Left Wing Terrorism

[laughing dog]

I want to thank Derec to alerting us to the existence of left wing terrorism. I await the next installment where he gives examples of existence of little old ladies cursing.

 

[Derec]

I agree that it is a shame that the old public library was destroyed. I love old buildings.

Me too.

I disagree that 85 acres is insignificant. Given its location, it really could be important for flood mitigation. A large city such as Atlanta really does need all the parks and green spaces it can get.

Not sure how familiar you are with Atlanta, but we do have a lot of greenspace. We are kind of known for it.
Nevertheless, as population increases and new housing is needed, that greenspace is at risk. But not primarily due to a single training facility.
As Atlanta grows, its trademark tree canopy suffers

On a citywide scale, 85 acres is pretty insignificant. It's 0.13 sq. miles. And note that the 85 acres of "Cop City" are far less than the wooded area north of Constitution Ave.

From here, where you can get more info and more maps about the project.

Add to that the bigger South River Forest south of Constitution Ave (and bounded to the southeast and west-southwest by I-285 and commercial properties off Moreland Ave. respectively).

Browse the Google Maps link I posted above. Note also the Lake Charlotte Nature Preserve just west of Moreland Ave., within the City of Atlanta (the area we are talking about here is just outside the city, in unincorporated DeKalb County).

If you want to blame anybody for threatening most of the wooded area, blame the movie studio that wants to develop both the Intrenchment Creek Park and the South River Forest. Not the police.

Not only does it improve air quality but also quality of life for everyone. As quality of life goes up, criminal activity decreases.

I am sure it does, to a point. But as I said, Atlanta is already well known for our trees.

No, building 'villages' so that cops can learn to conduct raids is NOT normal police training.

Of course it is.
Even a city as lefty as Portland has a "scenario village" in their training facility.

It IS military training.

Not necessarily. I have noticed the trend to call everything that goes beyond officer Barney Fife as "militarized police" but that is not so.

More police departments are limiting police chases to violent felony suspects due to the danger to the public of such chases.

Even if police chases are limited, you want a officers who are well trained in conducting these chases.
As far as chases being limited, Atlanta PD instituted a "no chase" policy in 2020 (pre-riots) under Erika Shields. A year later, they had to relax it.
But again, even if limited, you want police officers to well trained to conduct them.

PBS is considered the most reliable, most trusted, least biased news source. Maybe quit watching Fox?

I do not generally watch FOX News. And while PBS does some good reporting, they also have a left-wing bias. And this article wasn't even good reporting.

[Repost from the Tyre Nichols thread]

 

[Derec]

Manuel Teran private autopsy published:
Family: Autopsy shows training center activist shot at least 13 times

13 times is not even that much. Given that he shot another trooper, several of his comrades would have returned fire. So it's maybe 3-4 shots per person at best.

Decatur-based civil rights attorneys Brian Spears and Jeff Filipovits plan to hold a press conference Monday morning. They and Teran’s family are calling on the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to release more information about the incident, which they called “the first time any environmental activist in the United States has been killed by the government.”

Not even true.
Protesters Rally 1 Month After Sabal Trail Shooter’s Death
But even if he was, so what? He still shot a cop. This is not a "civil rights" issue.

According to the GBI, which is investigating the incident, Georgia state troopers conducting a Jan. 18 “clearing operation” near the training center site came across Teran and other activists camped in the woods. Teran is accused of shooting “without warning,” wounding a trooper, before several of the injured officer’s colleagues returned fire.

In other news,
Construction permit to be issued that will allow police training facility at center of protests to move forward

After an initial on-site environmental inspection and the guidelines are approved, "land disturbance activities may commence."
Officials said the agreement would contain several provisions for preserving parts of the South River Forest, which has been occupied for more than a year by protesters in tree encampments seeking to stop the building of the facility.
Dickens and Thurmond said the facility will total 85 acres, which was previously known, with the rest of a roughly 380-acre parcel of the forest owned by the City of Atlanta set for preservation. That was also previously promised by officials involved with the project, though some details emerged in Tuesday's press conference - with Dickens promising trails, park lands and ball fields, in particular.

