Originally published April 14, 2021
https://www.queensjewishlink.com/index.php/opinion/4337-riots-in-cities-are-not-going-to-stop
After an officer-involved shooting in Minneapolis this past weekend, the beleaguered residents of the city were again treated to rioting and looting of their businesses. Last summer, when these riots occurred nationwide, the sentiment was that it would all end once the Democrats were back in charge. As conservatives warned at the time, the riots will never stop because the Left is not taking the steps necessary to make them stop.
This particular riot began after a man named Daunte Wright was pulled over and it was discovered that he had an outstanding warrant. As seen by bodycam footage, Wright attempted to escape police custody, and an officer accidentally used her firearm instead of her taser (which she thought she was holding). All of these details (and there are more details to come) emerged after the violent rioting.
Prior to the release of the bodycam footage, Democrat leaders in the area immediately sided with Wright and assumed that the police action was unwarranted. “Our entire community is filled with grief following today’s officer-involved shooting of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old young man,” said Brooklyn Center Mayor Mike Elliott. Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz tweeted that he was “praying for Daunte Wright’s family as our state mourns another life of a Black man taken by law enforcement.”
Footage came out on Sunday and Monday of the rioting and looting. Wal-Mart, O’Reilly Auto Parts, and many other stores were broken into and ransacked. Bricks, concrete blocks, and frozen drinks were hurled at police officers. The National Guard was scrambled and deployed to the area.
The media refuses to call these riots; instead, like last summer, they tried to convince the public that these are merely peaceful protests. During his press briefing, Brooklyn Center Police Chief Tim Gannon said the word “riot,” and the media members immediately pushed back. “There was no riot,” one said. Gannon was then accused of not protecting protesters because law enforcement had the temerity to try and disperse the mob.
The media do not report on riots because that would harm their bottom line, which is to keep Democrats in power. If the public is unaware of Democrat incompetence, then they’ll continue to vote Democrat. This is why there is a media blackout on the weekend’s violence in Portland.
Antifa rioters in Portland descended on a local ICE facility and set it on fire while there were officials inside. Fortunately, there were no injuries and the fire was put out. A group of radicals attacking a federal building did not seem to be newsworthy to CNN and The New York Times, which didn’t bother to cover the story.
Portland, like Minneapolis and many other major metropolitan areas, is a Democratic stronghold. Leftist politicians spent their time last year marching with Black Lives Matter, kneeling in solidarity, pledged to defund the police force, and generally made their cities open playgrounds to rioting and looting. This makes the cities havens for increased crime.
On top of this, law enforcement will not proactively police communities. No police officer wants to be the next Derek Chauvin, and they all know the circumstances surrounding interactions that went south are irrelevant, so they’re backing off. Crime is rising all over the country, especially in cities where Black Lives Matter protests are a common occurrence.
Researcher Travis Campbell of University of Massachusetts, Amherst discovered that from 2014-2019 (2020 data not being available), cities with BLM protests have had fewer instances of lethal use of force by police officers (approximately 300 less), but more murders (between 1,000 and 6,000 more). In layman’s terms: fewer cops, more homicides.
Advocacy groups in cities are beginning to speak out. Recently, residents of Rochester, New York, denounced Black Lives Matter. “If the police were killing us at the rate we’re killing ourselves, I suspect this town would be on fire,” said Rudy Rivera, CEO of a local advocacy center.
Rochester saw a large amount of protests and violence last year, as it was the site of the death of Daniel Prude during a police interaction (the officers were not charged after it was determined that the drugs in Prude’s system were the cause of death). Considering the national attention shown to police officers when it was determined that they did nothing wrong, the rest of the police force became less inclined to take action. The result? Homicides in Rochester have tripled compared to this time last year.
Democrats will not take strong action against the rioters because they want to seem on the side of the activists. The media will not report on the devastation because the narrative is “cops are bad,” so anything against cops is good. Corporations, which are quick to comment on voting laws in Georgia, have little or nothing to say when their own stores are burned to the ground because they’re afraid of the leftist mob turning on them. So despite all the pain, damage, and loss, this trend of rioting and looting after violent police interactions, regardless of the circumstances, will continue.
Moshe Hill is a political columnist and Senior Fellow at Chovevei Zion. You can find Moshe on his blog at www.aHillwithaView.com, facebook.com/aHillwithaView, or twitter.com/TheMoHill.
