Return of the ‘60s?
Videos show an alarming number of citizens and journalists assaulted and intimidated by police during protests, causing more anger. It could be a long, hot summer, similar to 1968.
During the 1960s civil rights protests throughout the South, the tide turned when images of police using tear gas, clubs, attack dogs, and fire hoses on demonstrators hit the evening news, shocking millions of viewers across the country.
Today, many people don’t focus as much attention on the evening news, but get more immediate updates in videos and social media feeds, often based on their political biases. And most aren’t shocked as easily. Therefore, it’s harder to arouse indignity about a cause, although the video showing George Floyd’s vicious death at the knees of Minneapolis police certainly mobilized many more people to take action against the societal racism and institutional brutality that have occurred for centuries.
Even so, a significant amount of people — mostly Trump supporters — remain unmoved, ignoring the problems. Only 29 percent of Republican voters said they were more concerned about Floyd’s death than protests that have been marked by police and demonstrators violence, compared with 81 percent of Democrats, according to an NBC News poll released June 7. Some GOP officials have even claimed the death of Floyd was staged just to hurt Trump.
In an alarming trend, police are making the protesters’ case about brutality better than they do, giving many people firsthand experience. Many are first-time white protesters getting quite the educational experience into how many black Americans live. The stories of police attacks are heart-breaking, the videos difficult to watch.
In Washington, D.C., park police attacked Black Lives Matter peaceful protesters without warning, firing pepper balls that contained a chemical irritant similar to tear gas. The pepper spray pellets were fired at about the same speed as rubber bullets and can cause even greater pain on impact. In 2004, a Boston officer killed a young woman by hitting her in the eye with one.
In Columbus, Ohio, 20-year-old Sarah Grossman died on May 30 after getting tear gassed by police. Tear gas was outlawed in international warfare in 1997 but still deemed legal to use by US police on citizens. While the official…
