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We’re slowly losing the distinction between the protest and the riot.
Last night, chaos broke out in Baltimore after protests against the death of Freddie Gray turned into riots that damaged property and police cars, and resulted in the arrests of more than 30 people. Baltimore city officials denounced the violence as the work of “splinter groups”—isn’t that always the case?—but the fact that over 300 officers were deployed and engaged in the area around Camden Yards sends that friendly narrative right down the toilet.
One producer paid the price for covering the protests, and was robbed on camera as she filmed a group of teens running the streets. In the video below, you’ll see the producer become surrounded, and then thrown to the ground as the crowd becomes more frenzied. The producer filming the scene was forced to give chase after one of the teens ripped her handbag from her person. Fortunately, police intervened soon after.
Watch:
Black lives matter…but not as much as the cash inside a random woman’s purse, apparently.
Today, Baltimore is busy cleaning up the rubble from last night’s rampage:
Along Howard Street, heading toward the Inner Harbor, the damage sustained by storefronts appeared oddly random — like the path of a tornado.
Shards of glass glinted in the Sunday sun as business owners assessed the harm done in the protest that resulted in numerous arrests and damaged police vehicles.
Ten plate-glass windows of the 7-Eleven on the corner of Howard and Baltimore Streets were cracked. Duct tape was placed over the spider-web-shaped fissures. The store was also looted, said Margaret Chabris, a 7-Eleven corporate spokeswoman.
Chabris said the convenience store chain has 12 stores in the Baltimore area and that all were instructed by the chain to close early Saturday night to keep employees safe.
At a press conference late last night, Freddie Gray’s twin sister Fredericka pled for an end to the violence, saying, “[c]an y’all please, please stop the violence?”
She says her brother wouldn’t have wanted it—but I doubt the protesters care very much about that.
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Comments
Per the Baltimore Mayor, “We gave those who wished to destroy space to do that.”
(I am not kidding, there’s video http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=56725 )
So to the reporters, individuals and businesses who happened to be in those “destroy at will places”?
too bad so sad
I’m sure that if the businesses decide to sue that will play well with the jury.
Sorry, Mouse, but normally a citizen is owed no duty by police in these circumstances, according to our Supremes.
Any first-responder can watch your business burn to the ground without taking action. Most, of course, simply will not, but not because the law imposes any requirement on them or penalty if they don’t. They do respond because that’s their heart to do.
When cops are pulled back by their civil leaders, you won’t find them liking it, but you won’t find them defying it, either.
Yeah a lot of liberals like to hold this forth as a complaint. but IIRC the decision says that police are not required to provide services to an individual. However the same case suggests that the police have a duty to provide services to the public at large.
I would also argue that such “selective unenforcement” is a violation of the 14th amendment. That statement might really help to make this argument.
Finally I would argue that the statement also indicates that the city “effetcively seized” the land ( temporarily ) for the use of crowd control. The owners are therefore owed for damages inflicted during the seiizure.
The real issue is not the law. It IS the resolve of “leaders” to enforce the law and protect citizens and property. When it isn’t there, they will find ample cover in the law. When it is, these acts will draw up short.
From a legal perspective Rags is absolutely correct. The doctrine of qualified immunity protects the police from civil lawsuits. In this case, the notion that the police were acting with the larger public good in mind will very likely ensure that no lawsuit ever reaches a jury.
Sadly the legal basis for a lawsuit is tenuous.
Taxpayer will pay, though. Not to the business owners but to the bureaucrats and schemers. Money will be poured “into the community”.
One of my predictions from today…
So… Some predictions…
1. there will be a law and order swing among voters this coming election. Not toward authoritarianism, but away from it. In support of policing as a process, but not as a license.
Which may sound a bit cryptic, so let me elaborate.
American voters are not going to let their city or other “leaders” continue to passively watch wanton destruction like that in Baltimore last night. Voters pay for police, they vote to enact laws or send people to legislatures to enact them, and there is no question that such conduct as we see is in open defiance of any American standard of conduct.
We don’t want our police to act like they have a license to abuse citizens in their daily work, but we DO want them to do their daily work, and we support them in that process.
We also expect them to be used to put down riot and looting. We understand that can’t be done without the use of force in a measured way. BUT we EXPECT it to be used. And we’ll hold civil authorities who cower away from putting down UNcivil unrest to account.
