theintercept--2020-06-11--The Abrupt, Radical Reversal in How Public Health Experts Now Speak About the Coronavirus and Mass G

The Abrupt, Radical Reversal in How Public Health Experts Now Speak About the Coronavirus and Mass Gatherings

Watch today ’ s SYSTEM UPDATE on this topic on The Intercept ’ s YouTube channel , with guest Adam Gaffney of the Harvard Medical School , or on the player below .
That was the pandemic which we were told by public health experts since February was so grave — the worst public health threat since the 1918 Spanish Flu — that we could not go outside for any reason , even if it meant a collapse in the global economy , tens or hundreds of millions of people suffering from unemployment , the permanent shuttering of small businesses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the separation of people from their loved ones and communities , including barring them from visiting dying spouses and parents and children in the hospital or even attending an outdoor burial .
So dogmatic was the dictate that we all stay at home that any attempt to question or even balance it — by , for instance , arguing that the harms of the virus had to be weighed against the suffering from an economic shutdown and a global depression — was deemed immoral .
Those who questioned state-mandated lockdown and stay-at-home orders @ @ @ @ @ @ @ actually protest against them , were condemned as sociopaths who were willing to sacrifice the lives of old people for economic prosperity or the trivial , troglodyte desire to go to Applebees .
Oftentimes those protesting lockdowns were vilified as white nationalists or at least driven by white racialist sentiments ( sometimes they were that , but often they were not ) .
People who left their homes for any reason other than officially approved “ essential ” functions were — no matter how careful they were — publicly shamed if not fined @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and celebrated for dressing up as the Grim Reaper to shame people for being at even deserted beaches in the sun with ample social distancing .
One particularly creepy video from a police department in the United Kingdom used drone footage to castigate and denounce people who did things like walk on nature trails or go for family drives : In sum , all decent people , by definition , accepted and submitted to the imperative of self-isolating and staying at home .
No harms from that isolation — whether economic , social @ @ @ @ @ @ @ health — justified opposing or even questioning that decree .
Not just our own health but the lives of others , the social good , concern over the well-being of nurses and doctors , and ongoing respect for science and medicine mandated that we acquiesce to this framework .
everything changed .
Well , not everything : there ’ s still no cure for COVID-19 , nor any treatment , nor any vaccine against contracting the coronavirus .
It is still just as lethal as it was in February and still as contagious @ @ @ @ @ @ @ United States , the infection curve has not plateaued but instead continues to increase .
On Monday , the Los Angeles Times warned that “ in the last two days , Los Angeles County officials announced 81 new coronavirus-related deaths , the highest total reported over a weekend in more than a month.
” Meanwhile : Texas reported over 2,500 new coronavirus cases Wednesday—the highest reported in a single day by far since the pandemic started—as the number of Texans currently admitted to hospitals for coronavirus climbed to a new record for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which had one of the fastest and most aggressive reopening timelines in the nation , has seen a surge in infections about two weeks after Memorial Day .
So nothing has really changed regarding the epidemiology , infectiousness or lethality of the disease .
If anything , it has become somewhat more alarming as evidence mounts that many people who manage to survive the virus will be debilitated with long-term damage to vital organs and other parts of their body .
What has changed — dramatically , radically and abruptly — is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even public officials about the virus .
Beginning roughly two weeks ago , we all watched as mass stay-at-home orders and self-isolation gave way to massive street protests , where tens or hundreds of thousands of people gathered together in the U.S. and around the world , often one on top of the other , chanting , yelling and singing : a virtual laboratory for what we had spent four months hearing was exactly what one must not do in the middle of this pandemic .
And yet , in very stark contrast @ @ @ @ @ @ @ experts of prior protests or out-of-the-home activities of any kind , virtually no prominent experts have denounced any of this on the ground that it will spread the coronavirus and ultimately kill more people ( even though that is highly likely to happen ) .
To the contrary , many infectious disease experts have done the exact opposite : they have endorsed and encouraged these mass street protests , claiming not that their support for them is grounded in their political values but in their health and scientific judgment .
As the journalist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ outstanding Guardian op-ed on this question , headlined “ We often accuse the right of distorting science .
But the left changed the coronavirus narrative overnight ” : This feels like gaslighting .
Less than two weeks ago , the enlightened position in both Europe and America was to exercise nothing less than extreme caution .
Many of us went much further , taking to social media to castigate others for insufficient social distancing or neglecting to wear masks or daring to believe they could maintain some semblance of a normal life during @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , when the state of Georgia moved to end its lockdown , the Atlantic ran an article with the headline “ Georgia ’ s Experiment in Human Sacrifice ” .
Two weeks ago we shamed people for being in the street ; today we shame them for not being in the street .
Examples of this are too abundant to list here ( today ’ s SYSTEM UPDATE episode covers many of them ) .
New Jersey ’ s Governor Phil Murphy condemned anti-lockdown protests just last month , righteously announcing that public @ @ @ @ @ @ @ state ’ s quarantine policies ; then last week , after George Floyd ’ s killing , Gov .
Murphy praised the massive anti-police-brutality protests in his state without even attempting to reconcile that with his prior stay-at-home messaging ; then , last week while he praised these protests , he extended his “ public health emergency ” order for 30 more days out of fear of what he called “ a new outbreak of # COVID19″ — and he did all of this while maintaining his “ STAY AT HOME ” banner @ @ @ @ @ @ @ where he issued all of these conflicting directives .
Let ’ s check in on the lawyer-turned-celebrity-Grim-Reaper : is he appearing at these street protests in his now-famous costume to warn people that they are not only risking their own deaths but also those of innocent people who they might infect through their recklessness ?
He is not .
Like Gov .
Murphy and so many other elected officials , he ’ s doing exactly the opposite : he ’ s posting pictures of himself attending the protests , not as the Grim @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to join him on the streets to support this noble cause : But it is the public health experts whose 180-degree reversal is most stark , and — given the unique importance of maintaining trust in their apolitical scientific expertise during a global pandemic — most damaging .
The epidemiologist Jennifer Nuzzo proclaimed last week that “ we should always evaluate the risks and benefits of efforts to control the virus ” — exactly the risk-benefit calculus that has been declared off-limits since February .
With that license to balance arrogated unto herself @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this moment the public health risks of not protesting to demand an end to systemic racism greatly exceed the harms of the virus.
” In other words , if you care about public health , you should not remain at home out of fear of contracting or transmitting the coronavirus but do the opposite : leave your home to participate in these protests .
The former Director of the CDC and New York City Health Commissioner Tom Frieden similarly pronounced that “ the threat to Covid control from protesting outside is tiny ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the threat to Covid control created when governments act in ways that lose community trust.
” Prior to the May 25 death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department and the resulting outbreak of mass street protests , did you hear any respected , mainstream health expert minimize the risk of coronavirus transmission in that way ?
I most certainly did not .
“ People can protest peacefully AND work together to stop Covid , ” he added .
Prior to George Floyd ’ s killing , were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to stop Covid ” by leaving one ’ s house to join mass street protests ?
But perhaps the most egregious and illustrative example of the utter manipulation of public health science and expertise for nakedly political ends is found in the open letter that was originally crafted by epidemiologists at the University of Washington and then ultimately signed by 1,300 experts from around the country .
That letter , which made headlines in media outlets around the world , acknowledges that 1 ) these massive protests are likely to spread the coronavirus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2 ) those harms from new infections are likely to fall disproportionately on African-American and Latino citizens ; and 3 ) the use of preventative measures such as social distancing and masks is very difficult to maintain at such protests .
In other words , these protests — dedicated toward protecting the lives of minority citizens — are virtually certain to result in the deaths , perhaps in large numbers , of the very people they are designed to protect .
In their open letter , these health experts nonetheless decrees that support @ @ @ @ @ @ @ matter of public health and scientific expertise , while imperiously insisting that other protests should still be scorned and prohibited : On April 30 , heavily armed and predominantly white protesters entered the State Capitol building in Lansing , Michigan , protesting stay-home orders and calls for widespread public masking to prevent the spread of COVID-19 .
