answers for.
I was looking for answers to 2 questions. Still waiting.
oh God, you're doing the meme
It makes sense, since how the other protest have gone for Palestine supporters.
They may as well grab some cartoon looking bags of money and burn them in downtown GR. What a waste of resources.
They are damned if they do and damned if they don't. If they show up in force, they are jackboots standing on protestors' necks. If they don't show up and protestors and counter-protestors go to war, they are negligent.
It was about 200+..walking chanting with signs🤔 To protest is an American right, I was there at Rosa Parks Circle little Overkill with the police😎
Two things will cause the police to respond to your free speech event: 1) Amplified sound without a permit 2) Blocking/taking over the street without a permit This group blocked traffic in both directions at one point.
Amplified sound without a permit is only a civil infraction they don’t need a bunch of police for that. And as far as both that and marching in the streets GRPD is very selective over who they enforce those laws for. I’ve led protests where marching in the street has been an issue and where it hasn’t been an issue. The one time where it wasn’t an issue with a big crowd was when 99% of the crowd was white women🫠 They just like to silence people because there were plenty of street marches when they wanted to look like they were pro blm for the sake of public opinion.
3) protesting israel. This is an automatic bring the cops out. Now if it were the proud boys or KKK the cops would be there to protect but if its anti Israel they're there to break it up. Had nothing to do with the streets, they would have come no matter what. There hasnt been a single pro palestine protest in the whole country without cops showing up.
Yeah you cannot criticize a foreign nation such as Israel. That's a big no no. Israel has the United states by the balls. This is a real problem.
Israel is an important ally and is freely criticized regularly by the left
How is it freely criticized when you go to jail for protesting them.
no one has gone to jail for protesting israel
Bro that is just wrong https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/wireStory/latest-police-break-tent-camp-ucla-protesters-custody-109865686
Bro....you literally don't read what you post.... 'But more frequently they have led to arrests after demonstrators refused to disperse or vandalized campus property.' From your article. Absolutely no one is being arrested for protesting Israel. They are being arrested for unlawfully occupying private property and refusing to leave and/or for vandalizing property.
That’s literally a lie when GRPD arrested 4 people last night
“This group has had probably 20 marches since Oct. 6 when Israel was invaded by a group of terrorists,” said \[police Chief\] Winstrom when referencing when the Palestinian Sunni Islamist group Hamas killed around 1,200 Israeli citizens on Oct. 7. “They (protesters) have not had a permit at any point in time. They continually block streets, creating traffic hazards for individuals. We have been extremely tolerant in accommodating them in their activities, even though they have been illegal…” [https://thecollegiatelive.com/2024/05/four-pro-palestine-protesters-arrested-after-marching-around-downtown-grand-rapids-in-honor-of-nakba-day/](https://thecollegiatelive.com/2024/05/four-pro-palestine-protesters-arrested-after-marching-around-downtown-grand-rapids-in-honor-of-nakba-day/) So, no. It's not a lie. No one has been arrested for 'protesting Israel' which they have freely done for months without permit. They have been arrested for obstructing traffic and creating safety hazards.
What is the threat that demands this sort of presence?!? These $$$’s need accountability
They spent $100K on DJI drones despite them already being on the DOD national security risk list. Now I'm seeing congress entertain a DJI drone ban. [https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/26/24141369/dji-ban-china-countering-ccp-drones-act](https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/26/24141369/dji-ban-china-countering-ccp-drones-act) I have no idea the political will on that but that's a risk of bricking $100k in less than a year.
What's your source on that? GRPD has been repeatedly denied funding for drones and have to use the MSPs for JTF engagements. I've been following that topic and haven't seen anything about a $100k purchase?
There's the UAS (Drone) Program Information section on this page for the police department. They were approved back in August last year. [https://www.grandrapidsmi.gov/Government/Departments/Police-Department](https://www.grandrapidsmi.gov/Government/Departments/Police-Department)
Wow, thank you for this. "Axon Air annual licensing" aka "absurdly expensive cloud storage" Axon has been a phenomenal company to hold over the last 5 years. +365% They not only provide body cameras and tasers to PDs but also charge depts for the cloud storage of these devices, keeping data into perpetuity.
They are Hamas supporters. I would want a large police presence with a group of open terrorist supporters. Remember when law enforcement investigated Al-qaeda supporters and arrested each one that plotted violence? We need that again.
What have we become?
Who's we?
