surviving the urban riot environment
Dennis Dale
Tue, Aug 20, 5:58 PM (1 day ago)
Portland had another to-do this weekend as a small right wing protest drew over a thousand angry "antifascists" who spent the day hunting out and harassing anyone they thought in sympathy with them and journalists (for exposing potential crimes).
Other than stay away, what can I do to avoid getting the bike lock to the head when I'm not looking? What are my legal concerns? Is protective gear an invite to violence?
Dennis
James Responds
Dennis, advising readers and friends on how not to reach assisted vegetative nirvana in my home away from home, must be my number 2 priority, just behind bedding half-blind slave girls.
If you are covering such an event, realize that press protection will not be forthcoming. Sitting judges have been ruling that only employees of mass media companies should enjoy protection of speech for years. It is also explicitly not the responsibility of any police department to protect citizens, but only to round up and kill enemies of the sate involved in drugs, violence or free thought.
1. You should not go alone. Hire a teen age POC as your security guard. A six of malt liquor and the street cred he'll get for saving your honky ass will do.
2. Wear safety glasses or sunglasses.
3. Wear a cap, a ski cap in cold weather or a tactical cap with plexi-insert during hot months. I would wear a pit helmet. But without a Swahili bodyguard you might wish to stop short of a display of moral supremacy.
4. Wearing a BLM or No Nations No Borders shirt is highly recommended, because the guys on the Right are going to have their hands full surviving and won't have excess resources to secure the perimeter against thought criminals and witnesses.
5. Keep a pole or wall to your back and skirt the perimeter. Do not take up an obvious viewing position, but play it like a bystander as much as possible.
6. When people approach walk off obliquely rather than retreat. Making them change directions is more discouraging than asking them to speed up their pursuit.
7. Practice rolling with punches for when you get hit.
8. Use no type of defensive weapon more lethal than an umbrella, pen or rolled up magazine. Umbrellas are great because they can be used as shields against chemical attacks or as bayonets or clubs depending on the design.
9. Remember that the cops are your enemy and if they think you are involved they might attack you, so clearly separate from others, seeking the view with the maximum distance from the belligerents and the pigs.
10. Any of the three parties that approach you should be greeted by your declaration of support for their causes, all of which are evil or misguided but all of which deserve the same praise. "You guys are doing good work—thank you!"
Remember, Dennis, as a journalist with your own mind, even though you may sympathize with the Right, all three parties, Left, Right and Police all have one goal, which is to silence dissent, and any independent journalist is by definition a dissident and will be targeted for violence by all of these parties in good time—first by the Left, then by the police and in the end by the radicalized Right—so trust none of them, especially when it comes to this street theater.
The two guys in the video window below have head protection. The helmet is going to draw fire, so stick with a cap.
Dennis' blog post on this is linked below:
Being a Bad Man in a Worse World
Fighting Smart: Boxing, Agonistics & Survival
I tend to scoff at the types that wander into these situations with any item of clothing that identifies them as aligning with one side or the other. In the first video, both gentlemen seem capable of acquitting themselves well and, indeed, when one of the Dollar-Store Ninjas brandishes a skateboard at him, he goes on the offensive and cows the attacker who (no doubt to the attacker’s relief) is then restrained by a compatriot.
Still this is a perfect example of WellRead Ed’s First Maxim of Violent Encounters: “If you go looking for trouble, you have no bitch when you find it.” The one individual declares “I’m Media!” as if it were some magic incantation that would ward off attackers. This shows that he either doesn’t understand the situation, or he has way too much confidence in his ability to fight multiple attackers.
One has to look no further than Laura Logan’s experiences in Egypt when she was abducted and sexually assaulted by a mob while reporting on the events in Tahrir Square. No doubt she, too, informed her attackers that she was with the media. The mob cared nothing for her profession; they saw food and they consumed it. The two in video 1 made the same mistake and, considering Portland’s demographics, could easily have suffered the same fate.
The individual in video 2 was an excellent example of failing to follow WellRead Ed’s Second and Third Maxim of Violent Encounters: “Above all else, go armed” (Thank you Prince Machiavelli) and “When it has become apparent that there is going to be a fight, it is time to inflict horrific, lethal, and decisive violence upon your attackers.”
Once it has become obvious that hostilities are imminent, they are no longer ‘media’; they are combatants. And even then, your fate is uncertain because even if you are totally in the right, agents of Multnomah County might decide to make an example of you, just as they did to Mike Strickland.
businessinsider.com/lara-logan-rape-egypt-60-minutes-interview-video-2011-5
oregonfirearms.org/vendetta
Well put, WellRead Ed.