Law Enforcement agencies are responsible for the wrong and criminal acts of their personnel. Who is responsible for the wrong and criminal acts of these protesters? Do we blame that on law enforcement too? The media and activists will say that it is all the fault of the police.
If the police plan ahead, deploy and position to manage while supporting the rights of the protesters, it is seen as provocative. When agitators and bad actors begin to get destructive and violent, the police are said to not react soon enough. When police do act, their response is said to be extreme. When the police escalate the deployment of additional resources they are seen as becoming militaristic and over-reacting.
When you see a peaceful citizen or a property owner protecting their property, they are attacked…not by one person, but multiple bad actors. When you see an officer doing their job to keep the peace, even when it is to effect an arrest, they are attacked, and ganged up on by crowds of people…while those not attacking using the opportunity to take cell phone video, rather than stopping the attack on the innocent citizen, property owner or police doing their job.
So, circling back to the start of this all. A tragic death of a citizen, albeit a person that committed a crime, was perpetrated by several officers. The reaction, rather than peaceful demonstration and encouraging authorities to take appropriate, legal actions, violent actors in cities across the country turn to the violence and destruction they claim to protest.
Who polices the peaceful demonstrations?
If your loved one is the innocent citizen that is attacked, if your loved one is the owner/worker at the business being destroyed and attacked…who polices that?
A criminal initiated this problem by committing a crime, at least one police officer committed what was ultimately determined to be a crime in responding to the crime…and then activists take if from there to cause chaos and the destruction of public peace and order.
The problem is with society. A segment of society allows some to become criminals and commit crimes. Society does not police itself. That is to say, families, religious institutions, civic and community leaders and groups, our schools, and ethnic groups.
The problem is with the presence of some police officers that take actions that match the crimes of the criminals and become criminal themselves. The police officers are selected from the ranks of the general public. And sometimes bad citizens become police, or good citizen police officers become corrupted and lose their honor and integrity.
We always want the police to be trained when something goes wrong. And that is fine, but we never look at the original source of the problem.
The police come from the general citizenry.
They are you.
They are us.