LETTER: Protesters and the right side of the law
It seems to me some understanding is being lost when I hear and read about all the admonishments being administered by civil authorities and civil rights activists when they counsel demonstrators protesting the death of George Floyd to keep to the right side of the law.
Legal and political authorities (from the police officers on up to the judges and mayors and governors) have refused to make police officers immediately responsible for breaking the law. Those destroyers you have all trained your cameras on have been told that the law is only for the personal use of those with guns and clubs and uniforms and political power. They have been informed that the law is not applicable to everybody in the same way, and, therefore, there is no need to respect it.
So before you get up and opine about the right and wrong ways to react to injustice, you are going to have to behave as if the law applies to you the same way you say it should apply to violent demonstrators.
So let’s see cops immediately arrested and charged with the worst of their crimes. Let’s see cops made to go on perp walks. Let’s see judges putting them in prison. Let’s see police review boards with teeth. Let’s see the laws applied to bad behavior for everybody, not just for those people you don’t like.
