Discussion about Protests & Riots

[Beholder]

Uhh I can really only recall two, maybe three riots in the past eight months or so? I could be wrong and there could be more but that seems like a pretty alright number. Two of these were pretty justified, the death of a pretty young person in the community which always has and will continually spark rage among the community both irl and on the server. You have to realize, riots happen even year and the most reliable riots are sports related, when a sports team wins or loses on a professional level, or even a college level.

 

It's really funny because the issues you have are the exact same issues we have IRL. You have a mix between peaceful protesters, and violent rioters. Sometimes protests conclude peacefully and other times, they're hijacked by violent groups. This has always been the divide in America, whether a peaceful demonstration is stronger than a violent outburst. Probably not just America tho.

 

If you feel like you're being "dragged" into roleplay then I think you have the wrong outlook on the server and roleplay as a whole. Unexpected events happen and you have to deal with them. You can't just ignore other players roleplay simply because you don't feel like role-playing that scenario. Especially as LEO, you can't decide you don't want to respond to certain emergency calls merely because you don't feel like it.

 

Not everything on the server has to be incredibly tense roleplay with meticulously crafted /mes and /dos. Not all riots are documented nationally and vivdly, and lots of riots are often quickly forgotten about. Lots of people can cite Portland and Seattle 2020, but I can tell you there were way more riots than that. But beyond that, these events do a lot for the community. They help develop characters on both sides, whether somebody participates in a riot, and to the degree that participate vs how a LEO responds, and how the riot might affect how they view their community icly, or approach certain things. It can point out flaws in how LEO's respond to these violent outburst and create better training scenarios for them, or a rioters arrest can thrust their character development in a direction.

 

 I think the biggest thing that you and others might miss is this protest started off peaceful, it started off as a step towards social activism that is becoming more and more popular today. I know plenty of people in the server have mentioned that seeing these social activism marches and vigils and whatnot is definitely solid and much needed roleplay on the server. And sadly, just like real life, these protests can be hijacked and turn violent. 

 

If there's anything I'd want to see improve here, it would be escalation of these riots. Some people are too quick to pick up melee weapons or set a car on fire, etc. It is a bit lack of fear when you have all these people attacking a precinct and the precinct doesn't have the numbers to defend itself against a relatively small riot. But then again that could be contributed by LEO's who don't want to get "dragged" into that roleplay.

[Yoak]

I wasn’t in the event due to timezone issues. But I’d have loved to have been there, I didn’t even read the thread and I Cba to read bickering but I like the idea of IC events causing IC issues for LEO rpers 

[goddessoflife]

The only reason I used to avoid these ic riots.. I always get disconnected and have to constantly relog, /pduty /equipment /helmet /equipment vest and all other shit you need. Grinds my gears more then the riots in general. It's part of life as long as it's roleplayed properly, all Gucci. 

 

Everywhere in the world a police station has atleast once been f*d up and vandalized. I don't see the issue, and it's part of being a Leo on the server. You don't get to pick and choose your situations all the time. Yes sometimes your watching an empty road for an hour because a bit further down an accident occurred. All the rp you got is with yourself or maybe the once in a while driver who may or may not interact with you. Same with riots. You've got people you can interact with, some people who actually respond to you. But there will always be people who ignore your rp. But aye sometimes you just gotta suck it up and make it work the best we all can. 

Edited June 15, 2021 by goddessoflife

[Yoshijira]

The riots aren't inherently the issue themselves.

 

What ends up being the issue is the reaction to the riots both while it's ongoing and while it's not ongoing. When large scale riots occur, it leaves a decent impact upon the day to day goings of people that live within its general area. The fact that I saw multiple people, all of whom were either predominantly legal RP'ers or organized crime RP'ers going "maybe if these [redacted] stop committing so many crimes, their friend jamal wouldn't be shot dead" is dumb as shit. And then people wonder why a group of people which is militant enough to be classified as a criminal gang that is constantly discriminated against due to their area of origin and ethnic background, along with LEO's facs constantly being on their tail.

