I have been to a bunch of protests and demonstrations in DC. Watching the news on Jan 6 blew my mind. I was like where the fuck are all the cops?? There was always a bigger police presence for the 4th of July "smokeouts", much less actual protests.

[–] photonic_sorcerer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 1 year ago

Plot twist: those were the cops.

[–] Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you ever been to a BLM protest, organizers frequently would flag undercover cops. There has always been instigators/troublemakers at any protest, and we always want to ensure that those who were would quickly get removed (even if the troublemaker was the undercover cop in general).

So to tell me Jan 6 went so far without any police presence?

Even allowing protestors to beat up cops? After the fucking show of force the Blue did to stand against BLM?

[–] electric_nan@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

Absolutely! I have also seen agents provocateur at protests. The difference is that their job has always been to goad people into crimes so they can arrest them.