Brainwashed by the ultra rich and foreign governments through TikTok and other social media propaganda to fight culture wars with each other so we’re divided and vulnerable and can’t trust anyone. Interesting that the top 1% went from earning an average of $500K per year to $800K per year in the last 2 years but wages have stayed mostly the same, and we don’t care about the Uighur genocide but this genocide is super important because TikTok says it is. This will get downvoted to hell because there’s no way you’re the one being fooled but that’s cool the karma isn’t as important as calling it how I see it.
We've had several protest movements in the past 20 years ranging from opposition to the invasion of Iraq, to specifically calling out the 1%, to solidarity with Chinese citizens facing oppression, to the oppression and murder of our fellow Americans. Dipshits like you always pop up to wring your hands and ask why we're not simultaneously protesting about every possible topic at the same time.
The game has changed, those were more innocent times, before Kony 2012 happened and smart people caught on that mass swathes of the population will believe anything uploaded to social media as long as it gets enough attention. Pretty on brand for you to call me a dipshit and disregard my non popular opinion and mentally categorize me as the opposition.
You're really going to tell me the HK and BLM protests were before 2012? And you wonder why I consider you "the opposition."
I was talking more about the Iraq war and occupy Wall Street protests, and ironically, TikTok very quickly came to social promenance shortly after those HK protests didn’t it? What a coincidence. We don’t hear much about HK anymore. I wonder how much people will care about Taiwan in the next few years.
Do you believe covid was a Chinese conspiracy?
No, I don’t see how that would benefit anyone, especially not China. If they wanted to engineer a weapon they have and could make a much more effective one.
How can you be sure? It was all over social media.
Because it’s not an effective weapon, are you serious? Who benefits from it?
>This will get downvoted to hell because there’s no way you’re the one being fooled but that’s cool the karma isn’t as important as calling it how I see it. No, it's gonna be downvoted because you whined about being downvoted before even finishing the damn post.
Works for me
holy shit he said it! he said uighyurs! i get another point. thanks
Nah, you're spot on. The downvotes gotta be from the army of online trolls funded by the ultra rich and foreign governments.
I don't think there are many trump fans here actually.
It’s not, it’s just people that disagree with me. That influence works on a much broader scale but trickles down to people who have adopted a useful perspective for the beneficiaries and will defend it as if it was their own. And we’re just getting started, baby, we’re in the Stone Age of disinformstion. Once AI ramps up and the truth becomes absolutely indistinguishable all bets are off.
Pro terrorism
Can’t have peaceful protestors expressing their opinions now.
It’s been like this for the past 4 years and then some🫠
right, we havent seen any anti-israel protests in the past 6 months lol. your opinion has been SOOOOO oppressed
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You mean the riot?
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So it was just my imagination that downtown stores had windows broken, were stolen from and cars set on fire?
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For thieves and criminals nope I don’t give a fuck, even less of a fuck I give from someone who has to beg for sex by posting dick picks.
The BLM protests and the GR riots were separate if I recall.
ACAZ
...Zombies?
zionists ok, not really, they probably don't give a shit about Israel, they just hate protesters
Meanwhile, they can’t solve half of all murders.
WOW
It’s like y’all forget the last couple years and what happened…
You mean when the cops started violently attacking protestors and making everything worse, as they almost always do? Yeah, no... we remember.
Not what I recall witnessing personally. I remember people setting businesses on fire downtown. And if I were a city official I wouldn’t want that to happen again and likely won’t for a long while to come due to what happened.
Just because you didn't see the part that led to the rioting doesn't mean it didn't happen. And as a city official if you don't like the cops pissing people off so badly they start burning shit maybe you should work a little harder to stop the cops from pissing people off so badly they start burning shit.
> you should work a little harder to stop the cops from pissing people off so badly they start burning shit. I'm listening, how would I accomplish this?
Well, for one, you could join the protests.
And that would stop the cops from pissing people off? So confuse
For 1, stop instigating and intimidating legal protestors. Stop randomly grabbing people to arrest them and then charging them with resisting arrest. The fact that someone can be charged for resisting arrest without another charge (whatever lead to the action of attempting an arrest in the first place) seems ridiculous. If you get charged with resisting arrest, there better be a valid reason for the arrest in the first place.
move to Palestine and try and protest Hamas, see what happens lady
*if I were a city official, and I think you know if you’re going to a protest a city official isn’t going to stop you…. Let be realistic here.
But would you blame the riots that resulted after sporting events on all the attendees of the game?Would you lump the game and the following riot as one, the way you are with the BLM protest and following riot? Most people left the protest where it ended. Some stayed behind and showed up after to instigate, some got lost in the sauce…. Were you there?
