One of life’s most basic lessons: don’t set stuff that doesn’t belong to you on fire.

Good. They are fucking criminals.

Excellent.

Rich, a more accurate headline for this post might be "Federal Charges Start Stacking Up for Firebugs in Seattle."

Oh, the crocodile tears shed by the mouth-breathing racists: "if only teh poor ded Coloreds would just do whatever teh po-po tell them to do, they'd all still be alive today."

Tell that to the families of:

George Floyd
Brionna Taylor
Eric Garner
John Crawford III
Michael Brown
Ezell Ford
Dante Parker
Michelle Cusseaux
Laquan McDonald
George Mann
Tanisha Anderson
Akai Gurley
Tamir Rice
Rumain Brisbon
Jerame Reid
Matthew Ajibade
Frank Smart
Natasha McKenna
Tony Robinson
Anthony Hill
Mya Hall
Phillip White
Eric Harris
Walter Scott
William Chapman II
Alexia Christian
Brendon Glenn
Victor Manuel Larosa
Jonathan Sanders
Freddie Gray
Joseph Mann
Salvado Ellswood
Sandra Bland
Albert Joseph Davis
Darrius Stewart
Billy Ray Davis
Samuel Dubose
Michael Sabbe
Brian Keith Day
Christian Taylor
Troy Robinson
Asshams Pharaoh Manley
Felix Kumi
Keith Harrison McLeod
Junior Prosper
Lamontez Jones
Patterson Brown
Dominic Hutchinson
Anthony Ashford
Alonzo Smith
Tyree Crawford
India Kager
La'Vante Biggs
Michael Lee Marshall
Jamar Clark
Richard Perkins
Nathaniel Harris Pickett
Benni Lee Tignor
Miguel Espinal
Michael Noel
Kevin Matthews
Bettie Jones
Quintonio Legrier
Keith Childress, Jr.
Janet Wilson
Randy Nelson
Antronie Scott
Wendell Celestine
David Joseph
Calin Roquemore
Dyzhawn Perkins
Christopher Davis
Marco Loud
Peter Gaines
Torrey Robinson
Darius Robinson
Kevin Hicks
Mary Truxillo
Demarcus Semer
Willie Tillman
Terrill Thomas
Sylville Smith
Alton Sterling
Philando Castile
Terrence Crutcher
Paul O'Neal
Alteria Woods
Jordan Edwards
Aaron Bailey
Ronell Foster
Stephon Clark
Antwon Rose II
Botham Jean
Pamela Turner
Dominique Clayton
Atatiana Jefferson
Christopher Whitfield
Christopher McCorvey
Eric Reason
Michael Lorenzo Dean
David McAtee
Dreasjon Reed
Michael Brent Charles Ramos
Manuel Elijah Ellis
Emantic Fitzgerald Bradford, Jr.
Charles Roundtree, Jr.
Chinedu Okobi
Saheed Vassell
Chad Robertson
Deborah Danner
Alfred Olango
Korryn Gaines
Corey Jones
Eric Courtney Harris
Meagan Hockaday
Janisha Fonville
Victor White
Gabriella Nevarez
Yvette Smith
McKenzie Cochran
Jordan Baker
Andy Lopez
Miriam Carey
Barrington Williams
Jonathan Ferrell
Carlos Alcis
Larry Eugene Jackson, Jr.
Kyam Livingston
Clinton Allen
Kimani Gray
Kayla Moore
Jamaal Moore, Sr.
Johnnie Kamahi Warren
Shelly Marie Frey
Darnisha Diane Harris
Timothy Russell
Malissa Williams
Noel Palanco
Reynaldo Cuevas
Chavis Carter
Alesia Thomas
Shantel Davis
Sharmel T. Edwards
Tamon Robinson
Ervin Lee Jefferson
Kendrec McDade
Rekia Boyd
Shereese Francis
Jersey K. Green
Wendell James Allen
Nehemiah Lazar Dillard
Dante' Lamar Price
Raymond Luther Allen, Jr.
Manuel Levi Loggins, Jr.
Ramarley Graham
Kenneth Chamberlain, Sr.
Alonzo Ashley, Jr.
Kenneth Harding, Jr.
Derek Williams
Raheim Brown, Jr.
Reginald Doucet
Derrick Jones
Danroy Henry, Jr.
Aiyana Mo'Nay Stanley-Jones\
Steven Eugene Washington
Aaron Campbell
Kiwane Carrington
Victor Steen
Shem Walker
Oscar Grant III
Tarika Wilson
DeAunta Terrel Farrow
Sean Bell
Kathryn Johnston
Ronald Curtis Madison
James B. Brissette, Jr.
Henry Glover
Timothy Stansbury, Jr.
Ousmane Zongo
Alberta Spruill
Kendra Sarie James
Orlando Barlow
Timothy DeWayne Thomas, Jr.
Ronald Beasley
Earl Murray
Patrick Moses Dorismond
Prince Carmen Jones, Jr.
Malcolm Ferguson
LaTanya Haggerty
Margaret LaVerne Mitchell
Amadou Diallo
Tyisha Shenee Miller
Dannette Daniels
Frankie Ann Perkins
Nicholas Heyward, Jr.
Mary Mitchell
Yvonne Smallwood
Eleanor Bumpers
Michael Jerome Stewart
Eula May Love
Arthur Miller, Jr.
Randolph Evans
Rita Lloyd
Henry Dumas
The Unborn Child of Charleena Lyles

