I was glued to my TV last night watching the protests and riots in major cities around the US. CNN was covering Minneapolis, St. Paul, New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Dallas, etc.
I was so impressed by the courageousness of the reporters on the streets, surrounded by protesters. They were there in the midst of the violence - with the flash bangs, the tear gas, the pepper spray, the fires, the looting, etc.
In Minneapolis Sara Sidner has been a combat reporter, but even still, her calm was amazing. That's a fire behind her. She had already followed the protesters for miles at that point. She kept going. In the studio, Chris Cuomo was encouraging her and the others to be safe, but you could tell she was holding together just fine.
At the CNN building in Atlanta, Nick Valencia was right behind the front line of police protecting the building from looters. It got really intense as the protestors kept throwing rocks and such at the police. Nick and the crew were hit with BB gun bullets and debris. Luckily, the police eventually got the crowd back outside and the building was "safe" again.
Outside of the White House in Washington, DC I was afraid the crowd was going to get past the barricade and fence. We would have seen serious violence if they got onto the lawn of the White House. The Secret Service was there with the police, protecting the President. The crowd kept taking the barricades and then getting in the face of the authorities. Some protestors had to calm down other protesters. For a while, reporter Brian Todd was trapped in the middle of that angry mob.
Dallas received very little coverage, which made me hopeful that things would remain peaceful near me; I live in the suburbs outside of Dallas. Eventually things got tense. Ed Lavandera, the reporter in Dallas, ended up getting tear gassed along with the crowd and had to flee for a while. I went onto Twitter, since CNN wasn't covering much in Dallas, and saw videos of Dallas stores being looted. Apparently construction crews had left bricks out in piles and the protestors were using them.
Here's a report from one man who lives in Downtown Dallas, breaking down the timeline of violence from his point of view:
https://www.dmagazine.com/frontburner/2020/05/a-timeline-of-downtown-dallas-plunging-into-chaos/
It's sad and scary to see all of the violence breaking out in major cities in our country. The news is already showing confrontations in Chicago with protestors and the police; I saw the police using their batons to beat back protestors after the police cars were vandalized. Philadelphia, New York City, Los Angeles, and Newark are already looking packed with protestors in the streets. I'm afraid it's going to get even worse tonight. Hopefully it'll end after this weekend, but I feel like the authorities can only be patient for so long.
I was surprised to see that police prefer to retreat and abandon areas than to use lethal force. They use nonlethal weapons to corral and try to control the movements of the protestors, but in many places they were just outnumbered too much and let the protestors have the streets; that's when some of the looting happened. Minneapolis looks like a war zone with lots of buildings burned down. Eventually though, the authorities will be forced to use lethal force to defend themselves or residential areas. And that's when all out chaos could erupt.
Supposedly there will be more National Guard out to help the police. I'm not sure what that will accomplish. We need leadership in this nation. We need swift action taken. The police officers who were involved in killing George Floyd need to all be arrested and charged.
Stay safe out there!
Edit:
It's only about 5:20 pm in Texas, which is about 3:20 in California and it looks like a war zone in LA:
Police were beating back protestors with batons and firing their rubber bullets. Reporter Paul Vercammen was in a boxed in area between police, holding and/or pushing back people until the police cars were set on fire and started exploding. Then the protestors fled back from the dangerous smoke. It's going to be a long, long weekend and now I fear this is going to continue into next week.
I guess I won't be heading into downtown areas anytime soon.
Again, stay safe out there!
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