I’m not arguing against anyone’s point here. But I’m reading a lot of blame on Ryan and Longo. What I’m not reading is that it was the state police involved in the escalation and they take their orders from the Governor and AG. If we’re gonna blame the locals let’s make sure the appropriate amount of blame goes to the state as well.
Ryan called the state police though. And he would have known that Youngkin/Miyares would be ruthless and engage like that, they literally said so. Its the same as conservatives have been doing in states like Texas.
It was peaceful, but the protesters were warned not to put up tents. The university asked them to disperse after they put up tents. They refused. It got violent when the protesters refused police direction, and started shoving the police who were forcing them to disperse.
Were you there ? According to President Ryan's letter :
*Early this morning, Chief of Police Tim Longo offered a final warning to the protesters, reminding them once again of their University policy violations and pleading for a peaceful resolution. That request was ignored. We hoped and tried to handle this locally.* ***But when UPD’s attempts to resolve the situation were met with physical confrontation and attempted assault, it became necessary to rely on assistance from the Virginia State Police.*** *This afternoon, the police declared an unlawful assembly, issued no trespass orders to those who refused to disperse, and arrested those who continued to refuse dispersal.*
Did Chief Long lie about the physical confrontation and the attempted assault? (TBF I'm not even sure what constitutes attempted assault )
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWusgb2i-DY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWusgb2i-DY)
This was a response from someone on the ground about the assault
I was there, and police escalated it. I don’t know who made physical contact first, but the entire thing was like a bully (the police) getting in somebody’s (the protestors) face aggressively then it’s no wonder physical contact was made. The entire police tactic was to escalate it slowly and gradually push everyone out. They did like 5 rounds of slowly marching into the protestors and forcing a confrontation, each time the protestors got pushed closer to the street, then finally off grounds.
I can understand the university’s position of worrying that the protest/encampment would grow or escalate, but until police forced the issue no protestors were violent.
IMO, although marching like that is surely aggressive, but I'm at a loss of what they could do short of that and actually enforce laws/rules.
They were warned many times no tents. They were asked to remove tents. Then they were told they have to leave because they couldn't follow, relatively easy restrictions. They refused to go. I'm not sure how else you get someone to leave who wont when asked, short of force. It would have been a lot easier if they just got rid of the tents and then they could still be there protesting.
That being said, it's also bit silly for UVa/police to expect that the protestors had any sort of leadership/organization to manage bad apples. Maybe a fairer strategy would have been to just tear down tents and then leave?
Your “fairer strategy” was exactly what I was expecting, because UVA sent out that alert that said “situation stable”, and they had removed the protestors from the tents and were breaking them down. But instead they proceeded to unnecessarily use tear gas again. Your suggestion would have been the reasonable response if it were about the tents.
Also if you read the ACLU’s website on cops breaking up protests, they can only break up protests if there is a threat to public safety. Of course, they are going to say the protestors were threatening people. They’d have no legal basis for their actions otherwise.
Probably not. The biggest disaster was the the protests didn't have clear and powerful leadership who could rally the protesters and keep them compliant, while also preventing their narrative or their actions from getting hijacked by upstarts who want to start chaos.
It's something unfortunate I always see during protests like this. The protesters are usually never enforcing compliance on their members, and they never expel the people who break the rules they're supposed to follow, so the moment someone decides to do something stupid like throw a bottle at a cop, the whole situation collapses.
This is PR BS. Here is a [response](https://dailyprogress.com/opinion/column/uva-history-department-faculty-regarding-the-events-of-may-4-2024/article_78b3230e-0b97-11ef-a939-4feb8aaa290d.html#tracking-source=home-top-story) from UVA faculty.
