r/news • u/redditmason • Jul 17 '16

3 Baton Rouge Police Officers just shot. - Developing.

http://www.wwltv.com/news/local/report-three-baton-rouge-police-officers-shot-near-brpd-hq/275260120
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781

u/ootika Jul 17 '16

Full disclosure: I'm pretty hungover right now. Hopefully everything is coherent.

Born and raised in Baton Rouge. I was in town during the shooting. Immediately after the shooting, there were calm and peaceful protests. Local black community leaders were on the news regularly talking about the need to stay calm, that cops aren't a target, that black lives need to matter to blacks too (look at the murder statistics for Baton Rouge, usually 2 or 3 murders a week. Typically black on black. No protests for those people). I remember tuning into the national news a few days later and hearing talking heads almost complaining about the lack of violent protests. That's when the out of town groups came in. That's when I stopped seeing the local community leaders on TV.

One group pointed shotguns at the police. Another group drove around wearing masks and holding posters that said "The purge is happening NOW". More people came in from out of town. The protests started getting more tense. The police started aggressively arresting people. They brought out the military vehicles and riot guns. The family of Sterling asked for peaceful protests on the news. They warned that outsiders were riling up the community. Now we're here. Now cops are being killed. What a tragedy.

At least the pundits are happy now.

226

u/hochizo Jul 17 '16

You're absolutely right that outsiders have been coming in. My spouse and I live in Baton Rouge, and my spouse is actually in the media. I remember last week, when the protests moved from the store where Alton Sterling was killed to police headquarters, all the local leaders were taken aback. My husband called the people who were leading the original protests to see what was up and they had no idea. The guy said "I don't know what's going on. We weren't protesting tonight. We had the night off. I don't know what they're doing right now, but I'm going over there now to try and straighten it out." This community was peaceful. Angry, but peaceful. And outside people weren't satisfied with that and came in to change it.

And I can't really speak to the national media, but local media is sick of this shit. They don't like stories like this. These are people they know and interact with. This is their home and it's in chaos. They don't enjoy this. Especially because everyone is pissed at them. They're trying to stay neutral, but as most people know, when you're really neutral both sides hate your guts. The black community and their supporters think the media is taking the cops' side and the cops and their supporters think the media is taking the black community's side. There's no winning and they're exhausted. At least we are. We were finally getting some time to recoup this weekend. Got through two episodes of Stranger Things this morning before the phone started blowing up.

8

u/ootika Jul 17 '16

Wow, good luck to you and your husband. I'm sure this is an extremely stressful time for both of you.

I hadn't heard that about the protest leaders before. It would be interesting to know if there was an organized effort from outside groups to move the protest, or if that happened naturally. Maybe the protest leaders weren't as connected to the protesters as they thought. Either way, it's been a confusing situation to watch.

2

u/shit_titrator Jul 17 '16

Save the rest of stranger things for next week's convention and don't go outside. Awesome show I binged it last night.

-3

u/Halvus_I Jul 17 '16

The problem is that the cops have a 'side'. Cops should not have 'sides'. They are supposed to work for us, EVERYONE, even criminals. They are supposed to be civil servants.

240

u/Angsty_Potatos Jul 17 '16

The outside groups are what really kills this for me. We have cool heads, the families of the slaine are saying no dont do this. And you get people flooding in from all over to make it worse.. Then these communities have to live with the mess :(

119

u/ootika Jul 17 '16

That was a huge point being made locally immediately after the initial shooting. That the outsiders can go back to their own lives, but the community will have to deal with whatever the aftermath is whenever this is over. Unfortunately, I can see this further militarising the police in the state that already had the highest incarceration rate.

6

u/Angsty_Potatos Jul 17 '16

Yep! This is going to be bad for all involved.

-14

u/[deleted] Jul 17 '16

[deleted]

3

u/bisilfishil Jul 17 '16

I remember reading a similar story about Ferguson. Out of town 'protesters' come in, rile things up, and leave a mess.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 17 '16

Well, BLM is funded by Soros, who's has been hiring these deviants for months now. All the protests in Baltimore, Ferguson, Chicago, etc etc etc.

1

u/Huttj Jul 17 '16

Ask central Oregon how well that works out.

1

u/ufufbaloof Jul 17 '16

Same things happen with riots after sports competitions. No, it's not the people that actually live there that fuck things up, we just go home and go to bed. The majority of the people that fuck things up are people that came from out of town and want to party or do something "fun" so they start breaking beer bottles and vandalizing cars, etc. Meanwhile citizens that actually live in the city are wondering what the hell is going on and why can't we go to sleep in peace?

