#abolishthepolice — Public Fediverse posts

Just ran across this article on the perpetrator's history with law enforcement:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-05-23/mosque-shooter-welfare-check-guns?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Edit: should definitely have mentioned in the initial post that the article's insinuation that the perpetrator's autism somehow made the shooting more likely even though it's almost certainly a contraindicator of gun violence is vile slander.

Makes it absolutely crystal clear that no amount of police will ever save you from a mass shooting, in case Uvalde wasn't enough, and this time the structural factors are clear as day because the police weren't even incompetent:

1. After being warned about mental health issues, removed guns from the perpetrator's home.
2. Had previously put perpetrator on involuntary mental health restraint in addition to him having voluntary treatment.

So basically everyone knew this guy was being radicalized and was likely to commit a mass shooting. What did they do? Forced him into mental health treatment, and thence into ongoing therapy. Wasn't enough in this case but that's basically the best you can expect any hierarchical system to do. They also tried to remove his access to weapons, but again, that wasn't enough. Short of preemptively locking him up or placing him under permanent invasive surveillance for thought crime ahead of time, there's nothing more you can reasonably do in a situation like this, from a policing perspective. The "police" tool is simply insufficient for this job.

So from an anarchist perspective how *should* this have been prevented?

1. Targets engage in self-defense. This did happen and far fewer people died because of it. Police tend to suppress this (e.g. preventing parents from entering school in Uvalde).
2. Shut down the hate sites. Police under the excuse of "free speech" keep these up, in part because plenty of police officers are white supremacists who frequent these sites. Notice that right now free speech does not cover hauling around some anarchist zines in the back of your car, but it somehow does cover running hate forums that encourage mass shootings. Government censorship isn't the way this should go (that's always a bad thing; that's one thing the idea of free speech gets right) but grassroots protest and resistance is needed to take down white supremacist digital spaces.

There are probably other ways to undermine the structural forces pushing people into mass shootings (like reducing alienation by abolishing capitalism) but these ones are the simpler ones. The larger point is that if you're afraid of police abolition because "Who will stop the mass shooters if we don't have police?" you should first seriously ask the question "Who will stop the mass shooters while we still have police?" because very clearly "the police" is not the correct answer to that.

#AbolishThePolice #PoliceAbolition #Anarchy

Just ran across this article on the perpetrator's history with law enforcement:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-05-23/mosque-shooter-welfare-check-guns?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Edit: should definitely have mentioned in the initial post that the article's insinuation that the perpetrator's autism somehow made the shooting more likely even though it's almost certainly a contraindicator of gun violence is vile slander.

Makes it absolutely crystal clear that no amount of police will ever save you from a mass shooting, in case Uvalde wasn't enough, and this time the structural factors are clear as day because the police weren't even incompetent:

1. After being warned about mental health issues, removed guns from the perpetrator's home.
2. Had previously put perpetrator on involuntary mental health restraint in addition to him having voluntary treatment.

So basically everyone knew this guy was being radicalized and was likely to commit a mass shooting. What did they do? Forced him into mental health treatment, and thence into ongoing therapy. Wasn't enough in this case but that's basically the best you can expect any hierarchical system to do. They also tried to remove his access to weapons, but again, that wasn't enough. Short of preemptively locking him up or placing him under permanent invasive surveillance for thought crime ahead of time, there's nothing more you can reasonably do in a situation like this, from a policing perspective. The "police" tool is simply insufficient for this job.

So from an anarchist perspective how *should* this have been prevented?

1. Targets engage in self-defense. This did happen and far fewer people died because of it. Police tend to suppress this (e.g. preventing parents from entering school in Uvalde).
2. Shut down the hate sites. Police under the excuse of "free speech" keep these up, in part because plenty of police officers are white supremacists who frequent these sites. Notice that right now free speech does not cover hauling around some anarchist zines in the back of your car, but it somehow does cover running hate forums that encourage mass shootings. Government censorship isn't the way this should go (that's always a bad thing; that's one thing the idea of free speech gets right) but grassroots protest and resistance is needed to take down white supremacist digital spaces.

There are probably other ways to undermine the structural forces pushing people into mass shootings (like reducing alienation by abolishing capitalism) but these ones are the simpler ones. The larger point is that if you're afraid of police abolition because "Who will stop the mass shooters if we don't have police?" you should first seriously ask the question "Who will stop the mass shooters while we still have police?" because very clearly "the police" is not the correct answer to that.

#AbolishThePolice #PoliceAbolition #Anarchy

Just ran across this article on the perpetrator's history with law enforcement:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-05-23/mosque-shooter-welfare-check-guns?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Edit: should definitely have mentioned in the initial post that the article's insinuation that the perpetrator's autism somehow made the shooting more likely even though it's almost certainly a contraindicator of gun violence is vile slander.

Makes it absolutely crystal clear that no amount of police will ever save you from a mass shooting, in case Uvalde wasn't enough, and this time the structural factors are clear as day because the police weren't even incompetent:

1. After being warned about mental health issues, removed guns from the perpetrator's home.
2. Had previously put perpetrator on involuntary mental health restraint in addition to him having voluntary treatment.

So basically everyone knew this guy was being radicalized and was likely to commit a mass shooting. What did they do? Forced him into mental health treatment, and thence into ongoing therapy. Wasn't enough in this case but that's basically the best you can expect any hierarchical system to do. They also tried to remove his access to weapons, but again, that wasn't enough. Short of preemptively locking him up or placing him under permanent invasive surveillance for thought crime ahead of time, there's nothing more you can reasonably do in a situation like this, from a policing perspective. The "police" tool is simply insufficient for this job.

