Last weekend’s raids in Minneapolis drew a fair share of controversy; many commentators posited that, based on the list of materials captured in the raids, it appeared that Ramsey County sheriff Bob Fletcher overreached in carrying out the raids (although I personally will wait to hear more about the evidence against the various arrestees).
I suspect that the Ramco Sheriff and the other Law Enforcement agencies involved in the raids did a little quick calculating (Warning! Pure Conjecture Follows!) and figured that weathering a few lawsuits from the ACLU’s legal jackals would be better than dealing with the kinds of violence and mayhem the subjects were planning.
I think it worked.
The first day’s protests were a complete flop. The anarkids’ planned mayhem was largely anticipated and controlled. Traffic was never blocked. And outside of a few spasms of impotent violence, things pretty much just worked.
So the anarkids are back to going “They hit us first!” They’ll be “unmasking” and “answering questions” at a presser at one of the raided houses later today.
Almost wish I could be there.
Well, me, too; I’d love to hear what their story is going to be.
I disagree that the protests were a flop. Quite the contrary: when people come out in public and express their opinions, no matter how noisily, that’s a win for everybody. (I think the day when massive street protests change minds, if it ever was, has gone, but that’s another issue. People aren’t obligated to use the First Amendment in a way that I think is useful, after all.)
Overreaching? That’s becoming clearer and clearer, but what’s also clear is that some grownups were acting like, well, grownups, and that’s a good thing.
But some very much weren’t, and that isn’t good at all.