Resolved: on balance, police are more responsible than protesters for recent civil unrest in the United States

Neg Case 3

We negate. We observe that Merriam Webster dictionary defines civil unrest as a situation in which many of the people in a country are angry and hold protests or act violently.

 Merriam­Webster. “Definition of unrest”.  Merriam­Webster.  Merriam­Webster Incorporated.  2015.< http://www.merriam­webster.com/dictionary/unrest >

Contention 1: Alternate Causation

Economic factors play a significant role in civil unrest.

Economist 11, N/A "Unrest in Peace." The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, 22 Oct. 2011. Web. 08 July 2015.

Instability is often blamed on creeping austerity. After the riots in London in August, Ken Livingstone, a former mayor, declared that “the economic stagnation and cuts being imposed by the Tory government inevitably create social division.” A recent paper by Jacopo Ponticelli and Hans-Joachim Voth of Barcelona's Universitat Pompeu Fabra suggests he may have a point. They assemble[d] a data set of chaotic episodes in Europe between 1919 and 2009—a mix of protests, strikes, assassinations and attempted revolutions—and find a tight relationship between fiscal austerity and unrest. He concludes that episodes of instability occur twice as often when spending cuts reach 5% of GDP as when expenditure is rising. Such dangers are well appreciated in the emerging world, which has much greater experience of austerity. [And thus] Cuts have often been associated with civil violence. In a separate study of fiscal consolidation in Latin America between 1937 and 1995, Mr Voth pinpoints a tight link between fiscal consolidation and instability, across democracies and autocracies alike. Protests induced by austerity also attract far more participants than demonstrations sparked by other causes. In a sample of European protests from 1980 to 1995, austerity-focused protests attracted over 700,000 people on average, the authors find. Anti-war protests averaged just under 15,000 attendees.

Logan, Tim. "Ferguson's Mounting Racial and Economic Stress Set Stage for Turmoil." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 16 Aug. 2014. Web. 07 July 2015.

The recession hurt, too. This part of the St. Louis region took the brunt of the foreclosure crisis, with subprime loans turning bad and investors scooping up cheap houses to rent. Auto plants that had sustained a black middle class shut down. Since 2000, the median household income in Ferguson has fallen by 30% when adjusted for inflation, to about $36,000. In the census tract where Brown lived, median income is less than $27,000. Just half of the adults work. The Rev. Steven Lawler, rector of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Ferguson, really saw the change in 2008, when visits to his food pantry soared. They haven't gone down since. It's a shortage of everything. It's a shortage of jobs. Of African Americans on the police force and in government. Of people not being able to get a good education. - Shermale Humphrey "I know there are places where an economic recovery's happening," he said. "But in the places where people are most stressed, there hasn't been a recovery."

Second, Baltimore Democrat 15

Democrat 15, [Democrat, Cool, (Journalist MSNBC), “The Economic Devastation Fueling The Anger In Baltimore | ThinkProgress, April 29, 2015

Poppick 14, [Susie, Poppick "Can Ferguson Recover? The Lasting Economic Impact of Violent Unrest." Time. Time, 25 Nov. 2014. Web. 07 July 2015.]

A grand jury decision not to indict police officer Darren Wilson for the shooting of unarmed black teen Michael Brown has stoked anger in Ferguson, Mo., where peaceful protests have given way to looting and violence, virtually shutting down the city of Ferguson last night. “People don’t want to come into the area,” Jason Bryant, a local pastor, told TIME. The events echo those in August, when the shooting first caused long-standing tensions to erupt into violence, theft — and shuttered storefronts. TIME reported last night that local retailers have seen sales slow by as much as 80%. While the loss of local business may seem trivial next to the potential for additional violence — not to mention the civil rights and other legal issues at stake — there is a danger that rioting could disrupt the lives and livelihoods of Ferguson residents for years to come. In the ten years after the 1992 Los Angeles riots, for example, the city lost nearly $4 billion in taxable sales, according to research conducted by Victor Matheson of College of the Holy Cross and Robert Baade of Lake Forest College. “Social unrest can have a lasting negative impact on a local economy in a way that’s much more persistent than even a natural disaster,” says Matheson. “Though Hurricane Andrew caused more damage upfront, businesses were able to bounce back as soon as cleanup began. We didn’t see that in Los Angeles.” Matheson and Baade found that the steps toward recovery are relatively clear after natural disasters: Communities tend to join together to build shelters, clean up, and storm-proof structures against future events. After rioting, by contrast, it’s much harder rebuild confidence and community trust among frightened business owners, or to convince new employers to move in. “It’s not as simple to just stamp out violence and anger,” Matheson says. And reluctance to rebuild is dangerous because it is self-perpetuating, he adds. Concerns about lasting damage to business-owner confidence similarly followed riots in London in 2011 (also triggered by a police shooting), and economic aftershocks are still felt today, despite the commitment of more than $116 million in riot-recovery funding.

And thus, because protesters are the ones actively engaging in looting they are responsible for the recent civil unrest.