Say their names. Then think about how many names we don't even know.

Federal prison has draconian mandatory minimums and no parole assholes. Stop destroying our city.

Property damage is a legitimate form of protest against systemic racism. All of these charged protestors have done more good for society than any of the pigs who were assaulting them for daring to crit6icize them. Fuck the police, and the boot-lickers who support them.

Why is property damage never an appropriate response to murder, but murder is an appropriate response to property damage (don't worry, I don't expect any of you right wing nut jobs gunning for the murder of black people to answer that). I'm with #13.

Fuck all of you. Fuck the feds. Fuck the police. Fuck white supremacist terrorism.

The damage caused by the Feds in Portland is by far much more extreme, far reaching, and long lasting than any of the graffiti or other property damage blamed on the protesters. The feds contaminated the water supply, FFS. Imagine the long term health effects of being exposed to those chemicals, illegal chemicals, used by the Feds on the health of the people protesting the murder of George Floyd, so many others they can't even be named in one place, and the brutality of so-called law enforcement.

The Feds and the police are the real criminals. They are the murderers. They are the ones violating the Constitutional rights of others. The Feds and the police are the ones who need to be sued into oblivion and defunded into non-existence.

@18:

Yeah, scalping sounds like a thing you'd totes be into, racist.

Translation: outside agitators from Red States (Alaska is a Red State).

If they don't actually live in Seattle, don't trust them to care about Seattle.

Caveat: this also describes many top police.

Try to set a building on fire and you go to prison. It's not hard to understand.

Property damage is never an appropriate response to murder because it is a separate crime and one crime does not justify another. For example, if you murder my child, I cannot murder you in response. I have to rely on the State to catch and prosecute the murderer. If I instead resort to self-help and kill the killer, I can be charged with murder, and I cannot use the original murder I was reacting to as a defense. One crime does not justify another. In other words, if someone commits murder, they should be prosecuted for it. If someone damages property, they should be prosecuted for it. If someone claims to have damaged property because someone else committed murder, that “justification” should be disregarded. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

As @18 just explained, the second part of your question is based on a false premise. Murder is not an appropriate response to property damage. In fact, no one, including police officers, are permitted to use deadly force in defense of property. However, the police are authorized to arrest people for stealing or destroying property. Any other rule would permit theft and property destruction without consequence. Moreover, if, in the course of legitimately trying to arrest someone for property destruction, a suspect puts an officer in reasonable fear of serious bodily injury, deadly force would be authorized in response to that threat. So, it’s really self-defense, not defense of property that justifies homicide in this scenario. If someone merely destroys property and never presents a physical threat to anyone, killing that person could be separately charged as murder. Same rationale as above.

Let me guess: no one here gloating over the charges against David-Pitts has posted anything critical about the homicidal militia guy who went to Kenosha and killed two people, or criticized the Kenosha police for encouraging the militia guy. Is that about right?

@33:

Are you just as laser-focused on the tens of thousands of white people killed by other white people every year?

Please let's not pretend we're talking about the law.

Cops murder Black people and there is NO JUSTIFICATION UNDER ANY LAW that justifies that. NOTHING that any person does allows a cop to murder you. See every armed white male who has ever been arrested, even after shooting at cops, ALIVE. Cops do not have a right to murder you, no matter what you have done. That's why courts of law exist, to mete out so-called justice and punishment for crimes committed.