As with Ferguson, Oakland, Seattle, etc., many of the people fomenting this kind of outlawry are from other places, and they make a career of sorts moving like maggots to wounded places. Those people need to be identified, isolated, and put away for the criminal they are. There intent is to provoke, to incite, and to destroy the peace and value of whole communities. We can’t let them, and by “we” I mean all of us of whatever color or “gender” or whatever.
This, this so much, especially in regards to those traveling trouble makers! They need to be shut down and shut down hard when we’ve got enough evidence against them to put them away for a long time!
Sorry, Rags, I respect your opinions, but I disagree here.
“The police” is a bureaucracy; an amorphous blob that is highly committed to the blob’s self-interest and the path of least resistance. Policies among police agencies are federalizing and are being written by bureaucrats with “Public Management” degrees from third-rate universities. The trend in handling “First Amendment Demonstrations” is to stand back and film at the time, and take action-perhaps-later. In other words, to do nothing. But with official high-minded “policy” to mandate the choice.
Individual officers are, to put it crudely, screwed. “We,” meaning you and me and similar conservative types, do support them. “We,” the general public, DO NOT. And the individual cop actually doing the job knows this very well. For an example, please consider Darren Wilson, a highly commended officer who did NOTHING WRONG. Where is he now? If a cop acts, or even if he is forced to act, he risks running afoul of a liberal media with the power of the bully pulpit, a bull horn, and an audience. The only thing standing between the cop and Leviathan is his brass, see third-rate pseudo-psychology degrees above, and the brass tends to be very committed to retiring in the near future at the top of the pay scale. Supporting an officer in the face of Leviathan is risky and thus to be avoided. So the individual officer is learning also to avoid risk, i.e., to do as little as possible to avoid becoming a target of easily inflamed groups. And if members of those groups tend also to be criminals, oh well.
So, while I appreciate the sentiment that “we can’t let them” do this, “we” allowed it to get to this point and show no evidence of stopping the slide. And, unfortunately, we can substitute other issues, as well. Immigration? Abortion? Tax Policy? Very little that is produced by our ever-increasing bureaucracies conforms to what seems to be public opinion but, like a good flock of sheep, we follow along. Shall I proceed to my personal rant about the Fall of the Academy now? 😉
While I think some of your points are valid, some things to consider…
1. black Americans are THE most likely group to report problems to the police
2. law-abiding black Americans in particularly high-crime areas are very supportive of police
People tend to be people, which is also why you’ll find very high support for school choice programs among people in low-income areas with abominable public schools.
Read Heather MacDonald on these and allied topics.
http://www.city-journal.org/2015/25_2_liberal-elites.html is a really good piece she has up just now.
Are we going to see Baltimore or Oakland reverse directions? No. But the rest of nation I think will be turning back toward sanity.
“1. black Americans are THE most likely group to report problems to the police
2. law-abiding black Americans in particularly high-crime areas are very supportive of police”
RE. the first point: I agree. Blacks are frequently victims and definitely call the police to sort out their crises.
RE. the second point: I disagree. Have you ever tried to prosecute a crime that took place in a predominately black area? No one sees a thing, not even the otherwise decent people. As I have had witnesses explain privately over and over, “I’m sorry, but I have to live in that neighborhood.” (And I don’t condemn them for that. They have lives to live and children to raise. I understand that protecting one’s family comes first.) And don’t get me started about blacks on juries. The idea that it is better to let a black criminal walk than put one more black man in jail is NOT a fringe idea, it is accepted by a surprising number of ordinary folks.
Again, I admire your sense of hope; I only wish I shared it. Personally, I see an EXTREMELY polarized nation with ever-increasing gaps between groups. Identity politics is not fading, it’s getting worse. I wish we could re-ignite the Tenth Amendment to provide an escape valve of sorts, but I suspect that’s a pipe dream. Mostly, I’m just really glad that my husband let me chuck the legal career and moved us to flyover territory where all of the issues we debate here are mostly just academic. Blessings to you and thanks for the debate. 🙂
OK, let’s agree that there’s “support” and then there’s support.
Where the Mafia, black drug dealers, or the Mexican cartels directly threaten WITNESSES, that is one question of support.
