[Zipperfish]

So we have Billy denying it with a some cockamamie, transparent tangle of lies. Typical Step 1. Step 2 will be the troubled upbringing adn how it's all the white man's fault.

[Khar]

Benn Benn:

Well I can't top Andy the policing, riot and crowd control armchair expert. Stupid cops, you should just rush in shooting and swinging the moment something starts don't you know?

Who cares if it is in Vancouver, riots are riots and mob mentality works the same around the world and the reaction to it (by professional Law Enforcement) is pretty much also the same, calculated. Although maybe that international large event security conference I once went to was just full of crap, they just should have had Andy as the keynote expert, key speech theme "eliminating poverty is key to eliminating riots."

I agree with Benn.

The police were screwed no matter what they did in this situation. If they moved in quickly, they would have been blamed for precipitating events and for being heavy handed, like at the G8/G20 summits. If there had been tons of them, similar complaints about the police presence like at the Vancouver olympics.

Move in at a different pace or in smaller numbers and you get the result above. The Vancouver police is not the same size as it was for the Olympics, and cannot cover the entire city. Handling crowds in a way which won't cause adverse impacts is a dangerous affair that I hope never to be a part of. Every step has to be double checked, every action has to be watched -- otherwise, there is the risk of more people getting hurt then by trying to protect a few by acting hastily.

The line between criticisms for these two events is impossibly small. If you stop someone from throwing a punch, then you are acting too fast -- they are just being rambuctious. If that punch broke someone's nose, then you acted too slowly, and it is the cop's fault for not moving in fast enough. There seems to be a tiny sweet spot impossible to hit between being completely ineffective and doing far too much when it comes down to criticism of law enforcement. In the coming days, I fully expect dozens of police actions which protected people to be ignored in favour of the one event where one officer was a little too rough -- in the eye of some bystanders, at least -- and the end result will simply be criticism.

Don't get me wrong. Law enforcement needs to be viewed with a close eye. Just as those in banking, those in the medical field, and so forth need to be watched, to be sure they don't make mistakes, since they are in spots where a single mistake can destroy someone, or even cost someone their life. Our officers are taught to think, analyze and react accordingly. Cars and windows and even goods can be replaced, but we've seen how one event between a crowd and police can be twisted into something truly ugly. However, there is such a thing as cutting them some slack.

There are times where I am frustrated that we don't get some information, but a lot of times, I am happy we don't. We are quick to pass judgement on things we don't understand based on bias and prejudice. Our demand for the ability to pass judgement in a morrass of ignorance has, at times, been debilitating -- I can think of a few examples, and I'm sure others here can too. Pretending to expertise will not make anyone an expert -- adding an overtone of condescension only makes that supposed expert an ass. We have enough of those already.

We can post opinions. We should not pass judgement from atop moral pillars of pristine authority in the guise of expertise. The fact is, the guy who matters did say he made a mistake -- but those climbing all over it should get off their high horses (I am not implicating anyone here), especially considering the mistake in the context of the whole. For all we now, this lack of police presence came because of complaints about police presence elsewhere, and criticisms of police actions. It might have been better to have more downtown initially, as the Chief said -- hindsight is 20/20, for us non-experts and our black and white views at least. There was every possibility they would act like us Redneck Albertans and manage not to start a riot.

The people who deserve ridicule are those who chose to make life worse for others, and that would be the looters, rioters and so forth who smeared the Canadian name. I am wholly unimpressed, and support any efforts to hunt down those entitled to do this sort of thing. My opinion, anyways.

[DanSC]

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

So we have Billy denying it with a some cockamamie, transparent tangle of lies. Typical Step 1. Step 2 will be the troubled upbringing adn how it's all the white man's fault.

Step 3 is saying he cannot identify himself in the pictures with certitude.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

DanSC DanSC:

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

So we have Billy denying it with a some cockamamie, transparent tangle of lies. Typical Step 1. Step 2 will be the troubled upbringing adn how it's all the white man's fault.

Step 3 is saying he cannot identify himself in the pictures with certitude.

Step 4 will be him suing for racial profiling.

[andyt]

Khar Khar:

We can post opinions. We should not pass judgement from atop moral pillars of pristine authority in the guise of expertise.

And now you're the guardian of what's opinion and what's judgement. And what exactly is the diff between judgement and opinion? Don't you have to use your judgement to have an opinion?

