https://www.cincinnati.com/story/ne...should-we-protestors-arm-themselve/739145001/ Should protesters arm themselves? Black Lives Matter group sees need for self-defense "We are not pacifists," Black Lives Matter steering committee member Brian Taylor told The Enquirer. "We do everything to minimize violence...but we will defend ourselves if attacked to the degree necessary to free ourselves from harm.” That could mean guns, he said. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8384065/Black-Lives-Matter-leader-declares-war-police.html EXCLUSIVE: 'We prepare to stop these murders by any means necessary.' Black Lives Matter leader declares war on police and group is 'training our people to defend our communities' in Black Panther style armed 'patrols' Hawk Newsome, Chairman of BLM's Greater New York chapter, says the black rights group is 'mobilizing' its base, he told DailyMailTV in exclusive interview The activist said BLM aims to develop a highly-trained 'military' arm to challenge police brutality head on in the wake of George Floyd's death in Minneapolis 'It's our obligation, it's our duty to provide people with a way forward. We want the immediate end of government sanctioned murder by the police' 'We prepare to stop these murders by any means necessary. We are preparing and training our people to defend our communities,' Newsome added Newsome, 43, an imposing 6ft 6in, who wore shades and smoked a thick cigar for our photo shoot, believes his group can lead the 'war on police' BLM will have 'Peace Officers' patrol black communities to challenge law enforcement and stop police brutality, reminiscent of the Black Panther Party
Oh yeah, there's a whole thread below with examples of them minimizing violence by burning stores, beating people, shooting cops, etc.
Here4Money doing his daily routine where he strokes himself while posting links that relate to possibilities of more Americans being killed.
ooh....smooth https://www.thetelegraph.com/news/a...ms-guardsmen-in-D-C-in-signal-of-15320290.php Pentagon disarms guardsmen in D.C., in signal of de-escalation WASHINGTON - The Pentagon has told the District of Columbia National Guard and guardsmen from other states who have arrived in the nation's capital as backup to not use firearms or ammunition, a sign of de-escalation in the federal response to protests in the city after the killing of George Floyd, according to officials familiar with the decision. The Pentagon has told the District of Columbia National Guard and guardsmen from other states who have arrived in the nation's capital as backup not to use firearms or ammunition, a sign of de-escalation in the federal response to protests in the city after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, according to officials familiar with the decision. The Defense Department, led by Defense Secretary Mark Esper, appears to have made the decision without consulting the White House, where President Donald Trump has ordered a militarized show of force on the streets of Washington since demonstrations in the city were punctured by an episode of looting Sunday. Trump specifically had encouraged the National Guard to be armed. Initially, a small group of the guardsmen deployed in the city had been carrying guns while standing outside monuments, but the bulk of the forces, such as those working with federal park police at Lafayette Square in front of the White House, didn't carry firearms out of caution. Now, all of the roughly 5,000 guardsmen who have been deployed or are deploying to Washington have been told not to use weaponry or ammunition, according to four officials familiar with the order. "The whole purpose behind that was a purposeful show of de-escalation," said one U.S. defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an order that hasn't been made public yet. "We're here, but we're walking things down." The White House was not involved in the decision, a senior administration official said. Trump has encouraged the National Guard to be armed as a show of force. Because Washington is a special federal jurisdiction without the status of a state, the D.C. National Guard is controlled by the president, who delegated his authority over the forces to Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy. The District's mayor can request the deployment of the D.C. Guard but doesn't have the power to deploy guardsmen herself or control them once deployed. A senior U.S. defense official said Esper communicated the order to the D.C. Guard and other guardsmen earlier in the week through McCarthy and Gen. Joseph Lengyel, the head of the National Guard, and confirmed that the White House wasn't involved in the decision. The order affected only about 10 guardsmen who had been out on patrol with firearms that weren't loaded but with ammunition in their packs, the senior defense official said. McCarthy said that some guardsmen in the District were armed Monday, but that they did not have magazines of ammunition in their firearms. Beginning Tuesday, the Trump administration de-escalated further, removing firearms from the equation. "It was clear that there were enough federal law enforcement that had descended on the city, and that would be their principal responsibility," he said. D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser, D, had requested that the federal government deploy the D.C. Guard, initially to respond to the coronavirus pandemic, but has since criticized the Trump administration's