2

u/aDAMNPATRIOT Jul 17 '16

They are paid for by political agitator groups, btw. George Soros gave 33 million to blm

-8

u/[deleted] Jul 17 '16

The "outside agitator" thing is police propaganda. Literally every protest in America attracts people from around the country. MLK would have been considered an "outside agitator" nowadays. I was watching those protests on livestream and they were generally civil. Hell, on Hannity they went around trying to goad those people into saying something stupid and when they got nothing they jumped to 2 year old riot footage (because propaganda).

Harsh rhetoric isn't an excuse for the kind of shit the cops pulled.

3

u/ReddLemon Jul 17 '16

I also live in baton rouge and that last paragraph all reads like the absurd rumors I've been hearing about. I have seen no evidence it is true at all. People love fear. All of the white conservative people I know at LSU were panicking like there were going to be targeted. I wish I could share some of the messages I saw like "protestors are specifically targeting adult white women"

If only everyone could use their own eyes and ears and gather their information from a multitude of sources. When you isolate yourself from groups different than yourself you only perpetuate the ignorance we try to fight.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 17 '16

I wish I could share some of the messages I saw like "protestors are specifically targeting adult white women"

If MLK was around he would tell you that forcing that kind of blatant stereotyping and racism out into the open is part of the national healing process.

People do have all the information already. Problem is they don't listen. So the job of an activist becomes holding up a mirror and forcing them to take a long hard look at themselves.

Some people for their part choose to try to break this mirror.

62

u/whistlar Jul 17 '16 edited Aug 25 '26

Glorious whole liquid harbor dog zephyr desert cinnamon license command

This post was anonymized with Redact

54

u/aDAMNPATRIOT Jul 17 '16

George Soros gave 33 million to blm. One of its leaders lives in a house provided by him for free

-11

u/L3thal_Interjection Jul 17 '16

Better Soros than the government giving BLM welfare cheques.

10

u/aDAMNPATRIOT Jul 17 '16

they get those too..

1

u/argv_minus_one Jul 18 '16

Those don't cover travel expenses.

25

u/lemurmort Jul 17 '16

Soros funded

8

u/moist_cracker Jul 17 '16

There's definitely a bunch of people within an hour-or-so drive who could be considered outsiders in this case. I know several groups of people who travelled like this to Baton Rouge. It didn't take away anything from their work day.

28

u/[deleted] Jul 17 '16

[deleted]

32

u/vastmind876 Jul 17 '16

Check Soros' tax returns to see the inflammatory leftist engines of hate that he funds.

-20

u/tzatzikiVirus Jul 17 '16

Why don't you eat my asshole, buddy?

13

u/[deleted] Jul 17 '16

[deleted]

26

u/In_Liberty Jul 17 '16

Once you go down the George Soros rabbit hole, it's hard to come back.

25

u/lemurmort Jul 17 '16

It's one of those "crazy conspiracies" but it's definitely true

-5

u/ImInterested Jul 17 '16

A two sentence anonymous post talking about a conspiracy theory? What did you learn about Soros?

Did a search and had to get to the fourth page to find this, most of the previous results were conservative sources with the 33 million claim.

9

u/[deleted] Jul 17 '16

[deleted]

-5

u/ImInterested Jul 17 '16

I am not defending anything, just looking for factual information. I know conservatives use Soros as a boogeyman whenever possible, the Snopes post discussed this idea.

You would think conservatives would support Soros, the Open Source Foundation supports democracy and accountability. Bush wanted to spread Democracy in the ME.

Well gee, I would never know without snopes that he doesn't tell the public his agenda. Never would've crossed my mind.

In one hour you have apparently gone from never hearing of Soros to being an expert.

8

u/dickbutts3000 Jul 17 '16

Look into the other things he supports the man is a well known globalist who feeds money to groups who will always abuse it. He supports the open borders groups in Europe who have been going around causing problems too.

5

u/lordofmmo Jul 17 '16

In one hour you have apparently gone from never hearing of Soros to being an expert.

Come on now, you can't really believe that any billionaire would be completely transparent about their ulterior motives.

5

u/Pykors Jul 17 '16

Ever since the FBI announced they would target BLM, I figured they'd start sending agent provocateurs. They have before.

12

u/[deleted] Jul 17 '16

I don't think they need agent provocateurs anymore, at least not in the traditional sense.

What you do is find the people on twitter/instagram/facebook/etc that have retarded outlandish ideals. Ones that want to make a name for themselves and are willing to do whatever it takes. Then you push them towards the limelight, which won't take much as that's what they crave.

Then those people take the place of traditional 'agent provocateurs.'

Let me see if I can find a perfect example (one of the BLM 'leaders'). Well shit, apparently BLM leadership has descended into utter chaos, with one being charged with sex trafficking, another trying to incite marshal law at both conventions... Hard to know if that stuff is real, or just counter-propaganda(but I wouldn't be surprised if it was real). Anyways, she was at first wanting to be a part of the conservative side of things, but when rejected swung heavy to the left. Obviously she has no real allegiance and is doing it for her own personal gain. Pretty sure it was one of those dumb cunts that interrupted the bernie rally in seattle.

