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Comment by partiallypro | Hacker News Reader

A lot of the lawlessness we are seeing is a direct result of us just standing idly by last summer when Manhattan was ransacked and cities had properties burned all over with windows knocked out everywhere. I even think (controversial opinion) that that lawlessness was a "green light" for what happened on January 6th. Why wouldn't you think if you see DC helicopter video of several blocks aflame in DC that you could storm the Capitol? Seems fairly rational to me (though wrong.) I don't think the "broken window theory" is 100% right, but there is certainly something to it. Instead of letting up on drug prosections, we've let some actual criminals go free, something I simply don't understand. Minor property descrtuction and theft can snowball.

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I witnessed the 2020 protests firsthand and saw no looting or riotous behavior; only marching. Commercial theft seems to have been, overwhelmingly, performed by opportunists and not the protesters themselves, and only one actual property fire was recorded[1].

This is in direct contrast to the efficient cause of the riots during January 6th, which was political and not opportunistic in nature. Attempting to discharge the responsibility of those involved in the latter by appealing to the former is distasteful, to say the least.

[1]: https://citylimits.org/2020/06/09/how-widespread-was-violenc...

To me the comparison is very accurate. On both occasions there were mostly peaceful protests and some opportunist. The fact that you call one a protest and another a riot is quite telling of your bias.

The key observation is that the NY protests had two discrete groups: protestors, and opportunists.

There was no such distinction during J6: the opportunists who did storm the Capitol and menace our legislative branch started as protestors, and promoted themselves to riotous behavior when the opportunity presented itself.

> I witnessed the 2020 protests firsthand and saw no looting or riotous behavior;

No, you witnessed a tiny portion of the protests.

I personally know of business owners whose businesses were looted, literally just local store owners.

I am not denying that stores were looted, or excusing looting.

Read the comment carefully: the distinction is between protesters and opportunists, with the latter not being protestors. There is no evidence that protestors individually or collectively engaged in looting.

Are you going to make the same distinction for all the peaceful protesters on January 6th who never entered the Capitol? Because if not I don't really see a difference.

Actually, I do make that distinction, and I think most people do as well. I'm not particularly enthused about the initial protest, but I would not characterize the protestors who did not enter the Capitol (and did not encourage others to do so) as "rioters."

I haven’t heard of any investigation, much less charges leveled, of people who protested but did not enter the Capitol.

People who might know of / ultimately be charged with incitement have been subpoenaed, but again, I don’t know of any charges. Anyone pressing such charges will have to show a clear line between first amendment speech and not, so they are going to be careful not to waste their time.

I and all my personal friends make that distinction about both sets of events. Regardless - reading a thoughtful, honest post that you happen to disagree with on some ideological level, and projecting your internal image of a hypocritical political enemy onto them by extrapolating to things they didn't say, is one of the most common forms of conversation poison.

> projecting your internal image of a hypocritical political enemy onto them by extrapolating to things they didn't say, is one of the most common forms of conversation poison.

Can you explain how they did this?

> I witnessed the 2020 protests firsthand and saw no looting or riotous behavior;

If that isn’t meant to imply there wasn’t any looting, then why did you add it?

The rest of what you said is just about definitions and is irrelevant to the facts of what happened.

“There is no evidence that protesters engaged in looting”

That’s because you use a different name for the people who did. You have no way to be certain nobody who looted wasn’t also there to protest, so the labelling doesn’t mean anything.

In aggregate the protests unquestionably led to looting that wouldn’t otherwise have happened. The fact that not all protesters were looters is irrelevant. The looting was part of the protesting, even if not all protesters supported it.

> If that isn’t meant to imply there wasn’t any looting, then why did you add it?

Because there's a falsehood in the original post: that protestors were somehow responsible for the riotous behavior. The original post then goes on to use that falsehood to justify a different instance of riotous behavior, except that the specifics are inverted: the protestors and rioters during J6 were in the same crowd.

The labeling means a lot in terms of the legitimacy and legacy of the single largest American civil rights protests in the last 50 years. I'm proud of the ways that hundreds of thousands of New Yorks peacefully and righteously comported themselves during the protests, and I do not want their legacy unduly influenced by opportunists. We should judge them not by others' actions.

Right - so you are trying to use language to separate the actions of the protesters from the actions of the looting.

I don’t think it’s that simple. The riots only happened because of the protests. The protests interfered with the police response, and the protesters didn’t stop the looting themselves.

That doesn’t make the protesters into looters, but it does mean that the looting was a side effect of the protests and the protesters bear some responsibility for that.

The protesters actions had consequences, one of which was to enable looting and the destruction of people’s livelihoods.