Infectious disease physicians and public health officials publicly condemned these actions and privately mourned the widening rift between leaders in science and a subset of the communities that they serve .
As of May 30 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to ongoing , pervasive , and lethal institutional racism set off by the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor , among many other Black lives taken by police .
A public health response to these demonstrations is also warranted , but this message must be wholly different from the response to white protesters resisting stay-home orders .
Infectious disease and public health narratives adjacent to demonstrations against racism must be consciously anti-racist , and infectious disease experts must be clear and consistent in prioritizing an anti-racist message… .
[ A ] s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ condemn these gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission .
We support them as vital to the national public health and to the threatened health specifically of Black people in the United States .
We can show that support by facilitating safest protesting practices without detracting from demonstrators ’ ability to gather and demand change .
This should not be confused with a permissive stance on all gatherings , particularly protests against stay-home orders .
Those actions not only oppose public health interventions , but are also rooted in white nationalism and run contrary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is it remotely within the scope of the expertise of epidemiologists to pick and choose which political protests should be permitted and/or encouraged and which ones banned and/or denounced ?
Those are plainly political judgments , not scientific ones , and the shoddy , glaring conflation of them is nothing less than a manipulation , an abuse , of public health credentials .
For scientists to purport to dictate which citizens can and can not safely choose to leave their house — based not on health judgments but on their political ideology — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the credibility of their profession .
Yet this is exactly what they are doing : explicitly and shamelessly .
As Williams wrote : “ But this virus – for which we may never even find a vaccine – knows and respects none of this socio-political context .
Its killing trajectory isn ’ t rational , emotional or ethical – only mathematical.
” I ’ ve been a vocal supporter of these protests from their start , including their occasional use of civil disobedience and targeted property damage .
My views of the protests @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the repressive debate-denying tactics that have sprouted up around them ) have not changed ; I remain an enthusiastic supporter on the ground that we simply can not tolerate any longer an unaccountable , paramilitarized police force that kills with impunity , especially when aimed disproportionately at African-Americans and Latinos .
But what we should not tolerate , and what the scientific community can not permit if it is to retain its credibility , is the abuse and manipulation of health expertise for political ends .
One of two things is true ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to a significant spike in coronavirus infections and deaths , in which case public health experts should reconcile that outcome with how they could have encouraged and endorsed them ; or 2 ) it will not lead to such a spike , in which case it will appear that the months of extreme , draconian lockdowns — which caused great suffering and deprivation around the world — were excessive , misguided and unwarranted .
At the very least , it is vital that we have the same health and legal standards apply to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it comes to the right to leave one ’ s home , protest or engage in other legal activities .
And at least as importantly , we need to understand whether public health experts were too restrictive in their advocated measures at the start of the pandemic , are being too lax now , or somehow can reconcile the radical shift in their posture on scientific rather than political grounds .
Today ’ s SYTSEM UPDATE , which debuts at 4:00 p.m .
ET on The Intercept ’ s YouTube channel , is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
I ’ m joined by Adam Gaffney , a critical care physician and pulmonary specialist at Harvard Medical School , who disagreed with my critique on Twitter and then graciously accepted the invitation to examine these issues on the show .
The discussion provides , I believe , very illuminating insights into the questions raised by the change in how we think about the pandemic and its relationship to mass gatherings .

June 07, 2020: Protesters attend the Black Austin Rally and march for Black Lives at Huston-Tillotson University. Austin, Texas. Mario Cantu/CSM.(Credit Image: © Mario Cantu/CSM via ZUMA Wire) (Cal Sport Media via AP Images) AP
Watch today’s SYSTEM UPDATE on this topic on The Intercept’s YouTube channel, with guest Adam Gaffney of the Harvard Medical School, or on the player below.
Remember the coronavirus? That was the pandemic which we were told by public health experts since February was so grave — the worst public health threat since the 1918 Spanish Flu — that we could not go outside for any reason, even if it meant a collapse in the global economy, tens or hundreds of millions of people suffering from unemployment, the permanent shuttering of small businesses, sustained mental health damage, and the separation of people from their loved ones and communities, including barring them from visiting dying spouses and parents and children in the hospital or even attending an outdoor burial.
So dogmatic was the dictate that we all stay at home that any attempt to question or even balance it — by, for instance, arguing that the harms of the virus had to be weighed against the suffering from an economic shutdown and a global depression — was deemed immoral. Those who questioned state-mandated lockdown and stay-at-home orders, let alone left their homes to actually protest against them, were condemned as sociopaths who were willing to sacrifice the lives of old people for economic prosperity or the trivial, troglodyte desire to go to Applebees. Oftentimes those protesting lockdowns were vilified as white nationalists or at least driven by white racialist sentiments (sometimes they were that, but often they were not).
People who left their homes for any reason other than officially approved “essential” functions were — no matter how careful they were — publicly shamed if not fined and arrested. A lawyer became famous and celebrated for dressing up as the Grim Reaper to shame people for being at even deserted beaches in the sun with ample social distancing. One particularly creepy video from a police department in the United Kingdom used drone footage to castigate and denounce people who did things like walk on nature trails or go for family drives:
In sum, all decent people, by definition, accepted and submitted to the imperative of self-isolating and staying at home. No harms from that isolation — whether economic, social, or ones implicating mental and physical health — justified opposing or even questioning that decree. Not just our own health but the lives of others, the social good, concern over the well-being of nurses and doctors, and ongoing respect for science and medicine mandated that we acquiesce to this framework.
Roughly two weeks ago, everything changed. Well, not everything: there’s still no cure for COVID-19, nor any treatment, nor any vaccine against contracting the coronavirus. It is still just as lethal as it was in February and still as contagious. And in many parts of the United States, the infection curve has not plateaued but instead continues to increase. On Monday, the Los Angeles Times warned that “in the last two days, Los Angeles County officials announced 81 new coronavirus-related deaths, the highest total reported over a weekend in more than a month.” Meanwhile:
Texas reported over 2,500 new coronavirus cases Wednesday—the highest reported in a single day by far since the pandemic started—as the number of Texans currently admitted to hospitals for coronavirus climbed to a new record for the third straight day, as the state, which had one of the fastest and most aggressive reopening timelines in the nation, has seen a surge in infections about two weeks after Memorial Day.
So nothing has really changed regarding the epidemiology, infectiousness or lethality of the disease. If anything, it has become somewhat more alarming as evidence mounts that many people who manage to survive the virus will be debilitated with long-term damage to vital organs and other parts of their body.
What has changed — dramatically, radically and abruptly — is the messaging from public health experts and even public officials about the virus. Beginning roughly two weeks ago, we all watched as mass stay-at-home orders and self-isolation gave way to massive street protests, where tens or hundreds of thousands of people gathered together in the U.S. and around the world, often one on top of the other, chanting, yelling and singing: a virtual laboratory for what we had spent four months hearing was exactly what one must not do in the middle of this pandemic.
Protesters take part during a rally in the Place de la Republique square in Paris against racism and police brutality in the wake of the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man killed while apprehended by police in Minneapolis on June 9, 2020. Photo by Karim Ait Adjedjou/Avenir Pictures/Abaca/Sipa USA(Sipa via AP Images) Sipa USA via AP
And yet, in very stark contrast to the vehement denunciations from public health experts of prior protests or out-of-the-home activities of any kind, virtually no prominent experts have denounced any of this on the ground that it will spread the coronavirus and ultimately kill more people (even though that is highly likely to happen). To the contrary, many infectious disease experts have done the exact opposite: they have endorsed and encouraged these mass street protests, claiming not that their support for them is grounded in their political values but in their health and scientific judgment. As the journalist Thomas Chatterton Williams put it in an outstanding Guardian op-ed on this question, headlined “We often accuse the right of distorting science. But the left changed the coronavirus narrative overnight”:
This feels like gaslighting. Less than two weeks ago, the enlightened position in both Europe and America was to exercise nothing less than extreme caution. Many of us went much further, taking to social media to castigate others for insufficient social distancing or neglecting to wear masks or daring to believe they could maintain some semblance of a normal life during coronavirus. At the end of April, when the state of Georgia moved to end its lockdown, the Atlantic ran an article with the headline “Georgia’s Experiment in Human Sacrifice”. Two weeks ago we shamed people for being in the street; today we shame them for not being in the street.