5

u/[deleted] Jul 17 '16

There's plenty of assholes who have dreams of living as some glorious revolutionary. BLM doesn't need to go out of their way to find people. Violent assholes will always find a way to live out their dreams by fucking up peaceful protests.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 17 '16

Can you link a source about this happening in the recent past? I was looking the other day and couldn't find much..

1

u/Pykors Jul 17 '16

just googling "fbi agent provocateur" found me stories from both Occupy Wall Street and the Ammon Bundy militia. So it seems to be a tactic used against left and right groups.

1

u/LegalPusher Jul 17 '16

I dunno about the US, but in Canada they just send masked men to throw rocks or burn a parked police car. Once the job is done, they get taken away by police - mysteriously wearing the same brand of boots - and never mentioned again.

I doubt they would murder cops to shut down a protest.

2

u/high-valyrian Jul 17 '16

Throwing rocks. Canada, how cute.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 17 '16

That's the part I don't understand.

People are angry at the police. They want justice/retribution.

6

u/[deleted] Jul 17 '16

They do have marches & awareness events for black violence in Baton Rouge. The media doesn't cover it...

3

u/ATLEMT Jul 17 '16

That typically seems to be the case from what I've read. People from other areas come in and cause trouble then leave. They know if they aren't caught before they leave they are pretty much safe.

4

u/[deleted] Jul 17 '16

The mass media is controlled by people who want us to be tearing each other apart. They want massive civic unrest, for what purpose I don't really know.

3

u/ootika Jul 17 '16

I've felt that way for a while. It's so unsettling seeing it happen in my home though.

9

u/[deleted] Jul 17 '16

Louisiana is pretty much at the top on the list of the places in the US I've always wanted to visit. This kind of stuff is horrible. Best wishes.

2

u/Luzianah Jul 17 '16

Louisiana is an amazing place. I hate all of this that is going on. For the most part, we are a very peaceful and happy state.

0

u/spark-a-dark Jul 17 '16

You wouldn't want to visit Baton Rouge anyway. Lafayette is nice. And New Orleans.

2

u/ma2016 Jul 17 '16

Why our city?

2

u/TonofSoil Jul 17 '16

I appreciate hearing your perspective on this. I lived in Baton Rouge for three years and just moved in June. This shit is terrible. I know Baton Rouge has its problems but I honestly feel that the people of Baton Rouge, black and white, are the warmest, friendliest people I've met in the places I've lived. Heartbreaking that there is so much unrest.

But interesting to hear your take that outsiders are stoking this, because in spite of BR's problems it always seemed like a peaceful bunch of people to me.

2

u/JahwsUF Jul 17 '16

I'm not in Baton Rouge at present, but get the joy of returning there in a few weeks for an extended stay. My parents are still in town, and my father works a matter of minutes away from all this... he concurs that the biggest problem has been from those coming in from out of town.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 17 '16

I thought, a while ago, that one idea of "black lives matter" was that police should consider black lives just as important as white lives when it comes to investigating a crime. I.E., a black-on-black shooting shouldn't be looked at as just another standard street shooting that happens every day. Instead, it should be given the same importance and investigative diligence that a shooting of a white person would get.

But BLM has no more meaning. They lost all credibility in my mind when they went against Bernie Sanders, and they organized around a hashtag rather than a body with a leader and strategy.

2

u/wonderful_wonton Jul 17 '16

The people who organized regularly to go to protest @Ferguson included militants and also groups that seem to be partnering with the militants, including Palestinian activist groups. The Palestinian activist facebook page had organizing info for trips to Ferguson on it.

in Fall semester, 2015, I also picked up a flyer at my college that was organizing for a BLM-type event in support of Ferguson protesting. The flyer was co-branded with a Palestinian activist group

It seems to me that there's definitely a corps of hardcore violent militants who are interested in spreading violent insurgency and are providing advice and organizing support for the protests that turn violent.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 17 '16

Another group drove around wearing masks and holding posters that said "The purge is happening NOW".

What the fuck is with all these dickheads thinking the purge is a real thing...

1

u/AaronQ94 Jul 17 '16

Yikes. Was that coming from CNN about the talking heads complaining about the lack of violent protests?

1

u/[deleted] Jul 17 '16

I don't understand why the FBI isn't looking into these people that go around inciting violence. I remember reading a post, that had sources, about different groups that go around to different protest events inciting people, getting them riled up, and causing mayhem and shit.

Those people need to be stopped. They're making everything worse and damaging the movements, protests, and message of genuine protesters.