 

[Derec]

I want to thank Derec to alerting us to the existence of left wing terrorism.

The discussion on here tends to ignore/downplay/excuse left-wing violence, incl. left-wing terrorism.

 

[laughing dog]

I want to thank Derec to alerting us to the existence of left wing terrorism.

The discussion on here tends to ignore/downplay/excuse left-wing violence, incl. left-wing terrorism.

The discussion here ignores the wetness of water.

 

[Elixir]

I want to thank Derec to alerting us to the existence of left wing terrorism.

The discussion on here tends to ignore/downplay/excuse left-wing violence, incl. left-wing terrorism.

The discussion here ignores the wetness of water.

The wetness is to water as terrorism is to Right Wing Extremism. It might also fit with left wing extremism, but that is so relatively rare in America today, as to be negligible. Derec can bleat and complain all he wants, but can’t change the facts.

 

[Toni]

I agree that it is a shame that the old public library was destroyed. I love old buildings.

Me too.

I disagree that 85 acres is insignificant. Given its location, it really could be important for flood mitigation. A large city such as Atlanta really does need all the parks and green spaces it can get.

Not sure how familiar you are with Atlanta, but we do have a lot of greenspace. We are kind of known for it.
Nevertheless, as population increases and new housing is needed, that greenspace is at risk. But not primarily due to a single training facility.
As Atlanta grows, its trademark tree canopy suffers

On a citywide scale, 85 acres is pretty insignificant. It's 0.13 sq. miles. And note that the 85 acres of "Cop City" are far less than the wooded area north of Constitution Ave.

From here, where you can get more info and more maps about the project.

Add to that the bigger South River Forest south of Constitution Ave (and bounded to the southeast and west-southwest by I-285 and commercial properties off Moreland Ave. respectively).

Browse the Google Maps link I posted above. Note also the Lake Charlotte Nature Preserve just west of Moreland Ave., within the City of Atlanta (the area we are talking about here is just outside the city, in unincorporated DeKalb County).

If you want to blame anybody for threatening most of the wooded area, blame the movie studio that wants to develop both the Intrenchment Creek Park and the South River Forest. Not the police.

Not only does it improve air quality but also quality of life for everyone. As quality of life goes up, criminal activity decreases.

I am sure it does, to a point. But as I said, Atlanta is already well known for our trees.

No, building 'villages' so that cops can learn to conduct raids is NOT normal police training.

Of course it is.
Even a city as lefty as Portland has a "scenario village" in their training facility.

It IS military training.

Not necessarily. I have noticed the trend to call everything that goes beyond officer Barney Fife as "militarized police" but that is not so.

More police departments are limiting police chases to violent felony suspects due to the danger to the public of such chases.

Even if police chases are limited, you want a officers who are well trained in conducting these chases.
As far as chases being limited, Atlanta PD instituted a "no chase" policy in 2020 (pre-riots) under Erika Shields. A year later, they had to relax it.
But again, even if limited, you want police officers to well trained to conduct them.

PBS is considered the most reliable, most trusted, least biased news source. Maybe quit watching Fox?

I do not generally watch FOX News. And while PBS does some good reporting, they also have a left-wing bias. And this article wasn't even good reporting.

[Repost from the Tyre Nichols thread]

Every green space counts. This one is not being sacrificed for housing but to create a space for military type training of the police. Paid for by corporate donors. Not do the police will be able to do a better job of serving and protecting the people but to better serve and protect the corporations.

It’s all kinds of wrong.

I haven’t been to Atlanta since I was a kid, so it’s been a long time. I’ve heard how pretty a city it is, nothing should be allowed to change that. Really.

 

[Oleg]

GOP New Jersey Councilwoman Shot to Death outside Her Home

An African-American Republican councilwoman was shot to death outside her New Jersey home on Wednesday. Police arrived on the scene Wednesday night to find Eunice Dwumfour shot to death in her car. She had suffered multiple gunshot wounds.

news.yahoo.com

 

[ZiprHead]

What makes you think this is left wing terrorism?

 

[Patooka]

What makes you think this is left wing terrorism?

