re: #202 palomino

That’s quite possibly true. OTOH, when there were riots here in L.A., over 1000 buildings burned simultaneously. Most of those fires were started by local residents who were pissed off and powerless; they made a bad choice, but they weren’t necessarily outside agitators with a different agenda.

Angry crowds (even justifiably, as here) will often do things that no individual in the group would do if alone. So I don’t think we can neatly split the protesters into two groups: “legitimate” and outsiders. When passions are this high, people who are “good law abiding” citizens every other day of the year can easily get caught up in acts of civil unrest. Doesn’t make them evil career criminals, just people fed up with a racist system. People who, with much justification, feel as if their lives matter less to the majority of Americans than white lives.

I think tonight’s violence has been planned for weeks if not months by the individuals who are causing the trouble. I also think the locals have been planning peaceful protests which they were able to do without any problems tonight.