Examples of this are too abundant to list here (today’s SYSTEM UPDATE episode covers many of them). New Jersey’s Gov. Phil Murphy condemned anti-lockdown protests just last month, righteously announcing that public health rather than protests will guide the state’s quarantine policies; then last week, after George Floyd’s killing, Murphy praised the massive anti-police-brutality protests in his state without even attempting to reconcile that with his prior stay-at-home messaging; then, last week while he praised these protests, he extended his “public health emergency” order for 30 more days out of fear of what he called “a new outbreak of #COVID19” — and he did all of this while maintaining his “STAY AT HOME” banner on the top of his Twitter page where he issued all of these conflicting directives.
How can politicians like @GovMurphy expect anyone to take their messaging and decrees seriously when they do this? pic.twitter.com/2q1mXPzzhI — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) June 6, 2020
Let’s check in on the lawyer-turned-celebrity-Grim-Reaper: is he appearing at these street protests in his now-famous costume to warn people that they are not only risking their own deaths but also those of innocent people who they might infect through their recklessness? He is not. Like Murphy and so many other elected officials, he’s doing exactly the opposite: he’s posting pictures of himself attending the protests, not as the Grim Reaper but as himself, encouraging others to join him on the streets to support this noble cause:
UPDATE: The lawyer, Daniel Uhlfelder, who dressed up as the Grim Reaper and stalked the Florida beaches as death personified because the threat was so grave —> This is him now: pic.twitter.com/ZAF9BdMVra — Thomas Chatterton Williams (@thomaschattwill) June 8, 2020
But it is the public health experts whose 180-degree reversal is most stark, and — given the unique importance of maintaining trust in their apolitical scientific expertise during a global pandemic — most damaging.
The epidemiologist Jennifer Nuzzo proclaimed last week that “we should always evaluate the risks and benefits of efforts to control the virus” — exactly the risk-benefit calculus that has been declared off-limits since February. With that license to balance arrogated unto herself, Dr. Nuzzo concluded that “in this moment the public health risks of not protesting to demand an end to systemic racism greatly exceed the harms of the virus.” In other words, if you care about public health, you should not remain at home out of fear of contracting or transmitting the coronavirus but do the opposite: leave your home to participate in these protests.
The former Director of the CDC and New York City Health Commissioner Tom Frieden similarly pronounced that “the threat to Covid control from protesting outside is tiny” — tiny!! — “compared to the threat to Covid control created when governments act in ways that lose community trust.” Prior to the May 25 death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department and the resulting outbreak of mass street protests, did you hear any respected, mainstream health expert minimize the risk of coronavirus transmission in that way? I most certainly did not. “People can protest peacefully AND work together to stop Covid,” he added. Prior to George Floyd’s killing, were you aware that one could “work to stop Covid” by leaving one’s house to join mass street protests?
The threat to Covid control from protesting outside is tiny compared to the threat to Covid control created when governments act in ways that lose community trust. People can protest peacefully AND work together to stop Covid. Violence harms public health. — Dr. Tom Frieden (@DrTomFrieden) June 2, 2020
But perhaps the most egregious and illustrative example of the utter manipulation of public health science and expertise for nakedly political ends is found in the open letter that was originally crafted by epidemiologists at the University of Washington and then ultimately signed by 1,300 experts from around the country.
That letter, which made headlines in media outlets around the world, acknowledges that 1) these massive protests are likely to spread the coronavirus and result in deaths from COVID-19; 2) those harms from new infections are likely to fall disproportionately on African American and Latino citizens; and 3) the use of preventative measures such as social distancing and masks is very difficult to maintain at such protests. In other words, these protests — dedicated toward protecting the lives of minority citizens — are virtually certain to result in the deaths, perhaps in large numbers, of the very people they are designed to protect.
In their open letter, these health experts nonetheless decree that support for these protests is mandated as a matter of public health and scientific expertise, while imperiously insisting that other protests should still be scorned and prohibited:
On April 30, heavily armed and predominantly white protesters entered the State Capitol building in Lansing, Michigan, protesting stay-home orders and calls for widespread public masking to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Infectious disease physicians and public health officials publicly condemned these actions and privately mourned the widening rift between leaders in science and a subset of the communities that they serve. As of May 30, we are witnessing continuing demonstrations in response to ongoing, pervasive, and lethal institutional racism set off by the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, among many other Black lives taken by police. A public health response to these demonstrations is also warranted, but this message must be wholly different from the response to white protesters resisting stay-home orders. Infectious disease and public health narratives adjacent to demonstrations against racism must be consciously anti-racist, and infectious disease experts must be clear and consistent in prioritizing an anti-racist message…. [A]s public health advocates, we do not condemn these gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission. We support them as vital to the national public health and to the threatened health specifically of Black people in the United States. We can show that support by facilitating safest protesting practices without detracting from demonstrators’ ability to gather and demand change. This should not be confused with a permissive stance on all gatherings, particularly protests against stay-home orders. Those actions not only oppose public health interventions, but are also rooted in white nationalism and run contrary to respect for Black lives.
How is it remotely within the scope of the expertise of epidemiologists to pick and choose which political protests should be permitted and/or encouraged and which ones banned and/or denounced? Those are plainly political judgments, not scientific ones, and the shoddy, glaring conflation of them is nothing less than a manipulation, an abuse, of public health credentials. For scientists to purport to dictate which citizens can and cannot safely choose to leave their house — based not on health judgments but on their political ideology — is repressive, and certain to erode the credibility of their profession. Yet this is exactly what they are doing: explicitly and shamelessly. As Williams wrote: “But this virus – for which we may never even find a vaccine – knows and respects none of this socio-political context. Its killing trajectory isn’t rational, emotional or ethical – only mathematical.”
I’ve been a vocal supporter of these protests from their start, including their occasional use of civil disobedience and targeted property damage. My views of the protests (as distinct from the some of the repressive debate-denying tactics that have sprouted up around them) have not changed; I remain an enthusiastic supporter on the ground that we simply cannot tolerate any longer an unaccountable, paramilitarized police force that kills with impunity, especially when aimed disproportionately at African Americans and Latinos.
But what we should not tolerate, and what the scientific community cannot permit if it is to retain its credibility, is the abuse and manipulation of health expertise for political ends. One of two things is true; either 1) these protests will lead to a significant spike in coronavirus infections and deaths, in which case public health experts should reconcile that outcome with how they could have encouraged and endorsed them; or 2) it will not lead to such a spike, in which case it will appear that the months of extreme, draconian lockdowns — which caused great suffering and deprivation around the world — were excessive, misguided and unwarranted.
At the very least, it is vital that we have the same health and legal standards apply to all citizens and all political ideologies when it comes to the right to leave one’s home, protest or engage in other legal activities. And at least as importantly, we need to understand whether public health experts were too restrictive in their advocated measures at the start of the pandemic, are being too lax now, or somehow can reconcile the radical shift in their posture on scientific rather than political grounds.
Today’s SYSTEM UPDATE, which debuts at 4:00 p.m. ET on The Intercept’s YouTube channel, is devoted to an exploration of these issues. I’m joined by Adam Gaffney, a critical care physician and pulmonary specialist at Harvard Medical School, who disagreed with my critique on Twitter and then graciously accepted the invitation to examine these issues on the show. The discussion provides, I believe, very illuminating insights into the questions raised by the change in how we think about the pandemic and its relationship to mass gatherings.


theintercept--2020-06-11--Systemic Racism Poses a Far Greater Public Health Threat Than Protests Against Police Violence

by hundreds of people standing shoulder to shoulder , marching , chanting , and sometimes frantically fleeing police violence together during a pandemic are real .
And it may be true , as some public health experts have predicted , that the weeks of protests over police brutality that have swept the country — and the world — in the wake of George Floyd ’ s murder will be followed by a new wave of coronavirus infections .
It hasn ’ t helped that police have been flouting the requirement to wear masks , not to mention shooting , clubbing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and killing protesters .