From the comments section of the Daily Wire article reporting this (apologies in advance);


It's a black GOP member so clearly it's left wing terrorism. Duh!

 

[laughing dog]

What makes you think this is left wing terrorism?

Or even terrorism.

 

[Derec]

The anti-Cop City terrorists are at it again. This time with arson.
Police lock down site of future safety training center after clash with protestors

The site of Atlanta's future Public Safety Training Facility infamously called 'Cop City' by protestors is now on lockdown as smoke and flames were put out, and the area was secured. FOX 5 saw SWAT reporting to the scene as night fell.
Just before 8 p.m., a FOX 5 reporter on the ground said she heard something that resembled the sound of fireworks or gunshots, but has not yet had that detail confirmed by officials.
Police have not released the number of protestors arrested during or after the incident.

And neither should they be released.

There was a massive police presence along Key Road in southeast Atlanta early Sunday evening as FOX 5 was told protestors were actively clashing with officers. Officials said at least one construction vehicle was set on fire.
[...]
A Georgia State Trooper told FOX 5 photographer Billy Heath that rocks, sticks and even a Molotov cocktail were thrown at police.

These rioters/arsonists/terrorists should not be referred to as "protestors" by the media.

NY Times also inappropriately calls them "protesters".
Protesters Damage Property at Site of Planned Police Center in Atlanta

Hundreds of activists breached the site of a proposed police and fire training center in Atlanta’s wooded outskirts on Sunday, burning police and construction vehicles and a trailer, and setting off fireworks toward officers stationed nearby.

The Atlanta Police Department said 35 people had been detained, adding that agitators also threw large rocks, bricks and Molotov cocktails.

This is not protesting.

As vehicles were set ablaze, law enforcement officers looked on and initially did not intervene.

Why the hell not? Whoever ordered them to stand down should be fired.

Tensions have escalated between police officers and protesters over the forested area in recent months. Environmental advocates want the woods — which span more than 1,000 acres — preserved as one of the region’s most significant green spaces.

The training center will cover only 85 acres of the 1000 acre South River forest area. The planned movie studios would cut down a lot more woods. And about these idiots claiming to be for the environment. How is setting vehicles and trailers on fire, with black smoke billowing, environmentally sound?

 

[Derec]

Every green space counts.

Every green space can't be preserved or these could not be any development. Even in the South River Forest area, a lot more of the woods is in danger from the movie studio. But the far Left hates the police, and so they attack the training center. The woods are only a fig leaf. Especially since the site is not virgin forest anyway, but an overgrown former prison farm.

This one is not being sacrificed for housing but to create a space for military type training of the police.

What do you (and other anti-police activists) even mean by "military type training"? It will be fairly typical police-type training. Which includes armed operations, sure. But that does not make it "military type". There will also be firefighters training there.

Paid for by corporate donors.

Partially. But so what?

Not do the police will be able to do a better job of serving and protecting the people but to better serve and protect the corporations.

What evidence do you have for the claim that the training police will receive here will not be used to serve and protect regular people?
As far as corporations, real people have shares of, and work for, corporations. And they make goods and services real people want and buy. They do a lot more good than violent anti-police activists whose only actions are to destroy. And for all their lofty claims to be pro-environment, all they do is litter in the woods and set vehicles and trailers ablaze, which releases pollutants.

It’s all kinds of wrong.

Not the training center. The activists are all kinds of wrong, as I have shown above.

I haven’t been to Atlanta since I was a kid, so it’s been a long time. I’ve heard how pretty a city it is, nothing should be allowed to change that. Really.

In reality 85 acres on the outskirts of Atlanta, which were a prison farm when you were a kid, will not change the city much. Housing and commercial development changes what the city looks and feels like a lot more over the years and decades.

 

[Toni]

Every green space counts.

Every green space can't be preserved or these could not be any development. Even in the South River Forest area, a lot more of the woods is in danger from the movie studio. But the far Left hates the police, and so they attack the training center. The woods are only a fig leaf. Especially since the site is not virgin forest anyway, but an overgrown former prison farm.

This one is not being sacrificed for housing but to create a space for military type training of the police.