 

Don't get me wrong. I get the IC justification, there's a lot of reason for LEO facs to act like anti-domestic terror groups, and I say that as somebody that RP'd a gangbanger for a pretty decent amount of time.

 

What I don't get here is why anybody would be inherently surprised that with everything said above, why a riot would be realistic. Especially in a West Coast state, where people on average tend to be far more politically militant. 

 

What I do think needs to be improved upon is the actual reaction to a riot after the fact. Everything went back to normal following such. No economic decline due to broken stores and public facilities and amenities, no large sweeping governmental or department reforms due to the fact that an entire neighborhood decided to mobilize due to police actions or that the department somehow managed to have its entire station stormed and temporarily occupied.

[Jedai]

46 minutes ago, Yoshijira said:

What I do think needs to be improved upon is the actual reaction to a riot after the fact. Everything went back to normal following such. No economic decline due to broken stores and public facilities and amenities, no large sweeping governmental or department reforms due to the fact that an entire neighborhood decided to mobilize due to police actions or that the department somehow managed to have its entire station stormed and temporarily occupied.

Sounds like someone should contact a Senator. You also misappropriating the fact that the shooting was caused by one department and the other department had their station stormed over it. You can't really expect reforms when these riots have zero political backing. Which in itself is ironic considering from a complete story telling aspect, the LSSD is a department in reform as it is but asking people to play community leaders is apparently too much of a big ask, not to mention I don't expect a lot of people playing residents in areas where this violence occurs to have a good grasp or understanding of how people of color are feeling. That's the other issue of why things go back to normal. Most people never experienced these things. 

[hillievonb]

How big are we supposed to treat that riot as? If we aren't supposed to RP the existence of NPCs on the street, that was barely a riot at all.

[TinPan]

20 hours ago, arkan said:

the station should have been taken over 

This. 100%.
 

I don’t know why the call was made to tell people that rioting/conflict at a station should somehow be impossible and interpreted as “Your only allowed to RP peaceful protests here because there’s an invisible mind force field that prevents you from doing so.”.

 

If the station is overrun, then hey; I’d say let it happen and deal with it IC. The exact same case for if someone was going to do a protest at TTCF too, it should be taken IC; not be impossible due to obscure NPC rules.

[Engelbert]

3 hours ago, TinPan said:

This. 100%.
 

I don’t know why the call was made to tell people that rioting/conflict at a station should somehow be impossible and interpreted as “Your only allowed to RP peaceful protests here because there’s an invisible mind force field that prevents you from doing so.”.

 

If the station is overrun, then hey; I’d say let it happen and deal with it IC. The exact same case for if someone was going to do a protest at TTCF too, it should be taken IC; not be impossible due to obscure NPC rules.

Bro, if I was a cop and I seen hordes of people armed with sticks and bats running at a station, I'd fire away. Simple as that. And it would be justified.

[jcat]

Two different things:  rioting/conflict at the station was ok.  invading the station was a violation of server rules because a police station is an OOC no-crime area.  There's no reason staff should make an exception to the rule, and everyone on the server knows the rule.

[cracked]

2 hours ago, Engelbert said:

Bro, if I was a cop and I seen hordes of people armed with sticks and bats running at a station, I'd fire away. Simple as that. And it would be justified.

Phew, good thing you're not a cop then xD

 

In all seriousness, as someone who's RP'd around Grove and other areas in Davis & has seen how boring it can get sometimes, i kind of understand why people JUMP at the opportunity to point out police acting unjustifiably.

 

Like, yesterday. Yesterday, a car was, as far as the residents of Grove street knew, stopped for just running a stop sign! :3

Yet 10 police cars showed up, because of a crowd, that was staying on the other side of the street, and consisted of like 10 people.

 

Police escalated it, by bringing way more police than necessary to the area. It wouldn't be realistic for anyone in this crowd to for example, kill these officers or harm them for no reason (don't make comparisons to irl 2020-2021 USA because that doesn't exist on the server for a reason xD)

 

Therefore, it's also kind of unrealistic to bring half of the PD in on a traffic stop & frisk of 2 men! So, I don't know what I'm saying. I feel like there could be some improvement on both sides xD