Destruction of property in response to the never ending stream of murders of Black people by cops IS an appropriate response. A riot is the language of the unheard.
But let's be REALLY CLEAR about FACTS.

99% of the protests in response to the murder of Black people in this country have been non-violent and did not involve property damage.

They DID, however, involve:

MORE police brutality on every possible level (other than outright murder, though cops drove vehicles into crowds, shoved protesters down and caused grievous bodily harm - like the man in Buffalo who has brain damage, etc.).

Property damage done by white supremacist terrorists who have infiltrated the protests.

https://www.justsecurity.org/70497/far-right-infiltrators-and-agitators-in-george-floyd-protests-indicators-of-white-supremacists/

https://www.voanews.com/usa/whos-behind-violence-george-floyd-protests-us

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/authorities-suspect-white-supremacists-and-far-left-extremists-are-behind-violence-at-protests/

https://www.theroot.com/umbrella-man-seen-causing-property-damage-during-early-1844535658

And Kyle Rittenhouse shot people and murdered people and the police drove on by and he went home and slept in his bed.

How many times have cops pretended they were protecting property (or responding to theft of property or illegal sale of property or a Black person being on or in property where they did not belong, even when it was their very own home)?

@36:

Well darn, you're right! I guess you racists are going to have to burn those crosses on your own front lawns from now on...

Facebook reportedly knew of racist 'call to arms' event before 2 Jacob Blake protesters killed
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/8/27/1972835/-Facebook-reportedly-knew-of-racist-call-to-arms-event-before-2-Jacob-Blake-protesters-killed

This is the Kenosha shooter being offered water from the Kenosha police.
"We appreciate you being here."
The police is working with the shooting militia. We need to abolish the police. They aren't helping.
https://twitter.com/berniebromanny/status/1298509857134465025

White Vigilantes Have Always Had A Friend In Police
New data shows that far-right vigilantes, often with support from cops, have threatened protesters nearly 500 times since police killed George Floyd.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/white-vigilantes-kenosha_n_5f4822bcc5b6cf66b2b5103e

@39:

That's because you and your racist ilk automatically assume that all white lives matter - except of course when one of your white racist comrades has his mom drive him across state lines to kill a couple of white people who were absolutely no threat to him - otherwise, it's a given to you, because you see everything from your white racist perspective.

@40 Kyle Rittenhouse did not defend himself. He took a gun he did not legally own or have the right to open carry, took it across state lines, walked the streets with it, shot one person (which started people who witnessed it to start yelling "he shot someone, he shot someone!" and some people chased after him to stop him and he shot two more people, murdering them, one he shot directly in the face). Then he walked with the gun slung around his body, hands up, toward two massive vehicles full of police with police walking along side and they did not stop him, they drove and walked right past him. He then returned home and slept in his bed and was arrested the next day. He has been charged with 6 felony charges, two of which are first degree murder. You pretending that this white supremacist terrorist murdered people in self-defense is just typical racist shit baggery from you.

Philando Castile was shot and killed in his car (he was the passenger) when stopped by a cop for a supposed broken tail light. He had a legal right to own a firearm and a legal right to carry it. He informed the cop that there was a gun in the vehicle. He was cooperating with the officer by getting his identification to give to the officer when he was murdered by the cop.

The relentless justification of the murder of Black people and the relentless support and reasonable doubt given to white supremacist terrorists (even in the face of clear, clean, proof positive video) by people in this country is a level of psychopathic phenomena that is incomprehensible. No other modern, industrialized country murders its own citizens at such an astronomical rate, in the name of the ideology of racism / white supremacy (a delusional belief for which there is no basis in scientific or biological fact).

@40 NYT gives a good breakdown of what happened in the videos here:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/us/kyle-rittenhouse-kenosha-shooting-video.html

@47 You need to read the NYT article, he did not fire first. The person that fired first shot up into the air, but Kyle was being chased and turned in another direction, so he could reasonably assume that they were firing at him. So he turned around and shot the man chasing him (not on video). He calls 911 but the crowd starts moving toward him so he runs away on the street and falls, someone starts hitting him with a skateboard, and he shoots him as well, then the third guy comes up with a pistol in hand and Kyle wounds him in the arm.