What do you (and other anti-police activists) even mean by "military type training"? It will be fairly typical police-type training. Which includes armed operations, sure. But that does not make it "military type". There will also be firefighters training there.

Paid for by corporate donors.

Partially. But so what?

Not do the police will be able to do a better job of serving and protecting the people but to better serve and protect the corporations.

What evidence do you have for the claim that the training police will receive here will not be used to serve and protect regular people?
As far as corporations, real people have shares of, and work for, corporations. And they make goods and services real people want and buy. They do a lot more good than violent anti-police activists whose only actions are to destroy. And for all their lofty claims to be pro-environment, all they do is litter in the woods and set vehicles and trailers ablaze, which releases pollutants.

It’s all kinds of wrong.

Not the training center. The activists are all kinds of wrong, as I have shown above.

I haven’t been to Atlanta since I was a kid, so it’s been a long time. I’ve heard how pretty a city it is, nothing should be allowed to change that. Really.

In reality 85 acres on the outskirts of Atlanta, which were a prison farm when you were a kid, will not change the city much. Housing and commercial development changes what the city looks and feels like a lot more over the years and decades.

Paramilitary training of police officers has no benefit in terms of efficiency or effiacy of policing:

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1805161115

Consistent with anecdotal evidence (11), militarized police units are more often deployed in areas with high concentrations of African Americans, even after adjusting for local crime rates and other community traits. But I find no firm evidence that SWAT teams lower an agency’s violent crime rate or the rates at which officers are killed or assaulted. Using survey experiments, I show that citizens react negatively to the appearance of militarized police units in news reports and become less willing to fund police agencies and less supportive of having police patrols in their own neighborhoods.
Given the concentration of deployments in communities of color, where trust in law enforcement and government at large is already depressed (14, 38), the routine use of militarized police tactics by local agencies threatens to increase the historic tensions between marginalized groups and the state with no detectable public safety benefit. While SWAT teams arguably remain a necessary tool for violent emergency situations, restricting their use to those rare events may improve perceptions of police with little or no safety loss.

Stop Training Police Like They’re Joining the Military

If policing is to change, the spotlight must turn toward police academies, where new recruits are first inculcated into the folkways of their profession.

www.theatlantic.com

Hopefully you will be able to read the article. The Atlantic often blocks non-subscribers. I was surprised I could read this:

To be sure, federal military-surplus transfers like those through the Defense Department’s 1033 Program do little good, and much harm: Police departments obtaining used Army filing cabinets at cost isn’t cause for concern, but there’s no earthly reason for small-town cops to wear military fatigues, ride around in mine-resistant Humvees, or carry bayonets. Studies suggest that police departments that receive such equipment see no measurable improvement in officer safety or crime rates, but greater quantities do seem to correlate with higher rates of officer-involved shootings and reduced public trust.

My computer is being glitchy right now and I'm short on time. I'd recommend skipping the Atlantic article and just clicking on the links provided in the portion I quoted.

 

[TSwizzle]

These rioters/arsonists/terrorists should not be referred to as "protestors" by the media.

The Daily Mail gets it right;

Grinning goons of Antifa: Twenty-three domestic terrorists - including attorney for Southern Poverty Law Center - are charged after storming and torching Atlanta's 'Cop City'

Daily Mail

 

[lostone]

These rioters/arsonists/terrorists should not be referred to as "protestors" by the media.

The Daily Mail gets it right;

Grinning goons of Antifa: Twenty-three domestic terrorists - including attorney for Southern Poverty Law Center - are charged after storming and torching Atlanta's 'Cop City'

Daily Mail

Propaganda sheet

 

[Derec]

Propaganda sheet

DM may be low quality in general, but their description of these terrorists as "goons of Antifa" is certainly much more fitting than mainstream media misidentifying them as "protestors". Although they are more smirking than grinning goons.

Note also that only 2 are from Georgia. Most are from out of state, and two are from out of country.
One, Tom Jurgens, is a SPLC lawyer.