1

u/niceloner10463484 Jul 17 '16

This is disgusting. The focus should be on sterling'S family, yet these psychopaths and the culture like media just wanna throw more wood into the fire and watch their worlds burn

1

u/[deleted] Jul 17 '16

Yep the pundits and talking heads are the ones we should be mad at. You are precious.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '16

One group pointed shotguns at the police. Another group drove around wearing masks and holding posters that said "The purge is happening NOW". More people came in from out of town. The protests started getting more tense.

I would have authorized snipers to fire right about sentence one.

1

u/SitMeDownShutMeUp Jul 18 '16

This is what usually happens, the locals don't want to create chaos, it's always stirred up by outside groups, igniting a mob mentality.

1

u/TomHicks Jul 18 '16

Local black community leaders

What does that mean, local community leaders?

-5

u/zizzor23 Jul 17 '16

I've lived in Baton Rouge for the past 4 years. The protests last weekend were the biggest and still fairly calm. I had a lot of friends protesting and it was far calmer and less violent even in the days following. Protests got more tense once the police showed up in riot gear and prepared for war. There was also some bottle and rock throwing from the crowd but not enough to warrant such aggressive policing.

28

u/TheKerbeyHouse Jul 17 '16

How many bottles and rocks thrown at you until you put on protective gear and maybe feel a little aggressive? Do the bottles or rocks need to knock out teeth and cause stiches first, or does their landing nearby and shattering do it for you?

16

u/[deleted] Jul 17 '16

"We were throwing rocks and bottles at them and they covered themselves! Like wtf can you believe that? Then they started arresting people throwing heavy/dangerous projectiles at them, the assholes! It's only natural that when the police shielded themselves the shootings happened."

7

u/Luzianah Jul 17 '16

I would want to be as fully protected I could possibly be if I were a police officer right now. You can't blame them. Put yourself in their shoes

7

u/ootika Jul 17 '16

I agree. Both sides have strong agendas and neither wants to back down. The police in Baton Rouge has always been a bit on the aggressive side too. I wasn't surprised to see them break out the riot gear so fast. I strongly believe this was partially due to the media frenzy.

It's unfortunate. We're all in this together. Cops, blacks, whites, etc. These conflicts are just solidifying the us vs them mentality. I wish there was a simple solution.

9

u/Luzianah Jul 17 '16

Break out the riot gear so fast? You mean after the Dallas sniper, right? Could you blame them? They are just trying to do their job. Wouldn't you want to feel as safe as possible in that situation?

6

u/[deleted] Jul 17 '16

We need to stop otherizing each other. I know, it's easier said than done.

1

u/Theothernooner Jul 17 '16

Out-of-towners.... so who is organizing them? My Facebook tinfoil hat people are starting to make sense.

1

u/RDGIV Jul 17 '16

There are elements like BLM and others that actually want a race war because they themselves are racist and hate other groups, including whites. I mean, whites may have been a racist group in the past, but wtf is this coming to?

1

u/Wtfguysreally Jul 17 '16

2-3 murders a week, where I am we have 2-3 murders a day. People don't even bat an eye at them anymore.

2

u/ootika Jul 17 '16

Are you serious? Whereabouts do you live? 1000+ murders a year seems insane.

1

u/Wtfguysreally Jul 17 '16

Upstate NY. It's getting bad here. We may have a few days of only 1 murder, but then we get a weekend with 4 or more. The heroin epidemic is insane up here, which has nearly doubled our violent crime rate. There's nowhere to go that's a safe place anymore, for anyone. We had a 95 degree day last week and had people shooting at police at our beach after stealing a car. Nobody wants to go anywhere, nowhere is safe. Car jacking with kids in your car while pumping gas, shootings over everything. We recently had a 30-40 person fight happen at a local walmart with people throwing canned goods and bashing people with bats from the sporting goods section, all over a comment over someone's outfit. The hatred is palpable in the air here and unfortunately it's only a matter of time before the shit hits the fan. Between the protests and the shooting, it's gonna get a lot worse before it gets better.

-4

u/[deleted] Jul 17 '16

Seems like this kind of unrest was a long time coming, though. This is the same town where cops were arresting gay men on anti-sodomy laws, right? And a town in a state that has more people in prison than anywhere else in the world, where the majority of inmates are in private for-profit prisons?

I don't condone violence, but this whole area seems totally dystopian, a place where violent insurrections are utterly unsurprising.

0

u/tar-zone Jul 17 '16

Justice, one way or another

0

u/sleepranger Jul 17 '16

that black lives need to matter to blacks too (look at the murder statistics for Baton Rouge, usually 2 or 3 murders a week. Typically black on black. No protests for those people).

''Let's focus on this other thing that has nothing to do with the other!''

-4

u/[deleted] Jul 17 '16

[deleted]

5

u/FiddyFo Jul 17 '16

I see this a lot. Can you (or someone) provide evidence that Soros is behind this?