Yet whatever possible impacts the protests have on Covid-19 infection rates , which should be clear within a matter of weeks , they probably won ’ t match the massive measurable toll that the virus has already wrought on communities of color .
Black people in the U.S. are now dying of Covid-19 at 2.4 times the rate of white people .
If the virus had affected them at the lower rate at which it killed white people over the past few months , 13,000 black Americans would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ City , the hardest hit part of the country , Latinos are dying at an even higher rate than African Americans .
Nor will any jump in deaths from new coronavirus infections due to the protests come anywhere near 75,000 : the most conservative estimate of the number of black people who suffer preventable deaths , or “ excess premature deaths , ” each year according to a 2014 study .
There are several reasonable theories about why the virus has served up its worst misery along racial lines .
White people in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ able to work from home , less likely to have the essential jobs that put them in contact with other people , and less likely to live in crowded households .
In New York , they ’ re also more likely to have skipped town and escaped the areas where the risk of contagion was greatest .
But the coronavirus has hit black and brown people hardest in large part because they were already more likely to be in poor health due to systemic racism , as Jacqueline Patterson , senior director of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the NAACP , told members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Tuesday .
Racism is “ a throughline that imperils us at every turn , not just in extreme circumstance such as disasters , but merely when we are walking in a park , making a purchase in the store , jogging down the street , sleeping in a dorm hallway , sleeping in our own bedroom in our own homes , or just breathing air , ” Patterson said at the virtual hearing of the committee , which focused on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ justice communities .
Throughout the more than three hours of testimony and questions , Patterson and Mustafa Santiago Ali , a vice president at the National Wildlife Federation , explained why so many African Americans across the country were struggling to breathe well before the coronavirus hit .
Black people are more likely to live near polluting facilities , more directly impacted by the burning of fossil fuels , more likely to lack clean water , more likely to have and die from asthma , and have the highest death rate for most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of air pollution offers perhaps the most logical explanation of their higher Covid-19 death rates .
Compared to the overall population , black Americans are exposed to 1.5 times more particulate matter , tiny bits of the microscopic air pollution that can make Covid-19 more deadly , according to an April study from researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health .
While pollution particles clearly damage the lungs , which are also a main target of the new coronavirus , the root cause of the disproportionate exposure to this pollution is the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s death .
“ Black communities are dealing with the systemic racism that has infected the policing in our communities that is literally choking us to death , ” said Ali , who worked on environmental justice at the Environmental Protection Agency for 24 years and left after Trump took office .
Ali pointed out that , by reversing 100 environmental rules , the current administration is showing the same disregard for health as some violent cops — and having some of the same effects .
“ The rolling back of environmental @ @ @ @ @ @ @ air , ” said Ali .
“ When we say , ‘ I Can ’ t Breathe , ’ we literally can ’ t breathe.
” While hard-hit communities generally have higher rates of conditions that leave them particularly vulnerable to the coronavirus , such as hypertension and diabetes , they also often have higher rates of seemingly unrelated health problems .
In New York City , the neighborhoods with the highest Covid-19 death rates suffer higher burdens across the board than the least affected areas .
In Canarsie , the neighborhood with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ virus — 628 per 100,000 people — infant mortality is more than six times that of the area with city ’ s lowest rate , Greenwich Village/Soho , according to New York City ’ s most recent Vital Statistics .
The homicide rate in Canarsie is 15 times the city ’ s lowest rate , which is on the Upper East Side .
In Coney Island , which has the city ’ s third highest virus death rate , the rate of drug-related deaths is four times higher than on the Upper East @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has the second highest death rate from the virus , life expectancy is 76.9 years : almost 10 years shorter than the 86.7-year average in Greenwich Village/Soho .
Along with race , income also clearly plays a role , as The Intercept has previously reported .
In the six New York City zip codes with the highest death rates from the coronavirus , median household income averages $ 41,854 , less than a fourth of median household income in Battery Park and the Financial District , which have no reported deaths from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the city ’ s highest coronavirus death rate , 11239 in Canarsie , median household income is $ 26,275 , less than a fifth of what it is in the zip codes with no coronavirus deaths and less than a tenth of the median income in Battery Park , the zip code with the highest median household income .
Yet during the pandemic , efforts to put the risks of the protests in the context of these greater forces that leave people of color more vulnerable to all sorts of health threats @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coronavirus and the underlying health problems that make them more vulnerable to it — have met with fierce backlash .
After more than 1,000 infectious disease experts signed an open letter laying out safe guidelines for protesting and calling for the recognition of white supremacy as a public health issue on May 31 , the conservative legal blog the Volokh Conspiracy accused the health experts , many of whom supported the protests after calling attention to the health threats posed by pro-Trump reopening rallies in April , of being hypocrites .
Epidemiologist Gregg @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has expressed sympathy for the protesters against police violence , was called much worse .
“ Over the past week , I ’ ve gotten many ‘ die fag ’ emails , ” Gonsalves tweeted on Monday after he told Roll Call that any new infections that the protests might generate paled in comparison to the larger drivers of the epidemic .
On Twitter , Gonsalves has made it clear that because elected officials have failed to adequately respond to Covid-19 outbreaks in jails , prisons , meatpacking plants , and nursing facilities @ @ @ @ @ @ @ put at far more jeopardy during this pandemic by our political leaders than by the people on the streets over the past week or so.
” Gonsalves says that while he can ’ t control whether there are mass protests , he can help the people who attend them stay as safe as possible .
He advises wearing face masks , using hand sanitizer , staying in a small circle of friends rather than milling about , using drums rather than shouting , as well as getting tested for the coronavirus and self-isolating @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — to recognize that some people will inevitably take risks and to try to minimize them — was one he learned from decades of AIDS activism .
After the discovery that HIV was transmitted sexually , “ the choice was never have sex again for the rest of your life , or figure out some way through it , ” Gonsalves told me .
This time , as anger about systemic racism has exploded into mass street activism , risk is also inevitable — and mitigation is necessary .
“ It ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have a vaccine .
We ’ re going to have to find a way of risk reduction or harm reduction akin to safer sex .
Let ’ s call it safer living , ” said Gonsalves .
With no end in sight for either the pandemic or the racism that ’ s fueling it , that advice will apply far beyond the protests .
“ We ’ re all just trying to figure out how to survive a plague .
”

The dangers posed by hundreds of people standing shoulder to shoulder, marching, chanting, and sometimes frantically fleeing police violence together during a pandemic are real. And it may be true, as some public health experts have predicted, that the weeks of protests over police brutality that have swept the country — and the world — in the wake of George Floyd’s murder will be followed by a new wave of coronavirus infections. It hasn’t helped that police have been flouting the requirement to wear masks, not to mention shooting, clubbing, pepper-spraying, tear gassing, beating, and killing protesters.
Yet whatever possible impacts the protests have on Covid-19 infection rates, which should be clear within a matter of weeks, they probably won’t match the massive measurable toll that the virus has already wrought on communities of color. Black people in the U.S. are now dying of Covid-19 at 2.4 times the rate of white people. If the virus had affected them at the lower rate at which it killed white people over the past few months, 13,000 black Americans would still be alive. In New York City, the hardest hit part of the country, Latinos are dying at an even higher rate than African Americans. Nor will any jump in deaths from new coronavirus infections due to the protests come anywhere near 75,000: the most conservative estimate of the number of black people who suffer preventable deaths, or “excess premature deaths,” each year according to a 2014 study.
There are several reasonable theories about why the virus has served up its worst misery along racial lines. White people in the U.S. are more likely to be able to work from home, less likely to have the essential jobs that put them in contact with other people, and less likely to live in crowded households. In New York, they’re also more likely to have skipped town and escaped the areas where the risk of contagion was greatest.
But the coronavirus has hit black and brown people hardest in large part because they were already more likely to be in poor health due to systemic racism, as Jacqueline Patterson, senior director of the environmental and climate justice program of the NAACP, told members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Tuesday. Racism is “a throughline that imperils us at every turn, not just in extreme circumstance such as disasters, but merely when we are walking in a park, making a purchase in the store, jogging down the street, sleeping in a dorm hallway, sleeping in our own bedroom in our own homes, or just breathing air,” Patterson said at the virtual hearing of the committee, which focused on the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on environmental justice communities.
