Using Crowdsourcing To Identify Vancouver Rioters 397
Fudge Factor 3000 writes "The Canucks' loss in the last game of the Stanley Cup Finals resulted in complete mayhem in downtown Vancouver. Everything from upturned cars set alight to looting was commonplace. Unfortunately, most of the perpetrators were able to maintain their anonymity by disappearing into the crowds. Fortunately, bystanders took several pictures and videos of the carnage. Now, websites (including both Facebook and Tumblr) have set up pages to use crowdsourcing to identify the hooligans."
Wow (Score:4, Funny)
People care about hockey? And enough to riot?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I read "rioters" as "routers" expecting a map of the internets in Vancouver, then read the summary... I guess I'll just have to carry on doing my own wardriving for the time being...
Re:Wow (Score:4, Funny)
There are some editing errors in the OP, which make misunderstanding natural. For instance, it says "(in both Facebook and have been set up to use crowdsourcing to identify the hooligans."
This is Canada. I take that to properly read: (in both Facebook and French) have been set up to use crowdsourcing to identify the hooligans."
Re:Wow (Score:5, Funny)
People care about hockey? And enough to riot?
Different people, different worries [imgur.com]
Re:Wow (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
US: walmart has a $300 sale on widescreen TVs.
Cheaper in Vancouver. You just throw a brick through a window and grab it.
Re: (Score:3)
US: walmart has a $300 sale on widescreen TVs.
Cheaper in Vancouver. You just throw a brick through a window and grab it.
Overheard: "Honey, do you think I'm made of bricks?"
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
People care about hockey? And enough to riot?
Different people, different worries [imgur.com]
Vancouver is similar to the worst US cities before the housing bust. It costs 11 times the average income to buy the average house. This would put servicing housing debt at 72% of your gross income. There isn't much industry and therefore job prospects aren't the greatest. The average young person is likely to live in debt their entire lives if they stay. I don't see how people can live without drawing equity from their homes to pay daily expenses. Add on top of that foreigners driving up the price of
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Vancouver housing prices weren't the cause of the riot. Neither were disaffected youth angry about the cost of living.
While the housing market is grossly overinflated, the rental market is sane. Young people simply rent instead of buying, and rent quite nice places too because the main driver of inflating housing costs are foreign investors buying up all the condo stock. Metro Vancouver's unemployment rate (7.6%) is lower than Canada's overall, and has been pretty constant for the last decade. There's no large, pent up reservoir of anger.
The cause of the riots was 1) corralling 100,000 fans downtown to watch the game on outdoor screens, and 2) a large portion of those fans being drunk suburban kids looking to get their riot on. Blame lackluster police presence if you want. It was hooliganism pure and simple. Look at the photos. Look at their expensive shoes. Those Canucks jerseys they're all wearing aren't cheap. They're young, middle-class drunks having fun.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Informative)
Vancouver housing prices weren't the cause of the riot. Neither were disaffected youth angry about the cost of living.
While the housing market is grossly overinflated, the rental market is sane. Young people simply rent instead of buying, and rent quite nice places too because the main driver of inflating housing costs are foreign investors buying up all the condo stock. Metro Vancouver's unemployment rate (7.6%) is lower than Canada's overall, and has been pretty constant for the last decade. There's no large, pent up reservoir of anger.
