I’ve never understood the ‘riot’ methodology. Destroy your own neighborhood? Provide disincentive for ANY business to locate there? To what political or process goal? Note: I lived in suburban Detroit in the 1967 riots. I went back a couple of years ago. You can STILL see remnants of the destruction from 53 years ago!
Protest peacefully, and not only am I on your side, so is the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution. Cross the violence or property destruction line? No way. You just turned ‘peaceably assemble’ and ‘redress of grievances’ to criminal activity, and should be dealt with accordingly.
My default setting has always been ‘law and order’ and ‘back the Blue’. But this kind of nonsense makes that stance harder and harder to maintain. Between the Rambo-wannabes, the badge-enhanced power trippers, to the local-yokels that are currently in the process of enforcing unconstitutional laws and ‘edicts’, I’m having trouble keeping my setting. Add to that the complete illegality of some recent FBI/DOJ activity, and the confidence in our LEOs is at an all-time low, at least for me. And I don’t think it is racially motivated–assholes are assholes. Unfortunately, only racial criminality gets the headlines–if the dude getting choked to death was White, we would’ve likely never even known that it happened. That doesn’t excuse the rampant criminal reaction to that death, but it sure explains it: if the legal channels are used but ignored, the illegal channels are the obvious next step. This ‘officer’ should’ve never been given a badge, or should’ve had it taken away at the first sign of his terrible behavior–of which, there seems to be plenty to choose from. Shame on his chain of command for allowing this to happen. And the members of that command chain should be held accountable for his actions, up to and including job loss and criminal prosecution. Maybe if this was the normal course of action, higher-ups would be more diligent in weeding out their bad officers.
Deciding NOT to enforce the law is the absolutely WORST course of action to take. The Mayor’s decision to allow the destruction and mayhem is as foolishly wrong now as it was in Baltimore. Immediately send in as much manpower and force as needed, as soon as possible. Had that been done quickly, maybe property and businesses could’ve been saved. INCREASED diligence in law enforcement should be the default method, not laying down and disappearing. These things have their own momentum—the longer they are allowed to continue, the harder it will be to contain them.