Throughout the more than three hours of testimony and questions, Patterson and Mustafa Santiago Ali, a vice president at the National Wildlife Federation, explained why so many African Americans across the country were struggling to breathe well before the coronavirus hit. Black people are more likely to live near polluting facilities, more directly impacted by the burning of fossil fuels, more likely to lack clean water, more likely to have and die from asthma, and have the highest death rate for most cancers.
African Americans’ greater burden of air pollution offers perhaps the most logical explanation of their higher Covid-19 death rates. Compared to the overall population, black Americans are exposed to 1.5 times more particulate matter, tiny bits of the microscopic air pollution that can make Covid-19 more deadly, according to an April study from researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health.
While pollution particles clearly damage the lungs, which are also a main target of the new coronavirus, the root cause of the disproportionate exposure to this pollution is the same systematic injustice that led to Floyd’s death. “Black communities are dealing with the systemic racism that has infected the policing in our communities that is literally choking us to death,” said Ali, who worked on environmental justice at the Environmental Protection Agency for 24 years and left after Trump took office. Ali pointed out that, by reversing 100 environmental rules, the current administration is showing the same disregard for health as some violent cops — and having some of the same effects. “The rolling back of environmental rules and regulations has us gasping for air,” said Ali. “When we say, ‘I Can’t Breathe,’ we literally can’t breathe.”
People on a Rockaway Parkway in Canarsie, Brooklyn, on Tuesday, May 19, 2020. Photo: John Taggart/The New York Times/Redux
While hard-hit communities generally have higher rates of conditions that leave them particularly vulnerable to the coronavirus, such as hypertension and diabetes, they also often have higher rates of seemingly unrelated health problems. In New York City, the neighborhoods with the highest Covid-19 death rates suffer higher burdens across the board than the least affected areas. In Canarsie, the neighborhood with the very highest death rate from the virus — 628 per 100,000 people — infant mortality is more than six times that of the area with city’s lowest rate, Greenwich Village/Soho, according to New York City’s most recent Vital Statistics. The homicide rate in Canarsie is 15 times the city’s lowest rate, which is on the Upper East Side. In Coney Island, which has the city’s third highest virus death rate, the rate of drug-related deaths is four times higher than on the Upper East Side. In Far Rockaway, which has the second highest death rate from the virus, life expectancy is 76.9 years: almost 10 years shorter than the 86.7-year average in Greenwich Village/Soho.
Along with race, income also clearly plays a role, as The Intercept has previously reported. In the six New York City zip codes with the highest death rates from the coronavirus, median household income averages $41,854, less than a fourth of median household income in Battery Park and the Financial District, which have no reported deaths from the virus. And in the zip code with the city’s highest coronavirus death rate, 11239 in Canarsie, median household income is $26,275, less than a fifth of what it is in the zip codes with no coronavirus deaths and less than a tenth of the median income in Battery Park, the zip code with the highest median household income.
Yet during the pandemic, efforts to put the risks of the protests in the context of these greater forces that leave people of color more vulnerable to all sorts of health threats — from police violence to the new coronavirus and the underlying health problems that make them more vulnerable to it — have met with fierce backlash. After more than 1,000 infectious disease experts signed an open letter laying out safe guidelines for protesting and calling for the recognition of white supremacy as a public health issue on May 31, the conservative legal blog the Volokh Conspiracy accused the health experts, many of whom supported the protests after calling attention to the health threats posed by pro-Trump reopening rallies in April, of being hypocrites.
Epidemiologist Gregg Gonsalves, who signed the letter and has expressed sympathy for the protesters against police violence, was called much worse. “Over the past week, I’ve gotten many ‘die fag’ emails,” Gonsalves tweeted on Monday after he told Roll Call that any new infections that the protests might generate paled in comparison to the larger drivers of the epidemic. On Twitter, Gonsalves has made it clear that because elected officials have failed to adequately respond to Covid-19 outbreaks in jails, prisons, meatpacking plants, and nursing facilities, “we’ve all been put at far more jeopardy during this pandemic by our political leaders than by the people on the streets over the past week or so.”
Gonsalves says that while he can’t control whether there are mass protests, he can help the people who attend them stay as safe as possible. He advises wearing face masks, using hand sanitizer, staying in a small circle of friends rather than milling about, using drums rather than shouting, as well as getting tested for the coronavirus and self-isolating if possible after protesting.
That approach — to recognize that some people will inevitably take risks and to try to minimize them — was one he learned from decades of AIDS activism. After the discovery that HIV was transmitted sexually, “the choice was never have sex again for the rest of your life, or figure out some way through it,” Gonsalves told me. This time, as anger about systemic racism has exploded into mass street activism, risk is also inevitable — and mitigation is necessary.
“It’s not about bubble wrapping ourselves until we have a vaccine. We’re going to have to find a way of risk reduction or harm reduction akin to safer sex. Let’s call it safer living,” said Gonsalves. With no end in sight for either the pandemic or the racism that’s fueling it, that advice will apply far beyond the protests. “We’re all just trying to figure out how to survive a plague.”


theintercept--2020-06-11--Police Attacks on Protesters with "Less Than Lethal" Weapons Result in Life-Threatening Injuries

, a volunteer medic and a group of protesters carry Justin Howell , limp and bleeding , toward the Austin Police Department .
Just minutes before , he ’ d been struck in the back of the head by lead pellet-filled “ beanbag , ” one of the so-called less-than-lethal munitions deployed by police during protests that have filled U.S. streets since the May 25 murder of George Floyd .
Another medic , standing at the front of the crew , has her arms crossed above her head — the Red Cross of the city ’ s protests — in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cops .
That signal was unheeded by the officers stationed on the stairs leading up to police headquarters .
As the squad approached with Howell unconscious in their arms , the police opened fire , and indiscriminate rounds of beanbag ammunition blazed the crowd .
The medic at the front of the squad , Maredith Michael , was hit .
Her hands disabled , she fell to the ground .
Howell is 20 .
He ’ s a college student at Texas State University , 30 miles south of Austin , where he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s kind of shy and not prone to unnecessary risk-taking , his brother , Joshua , told The Intercept .
“ He ’ s very intelligent , very inquisitive , very quick on his feet.
” He ’ s now in critical condition in an Austin hospital .
His skull was fractured .
He has a serious brain injury .
The road to recovery will be long .
Howell was one of at least two young men gravely injured by the use of less-lethal munitions fired by Austin police on May 30 and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ city ’ s protests over Floyd ’ s murder by Minneapolis police officers and the murder of an Austin man , 42-year-old Michael Ramos , on April 24 — a deadly encounter that also began with the firing of lead pellet ammunition .
Video and images of the damage done by less-lethal munitions have swept across social media , again raising serious questions about their use and misuse as tools for crowd control .
“ These less-lethal munitions are only less lethal by technicality , ” Joshua Howell said .
“ My brother @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when you fire them into a crowd .
Anything fired out of a shotgun at 90 miles per hour is lethal .
Calling them ‘ less lethal ’ is just fun with words.
” “ We Thought He Was Going to Die ” Less-lethal kinetic and chemical weapons rose to prominence during the drug war .
And that these munitions regularly cause serious and sometimes fatal injuries is nothing new .
Studies have found that both pepper spray and tear gas can cause serious eye injuries and respiratory problems — an issue intensified @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rounds have been associated with “ significant ” abdominal and chest injuries and death .
Kinetic projectiles have long caused permanent injury or death , particularly when fired at the head or neck .
Tasers have long been identified as lethal — even as proponents have worked overtime to deny that .
As the protests intensified , shares of Axon , the company that makes the weapon , spiked .
Amid the protests , head injuries have become shockingly common .
In Dallas , Brandon Saenz lost his left eye and seven teeth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the crowd ; journalist Linda Tirado lost her eye to a police-fired projectile while covering protests in Minneapolis ; in Los Angeles , police reportedly shot out the eye of a homeless man with disabilities who protesters have said was not involved in their demonstration — a brutal incident cited in a federal lawsuit filed against the LAPD over its actions amid the protests .