I'm backed up by the police chief himself, who admitted that the cops could have been deployed downtown much earlier. Well duh, everyone was holding their breath hoping we wouldn't see another 94. The chief had said the VPD was ready for anything. Anything but a riot it seems. Jim Chu has been a great police chief, but in this case he deserves some of the criticism.

Here's a guy who sees it my way:

$1:

"There was enough police, but they were very late," said restaurant-owner Francesco Caligiuri, who operates Da Gino Ristorante on West Georgia Street.

"We were trying to call them, but they said they couldn't get down. [url]I think the planning and the protocols, they didn't think through[/url]." There will be more of this sort of criticism once the dust settles a bit.

[Khar]

$1:

And now you're the guardian of what's opinion and what's judgement. And what exactly is the diff between judgement and opinion? Don't you have to use your judgement to have an opinion?

I'm backed up by the police chief himself, who admitted that the cops could have been deployed downtown much earlier. Well duh, everyone was holding their breath hoping we wouldn't see another 94. The chief had said the VPD was ready for anything. Anything but a riot it seems. Jim Chu has been a great police chief, but in this case he deserves some of the criticism.

The difference is that one is close minded, bigoted and refuses to accept the opinions of others. The other implies a lack of expertise -- an opinion is not a decision. An opinion is indefinite. Passed judgement is not. Play with semantics all you want, andy, the context was clear in that I was inferring the "legal" qualities of the term.

And I most certainly did not make myself the guardian of that, nor did I direct it at you. It was a generalized thought, and Benn's post allowed me to build on it. Calm down, for once. You have tried to force the moral high ground on me before (I lived as low income before and you complained about how no one understood and was willing to understand for... my own plight?) and I have no interest in playing these pseudo-troll games.

Yes, he deserves some criticism in his opinion, but you have been criticizing him WELL beyond the initial deployment he was talking about. I already commented on his admission, by the way. Note that what you said in this post is far more toned down then how you entered this thread? Dayseed, Benn and Zipperfish all confronted you on that.

Stop trying to attribute something to my posts that aren't there, stop trying to force opinions into other people's mouths, and flick off your defensive outrage.

[andyt]

Here's what I said to Dayseed:

$1:

Do you know Vancouver at all? The trashers and looters were right where the crowd had been watching TV. Where were the cops - out for donuts? Everybody was looking, including the TV crews. The only ones not there were the cops. The cops not only had their own people on standby, but re-inforcements from all over the metro area. But, they held off for a long time, and then there were first a half dozen on horseback who just sat there, then a half dozen in riot gear who get themselves pushed back for their trouble. So where were all those standby cops. If it's the case as you suggest, that they only have a handful available (which it's not), then I guess holding events like this is the hight of irresponsibility. Although for your pov, there aren't any cops available to prevent it anyway.

Just what others have been saying - the cops got there late. They should have been there in force during the game, ready to deploy, but as the police chief admits, they were in other parts of town and couldn't get to the riot in a timely fashion. Guess he wanted to save money by not calling in the reinforcements from other cities, (so that his regular cops could keep patrolling the city) and it backfired on him.

As for Zipperfish taking partial quotes and having a go at me, distorting what I've been saying, can't really do much about that.

If you weren't talking about me as being judgmental rather than having an opinon, who were you talking about?

[andyt]

EyeBrock EyeBrock:

andyt andyt:

Let's hope the cops at least do their jobs after the riot and track all these pukes down. Funny how when cars are being burned and stores trashed, there's no cops to be found, but when it comes time to bust heads of peaceful protesters, the cops wade in with a vengeance. Guess 'cause the peaceful ones don't fight back.

But Chikite has nothing to worry about, since he's apparently First Nations and it would be too "delicate" to go after him. Might be another riot on his reserve if the they come to arrest him. Plus the VPD budget probably doesn't stretch to ferry rides to Quadra.

Yep, it's the cops fault.

It's the rioters fault there was a riot. It's the cops' fault that they didn't contain it as quickly as they could have.

[Nuggie77]

andyt andyt:

EyeBrock EyeBrock:

andyt andyt:

Let's hope the cops at least do their jobs after the riot and track all these pukes down. Funny how when cars are being burned and stores trashed, there's no cops to be found, but when it comes time to bust heads of peaceful protesters, the cops wade in with a vengeance. Guess 'cause the peaceful ones don't fight back.