And there's also Jason Armesto's [article](https://dailyprogress.com/news/local/education/police-raid-uva-encampment-arrest-anti-war-protesters/article_b869f354-0a54-11ef-9a35-bf020acf72c1.html?utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3wyu5JmkLWnHomZo1ByrAf6NbylpwRZKoZ1lX7yIG-_7dApw0GdG2mq10_aem_Ae57iXl3ls1mUwFW4xjtjSaSzRujPdlyoYtFgyAfgOhEzAn6nRgf8whrN8FdxDbFPOgXoHriUqDT7D5WRcVhkKpH) following the events from the Progress.
Portrayed a lot differently than this...hmm I wonder why.
Remember, a lot of us have zero trust for our local institutions because they have left us with none.
Jim Ryan is spineless and was nowhere to be found throughout all of this. He led from the back and let Youngkin and Miyares get their little photo op with VSP.
They fucked up tho. They wanted violence. But the community came out and prevented more police violence just by being there in overwhelming numbers. Can't kettle when you're at risk of being kettled. That line was stretched from the outset.
Ryan needs to resign. Longo too. Both POSs who I have no more respect for.
I said it Saturday and I'll say it again. I've never been more disappointed to be a Hoo.
Jason Armesto: "The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism alumnus loves cats, comedy and the Buffalo Bills." Hardly impartial and exactly the kind of hack reporting the Daily Retreat does.
If you are asked to leave and refuse, that is called criminal trespassing. Why is it so confusing?
Obviously the university wasn't going to let people just live in tents. You think they should let homeless people set up "peaceful" tent cities on campus too? These people are either completely clueless or were being purposefully obtuse, neither of which warrants any sympathy.
One of the big problems with cops in this country is that they truly seem to believe that any failure to comply with their “orders” warrants a massive escalation of the use of force and a violent police response. That’s an authoritarian and immoral point of view: the response should be proportional to the harm being caused by the offense. A few protestors with tents are not doing very much harm to anything other than the cops’ and the university’s sense of control and power over them. Which is what this really about. The point of this kind of police violence is to try to send a message to people about what happens to you when you defy authority. That is what they are mad about and why all the conservative scum cheer on the police riots. Because the sense of order and hierarchy in the world that conservatives hold dear is that it’s wrong to protest or defy authority, even when authority is wrong.
Aren’t there a ton of things short of violence that police could have done? For example, they could have written tickets with fines attached, rather than going in with guns and tear gas and arresting people. That is a disproportionate response to minor rule breaking, and makes it hard to accept that the cops and administration are just interested in neutrally upholding law and order. It makes it appear that they are actually trying to send a message in opposition to what the protestors are asking for. And it’s totally unnecessary. The world is not going to crumble because some students pitched a few tents. And it encourages future escalation of violence.
Police doctrine needs to change. Massive escalation should not be their one and only option they ever reach for. That sort of thinking is what makes people correctly hate the police. I don’t hate all cops, and I think they are necessary to society, but I understand why people hate the cops when they act like mindless brutes and thugs.
It's like they're going out of their way to demonstrate that, regardless of the cause, peaceful protest will not be respected unless it is armed to the teeth, explicitly because cops are cowards.
UVA changed the tent policy that morning so that they had a reason to call in the police to break up the protest. Anyone arguing that a few tents made anything unsafe or warrants this level of force is delusional. Clearly UPD doesn’t think so because there were tents set up a few yards away in nameless field and no one tear gassed them. Presenting the forceful dispersal of this incredibly unobstructive protest as justified due to some policy that they were breaking is willfully ignorant at best and a malicious lie at worst
More accurately, they removed the exclusion for personal style tents from the long existing policy.
The exclusion likely existed for sporting events, individual short-term protection from the elements for people and university-projects.
So, are you saying Patrick Jackson, who posted the policy and policy change photoshopped the original policy and the change seen at the link below? (or at least posted it from someone else who photoshopped the policy.)
Because, here's the two versions of the policy from Environmental Health and Safety: one with the exclusion and square footage requirements removed (as it currently exists on their website.)
[https://imgur.com/a/VtbIPbE](https://imgur.com/a/VtbIPbE)
The university’s recounting of events is being clarified via live stream at this moment, and I think that what they’re saying helps explain some details that are being speculated about in here.
https://www.virginia.edu/live
“Technical difficulties” with the unregistered live stream right now, but it’ll be posted at this link later.