Employment rate is not always the best indicator as people are often underemployed. The common term is the "working poor" and it is well documented:
"""" Seth Klein with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives says that's because a lot of British Columbians make very low wages. "They can't make ends meet. They're faced with terrible trade-offs between paying the rent, feeding the kids, or heating the house." """
- http://www.news1130.com/news/local/article/241285--bc-has-highest-child-poverty-rate-of-all-canadian-provinces [news1130.com]
""" The poverty rate for people of all ages in BC also rose to 12 percent. It was the highest overall poverty rate of any province for the 11th consecutive year. """
- http://mostlywater.org/bcs_poverty_rate_still_highest_canada [mostlywater.org]
""" Despite the manipulation of statistics by various government agencies, more people are hungry in this country and in this province than we have seen for a long time. Food banks are multiplying, each one reporting that there is not enough in contributions to meet the need. It is reported that 700,000 people in Canada rely on food banks to feed themselves and their families... The fact is that the majority of the poor in Canada and in British Columbia are working. """
- http://www2.canada.com/oceansidestar/news/story.html?id=418878d9-429c-4361-acf5-c06f05079302 [canada.com]
Also, I'm not sure how renting from foreigners who are driving up and/or controlling condo prices contributes to peace of mind.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't dispute the problems with poverty in Vancouver. I see it every day. My wife teaches at a high school in Whalley, Surrey. I go through Chinatown a couple days a week.
What I'm disputing is that the riot was caused by social unrest. The pictures tell an obvious tale: half the crowd is wearing expensive Canucks jerseys and have nice haircuts. The ones who've been identified from the photos are rich kids from the burbs. If you see sunglasses, they're expensive designer sunglasses. This was hooliganism, not the poor rising up.
Foreign investment in real estate is a mixed blessing. It drives up prices, preventing the poor and the young from owning property, but it also gluts the rental market driving rental prices down. A common complaint among investors is that they're unable to finance the purchase solely by renting it out. The only unambiguously good thing is that the demand for more condos allows the city to require an apportionment of new construction to go for social housing.
Re:Wow (Score:4, Interesting)
The second group were a new bunch. The facebook rioters. Riot 2.0 as it were. These were the dumbasses who came downtown so they could take pictures of themselves standing in front of burning cars so they could post them on their facebook. Status "At A Riot. Epic
Add to that a huge number of 18-25 year old kids, rat-arse drunk and happy to participate as long as the group is big enough to give them some sort of anonymity.
Angry Canuck fans may have been there but were probably a minority. Groups 1 and 2 would have rioted win or lose.
Re:Wow (Score:4, Informative)
Vancouver is similar to the worst US cities before the housing bust. It costs 11 times the average income to buy the average house. This would put servicing housing debt at 72% of your gross income.
1) that's still not as bad as New York City, and I don't see massive sports-related riots there when the Yankees lose.
2) look at the rioters - the average age was probably under 24 - I don't care where you are, 24 year olds are not buying homes these days
3) the same thing happened when the Canucks lost in '94, and housing prices were not much of an issue back then
Pissed off, impressionable, DRUNK hockey fans caused the riot. Occam's razor - why try to read social injustice and malaise into an act when booze and testosterone will do just fine...
Re:Wow (Score:4, Informative)
However, the hockey game is unlikely the true reason behind the riot. The rioters were prepared to riot. They brought the tools with them to set fire before the game even started. Many of the arrested were known rioters, who caused problems before the Winter Olympics in 2010.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm guessing that it's a mix. I heard passers comment that they weren't fans, and they wanted to start a riot. There were also plenty of intoxicated fans who were more than ready to riot in defeat and probably would have caused as much destruction with a victory party.
As for the crowd sourcing, they're going to have an easy time identifying people but a terrible time proving guilt. I've seen videos of people posing in front of the mayhem, even though they probably didn't take part in it. When I went to
Re: (Score:2)
Actually it's the second largest sport depending on the year. It's either hockey or lacrosse.
Anyway, they should have just read the riot act [wikipedia.org]. Waited 30mins, then started arresting anyone who refused to leave. That's what it's there for, and I have no problems with it being used as such. Really slapping a few people who are being the centres of the riot in prison for a few years is good(the max you can get is life aka 25 years). The rest you can give 2yr conditional discharges(aka don't fuck up, and it
Re: (Score:2)
When was the last time lacrosse was more popular than hockey in Canada? By depending on the year do you mean years and years ago?
Re: (Score:2)
Quite often. There's a reason why Canada has 2 national sports.
