1. Rules of engagement, at a guess.

   Were I a Portland police officer, I’d have been sending out resumes as of a few months ago.

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   1. Yes, ROE but why are the ROE like this?

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      1. Because the narrative is… the protests are peaceful.

         Any evidence to the contrary is to be ignored.

      2. As others have pointed out, the mayor and city council prefer the BLM/Antifa protesters terrorists over the police. The ROEs are just a reflection of that.

         That they’re also choosing the lawless destroyers over business owners who pay into the city (in the form of tax revenues) hasn’t fully sunk in yet, and probably won’t until tax season and budget proposal time, if then. I don’t predict a reckoning at election time, either; a majority of the city’s voters would vote for Judas Iscariot over Jesus Christ Himself if Jesus ran with a ‘R’ after His name.

         As much blame as I’d like to lay on the mayor and city council, the voters aren’t innocent here, either. They got the government they voted for.

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         1. It’s like the Klan — the local authorities don’t disagree with the Night Skaterz, any more than they disagreed with the Night Riders. Plus, they have relatives taking part in the “festivities” — cracking down might embarrass too many connected families.

2. It’s a rhetorical question, of course — the answer is simply that the local politicians much prefer dead policemen over dead or injured terrorists.
   They are the political brothers of Yasser Arafat and Qasem Suleimani.

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3. Meh, were I a Portland PD officer, before now I would have been a former Portland PD officer.

   “Uh, Seageant? I just quit. Take my badge & sidearm, please?”

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   1. Portland has 905 officers left and that number includes desk people and non-patrol.
      43 officers retired least month and they were already short.

      They are screwed.

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      1. On the other hand, their pension fund is trending to be better than 30% funded!

4. See how well our new Mostly Peaceful™ Molotov Cocktail 2.0 works for barbecuing The Man! 95% less Yackity Sax than our 1.0 model, we promise!

   Endorsed by Reza “It Tastes Like Chicken!’ Aslan.

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5. You mis-spelled a vulgarism commonly employed to refer to the last approx 5 cm of the digestive tract.

6. So, we’re not doing the “no rioting because that helps Trump” thing now anymore now?

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7. Seems pretty obvious to me that they cannot shoot back at the person who threw it without putting a lot of “innocent” people around them in danger. This is why they are careful to keep the crowd proportions at roughly 8 “protestors” for every rioter, to act as a shield, to prevent the police from using force against the aggressors, to give the aggressors cover to move and escape in, and to slow the police down and prevent capture if they attempt to pursue. The aggressors can move around posing as “protestors” and “peaceful rioters” right up until they pitch a brick or cocktail, whereupon they retreat back into the crowd, which protects them. This also allows them to call themselves “protestors” and whine when the police try to use even minimal force to disperse them, and they can accuse the police of “violently attacking unarmed protestors”. If they were a mob of people all armed with sticks and rocks and molotov cocktails, even the media would find it hard to attack the police for using force on them. They need a majority to be not actively engaging in arson and assault, to allow the shock troopers to engage with a chance of success. This is literally asymetric warfare, only they are using the system against itself, abusing the laws and restrictions that prevent the police from using force against “unarmed” protestors, basically keeping the police paralyzed (with the help of the sympathetic media, without which they could never succeed). This is an open attempt at revolution, very carefully planned and carried out to ensure that no real steps can be taken against them.
   If the police were to open fire in that situation, they would be crucified by the media and politicians, it would be the Boston Massacre all over again, perhaps with the same results of turning public support in favor of the revolutionaries (or at least giving them ground to pretend they have the moral high ground).
   In fact I’m quite sure that the guy who pitched that carefully DIDN’T throw it right at them. It was just another provocation, they mean to either provoke a “massacre”, or at least make the police look weak and inffectual to encourage other punk kids to come out and join the fun. I’m sure they could have killed many police by now if they thought it was good for The Cause. Actually killing them wouldn’t work as well for them. They mean to pressure and insult and harass the police, but stop short of overt acts that might turn public sympathy firmly against them. Which is not to say they won’t gladly hang police officers from every light pole when the time comes. Until then they need to be able to keep up the pretense of being “peaceful”…and they’d rather have the officers demoralized and unsupported, rather than angry and out to break cop killer skulls, with an outraged public on the side of the officers. It is still in the balance, and they are skillful at the amount of pressure needed to get what they want. Here’s hoping they are misjudging the ulitmate end, but I admit I am concerned. The question is whether more voters are outraged and angry, or intimidated and cowed.

   1. If you’re a “protester” acting as part of a shield for violent rioters, that makes you an accomplice. Morally for sure, and in law most likely.
      In a number of states (my home state of NH comes to mind) being part of a group that’s committing a crime resulting in death makes you guilty of murder. It doesn’t matter if someone else pulled the trigger. It doesn’t even matter if the shooting was done by a cop responding to the crime; the fact that a crime results in death is sufficient.
      It’s probably true that shooting at terrorists and hitting an accomplice who is pretending to be an innocent bystander is bad optics, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t justified.
      As for “didn’t throw it right at them” — he did, or at least it sure looks that way to me.
      One of these days the police will have to bring in a convoy of buses (or tractor-trailers) to arrest everyone at one of these riots. Using “bystanders” as a way to escape only works so long as the police continue to arrest just a few of the most violent perpetrators.

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