Peaceful protestors being brutalised by police has been documented in almost countless cases by now.
I find it hard to believe that you're asking this is good faith, but if you you are then you can:
* Watch any one of the hundreds of videos documenting what I'm referring to.
* Read pretty much any major news source in the US documenting these cases.
I'm sorry that I don't have a specific source to point you to, but it's genuinely because there is just so much evidence for the statement that it's hard to pick out one thing.
As to the secret police question, that's really down to your definition of secret police.
> Peaceful protestors being brutalised by police has been documented in almost countless cases by now
Yes, I've seen plenty of evidence for that[1]. On the other hand you said "protestors are being arrested by secret police in the US". That's quite a different claim and I haven't seen any evidence for that. I've heard a few reports and associated videos whose reliability I haven't been able to verify.
[1] For the avoidance of doubt my belief is that that kind of behaviour does not belong in a civilised society.
Federal officials stage a major law enforcement operation in a city with zero coordination with the mayor of that city, who instead learns about it from twitter.
A top U.S. Homeland Security official on Monday defended the federal crackdown on protests in Portland, including the use of unmarked cars and unidentified officers in camouflage gear and said the practice will spread to other cities as needed.
Restraining order issued against attacking journalists:
U.S. District Judge Michael Simon today blocked federal agents in Portland from dispersing, arresting, threatening to arrest, or targeting force against journalists or legal observers at protests. The court’s order, which comes in response to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon, adds the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Marshals Service to an existing injunction barring Portland police from arresting or attacking journalists and legal observers at Portland protests.
Oregon just had their attempt to remove federal police thrown out.[1]
In a 14-page order, U.S. District Judge Michael W. Mosman ruled that the state lacked legal standing to bring the suit and had “presented no evidence that these allegedly illegal seizures are a widespread practice.”
I assume you're aware of police obscuring their badge numbers, and refusing to identify themselves? That phenomenon is at least as common as the actual police violence.
While I have many problems with the following snopes article, I think the facts it presents are pretty incontrovertible:
> I assume you're aware of police obscuring their badge numbers, and refusing to identify themselves?
Er, is this what you would call secret police? The article's facts may be incontrovertible, but they don't agree with your description:
"What's Undetermined
While one person said he was detained without officers identifying themselves — and another viral video was interpreted by viewers as a case of the same thing — we have no verifiable evidence to prove or disprove whether agents in those cases explained for what federal agency they worked during the arrests."
So what's undetermined in the snopes article is whether specifically those police that detained people in portland identified themselves or not.
When I spoke about officers not identifying themselves I was talking generally, about the other cases from outside of portland, of officers obscuring their badges and not identifying themselves.
But no, that's not really what I would count as secret police. I mean I think the distinction is a little arbitrary and before long you basically get to arguing definitions which is almost always a waste of time, but I think the actions of the police in the snopes article constitute an overstep that I think qualifies as authoritarian. Especially when those agencies were sent in specifically by the executive.
Also, I should point out that the line you quoted is the one I have a problem with:
> we have no verifiable evidence to prove or disprove whether agents in those cases explained for what federal agency they worked during the arrests.
That's a very strange sentence to me: like how could you even prove such a thing? Have a video of the entirety of the person's interaction with the police?
I think if we're being reasonable here that it's overwhelmingly likely the police didn't identify themselves in this case. But of course it's not feasible to have "evidence" for that kind of thing, so I suppose I can't go ahead and say I'm sure on the point.
I think the "secret police" part is a red herring. My opinion is that the federal police were justified defending the courthouse, but were not justified hunting around for suspects in vans, unmarked or not(this is the state police's job!), but I don't think too many would agree that the federal vs state divide is what's important, which is why I didn't bring it up initially. I feel the anger against the federal agents is not rooted in principle, but the principles are used as a rationalization for removing an opposing force to the protests.
Hopefully we can agree that it's well within police prerogative to prevent rioting, serious property damage(like trying set fire to buildings), possible violence. I am definitely willing to concede that Trump is a tactless brute, and sending the federal agents in like this was far from the best strategy. We could even perhaps tentatively agree that his actual goal is to disperse the protests under the guise of preventing rioting, but again, we'd have to agree first that the rioting is there.
Which brings me back to the original post - is there protesting or violent rioting? Both. Is there secret police or not? Not really - there should be police to monitor the protests and prevent the rioting. If the state police is unwilling to do it, then the federal police may have to step in, although I'd have preferred to exhaust B through Y instead of going straight from A-Z.