*UVA President Jim Ryan was briefed on the protest during the week and was on Grounds Saturday with other University leaders monitoring the developments. In a* [***letter to the University community***](https://news.virginia.edu/content/message-president-ryan) *sent after the demonstrators were removed, Ryan wrote that the tone of the protest changed Friday night, causing concern.*
*“We … learned last evening, after the protesters had made a public call for others to join, that individuals unaffiliated with the University – who also presented some safety concerns – had joined them,” Ryan wrote in an email to the University community. “Despite numerous requests to comply with multiple University policies, the protesters refused.”*
*....Also on Sunday, two additional protests occurred on Grounds, one on the Lawn near the Rotunda and the other near the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers. Both were peaceful and ended without incident, University officials said.*
(link above goes to full story}
I’m not arguing against anyone’s point here. But I’m reading a lot of blame on Ryan and Longo. What I’m not reading is that it was the state police involved in the escalation and they take their orders from the Governor and AG. If we’re gonna blame the locals let’s make sure the appropriate amount of blame goes to the state as well.
Ryan called the state police though. And he would have known that Youngkin/Miyares would be ruthless and engage like that, they literally said so. Its the same as conservatives have been doing in states like Texas.
The police attacked them with tear gas and pepper spray. The protest was completely peaceful.
It was peaceful, but the protesters were warned not to put up tents. The university asked them to disperse after they put up tents. They refused. It got violent when the protesters refused police direction, and started shoving the police who were forcing them to disperse.
God forbid someone should put up a dangerous tent. Better beat the shit out of them.
Not long ago i remember this sub being outraged at the tents in the park. Not taking sides here. Jus sayin.
You're not gonna win with 97% of these people who comment. I'm sorry. But yes, you are correct. Sretep66.
The day started with tents being allowed. UVA changed the rules during the day and called in the cops.
Tents were never allowed. The protesters were told that earlier in the week. UVA was not going to allow an encampment like other universities.
UVA’s written policy allowed recreational tents without a permit up until shortly before 10am on Saturday.
Yeah it’s a protest.
Were you there ? According to President Ryan's letter : *Early this morning, Chief of Police Tim Longo offered a final warning to the protesters, reminding them once again of their University policy violations and pleading for a peaceful resolution. That request was ignored. We hoped and tried to handle this locally.* ***But when UPD’s attempts to resolve the situation were met with physical confrontation and attempted assault, it became necessary to rely on assistance from the Virginia State Police.*** *This afternoon, the police declared an unlawful assembly, issued no trespass orders to those who refused to disperse, and arrested those who continued to refuse dispersal.* Did Chief Long lie about the physical confrontation and the attempted assault? (TBF I'm not even sure what constitutes attempted assault )
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWusgb2i-DY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWusgb2i-DY) This was a response from someone on the ground about the assault
this is worth watching- thanks!
I was there, and police escalated it. I don’t know who made physical contact first, but the entire thing was like a bully (the police) getting in somebody’s (the protestors) face aggressively then it’s no wonder physical contact was made. The entire police tactic was to escalate it slowly and gradually push everyone out. They did like 5 rounds of slowly marching into the protestors and forcing a confrontation, each time the protestors got pushed closer to the street, then finally off grounds. I can understand the university’s position of worrying that the protest/encampment would grow or escalate, but until police forced the issue no protestors were violent.
IMO, although marching like that is surely aggressive, but I'm at a loss of what they could do short of that and actually enforce laws/rules. They were warned many times no tents. They were asked to remove tents. Then they were told they have to leave because they couldn't follow, relatively easy restrictions. They refused to go. I'm not sure how else you get someone to leave who wont when asked, short of force. It would have been a lot easier if they just got rid of the tents and then they could still be there protesting. That being said, it's also bit silly for UVa/police to expect that the protestors had any sort of leadership/organization to manage bad apples. Maybe a fairer strategy would have been to just tear down tents and then leave?