One may be able to argue murder charges for the 2nd victim, but with the third guy walking up with a gun it would be very difficult.

Cue in name calling by the Professor ↓

@54 none of what you wrote shows this shooting warrants murder charges. You obviously didn't read the NYT article because they very clearly show the gun fire into the air.
Lastly I not writing his long as name out a bunch of times but want to be clear because there were multiple shooters.

I'm* damn autocorrect

If they were simply peaceful protesters, as Richie boy loves to say, there wouldn't be federal charges. Start using the term rioters and the federal charges will suddenly make sense to you.

While the GoFundMe for Kyle Rittenhouse was taken down, the organization defending Kyle is called fightback.law, and you can donate on their web site. I've already donated and am setting up an automatic billpay on ever payday. We the People need to fight back. Please do your part and pay your fair share.

Sorry everyone, if you want to break windows, spray paint stuff, loot, that’s your thing. It’s been going on forever. I personally think it might be time for a new approach, but that’s just me.

Setting a building on fire - and especially setting a building with people in it on fire, and especially, especially blocking egress for those people from that building you set on fire - is just as evil as the evil you claim to be protesting. Plus, that is putting the lives of the firefighters - who, thus far at least, have been neutral if not sympathetic - at risk, and that is evil with raisins. It’s Martin Pang territory. Paul Kenneth Keller territory. Whoever torched the Ozark Hotel territory.

People truly protesting police brutality and for Black Lives are better than that. Don’t be a dork.

Nobody seems to get it that right wing destruction doesn’t justify left wing destruction. They just make each other worse. Two wrongs ...

And BTW gun-toters, if the State is against you, you will not defeat it.

Lets not hand Trump more visuals.

@13: You forgot Lorenzo Anderson and Antonio Mays, Jr. Each died of gunshot wounds suffered in the Capitol Hill Useless Murder Patch, because Seattle Police had abandoned the nearby East Precinct.

Say their names!

David dear, like all of the simple-minded cliches that Trump uses to woo people like you, he didn’t come up with that looting starts/shooting starts thing. He stole that from a 1960’s era Miami mayor, and it was a bit much, even then.

Don’t you ever get tired of being played for a sucker, David? I know that some people are born to it, but you have a job in Seattle! If you want to get ahead and get out of the inner ring suburbs you’ve got to be sharper than this!

@60 Good luck proving that beyond a reasonable doubt. If he shot first, then it'd be more likely but every video I've seen he's running away. You should really watch the videos/read the article. He shouldn't have been there but thats not a murder charge. He may rightfully be charged with crimes relating carrying a gun.

@82 they are also taking away knives

Racial justice can’t be found when you support vandalism, looting, riots, and murder. These businesses and their employees are not responsible for the deaths so why are they suffering the consequences. I can’t support any groups that help shield these people from justice as it doesn’t help the cause. If anything it tells people, cops are awful to us so we’ll be more awful, does that help fight against racism or is it a contest to see who can be more horrible?

@88. So if the people Rittenhouse shot weren’t choirboys, he had the right to shoot them? No.

Why did this guy, from Anchorage, come down to seattle during a global pandemic to set fire to our community?

And why the f*ck is the stranger reporting this? Also, can we talk about the name of your paper? Why are you named after Camus's least interesting work, which chronicles a white person who killed a person of color in cold blood and didn't have the humanity to even repent? You do realize that the main character of The Stranger was neither sympathetic nor a hero, right?

I love some of the reporting you all do. But I'm less and less interested in supporting you as this endless year rolls onwards.

And what is this f*cking word salad: "Republican states do Republican things and money's going to put us to waste. That’s heart."

@DuckFart

There is no justification for an American to kill another American under any circumstance. And the fact that you think it might be okay for a minor to carry an assault rifle because they happen to be accompanied by someone else.. well, you truly have shit for brains.

Thanks for the link to a radio station that runs Fox News. Truly an objective source of information. I love this country, but sometimes I cannot stand how f*cking stupid and heartless my fellow Americans are.

This is all so sad. Americans doing mental gymnastics to justify and normalize the murder of their fellow citizens. Damn. What happened to us?

