{"id":3268,"date":"2008-09-09T07:53:53","date_gmt":"2008-09-09T12:53:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=3268"},"modified":"2008-09-09T07:56:46","modified_gmt":"2008-09-09T12:56:46","slug":"question-for-demonstrators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=3268","title":{"rendered":"Question For Demonstrators"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve seen quite a few “demonstrators” and “professional media” from this past week claim that the police were “out of control” last week at the RNC – even accusations that there was a “police riot”.<\/p>\n

And let’s make one thing clear; I oppose police overreaching. Indeed, since an Obama administration would likely try to shut down conservative talk radio and regulate political blogs, I oppose all <\/em>government overreaching.<\/p>\n

But let me ask you all; where was the overreach?<\/p>\n

Let’s allow for the moment that I, too, am concerned about some of the reports of excessive use of mace on people who weren’t actively resisting the police. It’s technically and legally a gray area (whether it should be or not is another entire discussion), but let’s acknowledge some mutual concern here, and move on.<\/p>\n

And let’s balance that by acknowledging the concern I have that the local lefty media and Sorosphere is trying to ignore both the threat that did<\/em> exist before the convention – threats to “shut down” the convention, kidnap or harass delegates and so on – as well as the violence that did <\/em>happen (the sandbag attacks and bum-rushing of the various incoming buses on the first day), to say nothing of the constant, peek-a-boo refusal of the various protest groups to renounce, condemn and work against violence. This was the background against which law enforcement had to work, and it was a daunting one.<\/p>\n

With that out of the way, please, “demonstrators” and “professional media”, take a whack at answering these questions, if you please:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. At any time, did the Police try to shut down a permitted<\/em> demonstration that was operating during its permitted <\/em>time?<\/li>\n
  2. If so, were significant numbers of the demonstrators involved engaged in violent or destructive behavior?<\/li>\n
  3. Did the police do anything<\/em> against any <\/em>protester taking non-violent part in a legally-permitted protest? And remember, by “legally permitted protest”, I mean a protest operating under a permit that had not either expired or <\/em>been voided due to the demonstration veering outside its permitted limits (because demonstrators have to follow the law, too).<\/li>\n
  4. In an “overwhelming display of law-enforcement power”, the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Department executed (ahem) five search warrants and arrested, um, six people before the convention started. The thirty-page affadavit claimed that the six were parts of a conspiracy to commit all manner of mayhem on the convention – chains across freeways, kidnappings, pee-and-poop bombings, tieing up traffic and worse. Which of the Ramco Sheriff’s claims do you contest, and why?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I’m genuinely curious.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I’ve seen quite a few “demonstrators” and “professional media” from this past week claim that the police were “out of control” last week at the RNC – even accusations that there was a “police riot”. And let’s make one thing clear; I oppose police overreaching. Indeed, since an Obama administration would likely try to shut […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-days-of-adolescent-rage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3268\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}