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Possible snipers seen at OSU. Administration says they're not snipers but should be treated like they are.
(midwest.social)
Update, yes there are snipers:
this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2024
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Kent state. There's your one. Do you want two?
As I already told the other person: Those were not snipers, they were national guardsman that were untrained for that kind of work and they shouldn't have ever been there.
Why shouldn't they have been there? By the logic of the other poster, having the national guard with rifles lined up would have protected the protesters from an active shooter. Wouldn't everyone be so angry at the police if they didn't stop the active shooter with the national guardsmen?
Is there something special about being a sniper that makes you not a cop? That makes you not part of the same system, the same trainings, the same culture, the same lunch room, that leads regular officers and riot cops to brutalize protesters, especially those on the left? Is there some requirement that to be a sniper you have to be extra nice to leftist causes?
The fact is that absent some specific threat the department received, or some extra-special high value target/event (Superbowl, presidential address, etc) the use of snipers to "protect" the protesters is a farse. We should both know that if anything the snipers are there to "protect the university and its property" much more than the protesters because that's what the rest of the cops are there for.
You can't stop a shooter with a line of national guardsmen. You also can't figure out where they are in a timely fashion without someone with a vantage point.
There is a lot special about a sniper, including more and regular training specifically for the role. A sniper also (typically) is not in the heat of the situation. Nobody is throwing a brick up to the 5th floor. For similar reasons, a sniper can't beat the crap out of someone from the 5th floor.
That's extremely different from a national guardsman, especially like those that were sent to Kent with automatic rifles, minimal training, and placed right next to the protestors. From what I understand this has improved following the Kent State massacre, however the national guard should be a last resort in these situations.
By the time that happens it's too late. You've got a panicked crowd, you have no visibility, and nobody in a position to take a shot. There's a reason they use snipers in big public sporting events, gatherings, and while protecting a public figure.
The thing that's fundamentally wrong with the argument that snipers aren't there to protect protestors is that they're regularly used in these exact same situations for any large public gathering (unlike riot police).
They had snipers at the Marietta Sternwheel Festival the last few years. This isn't some fringe thing, it has nothing to do with the fact they're protestors or protecting property. It's about protecting people by keeping an eye on the station and (possibly) taking an individual threatening the gathering out quickly if necessary.