@13 COMTE: Thank you for listing the grim reminder of what is far too many innocent people to be killed by police (in addition to the SPD). I'm surprised though that you left out Charleena Lyles, herself--mother of four and pregnant with who would have been her fifth child. Lyles had reported a burglary before getting shot by police. You listed many that I was sadly unaware of until now.
Say their names, people!

@68: Riiiiiiiight, Doofy. Still out protecting your free dumbs?

@36 & @97: Down, Muffy, down.

@21, @98: Hush, lil MAGAs, don't say a word.
Trumpty's getting ousted November 3rd.

Long time reader here. Since the early '90's. First time caller.

What a different a month or two makes. Not that long ago The Stranger was full of people falling over themselves writing comments about how cool all this BLM etc rioting was. Stick it to The Man etc. Like it was the 1960s' all over again.

But now The Stranger is full of people writing comments about how stupid and horrible the situation is as reality sinks in and they see both Cap' Hill and Downtown gutted and dying and the only people still screaming political slogans (cliches) are a few loons, trust fund babies, and adolescent kids obviously from some suburb who have not lived in Seattle very long.

You guys are slow learners but you got there. Eventually. It only took the guys down in Berkeley a few nights at the start of this, of roving looters coming off I-80 and repeatedly looting downtown, for them to start talking about arming up and defending themselves. That what was being discussed in the local equivalent of The Stranger at the time.

As for the future it aint pretty. Those who remember Cap' Hill in the '80's will know what I am talking about. But Downtown is screwed. Totally screwed. This will be far worse than the 1970's. It took the city almost twenty years to recover from that economic catastrophe.

Oh I forgot, almost everyone causing the trouble and trashing the city is not from Seattle. Only moved to the city recently. Or basically tourists. Here for only a few years. So wont have a clue what I am talking about.

The way things are going now, the hothead anarchists etc.that attach themselves to every BLM march are well on the way to costing the Democrats the election. If you want four more years of Trump, keep up the Every Day March, trying to burn down the police stations and all that stuff. And then, four more years of Trump is yours!

@101 errantbonehead: SPD officers shot a pregnant woman who reported a burglary in her Seward Park home, who was brandishing a kitchen knife in self defense (Charleena's own sister was quoted in The Seattle Times saying that she 'could take [her sister, Charleena] down'. Lyles' family had filed suit against the SPD for wrongful killing).
Are you functionally illiterate or are you just happy to stupidly troll me?
Be careful who you call shit for brains, lil MAGA troll.

@105: You're not trolling me. Riiiiiiiiight. YOU'RE too much of a self-righteous pigfuck to be wrong. Fine. The location was Magnuson Park. What I had read was that Charleena Lyles, mother of four and pregnant with who would have her fifth child reported a burglary. You keep saying she "drew SPD officers in with a false police report". I am going with an article printed in The Seattle Times. Lyles' own surviving family members had been interviewed, and filed suit against the SPD for wrongful murder. Feel free to double check back articles of The Seattle Times re June 18, 2017, herrboob.

Cops still killing people daily? Cool, cool, cool #america #fascism

@107: Are you aware that the late Charleena Lyles, age 30 (on June 18, 2017) was in an abusive relationship? She and her children were subject to domestic violence. With the long history of African Americans being killed by white police officers, her state of unchecked mental illness, and toxic situation at home, is it any wonder she went on the defensive? And her children now have the traumatic memories associated of watching their mother die in front of them, shot by SPD officers.

You must be a fat, balding housebound incel who hates women because he can't get a date. Let that sink in, errorboob.

@110: How can one "commit suicide by cop" and it's not a MURDER??
I hope YOU don't have any children due to sterility, herrbozo.
I'm openly laughing at your banal stupidity because it further proves you can't get a date just to get out of your mother's basement for one lousy Taco Tuesday.

@110: Oh. That's it. You've still got a few years before you can legally drive and mom will let you use the car. Bummer.

"I fought the law and the law won."

Robert Gaston Fuller
(10/22/42-07/18/66)

@113: Since when has The Law needed military assault weapons on civilians? My guess is ever since the NRA has been allowed to run amok.

@114: What do you and your little brother, Blues Boy @113 consider as being beaten? You're still here, trolling, MAGA tools. Cop to it, if you can. I say you can't because I already nailed you and others of your pathetic ilk: fat, balding, wildly screaming cowardly RepubliKKKan incels who hate women because you can't get a date.
Now go back to your Gameboy and wank off before your mom calls you in to dinner.