Re: (Score:2)
And those reasons are mostly historical. To say that lacrosse has been more popular than hockey in Canada as a whole within the last thirty years is plain ignorance. According to http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/2010/06/07/con-lacrosse-cra.html [www.cbc.ca] the Canadian Lacrosse Association represents 40,000 members. That is insignificant compared to the popularity of hockey.
Lacrosse may have had its ups and downs in terms of popularity, but it has been a long time since it has been more popular than hockey in Canada.
Re: (Score:2)
They did read the riot act! [www.cbc.ca]
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting. Because everything I've heard has been contrary to that. Hell we didn't even get any bulletins about it, because reading it would be major news in law enforcement circles here.
Re: (Score:2)
I thought so too. Here's a blog post [openfile.ca] by a "semi-regular" cbc reporter who was there and says they were broadcasting it over loudspeakers in both English and French.
"The riot police then start blasting a message over a loudspeaker in French and then English. I am watching the cameraperson’s back and realize I am being read the riot act."
Re: (Score:2)
They did read the riot act quite early. Thousands of people were still there.
There were a lot of cops, but they were still far outnumbered to arrest everyone.
Re: (Score:2)
... The rioters were prepared to riot. They brought the tools with them to set fire before the game even started.
"Tools to set fire..." You mean, matches. Maybe even lighters. Yeah, I think carrying a Bic lighter with you definitely indicates an intent to riot.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Probably the Molotov cocktails I saw on the news.
Re: Tools... (Score:3)
Reportedly a few members of the local anarchist crowd brought flammable materials, gasoline, fire extinguishers (to be used to smash windows or as weapons) , gas masks, bandanas etc, and came *prepared* to start a riot. The majority of the trouble there was caused by a few individuals (apparently the police arrested around 100 people, when its in a crowd of 100,000 people that's not a high percentage. They will be arresting more).
In short, the embarrassing riot we saw was propagated by a small number of peo
Re:Wow (Score:5, Informative)
Disclosure: Dad was the arson inspector for my old home town.
Not a poor arsonist, just unfamiliar.
Put just one sheet of newspaper, crumpled into a ball and ignited, under the seat.
One pound of foam rubber seat cushion is equal to one pound of gasoline. The car will burn completely down to the frame, the rims will melt, and there will be absolutely no evidence of how it was done. That's because the ashes of the paper will either be obliterated by the firefighting water, or the air turbulence of the fire itself.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Why not? We pound our keyboards over Android vs. iOS.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Way to be close-minded, idiot.
I've played and liked sports since I was little. I'm neither stupid nor violent.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
People care about hockey? And enough to riot?
No. It's not disgruntled hockey fans. It's idiots that come downtown to cause trouble anytime there are large crowds.
How's that differ from a hockey game?
Re: (Score:2)
Don't know whether you can believe it or not but the cops are claiming a core group of anarchists were the instigators. They're claiming it was the same group who tried to get a riot going for the Winter Olympics last year, though that one fizzled, due no doubt to a lot of positive vibes.
Mind you, the same thing happened in 1994 when the Canucks blew the playoffs, and I don't think you can blame the current group of anarchists for that one. English soccer hooliganism was never attributed to anarchists, bu
Re: (Score:2)
There were both types of people there...
The guys who had ski masks, gas cans, baseball bats, and hammers were clearly prepared to raise hell and break shit up are the ones the police are referring to.
In addition to those, were all the drunk, macho, (proverbial) lemming types who thought it must be a cool thing to do.
Re: (Score:3)
Those weren't hooligans or anarchists, those were the police [blogspot.com].
vandalism (Score:3)
Yay for Facebook! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Facebook's greatest value to humanity may be as a honeypot to stupid people who post their misdeeds for all the public (and law enforcement agencies) to see.
I would say RTFA but even the summary says that it's for other people identifying the rioter, not the rioter posting a picture of himself burning that police car.