Conversely, people in neighborhoods where there’s high crime EXPRESSLY asking for intensive police presence, DEMANDING that the police hierarchy devote inordinate resources to their neighborhoods, is another form of support.
“No one sees a thing, not even the otherwise decent people.”
Yet those very people were instrumental in exonerating Officer Wilson.
See?
Yep. Dunno who down-thumbed that, but it’s all true.
Except for the part about “causing Gray to flee”. Nobody but Gray caused that. Don’t resist even a bad arrest or stop. Avenge a bad arrest or stop in court.
Dear ‘Yootful Homies: Any of you LOL Pathetic Twits ever think of trying on some ‘Big Boy’ jeans?
Nope, didn’t think so. Whatcha’call a rhetorical question,’Yo.
But the reporter is on their side!
Yes, presumably.
‘We’re slowly losing the distinction between the protest and the riot’.
When protests turn violent and result in injuries and property damage they are called riots. It is not a slow process when you have a mob mentality.
Wrong, we’ve lost that distinction between a protest and a riot!
Today’s version of the highly aggrieved has the attitude that they can do whatever they wish and to heck with anyone who objects; especially the law.
So, do these rioters really want to have a lawless zone where they can do what they want? They then need to understand that others might also take that outlaw position but be on the other side. Plus, it’s pretty certain that the people rioting (In support of Fred Gray? Really?) will be in the minority if the other side takes to the streets too. And, that will not be pretty and certainly not beneficial to the rioters.
Law and order does work and take that to the bank. Rioting doesn’t work, even in the short run.
It may be true that we don’t/can’t see the difference but there is one common factor.
This crap wouldn’t be happening if more terrorists had jobs.
Obama’s America.
http://twitchy.com/2015/04/27/how-many-did-he-send-to-chris-kyles-obama-dispatches-wh-aides-to-freddie-gray-funeral/
Three White House agitators…er…aides…
Kinda shows a valuing of folks, dunnit…???
I believe that what we’re seeing more and more frequently is evidence of a revolution born of frustrated rising expectations. Many blacks believed that Obama’s election would bring about a halcyon existence wherein they would not have to pay mortgages, would get free everything and have any perceived imbalances of power reversed. They did not realize that Obama is in it for himself and his cronies. But they are catching on to the fact that Obama’s time in office is only for another 20 months so they must act now. These people still believe that the Light Bringer is on their side but he seems to them to be overpowered by evil (white) forces, so they must increase the pressure. They are counting on the DOJ to continue Holder’s racist policies.
It is going to be a LONG 20 months and it will take a very long time to reverse this destruction if it is even possible to do so.
The irony of this is that the RT reporter was there to cover revolution in America. This is the official Russian position on the recent rioting here.
On the subject of revolution, as the great Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov said of the Bolshevik revolution, devastation is not on the streets, it’s in people’s heads — or something like that. It’s in Dog’s Heart, possibly the greatest reactionary book ever written.
“Teenagers” – How is their race not relevant and newsworthy when their race was the entire cause of the riot?
You don’t see the white faces in the rioters pictured at Click’s link?
Odd…
There will always be a few Anonymous white commies/anarchists standing around in support of their rioting black brethren. Then there are a few white punks and looters who will join in the actual violence, because of course, there are violent idiots of all races.
It’s like watching a rap video.
And, in the fascist state of MD, decent law abiding people are prevented from carrying a gun to protect themselves from such thugs. The reporter is lucky she wasn’t beaten, raped, and murdered.
And the mayor admits they let these thugs run rampant. The mayor and chief of police should go to jail.
The video shows at least one thug being taken down by the LEOs, so they weren’t just standing around.
and people wonder why I conceal carry…
Hopefully the point that Gray was only stopped due to the pretext of having a knife, legal in almost every other state in the union, isn’t missed.
The nanny-state anti-rights authoritarians own this mess from the moment they made normal pocket knives illegal. No stupid anti-rights knife law, no pretext to stop. No police stop (or fear of a BS charge causing Gray to flee a stop), no way for the alleged police brutality to occur.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2015/04/baltimore-reporter-robbed-on-camera-by-rioting-teenagers/comment-page-1/#comment-584051
That was supposed to be here…