Daily thread for news/updates/discussion of George Floyd protests - June 20

Nooses found in NYC park

He said officers asked him not to take any more photographs, noting the scene was part of an active investigation.

Is that how that works? I don't think that's how it works.

NYPD spokesman Sgt. Vincent Marchese later told Gothamist that a commanding officer believed the apparent nooses were actually "a nylon type string to hold a piñata."

It's a noose. It's a fucking noose.

Besides that you can use a simpler knot to hold up a piñata, is their theory really that someone had a party with a piñata, was conscientious enough to clean up the broken pinata pieces, untie the rest of it from the noose...but then too lazy to clean up the noose itself?

Seattle: One dead, one in critical condition in early morning shooting at Capitol Hill protest zone known as CHOP (formerly the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone).

The US public's opinion on 'defund the police'

there’s some disagreement about what exactly the slogan means. Some activists actually do want to disband police departments entirely, while others argue that police budgets should be radically decreased, but not brought down to zero. But even among those who want to abolish the police, some say they want to do so over time.

But while the slogan is suddenly everywhere, so far it doesn’t poll well. Four polls conducted in the past two weeks1 found that Americans opposed the “defund the police” movement or “defunding police departments” 58 percent to 31 percent, on average.

Most Americans balk at defunding the police
Recent polls asking people whether they support or oppose the “defund the police” movement or “defunding police departments”

DATES	POLLSTER	SUPPORT	OPPOSE
June 14-16	The Economist/YouGov	24%	53%
June 12-14	Morning Consult/Politico	28	58
June 10-11	ABC News/Ipsos	34	64
June 9-10	Reuters/Ipsos*	39	57
Average	(All of the above, this one's mine)	31	58

_{*Question only asked of those who said they were very or somewhat familiar with the “defund the police” movement. All polls are of adults, except the Morning Consult/Politico poll, which is of registered voters.}

_{SOURCE: POLLS}

The slogan is unpopular with most demographic groups, too, with two notable exceptions: Black Americans and Democrats. In the two polls where results were broken down by race, Black respondents said they supported defunding the police by an average of 45 percent to 28 percent, while white respondents opposed it by an average of 61 percent to 23 percent. This is in line with other polls that have consistently shown that white people mostly see police in a favorable light, while Black people are likelier to have experienced mistreatment at officers’ hands and take the problem of police violence seriously. So what we’re seeing here may be another reflection of Black and white Americans’ different experiences with police.

However, in those very same polls formatting not mine in this case, check the article , some of these policy ideas enjoy far more backing among the American public than the slogan does — though the level of support does vary pretty widely depending on the details of the proposal.

For instance, when Reuters/Ipsos queried people about “proposals to move some money currently going to police budgets into better officer training, local programs for homelessness, mental health assistance, and domestic violence,” 76 percent of people who were familiar with those proposals supported them, while only 22 percent opposed.

Overall, questions that seemed to emphasize how police departments would be affected found less support.

Related:

A new poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation highlighted many of the ways Americans are treated differently because of their race. A full 71 percent of non-Hispanic Black respondents said they had been subjected to discrimination or violence because of their race, including 48 percent who said they had feared for their lives. For non-Hispanic white respondents, those numbers were 23 percent and 16 percent, respectively.

"Yeesh."

3 articles from Minnesota:

Group wants to turn burned Minneapolis Police Third Precinct into civil rights museum
Protesters Demanded Police Reform. Minnesota Lawmakers Left Without Passing a Bill.
A second Minneapolis ex-officer charged in George Floyd's death is released from jail

Black man's fatal shooting by white security guard at Tulsa motel leads to charges

The guard claimed he shot in self-defense because he was being attacked, a Tulsa police lieutenant said. "You don't get to pick a fight and claim self-defense," he said.

"Based on our investigation, we discovered that the victim was walking past the suspect's vehicle when the suspect emerged and sprayed the victim with pepper spray, seemingly without warning," the statement said.

Straight and Carson got into a fight and Straight pulled out a pistol and shot Carson, who died at the scene, according to the police statement.