So from an anarchist perspective how *should* this have been prevented?

1. Targets engage in self-defense. This did happen and far fewer people died because of it. Police tend to suppress this (e.g. preventing parents from entering school in Uvalde).
2. Shut down the hate sites. Police under the excuse of "free speech" keep these up, in part because plenty of police officers are white supremacists who frequent these sites. Notice that right now free speech does not cover hauling around some anarchist zines in the back of your car, but it somehow does cover running hate forums that encourage mass shootings. Government censorship isn't the way this should go (that's always a bad thing; that's one thing the idea of free speech gets right) but grassroots protest and resistance is needed to take down white supremacist digital spaces.

There are probably other ways to undermine the structural forces pushing people into mass shootings (like reducing alienation by abolishing capitalism) but these ones are the simpler ones. The larger point is that if you're afraid of police abolition because "Who will stop the mass shooters if we don't have police?" you should first seriously ask the question "Who will stop the mass shooters while we still have police?" because very clearly "the police" is not the correct answer to that.

#AbolishThePolice #PoliceAbolition #Anarchy

Just ran across this article on the perpetrator's history with law enforcement:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-05-23/mosque-shooter-welfare-check-guns?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Edit: should definitely have mentioned in the initial post that the article's insinuation that the perpetrator's autism somehow made the shooting more likely even though it's almost certainly a contraindicator of gun violence is vile slander.

Makes it absolutely crystal clear that no amount of police will ever save you from a mass shooting, in case Uvalde wasn't enough, and this time the structural factors are clear as day because the police weren't even incompetent:

1. After being warned about mental health issues, removed guns from the perpetrator's home.
2. Had previously put perpetrator on involuntary mental health restraint in addition to him having voluntary treatment.

So basically everyone knew this guy was being radicalized and was likely to commit a mass shooting. What did they do? Forced him into mental health treatment, and thence into ongoing therapy. Wasn't enough in this case but that's basically the best you can expect any hierarchical system to do. They also tried to remove his access to weapons, but again, that wasn't enough. Short of preemptively locking him up or placing him under permanent invasive surveillance for thought crime ahead of time, there's nothing more you can reasonably do in a situation like this, from a policing perspective. The "police" tool is simply insufficient for this job.

So from an anarchist perspective how *should* this have been prevented?

1. Targets engage in self-defense. This did happen and far fewer people died because of it. Police tend to suppress this (e.g. preventing parents from entering school in Uvalde).
2. Shut down the hate sites. Police under the excuse of "free speech" keep these up, in part because plenty of police officers are white supremacists who frequent these sites. Notice that right now free speech does not cover hauling around some anarchist zines in the back of your car, but it somehow does cover running hate forums that encourage mass shootings. Government censorship isn't the way this should go (that's always a bad thing; that's one thing the idea of free speech gets right) but grassroots protest and resistance is needed to take down white supremacist digital spaces.

There are probably other ways to undermine the structural forces pushing people into mass shootings (like reducing alienation by abolishing capitalism) but these ones are the simpler ones. The larger point is that if you're afraid of police abolition because "Who will stop the mass shooters if we don't have police?" you should first seriously ask the question "Who will stop the mass shooters while we still have police?" because very clearly "the police" is not the correct answer to that.

#AbolishThePolice #PoliceAbolition #Anarchy

Just ran across this article on the perpetrator's history with law enforcement:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-05-23/mosque-shooter-welfare-check-guns?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Edit: should definitely have mentioned in the initial post that the article's insinuation that the perpetrator's autism somehow made the shooting more likely even though it's almost certainly a contraindicator of gun violence is vile slander.

Makes it absolutely crystal clear that no amount of police will ever save you from a mass shooting, in case Uvalde wasn't enough, and this time the structural factors are clear as day because the police weren't even incompetent:

1. After being warned about mental health issues, removed guns from the perpetrator's home.
2. Had previously put perpetrator on involuntary mental health restraint in addition to him having voluntary treatment.

So basically everyone knew this guy was being radicalized and was likely to commit a mass shooting. What did they do? Forced him into mental health treatment, and thence into ongoing therapy. Wasn't enough in this case but that's basically the best you can expect any hierarchical system to do. They also tried to remove his access to weapons, but again, that wasn't enough. Short of preemptively locking him up or placing him under permanent invasive surveillance for thought crime ahead of time, there's nothing more you can reasonably do in a situation like this, from a policing perspective. The "police" tool is simply insufficient for this job.

So from an anarchist perspective how *should* this have been prevented?

1. Targets engage in self-defense. This did happen and far fewer people died because of it. Police tend to suppress this (e.g. preventing parents from entering school in Uvalde).
2. Shut down the hate sites. Police under the excuse of "free speech" keep these up, in part because plenty of police officers are white supremacists who frequent these sites. Notice that right now free speech does not cover hauling around some anarchist zines in the back of your car, but it somehow does cover running hate forums that encourage mass shootings. Government censorship isn't the way this should go (that's always a bad thing; that's one thing the idea of free speech gets right) but grassroots protest and resistance is needed to take down white supremacist digital spaces.

There are probably other ways to undermine the structural forces pushing people into mass shootings (like reducing alienation by abolishing capitalism) but these ones are the simpler ones. The larger point is that if you're afraid of police abolition because "Who will stop the mass shooters if we don't have police?" you should first seriously ask the question "Who will stop the mass shooters while we still have police?" because very clearly "the police" is not the correct answer to that.

#AbolishThePolice #PoliceAbolition #Anarchy