08-14-2017, 05:23 PM
(08-14-2017, 05:17 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: I agree. We need to, as a nation, state that any violence at political rallies will be met with an immediate response from law enforcement. It's a catch 22 for local PD's, they don't want to be perceived as jack boots shutting down political rallies. The problem is, as usually happens, is that the pendulum has swung way too far into non-interference, as we saw at Berkeley. All it would take would be one decisive crack down by law enforcement and this kind of thing would stop happening. Right now inaction by law enforcement has emboldened both sides to more extreme action. I wasn't being insensitive when I said a death was inevitable given the way things have been going. We need to be a little more tolerant of law enforcement and stand behind them when they have to deal with this kind of incident.
I definitely agree, here. I don't know how much you have been following the events in the city, but the police were harshly criticized at the 08 July rally for being too aggressive. This weekend, they are being criticized by the left for not doing enough, and the right for being authoritarian jackboots. McAuliffe has come out and said that there was hesitation on the law enforcement end because they had been notified by DHS and FBI ahead of time that the racist groups coming in would be heavily armed based on their intelligence, and were looking for trouble. As a result, law enforcement handled them with kid gloves to avoid a bloodbath that could have happened because the racists were, according to McAuliffe, better armed and armored than the police.
FWIW, the city tried to move the protest to a more rural park, so not in the downtown area, that was larger and could accommodate the expected crowds, as well as ban weapons and items commonly used as such (poles and the like). The court denied both of those requests and ruled in favor of the plaintiff, who was backed by the ACLU and the Rutherford Institute.