I’m fine if you want to say that the cost was worth it to make this political statement, but I think it’s ludicrous to pretend that the looting would have happened without the protesters.

> That doesn’t make the protesters into looters, but it does mean that the looting was a side effect of the protests and the protesters bear some responsibility for that.

This is a chilling and dangerous responsibility to burden protestors with: are we to argue that every single person who protested peacefully outside of the Capitol on J6 is responsible for the rioters and insurrectionists who stormed in? They did, after all, interfere with the police response and provide moral support for the single greatest outrage against our government in nearly two centuries.

Our cultural and legal standards of free speech enshrine protest, and ensure that protestors are not vilified for actions that are not theirs. I do not think we should undermine that.

> are we to argue that every single person who protested peacefully outside of the Capitol on J6 is responsible for the rioters and insurrectionists who stormed in?

Didn't the government already decide the answer to this is "yes", though, by filing criminal charges against people just for being there?

> This is a chilling and dangerous responsibility to burden protestors with:

No it’s not. It’s simply a reality. The way the chose to protest facilitated the looting. When the looting started they could have ended the protest and summoned the police.

You seem to be conflating legal liability with responsibility. I’m not saying they should be prosecuted.

I’m saying that it’s just a mental fantasy to pretend they don’t bear responsibility for the consequences of their actions.

> are we to argue that every single person who protested peacefully outside of the Capitol on J6 is responsible for the rioters and insurrectionists who stormed in?

Sure - once it became a riot, if people stuck around and got in the way of the police, they certainly bear responsibility.

> They did, after all, interfere with the police response and

Yes, and they are responsible for thst.

> provide moral support for the single greatest outrage against our government in nearly two centuries.

Moral support is a different matter.

> Our cultural and legal standards of free speech enshrine protest, and ensure that protestors are not vilified for actions that are not theirs.

Preventing police from doing the job of protecting business from being looted is their action.

> I do not think we should undermine that.

Blocking police from doing their jobs is not speech.

Nobody is talking about limiting free speech or protests. That’s a red-herring.

Well I can assure you the protesters in Minneapolis were violent, destructive, and I personally saw hundreds of protesters looting stores, breaking ATMs, smashing windows etc. etc. Hell, the protesters even burned down the police precinct.

The riots in Minneapolis were worse by every metric than Jan 6. And in some cases orders of magnitude (cost of damage, for one). And I'll tell you what else - a lot more people are going to jail for the Jan 6 riots than the Minneapolis ones.

Not that there is a reason to compare the two, but a mob of people going after the elected leaders of a democratic country, especially during election procedures, has far more implications and ramifications on a country than looting.

Its actually much worse to unleash violence on poor communities and immigrant business owners.

I can't speak for Minneapolis, because I don't live there. But I'm actively invested, as a New Yorker, in dispelling myths about what it was like here.

As for whether things were "worse": I consider the political and cultural damage of storming our nation's Capitol worse than just about anything you can put a bill of damage on. You can't put that kind of cultural trespass back in the box the way you can with "ordinary" protests and riots.

Manhattan was not "ransacked" last summer. You clearly don't live in one of these American cities. The overwhelming majority of the protests were peaceful [1].

Your claim that an attempted coup was somehow spurned by protests relating to the extrajudicial killing of black men is a rather bold one to make with absolutely no supplied evidence. I suppose finding cause in the drastic uptick of far-right violence [2] you have conveniently omitted, which would serve as a much better basis for the "broken window theory", is too easy of a conclusion to make. As is finding cause in the president quite literally inciting his supporters to storm the Capitol on the basis of false claims of election fraud. No, it's those protesters!

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/16/this-summ...

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/20...

"Manhattan was ransacked" is total hyperbole and absurd. The whole island of Manhattan was ransacked? Of what? When, exactly? You know Manhattan is a really big place, right? Have you been there?

As to the "letting up on drug prosecutions", in the Reagan-esque war on drugs, the Drugs won that war a long time ago. Maybe it's time to start treating serious drug addiction (meth, coke, heroin, etc) as a mental health crisis instead. Turns out that it actually costs a lot of money each year to keep a person incarcerated, and when they get turned loose back into society without addressing the underlying metal health and addiction issues, it just repeats in a loop.

Pretty easy to Google images of retail in Manhattan. Huge percentage of stores were vandalized and had their goods stolen.

Here you go: https://www.google.com/search?q=manhattan+2020+protest+retai...

There was effectively no police response for the first few days and each night looting got worse. Eventually the police mobilized and normalized the situation

Instead of saying huge percentage, why not just tell us the number?

Why don't you Google it and report back?

I lived there at the time, it was very widespread and pretty much universal across mid-lower manhattan.