Re: (Score:3)
Plenty of photos of the event clearly show rioters posing for the photos (in front of a burning car flashing a V-sign etc).
There are even some photos and videos showing how such photos were made (you see both the photographer and the model), and it's clear that a lot of material there was willingly made by the participants themselves.
Re:Yay for Facebook! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yay for Facebook! (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't matter whether there were "anarchists" looking to cause trouble by "starting things". It's zero excuse at all. Everyone who participated, regardless of whether they intended to riot as a premeditated act or not, is a willing participant. A criminal. "I saw someone else doing it first!" is not an excuse to break windows, stab people, torch cop cars, or loot. And it should not be cause to reduce the punishment.
Stop making excuses and pointing fingers. The reason that people rioted is that every last one of them who participated wanted to riot, had a choice to make on whether to riot or not, and chose to break windows, to attack people, to trash whatever car they were closest to, and to steal from stores. There are no extenuating circumstances. If a thousand people did it, a thousand people need to be in jail, not ten or a hundred. This isn't "harmless childhood pranks" or "social justice" (I swear, I want to shoot people who claim that as an excuse for stealing big-screen TVs. Literally.); it's blood and thuggery.
Extra punishment for agent provacateurs? Yes. Free pass for drunks and hockey-garbage? NO.
Re:Yay for Facebook! (Score:5, Insightful)
>>I suggest http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/02/10/deindividuation/ [youarenotsosmart.com] for further reading.
So your article says that in anonymous crowds, people can act like idiots? And get away with it? Astonishing research. Anyone who has ever participated in an online community knows that's how it works.
It's still absolutely no excuse to riot.
I thought this sort of crap would stay in Europe (Score:2)
It's kind of a shame. I thought this sort of crap would stay in Europe. Soccer Game riots are relatively frequent here in Europe, were as sports events in the U.S. and Canada have always seemed notably non-violent and family friendly.
It's one of the few things that actually work way better across the pond than over here. Massive sport event riots is one thing the U.S. and Canada really shouldn't copy from Europe.
Re: (Score:2)
Sports riots happen all the time in the US. Maybe you don't get news about them as much over there. Maybe the scale is less dramatic. I'm not certain. I just know that sports riots happen here [independent.co.uk]. Note, the link is a UK source reporting on a California riot from several years ago, which argues against my theory that people outside the US don't get news about our riots.
Anyway, it's kind of nice to think that there's a myth about America that involves us not being violent.
Now, what would be the best objectiv
!CCTV, !privacy invasion, !crowdsourced policework (Score:5, Informative)
This is not a case of CCTV. Rather, these images have been submitted from mobile devices and cameras.
This is not a case of privacy invasion. People have committed criminal acts out in public, fully knowing that people are filming. They're begging to be identified.
Furthermore, the police did not set up these facebook pages; these are set up by concerned citizens who are appalled by the behaviour seen last night. The police have set up a system for submitting evidence, but they have not started a "crowd-sourced" identification initiative as of yet. So maybe the police is doing crowd-sourced evidence gathering, but certainly not analysis.
I want to point out how the police behaved in this riot. They stood their ground, but did not use an unnecessary force. They rarely engaged directly with the rioters; they just held a line, and occasionally fired tear gas, flashbangs, and pepperspray into the crowd. This is one recent case of police in the news NOT confiscating/breaking everyone's recording devices.
I think the Vancouver police and the RCMP deserve some commendation for how they handled this riot. They did not prevent as much property damage as they could have, but on the otherhand, they took a far more measured approach to interaction with the rioters than has been taken in the past and they are seemingly embracing social media, rather than raging in fear of it.
Re:!CCTV, !privacy invasion, !crowdsourced policew (Score:4, Informative)
The Vancouver Police and RCMP (Abbotsford, Surrey, Maple Ridge, and probably most of the cops in the metro area) knew that if they pushed too hard it would get bad.
