I’m sad to see that Minneapolis protests are turning into riots. But the police are at fault. They deliberately tear gassed peaceful protesters in clear hopes of escalating this to a riot situation, and huzzah, they got their wish. Now they get to pretend to be the victims.

The reason civil rights activists in the 60s had to go through extensive training in order to participate in non-violent demonstrations is it goes against every human instinct to not fight back when people, in this case the police, assault you.

For people who haven’t been trained as such, when they get tear gassed for peaceful protest, they start to think, why are we bothering to be peaceful when they tear gas us no matter what we do? The self-defense mechanism kicks in.

The police are doing what a lot of wife beaters do: Hit her and hit her and hit her until she hits back in self-defense, and then go crying to everyone about how she hit you.

These situations escalate, as well, because as soon as the police get violent, the people in the crowd committed to non-violence tend to go home. And so a check on people who are more likely to fight back is removed.

But the main thing to focus on is the cops. They deliberately provoked a riot so they could play the victims. Their duty is to protect and serve, but instead, they did everything they could to instigate a riot. Everyone involved should be fired.

Police did not have to escalate things into a riot by tear gassing peaceful protesters. We know police are capable of de-escalating against much more provocative protesters, because they did that over and over again with the armed Trumpers. https://www.salon.com/2020/05/27/i-cant-get-past-the-differences-between-the-minneapolis-blm-protest-and-anti-lockdown-protests/

Unlike the Minneapolis protesters Tuesday, the Trumpers did everything they could to provoke a police response: Showing up armed, screaming in their faces, threatening politicians. Police continued to de-escalate.

No, as I argued yesterday, police tear gassed the Minneapolis protesters not because they were a threat (they weren't), but in order to turn a peaceful protest into a shitshow. They got their wish. This is their fault.