"C'Ville Police Chief: 'Let Them Fight'"
A train wreck of stupidity...and, yeah: on all sides.
Haven't read the whole thing yet, however.
Haven't read the whole thing yet, however.
posted by Winston Smith at
1:04 PM
Sunday, December 03, 2017
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2 Comments:
I've now read the whole report. Fewer things have made me angrier.
The city government and police didn't just fail to prevent violence through regular small town incompetence. By taking unusual, active measures to try to suppress the demonstration by withdrawing the permit to demonstrate downtown at the last minute, only to have it (properly) reinstated, the Counsel made it more difficult for the city and state police to plan properly. Then, when that failed, did the city police plan to allow demonstration to go ahead while separating the sides with a perimeter? No, they made inquiries as to the exact definition of "unlawful assembly" ahead of time, then positioned the bulk of the police along one side of the demonstration area rather than around it. It's obvious from the report that the police plan was to stand by and allow fights to break out to provide the pretext needed to declare the assembly unlawful, then clear the square. And of course, when they cleared the square, they dispersed agitated Klansmen all over town, where there were few police, since the bulk of them were clearing the square. Violence was obviously the result. Honestly, from the circumstantial evidence in the report, I believe that members of the Counsel - Signer at least - welcomed some violence, since that would provide the grounds to deny future permits to demonstrate.
Throughout the period leading up to the 12th, the overriding concern of city officials was to find a way to prevent the demonstration from taking place, at all if possible, or at least downtown. When those efforts failed, the city tried to end the demonstrations as soon as possible. The city did its very best to weasel out of its obligations to uphold rights of speech and assembly. If they had respected those obligations, the Klansmen, Nazis, and other assorted small mammals would have had their speeches, shown their butts, and gone home to be forgotten. Now, now the violence that was a byproduct of the city's attempt to suppress speech has spawned a thousand hand wringing, pseudo-reluctant arguments freedom of speech and public safety are incompatible.
Well, I can't say that any of that's too surprising at this point.
I'm putting off reading it until Christmas break.
Shit, I'm not looking forward to trudging through that thing.
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