Anyway, I saved you the trouble:

"An estimated 450 businesses across New York City were vandalized and in some cases looted in late May and early June, according to the city's Department of Small Business Services."

Don't need the stats to back it up if you were there to see it though.

Dozens of businesses. Dozens I say!

Okay, according to google there are 220,000 businesses in New York, so 0.2% were looted. Thanks.

Would “1/50th of a decimation” pack more of a punch here?

What's the acceptable threshold for society as far as looting goes? In my eyes, even one business warrants a firm police response. 450 is an admission of losing sovereignty.

0.2% is a huge percentage?

Well, how are you computing it? Majority of looting was in retail businesses in lower Manhattan.

If you're computing overall number of businesses in New York then you're just being disingenuous. So you're counting retail stores in Staten island too? Are you including non retail businesses?

How about watch literally any video of the protests in Manhattan to see for yourself?

To say there wasn't widespread looting in Manhattan is just wrong, and easily disproven by the evidence.

Here you go: https://m.youtube.com/results?sp=mAEA&search_query=Manhattan...

Don't believe your lying eyes, right? Funny all this pushback from people who most likely don't even live there.

450 businesses is about 1.4% of NYC's retail businesses. According to the state, "In 2019, New York City’s retail sector comprised 32,600 businesses" [0]. That's enough to be noticable, but I wouldn't describe it as a huge percentage. Per my understanding, most of the thefts occured at high-end retail in Lower Manhattan. Is that what you saw?

[0] https://www.osc.state.ny.us/reports/osdc/retail-sector-new-y...

Vast majority was in lower Manhattan. Which represents about 5% or less of NYC landmass. So you can multiply 1.4% by 10-20 to get a more accurate number

This: https://www.osc.state.ny.us/reports/osdc/retail-sector-new-y... suggests that there are more than 36,000 retail stores in NYC.

450/36000 == 1.3% of retail businesses were "vandalized and in some cases looted", phrasing which suggests rather less than that were actually looted.

The suggestion that "Huge percentage of stores were vandalized and had their goods stolen" seems absurdly hyperbolic given these numbers.

edit: corrected accidental use of state wide number

You're not very knowledgeable about the geography of New York, are you?

Do you know what the landmass of lower Manhattan relative to overall New York City is?

Do you understand what a non uniform distribution is? Clearly nobody responding is familiar with basic math.

I'll spell it out for you guys. Landmass of lower Manhattan = very small vs overall New York. Using total retail stores in New York is highly misleading for that reason alone.

I could also say 450 is only .000001% of stores in the USA, so there's no problem! Same logic you're using, by the way

You're not very knowledgeable about the geography of New York either, are you?

Like your 450 number is from all 5 boroughs, did you not realize that New York City refers to all 5 boroughs and not just like Midtown or something?

I don't know why you're trying so hard to mislead people. Do you just live in Soho and want to act like Soho is lower Manhattan? Or more specifically, like the 4 blocks of Broadway in Soho that got hit hardest?

I already commented this but those protests did not do widespread damage to Manhattan, there were very centralized pockets of damage.

In fact, Manhattan probably had the most damage by dollars because of Soho luxury stores, but by actual damage to individual businesses the outer boroughs were infinitely worse off, and even that was highly centralized...

No, I'm the one who's not misleading people. Looting was 90% concentrated in lower Manhattan.

If you were there, or watch any news report from the time, it's extremely obvious and supported by the evidence.

All I said is that lower Manhattan had widespread looting, which is true.

Everybody here throwing out total retail or even total businesses in NYC to discredit what I'm saying are the ones being misleading. Everything I've said is backed up by facts.

Say 450 is an accurate number. Well 90% can reasonably be assumed to be lower Manhattan, and we know lower Manhattan is less than 5% of the landmass of NYC.

So no, you're the one being misleading. Pretty crazy all these people trying to gaslight as if it didn't happen, when I lived there and walked down the streets and saw it myself.

It's no surprise an ex cop just won as mayor of NYC, when you have people with this attitude supporting retail theft/looting at all costs. New Yorkers got tired of it, sorry.

Instead of the hand waving insistence that 450 is probably concentrated in Manhattan, why not just post a source that actually tells us how many stores in lower manhattan were looted?

> All I said is that lower Manhattan had widespread looting, which is true.

It's not true. The only people who would say this are faux-New Yorkers who use Lower Manhattan as a term when they mean 5th avenue in Soho and Broadway in Flatiron District (aka the bougie retail areas of Lower Manhattan that account for like 1% of the landmass).

As someone who lives next to Barclays where 5000 people gathered and works in Midtown, you're just pushing a false narrative that oversells what happened to outsiders.