response in the city, which critics have described as an overreaction designed to boost the president politically with Americans outside the nation's capital watching on television. Trump's response has included not only deploying guardsmen, as the mayor requested, but also calling up guardsmen from other states, amassing active-duty forces at sites outside the capital for possible operations and bringing in other federal law enforcement officials from agencies such as the Bureau of Prisons and Customs and Border Protection to patrol the streets. Bowser has decried the fact that some of those federal agents have not been wearing identifying uniforms or badges. The situation grew particularly tense after helicopters from the D.C. Guard began doing military maneuvers to disperse protesters in the streets - including what's known as a rotor wash, when a helicopter flies low to the ground to kick up air as a show of force. Trump's insistence on a militarized response in the nation's capital has led to strains with Esper. The defense secretary announced publicly Wednesday that he wasn't in favor of using the Insurrection Act to deploy active-duty troops, even as the president threatened to invoke it. Esper also said he was sending home some of the 1,600 active-duty troops outside Washington but later stood down on that decision after meeting with Trump. On Thursday, the administration said some of those troops would indeed be leaving. Trump has battled with Esper about the military this week, with the president seeing the strong force in Washington as a deterrent to unrest but the Pentagon worrying about the militarization of the response. In particular, Trump had a heated conversation with his defense secretary about the possible use of the 82nd Airborne, the unit whose members Esper had partly sent home, according to the senior administration official, who said the president was unlikely to dismiss the defense secretary despite the tension. It wasn't clear whether the Pentagon was responding to pressure from the D.C. municipal government in its decision to disarm guardsmen. Bowser has been calling publicly for the guardsmen to be disarmed but has also pushed for disarming them in private conversations with federal officials, according to an official familiar with the matter. In a letter sent to Trump on Thursday, Bowser informed the president that she had ended the city's state of emergency and requested that he withdraw all extraordinary federal agents and military assets from the nation's capital, explaining that the city was equipped to handle "large demonstrations and First Amendment activities." "I continue to be concerned that unidentified federal personnel patrolling the streets of Washington, D.C. pose both safety and national security risks," the mayor wrote. "The deployment of federal law enforcement personnel and equipment are inflaming demonstrators and adding to the grievances of those who, by and large, are peacefully protesting for change and for reforms to the racist and broken systems that are killing Black Americans." Bowser posted a copy of the letter on Twitter on Friday and wrote, "I request that @realDonaldTrump withdraw all extraordinary federal law enforcement and military presence from our city." But federal officials criticized her administration for resisting the presence of the National Guard. Shortly after midnight, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah blamed Bowser for pushing the Utah National Guard and others out of D.C. hotels. On Friday afternoon, Trump accused her of "fighting with the National Guard," without elaborating, in his first tweet directly criticizing her by name. The mayor said she did not object to guardsmen staying in D.C. hotels but opposed their stay at the Marriott Marquis, where city government reserved rooms for coronavirus responders. The Utah Guard said it found a different hotel for its 200 service members. "Those out-of-state troops would be covered either by the Army or their home states, not by D.C. residents," she said. D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine, D, has opened an inquiry into whether the federal government had the legal authority to call National Guard troops from other states into the District. In particular, he had asked the White House, the Pentagon and the Justice Department in a letter Thursday whether out-of-state Guard units brought into the city would be armed. The mayor repeatedly has said she did not request assistance from other states. But Trump has brought or is bringing about 3,900 guardsmen from Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Maryland, Missouri, Mississippi, New Jersey, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah to the city, in addition to the roughly 1,200 already activated in the D.C. National Guard. The addition makes the number of guardsmen Trump has called to the city roughly equivalent to the number of U.S. forces deployed to Iraq. The district has a population of about 700,000. Military leaders at the Pentagon are aware of the risks of armed guardsmen stepping in to a role traditionally played by police in an American city. In 1970, members of the Ohio National Guard who were called in to help control Vietnam War protests at Kent State University opened fire on demonstrators, killing four students and wounding nine others. The situation prompted outrage nationwide and precipitated a crisis for the American military and its standing with the public. - - -