I watched the news on CBC and CTV live, and CBC itself has enough video to catch the people who set the cars on fire, because 4 of those cars (the prius?, the truck, and the two copcars) were right outside the CBC's offices. CTV has video of people looting the HBC and London Drugs because Rob Brown was caught right in the thick of it.
As for the police breaking up the crowds, what they did was broke them up starting in front of the CBC and Canada Post area and whittled them down by barricading the streets using the riot gear and making the crowds smaller and smaller, eventually there was just one group of probably 100 people who continued to vandalize things, but the perps who started it were probably long gone by then.
And contrary to media reports, some of the people in the buildings were employees keeping looters out, they were plainclothed and had fire extuingishers.
The Coach store, was looted (you can tell from TV) and that's probably the only store that was actually carrying expensive items near the windows. London Drugs and HBC, the window/door areas tend to be where cosmetics and checkout tills are, so I imagine the dollar value in merchandise stolen was probably in the low thousands, and the actual glass and building damage might exceed the merchandise losses. The coach, LV, Hermes, Tiffany and Gucci stores are all located around the same Hotel, but the coach building is more visible. The LV store is actually located inside the Hotel, so if they smashed the windows they might have got away with the display items in the window, but not much else.
The Futureshop, people were trying to get into, but I can tell you that would have failed since it's on the second floor and has the same kind of barricade the London Drugs has. The London Drugs people actually kicked-in the barricade. My observation here is that the barricade failed because it wasn't designed to have 10 people kicking it for 20 minutes with no law enforcement around.
The Sears was broken into, as well. Again, the same as the London Drugs and the HBC, mostly cosmetics and checkout tills are near the entrances.
Photos and Video, everyone not looting had their camera out, the VPD has appealed to the public to send them all the photos and video.
Note that a lot of these were smartphones, did you know that the EXIF data will not only tell the cops where you were, but what time, so your photos can be triangulated with other peoples images to pinpoint the instigators.
On the other hand, also note that people came up from Seattle and Victoria. So 100,000 people downtown, and those people who came up to start things may have not even be from the Vancouver area.
Some fault of the riots happening can be pinned on how much checking they were not doing to prevent people from bringing bags and lighters/matches.
Re: (Score:2)
>I don't know how it's in Canada, but here in Germany, recording someone without previously having his agreement, is still illegal, even when in public.
If I see you doing a crime in the US, Canada, Germany, wherever, and I have a camera, I'm going to record it, and fuck what you think or what the law says.
Because I'm going to skate since I'm on the right side of the spirit of the law. Nobody will prosecute.
And you're going to go to jail.
Leck mich am Arsch!
--
BMO
Re: (Score:3)
Why should the police have shown any restraint at all?
Because they professionals, not thugs, and are sworn to uphold the law?
Re:!CCTV, !privacy invasion, !crowdsourced policew (Score:4, Interesting)
Charge the NHL (Score:3, Insightful)
Charge the NHL with inciting riot and civil disorder, with co-defendents Vancouver and Boston.
Or maybe we should outlaw sports completely, seeing as they seem to cause insanity. :p
Catch'em while you can, Apple will stop this... (Score:2)
I am sure justice will be swift... (Score:2)
... just as it was in the case of the thugs that were caught on camera beating up Dorian Barton.
You mean muppets like Brock Anton? (Score:4, Interesting)
We don't want criminals here (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Next time, you should do it by going out on the streets and punching in the face every idiot who tries to set a car on fire or break a shop window. Then there won't be a need to clean the streets up next morning.
(but yeah, taking a photo first is a good idea anyway)
Re:We don't want criminals here (Score:5, Insightful)
Next time, you should do it by going out on the streets and punching in the face every idiot who tries to set a car on fire or break a shop window. Then there won't be a need to clean the streets up next morning.
