By David French
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
The anti-cop movement is completely out of control. It’s
moved from attacking the police, to attacking the rule of law itself, and now
it is attacking the fundamental human right of self-defense. Twice in a month,
rioters have struck back after black cops reportedly shot and killed black men
who were threatening the cops with guns.
First, in Milwaukee, rioters burned businesses and cars
after a black officer shot Sylville Smith. Milwaukee officials who reviewed the
body-camera footage not only said that Smith was raising his gun at police,
they also noted that he “had more firepower than the officer” — possessing a
weapon with a 23-round magazine.
Last night, in Charlotte, N.C., a young black police
officer shot and killed Keith Lamont Scott. According to police reports, Scott
brandished a weapon and was given multiple commands to drop the weapon. After a
woman claiming to be Scott’s daughter posted a Facebook Live video that
asserted that Scott was disabled and only holding a book, riots erupted. The
police say they’ve not found a book at the scene, but they do have Scott’s
weapon.
Protests began in late afternoon and quickly turned
violent. Rioters attacked and injured police officers (including one hit in the
face with a rock), shut down and set fire to an interstate, threw rocks and
other objects at motorists, damaged police cars, looted tractor trailers, and
eventually looted a Walmart. Police reportedly arrested only one person in
response to the widespread violence.
While none of the Black Lives Matters riots are
justified, last night’s events are particularly revealing. It is
extraordinarily difficult to claim white supremacy and white oppression when
black cops are defending themselves from armed black men. This has nothing to
do with the false narratives of “hands up, don’t shoot” or “open season on
black men.” These rioters can’t even wait for the most basic of investigations.
This is about destruction, about bringing down the established order. It’s the
“Burn, Baby Burn” of 2016 — 51 years after the Watts riots inspired Marvin X to
issue his poetic ode to vicious violence:
Killllllllll ……..
Boommmmm …………
2 honkeys gone..
Motherf***k the
police
And Parker’s sister
too
Burn, baby,
burn*******
Cook outta
sight*******
Fineburgs,
wineburgs,
Safeway, noway,
burn …..
Baby, burn
I thought black people — including black cops — enjoyed
the same fundamental rights as every other human being on the planet, including
the right to protect themselves from armed attack. What does “Black Lives
Matter” even mean if a black man in uniform can’t protect himself from criminal
violence — from a person of any color? Is the rule of law even relevant if
riots break out before even the slightest examination of the actual evidence?
Does this look like “social justice” to you?
There is a bright line — a very bright line — between
lawful protest and the kind of violence America saw overnight in Charlotte. Yet
it’s becoming increasingly clear that leftist radicals use the violence to create a perverse good cop/bad cop public argument:
Either deal with the self-appointed radical “community” or “movement” leaders
or face the mob.
While this is the kind of tactic that has always worked
with timid white progressives (Tom Wolfe’s “Radical Chic” is evergreen), most
Americans have little patience with riots. Hillary Clinton is playing with
political and cultural fire with tweets like this:
Keith Lamont Scott. Terence
Crutcher. Too many others. This has got to end. -H
4:41 PM - 21 Sep 2016
What has got to end, Hillary? A black cop reportedly
defending himself from an armed man? By lumping together two very different
cases (in Tulsa, Okla., Terence Crutcher was apparently unarmed and shot after
video shows him walking back to his vehicle and appearing to reach inside),
Clinton is stoking a narrative that lumps together all police shootings in the same basket of injustice — when cops
are individuals, departments are different, and facts vary wildly. Is this the
“steady” leadership she brags about?
The riots of 2016 don’t represent an oppressed underclass
rising against the oppressor. They represent an oppressor criminal class rising against the rule of law and against
the very value of human life. Black lives matter? Please. These people believe
no lives matter — none but their own. They are the vanguard — the tip of the
spear — of a larger movement that truly seeks not to build but to destroy.
Shame on any politician, pundit, or activist who expresses the slightest
sympathy for their deadly cause.
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