But Chikite has nothing to worry about, since he's apparently First Nations and it would be too "delicate" to go after him. Might be another riot on his reserve if the they come to arrest him. Plus the VPD budget probably doesn't stretch to ferry rides to Quadra.

Yep, it's the cops fault.

It's the rioters fault there was a riot. It's the cops' fault that they didn't contain it as quickly as they could have.

So how would feel if the cops were deployed in force early during the game? You would complain about an overbearing police presence taking the fun out of the whole experience.

[Khar]

@andyt:

That was concluding five paragraphs of thoughts relating to it. There are people who approach these discussions in balance from both sides, and state opinions. Then there are those for whom the police can do no wrong, and pass judgement on protestors before any information is available. Likewise, there are those who immediately assume that those protestors are paragons of virtue, and the police are in the wrong. Those situations are analagous to this one.

Soon, the media will begin posting "Outrage" articles from special interest groups and well known people as they give their "opinion" about the affairs, which will turn out more to be Judgements. Vancouver's name will be slammed, the fans of hockey will be slammed, the police force will be slammed and so forth. There was a generic problem and that required a generalized response. Benn's response was to you, but gave me a jumping off point for my post -- my response was worded to avoid that. That response was for everyone, not just for you, because that is a problem we all deal with.

Correct me if I am wrong, but it was not so much him saying his forces got there late but that he should have deployed more initially. There is an important distinction here -- even increasing his forces present at the time by several times would not have been enough, I would bet. The arrival of more officers would have been necessary either way given the size and scope of the riot, or so my TV suggested the other day, and he is not apologizing or criticizing himself in regards to follow up deployments, is he? Unless I missed something. I find it hard to be critical when the beginnings of a mass of people that size requires a sizeable force.

Did the police move in prior to when those additional people were due to arrive? Did they wait only for what else the VPD could have put in the streets? These are the sorts of assumptions we simply cannot make, that if there had been more officers initially, it would have been enough... enough for a crowd dozens of times the size of the police force in it's best case scenario, most of whom are just bystanders they wish to avoid harming and many of whom were well behaved? As I mentioned, I can't help but wonder if the lack of police attention was because, if nothing had happened, the good police chief would have gotten flack for it -- like he got flack for police presence during the Olympics. As much as police trying to foresee possibilities, no one is prescient.

There is a difference, to me at least, between "holding back." I'd wonder if he'd have held back if he had double the forces on the street still.

[andyt]

Nuggie77 Nuggie77:

andyt andyt:

It's the rioters fault there was a riot. It's the cops' fault that they didn't contain it as quickly as they could have.

So how would feel if the cops were deployed in force early during the game? You would complain about an overbearing police presence taking the fun out of the whole experience.

'
How do you know what I would do? A riot was entirely foreseeable. If the cops had been out in force taking down the initial car burners, how could anybody complain about taking the fun out of that? You think the cops should let people have a little fun by burning cars?

[andyt]

Khar Khar:

That was concluding five paragraphs of thoughts relating to it. There are people who approach these discussions in balance from both sides, and state opinions. Then there are those for whom the police can do no wrong, and pass judgement on protestors before any information is available. Likewise, there are those who immediately assume that those protestors are paragons of virtue, and the police are in the wrong. Those situations are analagous to this one.

Are you talking about anybody on this forum?

If by any chance you're talking about me, at the G20 I asked the same question I ask here - where were the cops when people ran riot? At the G20, they chose instead to go after mostly peaceful protesters the next day, with the excuse of the previous day's events. Here, I'm guessing they didn't want to spend the overtime of having the cops actually ready and deployed, so they were very late to the scene. Big, costly mistake.

[fifeboy]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

The same people who hacked Congressman Weiner's Twitter must've done this.

Good Lord Bart, can you stop with the Weiner's Weiner thing, I'm eating my lunch

[EyeBrock]

Yep, it's the cops fault.[/quote]

It's the rioters fault there was a riot. It's the cops' fault that they didn't contain it as quickly as they could have.[/quote]

Yep, planning events and public order incidents another subject you are expert on andy?

They shoulda got those Arwens spitting as soon as the first brick was thrown eh?

But then when the cops do contain things, like in the G20, they are just a bunch of storm troopers?

You are just posting to get a reaction.

[Brenda]

fifeboy fifeboy:

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

The same people who hacked Congressman Weiner's Twitter must've done this.

Good Lord Bart, can you stop with the Weiner's Weiner thing, I'm eating my lunch

Whatchahavin'? Wieners?