 

[Derec]

Paramilitary training of police officers has no benefit in terms of efficiency or effiacy of policing:

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1805161115

Again you with loaded words like "paramilitary". Even if we assume that Mummolo is correct in his assessment of the overuse of SWAT in Maryland (subject of that study) and that is transferrable to other states like Georgia (two big ifs!), police still do need to, in some circumstances, engage in armed raids, including SWAT raids. Therefore, police have to train for that.

As I posted before, even in cities as crunchy as Portland, OR, police train using mockups of buildings. That is not controversial outside the ACAB/FTP/Defund/Abolish circles.

Consistent with anecdotal evidence (11),

Of course, that is always the best kind of evidence.

While SWAT teams arguably remain a necessary tool for violent emergency situations, restricting their use to those rare events may improve perceptions of police with little or no safety loss.

So even Mummolo realizes that is a necessary tool. Which means SWAT units have to train. Duh!

One thing though with these politically charged studies is the bias of the researcher. Also from the paper:

As thousands marched in Ferguson, MO to protest the police shooting of Michael Brown in 2014, many Americans were surprised and alarmed by the character of law enforcement’s response. For days, national news networks broadcast images of armored vehicles, snipers taking aim at unarmed Black and brown civilians, and officers clad in battle armor, deployed by state and local police agencies (1).

That is a completely biased and frankly fictional account of what happened in Ferguson. Police did not react to peaceful marches, but to violent riots where many businesses were vandalized, burned to the ground and/or looted. The QT was looted and went up in flames on the very first night of the rioting!
So I do not know how much credence I want to give him re his claim that SWAT is overused in Maryland.

Stop Training Police Like They’re Joining the Military

If policing is to change, the spotlight must turn toward police academies, where new recruits are first inculcated into the folkways of their profession.

www.theatlantic.com

Hopefully you will be able to read the article. The Atlantic often blocks non-subscribers. I was surprised I could read this:

You can make an account with your email address, then it lets you read some articles. Probably a very limited number per month, but still.
You were probably able to read it because you previously made an account, and you just remained logged on on your computer.
In any case, I was able to read it and oh boy. This girl is tripping! She objects even to police using uniforms, and having a defined chain of command with defined ranks with names reminiscent of military ones - sergeant, lieutenant, captain. Some departments even have majors and colonels.

Is that enough to make police "militarized" for you as well? Or do you agree that Rosa Brooks is taking it way too far?

To be sure, federal military-surplus transfers like those through the Defense Department’s 1033 Program do little good, and much harm: Police departments obtaining used Army filing cabinets at cost isn’t cause for concern, but there’s no earthly reason for small-town cops to wear military fatigues, ride around in mine-resistant Humvees, or carry bayonets.

I have never seen police with bayonets. Certainly not in ATLPD.
Armored vehicles can be useful, not least for crowd control which has sadly been very much needed in recent years. Mine-resistant ones? In a major city like Atlanta you'd expect the danger of a terrorist attack, so police should be equipped to engage with explosives as well. Note that Atlanta is certainly not a small town, so that objection falls flat here.

Studies suggest

Studies like Mummolo's, who called rioters "marchers"?

My computer is being glitchy right now and I'm short on time. I'd recommend skipping the Atlantic article and just clicking on the links provided in the portion I quoted.

I do not see how any of what you posted challenges the fact that police training is necessary, including training for armed raids and chases, and that police training facilities like this one are nothing unusual.
The opponents of the training facility tend to be extremist "abolish the police" types, vast majority of whom come from out of state.

As an example of the extremism of these activists, one of the terrorists arrested wrote about "prison abolition" on this website. Xir was also arrested in 2020 during George Floyd riots.
By the way, James/Jamie is a 2nd year law student at UNC. Which raises the question: is a felony charge grounds for expulsion or would xir have to be convicted first? And aren't law school classes in session? How did xe find the time to run around woods in Georgia anyway?

 

[laughing dog]

I guess I don't know much because I do not see a necessary dichotomy between the concept of a "protester" and a "terrorist". In my view, it is possible to be both at the same time.