Protesters in Denver won a temporary restraining order against police , barring their use of less-lethal munitions .
“ Some of the behaviors of what I hope and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ police officers in Denver and the nation during recent days ( and before ) , not only vis-à-vis persons of color but against peaceful protesters of all backgrounds , have been disgusting , ” U.S. District Judge R. Brooke Jackson wrote .
Four days after Floyd was murdered , and just before the city ’ s protests coalesced , Austin Police Chief Brian Manley addressed the department in a video posted on YouTube .
He condemned Floyd ’ s killing and noted that Austin residents were hurt and grieving , and he asked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ Give that extra ounce of care when you ’ re out there , that extra ounce of deference , understanding where we are right now as a society coming to terms with what happened , ” he said .
“ I implore you to exercise patience , and as we tell each graduating cadet class : As you ’ re packing your gear bag for the evening shift , make sure you pack your empathy in there as well.
” That ’ s not how it played out .
The following @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what would become several days of violent clashes after demonstrators shut down Interstate 35 , which slices Austin in half — east and west — and is a monument to the city ’ s racial divide and racist history .
Beyond its borders , Austin enjoys a reputation as a progressive oasis in a sea of Texas , though residents know that isn ’ t entirely accurate .
Allegations of racism , incompetence , and misconduct have long plagued city institutions , including the Austin Police Department .
Between 2005 and early 2017 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than $ 8 million in settlements related to police shootings .
In 2018 , a group of former police cadets came forward to say that academy instructors had told them they would be punched in the face if they said they wanted to become cops in order to help people .
Others said instructors repeatedly referred to sex workers and the homeless as “ cockroaches ” and suggested targeting homeless individuals for arrest if they were bored while on duty .
Allegations of racist , sexist , and homophobic behavior go straight to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ allowed an assistant chief to resign instead of facing investigation into his ongoing racist attitudes and language , and a subsequent independent investigation revealed widespread internal concern about racism and sexism and a feeling that the department has repeatedly failed to deal with its problems .
“ Reports came to us , from different ranks , races and genders , advising of the fact that the racist and sexist name calling and use of derogatory terms associated with race and sex persists , ” the investigator , San Antonio attorney Lisa Tatum , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even members of the executive staff over the years had been known to use racist and sexist language , particularly when around the lower ranks or other subordinates.
” It was against this backdrop that police confronted the ongoing protests .
Images and videos show their indiscriminate use of pepper spray , tear gas , and kinetic munitions .
On May 30 , as police tried to move people off the interstate , 16-year-old Brad Ayala stood on a hillside above the highway , apart from the crowd .
He had just gotten @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the city ’ s south side ; he ’ d told his family that he wanted to see history and he would be home soon .
He didn ’ t make it there .
Instead , he was shot in the head with a beanbag round .
Demonstrators immediately rushed to his side , screaming for medical help .
“ We thought he was going to die , ” his older brother , Edwin , told city council members in the special-called meeting held June 5 via Zoom .
Ayala remains at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has a fractured skull and permanent damage to his prefrontal cortex ; a recent photo posted to the family ’ s GoFundMe page shows him up and walking with the help of a nurse .
Over the first four days of protests in the city , paramedics responded to 53 calls for medical help .
Twenty-nine of those required transportation to a hospital ; of those injuries , 11 were believed to have been caused by beanbag rounds .
Many were life-threatening , the city ’ s Emergency Medical Services chief told the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Manley announced that his officers would no longer be permitted to use beanbag rounds to control crowds .
“ It is still an appropriate tool in many other circumstances , ” he said , “ but not in a crowd situation.
” Of course , it ’ s hard to imagine how anyone , let alone the chief , would have thought that firing into a crowd was a good idea in the first place — and the department ’ s general orders suggest that everyone in the department should have understood this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ example , officers are supposed to provide a verbal warning , and they ’ re not supposed to be used at demonstrations “ without the permission of a supervisor ” or when a person is exhibiting “ only verbal and/or passive resistance to arrest or authority.
” Where kinetic munitions are concerned , officers are told that the safety of “ innocent subjects ” and officers “ takes priority ” in the decision to deploy their weapons .
The policy allows for use against those throwing rocks , bottles , or “ other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ singling out an actual aggressor amid the crowds seems to have been impossible for the Austin Police Department .
And before firing , even when they ’ re allegedly being targeted , officers are supposed to consider their proximity to the subject and other environmental factors .
During the council meeting , Manley said that updated orders would forbid firing at someone ’ s head or neck unless lethal force is warranted ; previously , the order read that those areas should not be “ intentionally ” targeted .
Regarding the injuries to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ I have come to the conclusion that we have had some results that were not intended.
” Scott Henson , a longtime local agitator for police reform and the author of the influential Texas criminal justice blog Grits for Breakfast , called the APD ’ s actions amid the protests “ jaw-dropping.
” Police have always monitored protests in the city , but they usually involve “ a few cops in their regular uniforms , and they ’ re basically there to hang around the edges , in case something happens , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ they showed up in full riot gear from the get-go , and their goal and intention was to enforce compliance , and anyone who didn ’ t just immediately except the most unreasonable command would get shoved around or shot with a beanbag round or sprayed with tear gas.
” For Henson , the department ’ s actions amid the protests were just a more extreme version of the unnecessary use of force they routinely employ in communities of color across the city .
That ’ s exactly what led the April @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Ramos was sitting in a car with his girlfriend in the parking lot of his apartment complex when someone called the cops , first saying that it appeared that the couple was using drugs and later alleging that Ramos had a gun .
The police staged a takedown , cornering the vehicle .
The officers raised their weapons , demanding that the couple exit the car .
They complied , but after Ramos questioned why the cops were pointing firearms at them , a rookie cop , just three months out of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , hitting Ramos , who dove back into his car and tried to get away .
That ’ s when a second officer fired at Ramos with a shotgun , killing him .
According to a report filed with the state , Ramos did not appear intoxicated , and it was “ unknown ” whether he had a weapon .
Norm Stamper , Seattle ’ s police chief during the massive 1999 World Trade Organization protests , knows this well .
There , tens of thousands of protesters took over the streets , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ locking arms , Stamper recently recalled .
The police were certainly outnumbered .
Eventually , the call was made to deploy tear gas .
Stamper signed off .
It was a mistake .
“ I was wrong to bless it , ” Stamper , now a member of the reform group Law Enforcement Action Partnership , told The Intercept .
“ Never use chemical agents against nonviolence and indeed in threatening fellow Americans .
People who are exercising their First Amendment rights .
So you just don ’ t do it .
Yeah @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t , but what are the odds , really ?
” Amid the WTO protests , he said he should have just let the protesters remain — after all , he said , they wouldn ’ t still be sitting there now ; at some point , they would get up and move on .
He notes that when police are facing crowds that outnumber them , use of chemical or kinetic weapons are effective and people disperse .
But they return , often angry , in response to the police @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they can ’ t stand down — that if they do , they ’ ll look weak .
But that ’ s not the right way to look at it , Stamper says .
“ I ’ ve heard it many times : ‘ Our job is to protect lives and property , and if I ’ m just standing around with my thumb up my ass , I ’ m not doing that .
I need to take action , ’ ” he said .
“ But the bottom line is , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , jeopardizes more people , endangers individuals , then what I have done needs to be examined for its utility .
Is it useful to provoke people ?
Is it useful to escalate tension , which often times leads to violence ?
And the answer is almost always , no.
” Stamper , who resigned as chief in the aftermath of the WTO protests , said that what he ’ s seen on the streets of U.S. cities amid the recent crisis is upsetting .
“ I am terribly saddened by what I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like , ‘ Oh , for God ’ s sake , do we never learn ?
’ ” he asked .
“ We never learn lessons there for the taking.
” A split second after Justin Howell was shot in the head on May 31 , protesters ran to his aide , scooping him up and retreating from the front lines of the protest to a highway underpass where volunteer medics were stationed .