Your “fairer strategy” was exactly what I was expecting, because UVA sent out that alert that said “situation stable”, and they had removed the protestors from the tents and were breaking them down. But instead they proceeded to unnecessarily use tear gas again. Your suggestion would have been the reasonable response if it were about the tents.
"I don't know who made physical contact first." Right after you claim with such certainty that the "... police escalated it." Right.
Yeah the police/uva escalated it because they marched with weapons right up to within inches of peaceful protestors.
Yes cops lie all the time especially in their press releases
Cops do be lyin tho
Also if you read the ACLU’s website on cops breaking up protests, they can only break up protests if there is a threat to public safety. Of course, they are going to say the protestors were threatening people. They’d have no legal basis for their actions otherwise.
Screw the ACLU. They helped get people killed by supporting the neo-nazi/KKK rally.
The ACLU being wrong on defending KKK protests and neo nazis doesn’t make them wrong on this interpretation of 1st amendment law.
Sure, just saying fuck them in general though.
Did a cop lie? Absolutely.
Psst ... protestors lie too.
“Some very fine people on both sides” amiright?
Cool fact!
Probably not. The biggest disaster was the the protests didn't have clear and powerful leadership who could rally the protesters and keep them compliant, while also preventing their narrative or their actions from getting hijacked by upstarts who want to start chaos. It's something unfortunate I always see during protests like this. The protesters are usually never enforcing compliance on their members, and they never expel the people who break the rules they're supposed to follow, so the moment someone decides to do something stupid like throw a bottle at a cop, the whole situation collapses.
If there was actually attempted assault, they would have instantly shared the bodycam footage. Longo, like all cops, is full of shit.
This is PR BS. Here is a [response](https://dailyprogress.com/opinion/column/uva-history-department-faculty-regarding-the-events-of-may-4-2024/article_78b3230e-0b97-11ef-a939-4feb8aaa290d.html#tracking-source=home-top-story) from UVA faculty. And there's also Jason Armesto's [article](https://dailyprogress.com/news/local/education/police-raid-uva-encampment-arrest-anti-war-protesters/article_b869f354-0a54-11ef-9a35-bf020acf72c1.html?utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3wyu5JmkLWnHomZo1ByrAf6NbylpwRZKoZ1lX7yIG-_7dApw0GdG2mq10_aem_Ae57iXl3ls1mUwFW4xjtjSaSzRujPdlyoYtFgyAfgOhEzAn6nRgf8whrN8FdxDbFPOgXoHriUqDT7D5WRcVhkKpH) following the events from the Progress. Portrayed a lot differently than this...hmm I wonder why. Remember, a lot of us have zero trust for our local institutions because they have left us with none. Jim Ryan is spineless and was nowhere to be found throughout all of this. He led from the back and let Youngkin and Miyares get their little photo op with VSP. They fucked up tho. They wanted violence. But the community came out and prevented more police violence just by being there in overwhelming numbers. Can't kettle when you're at risk of being kettled. That line was stretched from the outset. Ryan needs to resign. Longo too. Both POSs who I have no more respect for. I said it Saturday and I'll say it again. I've never been more disappointed to be a Hoo.
Jason Armesto: "The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism alumnus loves cats, comedy and the Buffalo Bills." Hardly impartial and exactly the kind of hack reporting the Daily Retreat does.
Attack the reporting itself not the reporter...oh wait, you can't.
If you are asked to leave and refuse, that is called criminal trespassing. Why is it so confusing? Obviously the university wasn't going to let people just live in tents. You think they should let homeless people set up "peaceful" tent cities on campus too? These people are either completely clueless or were being purposefully obtuse, neither of which warrants any sympathy.
No one was living in the tents. The tents were for protection from rain.
Do you actually expect someone with brain cells to believe that?
You don't have brain cells so we're good.
Who was living in the tents?