 

[Toni]

Paramilitary training of police officers has no benefit in terms of efficiency or effiacy of policing:

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1805161115

Again you with loaded words like "paramilitary". Even if we assume that Mummolo is correct in his assessment of the overuse of SWAT in Maryland (subject of that study) and that is transferrable to other states like Georgia (two big ifs!), police still do need to, in some circumstances, engage in armed raids, including SWAT raids. Therefore, police have to train for that.

As I posted before, even in cities as crunchy as Portland, OR, police train using mockups of buildings. That is not controversial outside the ACAB/FTP/Defund/Abolish circles.

Consistent with anecdotal evidence (11),

Of course, that is always the best kind of evidence.

While SWAT teams arguably remain a necessary tool for violent emergency situations, restricting their use to those rare events may improve perceptions of police with little or no safety loss.

So even Mummolo realizes that is a necessary tool. Which means SWAT units have to train. Duh!

One thing though with these politically charged studies is the bias of the researcher. Also from the paper:

As thousands marched in Ferguson, MO to protest the police shooting of Michael Brown in 2014, many Americans were surprised and alarmed by the character of law enforcement’s response. For days, national news networks broadcast images of armored vehicles, snipers taking aim at unarmed Black and brown civilians, and officers clad in battle armor, deployed by state and local police agencies (1).

That is a completely biased and frankly fictional account of what happened in Ferguson. Police did not react to peaceful marches, but to violent riots where many businesses were vandalized, burned to the ground and/or looted. The QT was looted and went up in flames on the very first night of the rioting!
So I do not know how much credence I want to give him re his claim that SWAT is overused in Maryland.

Stop Training Police Like They’re Joining the Military

If policing is to change, the spotlight must turn toward police academies, where new recruits are first inculcated into the folkways of their profession.

www.theatlantic.com

Hopefully you will be able to read the article. The Atlantic often blocks non-subscribers. I was surprised I could read this:

You can make an account with your email address, then it lets you read some articles. Probably a very limited number per month, but still.
You were probably able to read it because you previously made an account, and you just remained logged on on your computer.
In any case, I was able to read it and oh boy. This girl is tripping! She objects even to police using uniforms, and having a defined chain of command with defined ranks with names reminiscent of military ones - sergeant, lieutenant, captain. Some departments even have majors and colonels.

Is that enough to make police "militarized" for you as well? Or do you agree that Rosa Brooks is taking it way too far?

To be sure, federal military-surplus transfers like those through the Defense Department’s 1033 Program do little good, and much harm: Police departments obtaining used Army filing cabinets at cost isn’t cause for concern, but there’s no earthly reason for small-town cops to wear military fatigues, ride around in mine-resistant Humvees, or carry bayonets.

I have never seen police with bayonets. Certainly not in ATLPD.
Armored vehicles can be useful, not least for crowd control which has sadly been very much needed in recent years. Mine-resistant ones? In a major city like Atlanta you'd expect the danger of a terrorist attack, so police should be equipped to engage with explosives as well. Note that Atlanta is certainly not a small town, so that objection falls flat here.

Studies suggest

Studies like Mummolo's, who called rioters "marchers"?

My computer is being glitchy right now and I'm short on time. I'd recommend skipping the Atlantic article and just clicking on the links provided in the portion I quoted.

I do not see how any of what you posted challenges the fact that police training is necessary, including training for armed raids and chases, and that police training facilities like this one are nothing unusual.
The opponents of the training facility tend to be extremist "abolish the police" types, vast majority of whom come from out of state.

As an example of the extremism of these activists, one of the terrorists arrested wrote about "prison abolition" on this website. Xir was also arrested in 2020 during George Floyd riots.
By the way, James/Jamie is a 2nd year law student at UNC. Which raises the question: is a felony charge grounds for expulsion or would xir have to be convicted first? And aren't law school classes in session? How did xe find the time to run around woods in Georgia anyway?

I can't tell if you took the time to read all the links contained in the Atlantic article. They are much better. Sorry that my elderly computer is not being as cooperative as I would like and I couldn't provide quotes from those links.

Yes, SWAT teams are sometimes very necessary. A family member was rescued during an armed home invasion by SWAT team(s) (probably overkill to use more than one). No one was injured.