But he was in more trouble than they could manage .
One of the medics went back to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Howell had been shot in the base of his skull and was convulsing .
Bring him up here , the cops said .
The protesters did .
That ’ s when the police began firing again , straight at the group , hitting Maredith Michael in her hands from roughly three feet away .
News of Howell ’ s shooting spread fast across the city .
400+1 sent out a mass email looking for anyone who knew what had happened to him .
Many people feared he was dead .
In a press @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the police chief , recounted that the cops started firing only after protesters began throwing things at them .
Howell got hit , he said , after a cop missed his intended target , a person standing nearby and threatening to launch a backpack toward the police line .
But video and witness accounts of the incident dispute that ; it appears that no one near Howell was doing anything to provoke the violence .
“ Our focus was on protecting peaceful , free speech , ” Manley said .
“ We are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ family and are hoping that his condition improves quickly.
” Joshua , Howell ’ s brother , was not impressed .
He ’ s a graduate student at Texas A & M University , and the opinion editor of the student newspaper , The Battalion .
On June 3 , the paper published a stinging column he wrote about his brother , the police violence , and Manley ’ s press conference .
“ It ’ s … notable in his briefing how little effort Manley puts into taking responsibility for what happened @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was no apology.
” Instead , Manley just gave details of what happened without acknowledging the harm caused to Justin Howell or to the medics who were trying to get him help .
“ To those protesters , ” Josh Howell wrote , “ My family sees you , and we thank you.
” In an interview with The Intercept , Josh Howell reiterated many of the concerns he expressed in his column , including the combination of incompetence and weaponry that has had near-fatal consequences for his brother .
The fact that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deeply disturbing , he said , though he doesn ’ t believe the same cops that told them to bring Howell forward are the same ones who fired at them when they did — that “ strains credulity , ” he said — but that doesn ’ t make what happened any better .
“ At a minimum , it shows a lack of awareness of one ’ s surroundings and an inability to manage the situation , ” he said .
“ And when you have all of those factors , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ this is what can happen .
”

In the video , a volunteer medic and a group of protesters carry Justin Howell, limp and bleeding, toward the Austin Police Department. Just minutes before, he’d been struck in the back of the head by lead pellet-filled “beanbag,” one of the so-called less-than-lethal munitions deployed by police during protests that have filled U.S. streets since the May 25 murder of George Floyd.
Another medic, standing at the front of the crew, has her arms crossed above her head — the Red Cross of the city’s protests — in the agreed-upon signal to communicate with the cops. That signal was unheeded by the officers stationed on the stairs leading up to police headquarters. As the squad approached with Howell unconscious in their arms, the police opened fire, and indiscriminate rounds of beanbag ammunition blazed the crowd. The medic at the front of the squad, Maredith Michael, was hit. Her hands disabled, she fell to the ground.
“What the fuck?” cried a witness.
Howell is 20. He’s a college student at Texas State University, 30 miles south of Austin, where he is studying political science. He’s kind of shy and not prone to unnecessary risk-taking, his brother, Joshua, told The Intercept. “He’s very intelligent, very inquisitive, very quick on his feet.” He’s now in critical condition in an Austin hospital. His skull was fractured. He has a serious brain injury. The road to recovery will be long.
Howell was one of at least two young men gravely injured by the use of less-lethal munitions fired by Austin police on May 30 and 31, the first days of the city’s protests over Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police officers and the murder of an Austin man, 42-year-old Michael Ramos, on April 24 — a deadly encounter that also began with the firing of lead pellet ammunition.
Video and images of the damage done by less-lethal munitions have swept across social media, again raising serious questions about their use and misuse as tools for crowd control. “These less-lethal munitions are only less lethal by technicality,” Joshua Howell said. “My brother’s condition shows what can happen when you fire them into a crowd. Anything fired out of a shotgun at 90 miles per hour is lethal. Calling them ‘less lethal’ is just fun with words.”
“We Thought He Was Going to Die”
Less-lethal kinetic and chemical weapons rose to prominence during the drug war. And that these munitions regularly cause serious and sometimes fatal injuries is nothing new. Studies have found that both pepper spray and tear gas can cause serious eye injuries and respiratory problems — an issue intensified amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Beanbag rounds have been associated with “significant” abdominal and chest injuries and death. Kinetic projectiles have long caused permanent injury or death, particularly when fired at the head or neck. Tasers have long been identified as lethal — even as proponents have worked overtime to deny that. As the protests intensified, shares of Axon, the company that makes the weapon, spiked.
People demonstrating on the streets, or following along online, don’t need studies to know that less-lethal weaponry isn’t safe — particularly in crowds. In Austin, a pregnant woman named Saraneka “Nemo” Martin was shot in the abdomen and back. So far, her husband has reported, she’s not lost the pregnancy. Another demonstrator, Samuel Kirsch, called into a special Austin City Council meeting to say that he’d been shot in the face while running away from tear gas. The impact broke five bones supporting his eye, which will take complicated surgery to fix.
A protestor wounded by a rubber bullet is treated by his comrades under IH35 in Austin, Texas, on May 30, 2020. Photo: Jeff Newman/picture-alliance/dpa/AP
Amid the protests, head injuries have become shockingly common. In Dallas, Brandon Saenz lost his left eye and seven teeth after police fired a rubber bullet into the crowd; journalist Linda Tirado lost her eye to a police-fired projectile while covering protests in Minneapolis; in Los Angeles, police reportedly shot out the eye of a homeless man with disabilities who protesters have said was not involved in their demonstration — a brutal incident cited in a federal lawsuit filed against the LAPD over its actions amid the protests. Protesters in Denver won a temporary restraining order against police, barring their use of less-lethal munitions. “Some of the behaviors of what I hope and believe to be a minority of the police officers in Denver and the nation during recent days (and before), not only vis-à-vis persons of color but against peaceful protesters of all backgrounds, have been disgusting,” U.S. District Judge R. Brooke Jackson wrote.
Four days after Floyd was murdered, and just before the city’s protests coalesced, Austin Police Chief Brian Manley addressed the department in a video posted on YouTube. He condemned Floyd’s killing and noted that Austin residents were hurt and grieving, and he asked his officers to keep that in mind. “Give that extra ounce of care when you’re out there, that extra ounce of deference, understanding where we are right now as a society coming to terms with what happened,” he said. “I implore you to exercise patience, and as we tell each graduating cadet class: As you’re packing your gear bag for the evening shift, make sure you pack your empathy in there as well.”
That’s not how it played out. The following day, police in riot gear began what would become several days of violent clashes after demonstrators shut down Interstate 35, which slices Austin in half — east and west — and is a monument to the city’s racial divide and racist history.
Beyond its borders, Austin enjoys a reputation as a progressive oasis in a sea of Texas, though residents know that isn’t entirely accurate. Allegations of racism, incompetence, and misconduct have long plagued city institutions, including the Austin Police Department. Between 2005 and early 2017 alone, the city paid out more than $8 million in settlements related to police shootings. In 2018, a group of former police cadets came forward to say that academy instructors had told them they would be punched in the face if they said they wanted to become cops in order to help people. Others said instructors repeatedly referred to sex workers and the homeless as “cockroaches” and suggested targeting homeless individuals for arrest if they were bored while on duty. Allegations of racist, sexist, and homophobic behavior go straight to the top. Last year, Manley allowed an assistant chief to resign instead of facing investigation into his ongoing racist attitudes and language, and a subsequent independent investigation revealed widespread internal concern about racism and sexism and a feeling that the department has repeatedly failed to deal with its problems. “Reports came to us, from different ranks, races and genders, advising of the fact that the racist and sexist name calling and use of derogatory terms associated with race and sex persists,” the investigator, San Antonio attorney Lisa Tatum, reported. “Anecdotal history indicated that even members of the executive staff over the years had been known to use racist and sexist language, particularly when around the lower ranks or other subordinates.”
Over the first four days of protests in the city, paramedics responded to 53 calls for medical help.