I walked those same streets, I live in NYC too, and I'm not falling for it.

What you're doing is exactly what you're accusing others of doing. Confusing basic facts to push a narrative.

The looting sucked, yes businesses got hurt, but saying "Manhattan was ransacked" is an insult to what a place that's been ransacked looks like.

That's the point.

...also:

> It's no surprise an ex cop just won as mayor of NYC, when you have people with this attitude supporting retail theft/looting at all costs. New Yorkers got tired of it, sorry.

The guy who didn't know NYC includes the outer boroughs is trying to speak for New Yorkers. Maybe next you'll tell us about grabbing your daily baconeggandcheese from ock at Gregory's Coffee. God help us all.

I'm more than familiar with the boroughs of New York City.

The 450 "vandalized and in some cases looted" statistic you provided was for New York City as a whole. If you would like to confine your focus to Lower Manhattan, the onus is on you to find the relevant statistic for Lower Manhattan, because that 450 includes vandalism from all over the city (to repeat your own quote with appropriate emphasis, "An estimated 450 businesses across New York City were vandalized and in some cases looted in late May and early June, according to the city's Department of Small Business Services.")

To really get a true picture of things, we'd also need to know what the background level of vandalism for business in a more-than-a-month time window is - because I assure you, it is not zero.

> I could also say 450 is only .000001% of stores in the USA, so there's no problem! Same logic you're using, by the way

No, the logic I'm using is that if .000001% of stores in the USA were "vandalized and in some cases looted", then the statement "Huge percentage of stores were vandalized and had their goods stolen" made about the USA would be laughably hyperbolic and incorrect simply on the cold facts.

Dude what are you even talking about? 450 was across all 5 boroughs and that is the complete and utter opposite of widespread...

Most of the damage in all 5 boroughs was highly concentrated in specific blocks like what happened on 5th Ave

Like I get it, for a small business owner sweeping out their store 1 was too many, but c'mon, don't be dishonest.

450 businesses across all 5 boroughs and including even basic graffiti in that count... that was the literal opposite of widespread looting.

I'd be careful of using reporters photos to "prove" that substantial damage occurred. They have a history of stretching reality with their photography: https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/01/20/searching-metaphor-...

Given the massive and disproportionate police response in DC to the protests over the summer, I find it extremely puzzling how you could conclude anyone would see that very large response as a green light for a protest, let alone storming the Capitol.

Linking all of this to the War On Drugs losing the wind in it's sails is a Reaganesque leap. We've had broken windows policy, all it's done is rope a lot of black and hispanic people into the system after manufacturing crimes through the War On Drugs.

- Near unprecedented unemployment after (mis)handling of a global pandemic

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/06/11/unemploymen...

- K shaped recovery driving near unprecedented acceleration of wealth inequality

https://www.businessinsider.com/k-shaped-recovery-definition

- Raging mental health crisis bearing down on an already overwhelmed medical system

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/12/16/well/mental-h...

- Raging drug crisis also raging on concurrently

https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/wk/ane/2017/00000125/...

- Clogged supply chain resulting in unprecedented amounts of vulnerable goods

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supply-chain-issues-cargo-theft...

I could keep going, but all of this and you think... protests caused this?

You saying "Manhattan was ransacked" is hilarious, I live in Brooklyn, next stop after Barclay Center, where global news networks were painting a picture of a warzone using an overturned car...

Almost every person who marched at Barclay went past my apartment and you know what the damage was? The police removed the trash cans on my street in anticipation, so for a good two weeks afterwards there was trash everywhere as people just dumped it in the street instead.

Oh yeah, and some businesses took way too long removing their plywood defenses despite 0 signs they were actually tested.

Actually one cool story literally steps from that burning car was those same protestors stopping would-be rioters from breaking into stores...

Seriously, we need to drop this narrative that the iron fist of the law is what would stop this.

So many people trying to run interference by pointing the finger at "defund the police" chants... is the only thing stopping you from stealing from a train the idea the police might catch you?

Criminals are criminals, they don't respect the rule of law so you're not going to get them by sprinkling more agents of the law to crack down on people.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/001112871038226...

(Note the author here, Gary Kleck, this is someone who's practically a patron saint of tough-on-crime proponents after his work on DGU. And even his study can't seriously back the claim.)

Now you can try jailing all the criminals of course, and just keep growing your jails until you've exhausted the sources of crime...

But even with the harshest prosecutors, eventually these people need to leave. If our prisons were about reform it'd be one thing, but crime is rampant is our prison system.

So all you're doing is sticking criminals in an incubator while screwing over the communities they're from and setting the next generation of criminals in motion...

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