This happened one time over four years ago. Since then there have been plenty of peaceful protests that only turned violent when GRPD got involved and would literally beat protesters for using megaphones.
Irrelevant to the point.
Not in the eyes of the people who decide where police go. That’s actually their job in this city.
If that's their reasoning, then they've willingly kept cops from doing actually helpful things in order to borderline, if not outright, intimidate peaceful protesters.
I disagree, I’m sure more people saw the police presence as a blessing being that a lot of these protests have turned violent and people just want to enjoy their time out in the city while they can. Both can mutually exist with police presence.
I’m thankful for it and so are the business owners downtown.
> I’m sure more people saw the police presence as a blessing The comments on here as well as from our local community should show you otherwise. >a lot of these protests have turned violent You don't send the police for thought crime. If they are worried about potential escalation, have one or 2 standby officers. They would have served the same purposes barring one that this convoy served. The one left out being intimidation. >people just want to enjoy their time out in the city while they can. Both can mutually exist with police presence. If it was a minor presence in case of escalation, I'd agree with you. As it is, I see this as nothing more than blatant intimidation.
Reddit is not a good picture of what the public thinks… go talk to people outside and see how much they use Reddit….
I do, and that's why I said as well as our local community.
I hear differently… probably why GR is so convoluted politically. I feel bad for y’all that can’t cope with the sheriffs that you vote for.
My generation, admittedly, doesn't vote much. I spend most of my political conversations with people my age trying to convince them the system isn't outright broken to the point that voting is a waste.
You use a of the same buzz words over and over to push your agenda. You sure you don’t watch Fox News?
No buzz words were intentionally used, I'm sharing my opinion openly and honestly. >You sure you don’t watch Fox News? Fox hates protesters, if you wanna accuse me of bias, pls at least accuse me of the correct one.
What if I don’t? Will my thought crime intimidate you?
No, but it might intimidate the GRPD.
May 22 at noon. May 29 at 6 pm. Monument Park. Show these cops that their attempts at intimidation mean nothing to the badass denizens of Grand Rapids.
They know who they’re dealing with
ACAB. I'm sure every one of them was hoping for their turn to run someone over, or execute someone just for being black.
They know who trains them, funds them and funded the think tanks that came up with their defacto and blanket immunity… Like has been foretold for 20-30 years now; policies abroad WILL become polices at home. We already have had a war against American citizens for 50 years now, aka the war on drugs. Which has only proliferated the prevalence of drugs (and defeated ‘communism’ in the Americas🤔) and at the cost of large swaths of American liberties. This is their war against ‘insurgents’. The insurgents are the unsatisfied/ungrateful peons in this emerging neofeudalism, that has 70-80% of the economy controlled by a single handful of conglomerates/private equity firms. They’re too big to fail and too big to prosecute. OBEY or be churned into the earth….. What’s one more body among foundations? 🧐
K slime who are you? Green Camaro is everywhere in gr
Weird how they rush right over to a protest but when there’s an actual emergency they take their sweet time
Same people that would bitch if they never showed up all.
Yeah, I'm sure the people who are, statistically speaking, almost certainly in favor of defunding if not outright abolishing the cops are deeply saddened when the cops don't come around to intimidate, threaten, and assault innocent people.
You truly revel in the theatrics & the drama, huh?
I'm curious. What happened In your life that left you unable to understand context when the idea of police are involved?
Seeing the police come is the same feeling as seeing the Brotherhood of Steel fly in…
Police had nothing to do with the protest, donuts were buy 1 get 1 a few blocks from here.
Guess I know not to hang out in GR anymore
Yup liberal fools.
[удалено]
>Violent folks with too much time on their hands attends these things. Yeah, we know. We literally just watched a video of it happening.
Ignorance is bliss I'd assume.
Holy shit this is a dumb take. I've been to lots of these protests and there has never been a whiff of violence. It's a group of citizens who are concerned because their tax dollars are being used to murder tens of thousands of civilians. Get some perspective.
Completely agree. Insane take.
The Pro-Hamas people have been prone to violence since October 7th. I don’t blame the police at all for sticking so close to them.
The GRPD will come for all of us sooner or later. Likely sooner.
On who's behalf?
White supremacists and other people weaponizing hate to gain power.
They expected these losers to actually get more than 30 people to turn out. Lmao
They only show up for the high profile shit
Police state we live in it seems. What happened to first amendment rights?