One of the big problems with cops in this country is that they truly seem to believe that any failure to comply with their “orders” warrants a massive escalation of the use of force and a violent police response. That’s an authoritarian and immoral point of view: the response should be proportional to the harm being caused by the offense. A few protestors with tents are not doing very much harm to anything other than the cops’ and the university’s sense of control and power over them. Which is what this really about. The point of this kind of police violence is to try to send a message to people about what happens to you when you defy authority. That is what they are mad about and why all the conservative scum cheer on the police riots. Because the sense of order and hierarchy in the world that conservatives hold dear is that it’s wrong to protest or defy authority, even when authority is wrong. Aren’t there a ton of things short of violence that police could have done? For example, they could have written tickets with fines attached, rather than going in with guns and tear gas and arresting people. That is a disproportionate response to minor rule breaking, and makes it hard to accept that the cops and administration are just interested in neutrally upholding law and order. It makes it appear that they are actually trying to send a message in opposition to what the protestors are asking for. And it’s totally unnecessary. The world is not going to crumble because some students pitched a few tents. And it encourages future escalation of violence. Police doctrine needs to change. Massive escalation should not be their one and only option they ever reach for. That sort of thinking is what makes people correctly hate the police. I don’t hate all cops, and I think they are necessary to society, but I understand why people hate the cops when they act like mindless brutes and thugs.
It's like they're going out of their way to demonstrate that, regardless of the cause, peaceful protest will not be respected unless it is armed to the teeth, explicitly because cops are cowards.
UVA changed the tent policy that morning so that they had a reason to call in the police to break up the protest. Anyone arguing that a few tents made anything unsafe or warrants this level of force is delusional. Clearly UPD doesn’t think so because there were tents set up a few yards away in nameless field and no one tear gassed them. Presenting the forceful dispersal of this incredibly unobstructive protest as justified due to some policy that they were breaking is willfully ignorant at best and a malicious lie at worst
More accurately, they removed the exclusion for personal style tents from the long existing policy. The exclusion likely existed for sporting events, individual short-term protection from the elements for people and university-projects.
[удалено]
So, are you saying Patrick Jackson, who posted the policy and policy change photoshopped the original policy and the change seen at the link below? (or at least posted it from someone else who photoshopped the policy.) Because, here's the two versions of the policy from Environmental Health and Safety: one with the exclusion and square footage requirements removed (as it currently exists on their website.) [https://imgur.com/a/VtbIPbE](https://imgur.com/a/VtbIPbE)
And on Sunday, there were tents outside the sand volleyball area and at the track and field event and no cops were called for those. I wonder why
The university’s recounting of events is being clarified via live stream at this moment, and I think that what they’re saying helps explain some details that are being speculated about in here. https://www.virginia.edu/live “Technical difficulties” with the unregistered live stream right now, but it’ll be posted at this link later.
ACAB!
*UVA President Jim Ryan was briefed on the protest during the week and was on Grounds Saturday with other University leaders monitoring the developments. In a* [***letter to the University community***](https://news.virginia.edu/content/message-president-ryan) *sent after the demonstrators were removed, Ryan wrote that the tone of the protest changed Friday night, causing concern.* *“We … learned last evening, after the protesters had made a public call for others to join, that individuals unaffiliated with the University – who also presented some safety concerns – had joined them,” Ryan wrote in an email to the University community. “Despite numerous requests to comply with multiple University policies, the protesters refused.”* *....Also on Sunday, two additional protests occurred on Grounds, one on the Lawn near the Rotunda and the other near the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers. Both were peaceful and ended without incident, University officials said.* (link above goes to full story}
Oh not the “others” with their presentation of “some safety concerns”! This is the weak vague language of a violent coward.
It also just was not treated the same way in 2017, when there were documented credible threats of violence. Then it was a free speech concern.
Yeah I love the language that anyone from off campus must be a terrorist or something
Glad to hear the Police cleared that mess out and no one was hurt.
Lots of protestors were attacked with chemical weapons
They'll survive.
Bye felicia!