(but yeah, taking a photo first is a good idea anyway)
There was a video played on CBC TV this morning, submitted by a spectator, presented without commentary due to its shocking nature:
A (rather large) man trying to prevent looting of The Bay on Georgia Street getting swarmed and getting the snot kicked out of him for his efforts. Final frame is him motionless on the street.
I sympathize with your initial reaction, but it's definitely not a wise one. Much better to get pic's of criminal acts, then casually FOLLOW perpetrators, getting further pictures a block away when the face mask is down. Should be easy to remain unnoticed due to the crowds & number of cameras.
Re: (Score:3)
A (rather large) man trying to prevent looting of The Bay on Georgia Street getting swarmed and getting the snot kicked out of him for his efforts. Final frame is him motionless on the street.
That's exactly the problem - one man against the several. That way, sure, you get swarmed. But it shouldn't be one. It should be every person living in that neighborhood. Even if you just took all those who took pics - and if they ganged up together - how many is that, and how many does it take to swarm them?
The rioting almost made sense this time... (Score:2)
Really, if you're going to trash something, shouldn't you go to sack and loot your opponents town? Sure, it would have been a long trip from Vancouver to Boston (or the other way if the winner is to
Sideshow (Score:2)
It seems the media down under are more interested in the sideshow rather than the the riots themselves....
http://www.stuff.co.nz/oddstuff/5156730/Vancouver-hockey-riots-kiss-mystery [stuff.co.nz]
The Real Tragedy for Vancouver? (Score:3)
People in Boston, upon hearing about the victory, said "eh." And then resumed shouting at each other in traffic.
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Oblig. xkcd (Score:2, Funny)
859 [xkcd.com]
Re:I think you a whole something (Score:5, Funny)
Now websites (in both Facebook and have been set up to use crowdsourcing to identify the hooligans.
)
BOTH facebook?? These people mean business!
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Your car wasn't totaled in Vancouver, was it?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No kidding - if one of those had been one of my cars, I'd be calling for blood. I like my stuff way more than I like 99.999% of humanity, and if you're one of the rioting whackjobs that thinks damaging other people's stuff without any provocation is acceptable, then I personally think you should be removed from society or possibly existence. I've never understood why people think property crimes are somehow trivial. My stuff represents an investment of my time and effort to acquire, and a lot of it has a
Re:Just for rioting? Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? Really?! Did you even see a single picture from the mayhem? There was so much property damage only because the police was too busy saving people from mob beat downs!
Drop your stupid dogmatic devotion to your specific "ism", get your head out of your ass and actually look at the world around you as it is once in a while.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Those "isolated property crimes" you speak of will cost Vancouver residents and businesses millions of dollars, damages that aren't covered for riots. Not to mention the black eye Vancouver gets now on the world stage.
You must be just willfully blind or just plain stupid not see the violence going on last night.
In short, you are a fucking moron who has tried to inject your naive and childlike political views into a serious, actual issue.
Re:Just for rioting? Seriously? (Score:5, Interesting)
Hey guess what. Fuck you. No seriously fuck you. In Canada we generally have a well ordered, and well behaved society. Lets see we got one guy who got the shit beat of him by 15-20 people because he was trying to protect property. And we have idiots who have this idea that public mischief, rioting, and in general being a danger to everyone else is not worthy of your time?
It wasn't a few cars, it wasn't a few businesses, and it sure the fuck wasn't a few people who got stomped in the face because they tried to stop the fuckers from ruining businesses and looting. And if you are a Canadian. Get the fuck out of the country and go somewhere else. Maybe europe, where they let you destroy someone elses property because your "sensibilities" can be offended, because a sports team lost.
Re:Just for rioting? Seriously? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Obviously. Then again the people who committed crimes against others when they get caught are in for a rude awakening. Here we have a pretty high tolerance for damages against private property and loss of money. But hurt someone? Even the most liberal judges here will slam you with the highest sentences they can.
Re: (Score:3)
I agree entirely with your sentiments, except that I'm European, so I really am not sure what you're blathering on about at the end there. You seem to be under some misapprehension than rioting here is tolerated or legal, while it is obviously neither.
