Joe Rogan on the George Floyd Protests, Riots w/Reggie Watts

These rubber bullets that these cops are using on protesters. How fucked up is this that they're just shooting them into people? Yeah, directly. Yeah. They're supposed to hit them off the ground. They're shooting them at fucking reporters. You see those reporters? These reporters are interviewing these people and they're like, ow, ow, what the fuck? Yes. They're just getting shot at. I know. By cops that know their reporters. Yes, I know. And a reporter lost her eye recently. An ABC reporter or someone like that. Yeah, got hit in the eye with a rubber bullet just recently, like yesterday or something like that. Oh my God. And lost an eye. That happened too when I was at the WTO riots. You know, like one second you're like, oh cool. The chief of police is talking to the lead organizer and he's got his helmet off and everyone's like, oh, this is cool. They're all talking. And then from behind the police lines, you hear a bullhorn. We're going to be launching tear gas. Police clear the area and you're like, wait a minute, but you guys were just talking. It's like, oh, I don't know. And he doesn't know because that was another order placed by someone that wasn't him. And then suddenly it turns into pandemonium and the next thing you know, another dude loses and I got a guy that I knew that was a friend of a friend lost his eye in the WTO riots because the guy, the police officer shot at him directly instead of bouncing it off the ground. It's just like, and it comes down to my gun, my gun guru dude that I was training with for a film. And that's kind of what launched me back into into stuff. He was saying training, training, training. It's like when it comes to police officers, it's community outreach, reach, being able to actually establish a contact with your community so that they can at least have some form of trust or someone that they can talk to, that they can relate to. So they understand the police are there for the protection. Then the other thing is like training. A lot of these officers are just like, they're just sending them out and going, hey, good luck. Deal with stuff as it happens. And then some of the cats are like, they don't know. And their anger gets the best of them. Someone's being indignant and they're like, you know what? I'm going to lay it down. I just think most people do not have the kind of temperament and character to deal with being in a position of having control over other people who really ultimate fatal control over other people. I just don't think they have that. I think most people, I mean, I think that takes a really powerful person and there are powerful people out there that handle it and handle it well and they're great cops. And then there's guys like that guy who put his fucking knee on that man's neck for eight minutes and 38 seconds or whatever it was. And finally the family got their own autopsy and the autopsy showed the man did die from ... Asphyxiation? Yeah, not just asphyxiation, but also from the blood being cut off to the brain, which is really what it is. It's a blood choke because you're putting your shin on the side of the neck. It's cutting off the carotid artery. It's like a choke, like a jujitsu choke. The idea that that's not what killed him is like, come on, what was just a coincidence? I mean, what is the autopsy? How corrupt are your fucking medical examiners? Man, I'm telling you, it's ... Yeah, I know where they're like, well, we need to get ahead of this. And it's like, you know, just fucking tell it like it is. He had preexisting conditions. Yeah. Yeah, it's called being black. Yes. Yeah, that was the preexisting condition. That was the ... I know. I know. Oh my God. It's called being black and being arrested, especially by that guy. That guy had 12 different abuse forms that were abuse claims against him over the years. Yeah, I know. And the guys that were just kind of sitting there, you know, the cops that were sitting there, it's like they ... Again, it's also a training issue. It's like, you know, and if you're a cop and you've noticed another fellow officer in the field doing some shit that they think is like not cool or just straight illegal, whatever, or they have a feeling that it's going to escalate with this person. If it's left unchecked, they really ... It's hard for them to communicate because there's this whole brotherhood loyalty thing that locks everybody into like this code of silence. And it sucks because, well, how do you expect police departments to get better if police departments aren't allowing themselves to get better? Well, some people that do step out, they get in trouble, right? Some people that do call out other officers for shitty behavior. But there was one woman really recently. I think it was either yesterday or today. There was a guy and he's arguing with these protesters, this male cop, and this woman gets on her knees in front of him and says, she's on her knees. And he shoves her to the ground when she's on her knees. And this female officer gets in the guy's face and starts yelling at him. And as he's walking away, she's chasing him down and yelling at him. Oh, God. And it's all on video. There are examples of good cops who see cops being abusive and go, hey, and this guy was clearly abusive. Like, there's one guy standing there and he got right in the guy's face, like intimidating him and then he pushed the girl down. Look, there's a lot of people that shouldn't be cops. And then the stress of those situations where you're trying to take control of a mob, it turns bad. Or you get that sheriff from Flint, Michigan. Did you see that video? Oh, that was amazing. It's amazing. That was amazing. It's here to your eye. Really did. He's like, we're going to put down the batons. We're going to march with you. We're all together in this. Yes. And, you know, and we want you to have a voice. And then he's hugging people and everybody's hugging everybody. And they're walking together. So imagine the cop that pushed the lady down and put him in that situation with those people, that same agro attitude. He'd be yelling at people and tell them to shut the fuck up and push them away. And it probably would have escalated. Or imagine that cop in the other scenario with that woman on the ground. He'd probably be like, ma'am, I don't want you on your knees. We're all in this together. We all saw what happened to that man. It's an injustice. Let's walk together. Let's try to heal this community. Let's try to do better. Yeah. That's what I want to see, man. I mean, that's all it comes down to. It's all about behavior, how you handle a situation in the moment. And again, if they had a little bit of training, just a little bit of training to say, stop before, think, stop, think, then assess the situation. And unless your life is in danger, but these situations are not that. These are cops that are like, something happens. There's something clicks and there's chaos all around. And the instinct is essentially the same mentality as someone who's taking advantage of it on the other side. The people who come out after the initial rage wave of like, ah, which is a natural kind of biological instinct and it's a rebalancing, but then there are the opportunists that sneak in behind the wave. And those are the people that you see targeting in a very organized way, targeting these stores, knowing exactly where they're going to go and they're going to take advantage of these moments of chaos. And then of course that gets mixed in and the cops see that and it's like, well, they kind of get on, get in on that wavelength instead of the majority wavelength, which is just like, we're pissed. We're emotional. We're loud, but we're allowed to do this.