It was against this backdrop that police confronted the ongoing protests. Images and videos show their indiscriminate use of pepper spray, tear gas, and kinetic munitions. On May 30, as police tried to move people off the interstate, 16-year-old Brad Ayala stood on a hillside above the highway, apart from the crowd. He had just gotten off work at a sub shop on the city’s south side; he’d told his family that he wanted to see history and he would be home soon. He didn’t make it there.
Instead, he was shot in the head with a beanbag round. Demonstrators immediately rushed to his side, screaming for medical help. “We thought he was going to die,” his older brother, Edwin, told city council members in the special-called meeting held June 5 via Zoom. Ayala remains at the local children’s hospital. He has a fractured skull and permanent damage to his prefrontal cortex; a recent photo posted to the family’s GoFundMe page shows him up and walking with the help of a nurse.
Over the first four days of protests in the city, paramedics responded to 53 calls for medical help. Twenty-nine of those required transportation to a hospital; of those injuries, 11 were believed to have been caused by beanbag rounds. Many were life-threatening, the city’s Emergency Medical Services chief told the city council.
During the meeting, Manley announced that his officers would no longer be permitted to use beanbag rounds to control crowds. “It is still an appropriate tool in many other circumstances,” he said, “but not in a crowd situation.”
Of course, it’s hard to imagine how anyone, let alone the chief, would have thought that firing into a crowd was a good idea in the first place — and the department’s general orders suggest that everyone in the department should have understood this. Before using chemical agents, for example, officers are supposed to provide a verbal warning, and they’re not supposed to be used at demonstrations “without the permission of a supervisor” or when a person is exhibiting “only verbal and/or passive resistance to arrest or authority.”
Where kinetic munitions are concerned, officers are told that the safety of “innocent subjects” and officers “takes priority” in the decision to deploy their weapons. The policy allows for use against those throwing rocks, bottles, or “other dangerous projectiles” at police, but singling out an actual aggressor amid the crowds seems to have been impossible for the Austin Police Department. And before firing, even when they’re allegedly being targeted, officers are supposed to consider their proximity to the subject and other environmental factors. During the council meeting, Manley said that updated orders would forbid firing at someone’s head or neck unless lethal force is warranted; previously, the order read that those areas should not be “intentionally” targeted.
Regarding the injuries to protesters in Austin, Manley said, “I have come to the conclusion that we have had some results that were not intended.”
Lessons Not Learned
Scott Henson, a longtime local agitator for police reform and the author of the influential Texas criminal justice blog Grits for Breakfast, called the APD’s actions amid the protests “jaw-dropping.” Police have always monitored protests in the city, but they usually involve “a few cops in their regular uniforms, and they’re basically there to hang around the edges, in case something happens,” he said. This time, “they showed up in full riot gear from the get-go, and their goal and intention was to enforce compliance, and anyone who didn’t just immediately accept the most unreasonable command would get shoved around or shot with a beanbag round or sprayed with tear gas.”
For Henson, the department’s actions amid the protests were just a more extreme version of the unnecessary use of force they routinely employ in communities of color across the city. That’s exactly what led to the April killing of Michael Ramos, he said. Ramos was sitting in a car with his girlfriend in the parking lot of his apartment complex when someone called the cops, first saying that it appeared that the couple was using drugs and later alleging that Ramos had a gun. The police staged a takedown, cornering the vehicle. The officers raised their weapons, demanding that the couple exit the car. They complied, but after Ramos questioned why the cops were pointing firearms at them, a rookie cop, just three months out of the academy, fired a beanbag round, hitting Ramos, who dove back into his car and tried to get away. That’s when a second officer fired at Ramos with a shotgun, killing him. According to a report filed with the state, Ramos did not appear intoxicated, and it was “unknown” whether he had a weapon.
Thousands of protestors march down Congress Avenue in Austin, Texas on June 7,2020. Photo: Jeff Newman/picture-alliance/dpa/AP
Responsibility for deaths like Ramos’s and for the recent protests becoming dangerous belongs to the police, Henson said. “Showing up in the most confrontational fashion, if you’re the cops, invites protest defiance.”
When police are facing crowds that outnumber them, use of chemical or kinetic weapons are effective and people disperse. But they return, often angry, in response to the police escalation of violence.
Norm Stamper, Seattle’s police chief during the massive 1999 World Trade Organization protests, knows this well. There, tens of thousands of protesters took over the streets, closing down busy intersections by sitting and locking arms, Stamper recently recalled. The police were certainly outnumbered. Eventually, the call was made to deploy tear gas. Stamper signed off. It was a mistake. “I was wrong to bless it,” Stamper, now a member of the reform group Law Enforcement Action Partnership, told The Intercept. “Never use chemical agents against nonviolence and indeed in threatening fellow Americans. People who are exercising their First Amendment rights. So you just don’t do it. Yeah, something terrible could happen if you don’t, but what are the odds, really?”
Amid the WTO protests, he said he should have just let the protesters remain — after all, he said, they wouldn’t still be sitting there now; at some point, they would get up and move on. He notes that when police are facing crowds that outnumber them, use of chemical or kinetic weapons are effective and people disperse. But they return, often angry, in response to the police escalation of violence. Cops often say they can’t stand down — that if they do, they’ll look weak. But that’s not the right way to look at it, Stamper says. “I’ve heard it many times: ‘Our job is to protect lives and property, and if I’m just standing around with my thumb up my ass, I’m not doing that. I need to take action,’” he said. “But the bottom line is, if what I do intensifies the conflict, jeopardizes more people, endangers individuals, then what I have done needs to be examined for its utility. Is it useful to provoke people? Is it useful to escalate tension, which often times leads to violence? And the answer is almost always, no.”
Stamper, who resigned as chief in the aftermath of the WTO protests, said that what he’s seen on the streets of U.S. cities amid the recent crisis is upsetting. “I am terribly saddened by what I’m seeing. It’s like, ‘Oh, for God’s sake, do we never learn?’” he asked. “We never learn lessons there for the taking.”
No Apologies
A split second after Justin Howell was shot in the head on May 31, protesters ran to his aide, scooping him up and retreating from the front lines of the protest to a highway underpass where volunteer medics were stationed. But he was in more trouble than they could manage. One of the medics went back to the police line in front of headquarters; Howell had been shot in the base of his skull and was convulsing. Bring him up here, the cops said. The protesters did. That’s when the police began firing again, straight at the group, hitting Maredith Michael in her hands from roughly three feet away.
News of Howell’s shooting spread fast across the city. 400+1 sent out a mass email looking for anyone who knew what had happened to him. Many people feared he was dead.
In a press conference streamed on Facebook, Manley, the police chief, recounted that the cops started firing only after protesters began throwing things at them. Howell got hit, he said, after a cop missed his intended target, a person standing nearby and threatening to launch a backpack toward the police line. But video and witness accounts of the incident dispute that; it appears that no one near Howell was doing anything to provoke the violence.
It appears that no one near Howell was doing anything to provoke the violence.
“Our focus was on protecting peaceful, free speech,” Manley said. “We are praying for this young man and his family and are hoping that his condition improves quickly.”
Joshua, Howell’s brother, was not impressed. He’s a graduate student at Texas A&M University, and the opinion editor of the student newspaper, The Battalion. On June 3, the paper published a stinging column he wrote about his brother, the police violence, and Manley’s press conference. “It’s … notable in his briefing how little effort Manley puts into taking responsibility for what happened,” he began. “There was no apology.” Instead, Manley just gave details of what happened without acknowledging the harm caused to Justin Howell or to the medics who were trying to get him help. “To those protesters,” Josh Howell wrote, “My family sees you, and we thank you.”
In an interview with The Intercept, Josh Howell reiterated many of the concerns he expressed in his column, including the combination of incompetence and weaponry that has had near-fatal consequences for his brother. The fact that the cops fired on the medics is deeply disturbing, he said, though he doesn’t believe the same cops that told them to bring Howell forward are the same ones who fired at them when they did — that “strains credulity,” he said — but that doesn’t make what happened any better. “At a minimum, it shows a lack of awareness of one’s surroundings and an inability to manage the situation,” he said. “And when you have all of those factors, in combination with these ‘less-lethal rounds,’ this is what can happen.”