Re: (Score:2)
Well I suppose I could have said Greece. I have been there more than a few times, and it's by far more tolerated there than anywhere else in Europe.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
No dude Fuck you! Canada generally well ordered? LOL... I have lived in Canada for 18 years, and now I live in Switzerland. Now that is a country with order and well behaved people. Canada has the impression of being well behaved, but it really ain't. Just google Canadian riots and wow here is a list: http://ca.askmen.com/top_10/entertainment/top-10-canadian-riots.html [askmen.com] Or how about the following list: http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/nhl/news?slug=capress-hkn_stanley_cup_riots_list-7164094 [yahoo.com] Topping the list are H
Re: (Score:2)
That's great, but I've been here for over 30 years. Having lived here for the majority of them, and in other places in the world. But please, feel free to read next time it'll help. As I never said that everywhere else 'are bad'.
Nah the police aren't allowed to be prepared. Actually they're not allowed to take any action at all. I'll let you figure out why since you've obviously been here much longer than I have. And you're not even a born citizen. I'll wait.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Just for rioting? Seriously? (Score:5, Interesting)
Coles Notes: 150 people injured, some quite seriously. Millions of dollars in damage, which tax payers and insurance payers (translation: the populace - you know, the people who are working together now to help find the criminals) will have to pay for. Perpetrated not by a crowd going insane over the angst of a lost hockey game but by anarchists and professional criminals taking advantage of a large crowd of people which could provide cover for their activities while blame was placed on the hockey fans rather than the criminals perpetrating the crimes.
Forgive me if I disagree with you, strongly, and am very happy to see initiatives like this to catch the criminals and happier still to know that the hockey fans often stepped in to try to hold back the criminals from their desired goals.
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, but those "anarchists and professional criminals" aren't who you think they are. [blogspot.com]
Re:Just for rioting? Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, how do you mange to sound more like a dick with each word you write?
You realize this isn't some vigilante man hunt, right? It's just people looking at pics of crimes in progress and seeing if they recognize anyone. If they do, they report them to the police and let justice take its course.
As to this:
"At least rioters are just violent pricks and adrenaline-fueled idiots; you guys sound like the sort of vengeful, soulless libertarians who would shoot a man rather than let him walk away with your TV"
I don't even know what to say. People smashing property for no reason are worse than people trying to defend their own property. Go fuck yourself.
Re: (Score:3)
Actually, it's always been legal for citizens to volunteer information and help. Kind of the idea behind the wanted poster thing.
Re: (Score:2)
...you guys sound like the sort of vengeful, soulless libertarians who would shoot a man rather than let him walk away with your TV; the kind of people who want all crimes prosecuted to the 'fullest extent of the law', who cares the methods and damn the financial, social, or philosophical cost.
Sorry, but what part of my reply was anything along the lines of what you accuse me of?
Re: (Score:3)
It's just you, and they're not. They've crowdsourced evidence gathering, but this is no different from working with crimestoppers to hunt vandals. Instead of calling in tips, they're asking the public to submit video evidence, not to analyze it. The facebook pages are not police initiatives.
Re:Just for rioting? Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
I should clarify; around slashdot, we're awfully big on civil liberties, personal privacy and libertarianism (Hey, government, stay out of my business!). That said, we don't spend nearly enough time on civic duty. Civic duty and civil liberties are inextricably linked: a society will remain well ordered if either, there are no civil liberties and no civic duty, or there are lots of civil liberties, but they come at a price: that of civic duty.
Consequently, if you want the government to stay out of your life, you owe your society the duty of reporting it if your neighbor steals from the convenience store while you're watching. The police will follow up on the allegations, do their own investigation, and they may ask you to testify. But that's the price of civic liberties.