> Hopefully we can agree that it's well within police prerogative to prevent rioting, serious property damage(like trying set fire to buildings), possible violence.
No, as it happens.
I mean I get I'm probably outside the Overton window for hacker news, but I think we could probably find common ground on the principle that whatever else, the police should not use deadly force to prevent vandalism.
This should include rubber bullets and batons, and I believe that tear gas also is not justified to prevent vandalism.
I mean you have to understand that there are countries which don't experience the horrific brutality the US is going through right now.
The police in these place isn't better because the government paid out millions to consultancy firms run by former cops, but because the role of the police is dramatically different, and almost always much smaller.
> I am definitely willing to concede that Trump is a tactless brute, and sending the federal agents in like this was far from the best strategy.
I don't like talking about Trump much in this context: the problem is far larger than him, and I think people talking about him alone are missing the point.
The problem is overly-powerful police departments and unions which have massive political power in the cities they operate.
Violence is used to increase this power, which in turn increases their funding and capacity for violence.
We see this all the time with (for instance) the NYPD: their union directly threatened de Blasio's daughter, for instance. They also stopped patrolling in protest of the prosecution of their officers (famously crime dropped during this time).
The only way to stop the cycle is to cut the power.
Something that occurred to me might be referenced by that is the phenomenon of unidentified government personnel arresting protestors in Portland recently. It has been reported that they did not wear anything identifying the agency they work in or the particular individual (i.e. no equivalent of a badge number).
No, it hasn't. Because that's a made up narrative.
Please show me video of police purposefully brutalizing non-violent protesters who behave sensibly (maybe you can learn how to spell protester while you're at it).
I've watched pretty much all of them and the cases of protesters being hurt always involves in some way being a part of the violent protest group, being intermixed with the violent protesters, or refusing to follow police orders during the clearing of unlawful gatherings (which only happens after violent rioting).
Even that older man who got his head cracked open from falling, decided to ignore orders to vacate and instead got into the face of a riot cop and reached for the cops belt.
I have seen zero videos of cops just randomly going off on groups of protesters walking down the street peacefully. Although CNN/MSNBC/etc will ALWAYS edit the video to begin with the police jumping on some person, when you look at the full video, it ALWAYS starts with the person doing something violent, illegal, or stupid.
BTW I'm also sure that SOMETIMES police do do unacceptable things (Floyd) and the criminal court system is absolute garbage, but your BS narrative that PEACEFUL protesters are just getting smashed as a matter of course is pure fiction.
> Please show me video of police purposefully brutalizing non-violent protesters who behave sensibly (maybe you can learn how to spell protester while you're at it).
That's an interesting move you've done there: now protestors have to behave "sensibly" as well as peacefully? I suppose I didn't realise that deadly force was justified against someone behaving "not sensibly".
> I've watched pretty much all of them
Yeah, I mean then you're probably too far gone to have a discussion with. I guess I don't understand how someone can watch all of the same videos I have and come away thinking "yes, the police are justified in their violence". To be honest it suggests a quite shocking lack of basic humanity.
> in some way being a part of the violent protest group,
Being in a "protest group" when others are violent is not a crime, and does not justify the use of deadly force against you.
> being intermixed with the violent protesters
Being intermixed with violent protestors is not a crime, and does not justify the use of deadly force against you.
> refusing to follow police orders during the clearing of unlawful gatherings (which only happens after violent rioting).
So what, you think all of the unlawful gatherings were violent? Seriously what world are you living in?
> Even that older man who got his head cracked open from falling, decided to ignore orders to vacate
Stop a second. Think about what you're writing.
Every person with a basic sense of decency who saw that video was horrified.
An old man had his skull cracked open for refusing to step back. That's what you're justifying now.
I am not going to respond to any more of your comments, but I really hope you get a sense of perspective on some of this stuff. When you see a cop in riot gear beat some poor person to death your first response should not be "but what did the person do?" When you see a cop car drive through a crowd of protestors you should not immediately start looking up the local ordinances for whether or not the protest had a permit to be on the road at that time.
There is a simple, human way to respond to the obvious evil and brutality that you're seeing, and for some reason you are not doing it.
* Watch any one of the hundreds of videos documenting what I'm referring to.
* Read pretty much any major news source in the US documenting these cases.
I'm sorry that I don't have a specific source to point you to, but it's genuinely because there is just so much evidence for the statement that it's hard to pick out one thing.
As to the secret police question, that's really down to your definition of secret police.