Re: (Score:3)
No one has the right to destroy someone elses property just because they think they can get away with it. these are not people trying to make a point or protesting some injustice these are just hooligans that are obviously more then willing to make someones elses life worse if they can get away with it and I do not understand why anyone would want them to get away with it.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not worth setting a precedent that we'll all analyze video for the police merely to get justice for a few totaled cars.
What would be next... going after perpetrators ourselves, arresting them, incarcerating them somewhere in our homes and feed them for years? (we're already paying for all of these in taxes... are they saying/admitting we are paying them for nothing?)
Re: (Score:2)
Insightful? Seriously? I think if your store were looted and trashed, you might be singing a different tune. Or if you lived across the street from a car that was set on fire. Or if one of your family needed emergency medical service and ambulances were held off because of the rioting.
Your comparison to Farenheit 451 is ridiculous. The book had people looking for someone whose "crime" was to read, not for someone who stole and vandalized property.
Re: (Score:3)
No fucking shit. Parent is a pure lawlessness apologist. The cops are asking the public to help them identify potential perpetrators or witnesses. Whether it's Facebook, Youtube, a neighborhood watch or people who saw a criminal act by pure fucking accident, it's all the same thing.
It's a citizen's duty to help out the authorities when crimes are committed. Taxpayers are insurance policy holders are ultimately going to pay for this riot, and I don't think it's any kind of tyranny or thought control for
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
As a vancouver citizen, I'd just like to say that anyone who gets into international news for burning a police car, shoplifting, stabbing, etc deserves to be identified. These people are being misrepresented as genuine vancouver canucks fans, rather than criminals who planned crimes in advance, eg bringing gas with them downtown. Since when has asking the public for help in identifying the the people responsible for a crime (in this case many crimes!) been a bad thing? After an amazing Olympics, how do you
Re: (Score:3)
Would you like to live in a world where society sets the standards and cooperates with one another to ensure that everyone follows that standard, or would you like to live in a world where the government sets the standards and they are enforced by the police in opposition of society? Because your statement makes me think that you *prefer* a police state. For me, ideally police aren't necessary. People are respectful of each other and peer pressure is enough to dissuade people from stepping over the line
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, I don't buy that at all. Some people scrape together everything to get their car. Just because it's property, doesn't mean it belongs to "the man" or that the guy owning it has insurance to cover the damage.
I was in a crowd plenty of times and when things turned ugly, I just went the other way. And not just looting. Once standing for tickets to something, the counter opened, and the line didn't maintain, some idiots rushed it and then everyone rushed and some woman got trampled and taken to the h
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
As for your insistence that I would "run" from police asking me to provide testimony of a murder I witnessed, it's not the same thing and you god damn well know it. I don't know just how everyone decided I'm an anarchist or that I find prosecution of *anything* objectionable; I merely find prosecuting things based solely on crowd-sourced identifications of people in photos and videos with a convoluted chain of custody a worse precedent than letting pe
Re: (Score:2)
Wait. So people who commit criminal acts, and happily post themselves on websites committing such. And the police using such a tool to find the people who've helped commit millions in damages, and contribute to the injury of several hundred people is ... state sanctioned surveillance of everyone?
What the hell is wrong with you?
Re:Vigilante safety patrol (Score:5, Insightful)
What are you even talking about? First, these are all videos citizens recorded of crimes happening in front of their eyes in public streets. None of this is coming from the police. If someone is identified, a police expert will evaluate that. If it looks like a match, they'll press charges. If there's enough evidence to convince a judge, they'll be prosecuted. Do you think we run our justice system with some facebook/hot-or-not hybrid? Wow.
Re: (Score:2)
They did just that in Toronto last year, and public was all up in arms about "police brutality".
Re:I was in the midst of it and (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me get this straight.
You're glorifying and condoning destruction of property, violence and cheering for more violence and senseless destruction. You're also using "mob energy" and "excitement" as justification for said senseless destruction and violence.
All because you think the city you're living in is a bit dull. What the fuck is wrong with you?