The editors of the Wall Street Journal have got this story wrong:
Can police keep citizens safe from lawless mobs if they have to worry about being safe in their own homes? That’s the question this week in Seattle, after a group of what Police Chief Carmen Best characterized as “aggressive protesters†targeted her home in Snohomish County Saturday night.
In a letter to the City Council, Chief Best says her neighbors kept the protesters from trespassing on or engaging in other illegal behavior “despite repeated attempts to do so.†She urged the council to “stand up†and denounce the behavior before “this devolves into the new way of doing business by mob rule.â€
The chief is right. A big reason demonstrations have turned illegal and violent in so many U.S. cities is because progressive mayors and city councils have looked the other way or egged them on. Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan cheered on demonstrations for weeks and called a police no-go zone “a summer of love.†But on June 28 protesters marched on her home. Two days later the mayor issued an executive order to clear up the occupied zone, and the next morning it was carried out.
or, at least they haven’t figured out what actually happened. What actually happened is that Chief Best’s neighbors engaged in vigilante law enforcement. That’s what happened in the much-publicized incident in St. Louis’s West End in which firearms-waving homeowners pushed back against “demonstrators”.
When law enforcement stops enforcing the law it will not be replaced by nothing. People will defend themselves and each other. We call that “vigilantism”.
IMO elected officials must enforce the law. Otherwise we’re just one itchy trigger finger away from a major incident and each jurisdiction in which law enforcement is left to vigilantes makes that more likely.
Updated
At least one of the “neighbors” was visibly armed.
When the local government doesn’t say “no”, it’s up to us to say “no”.
said one of the interviewees.
The point of keeping the police from enforcing the law and letting violence spiral out of control may be to try and provoke OMB into declaring martial law so that he can be called Mr. H and justify his removal from power.
‘What actually happened is that Chief Best’s neighbors engaged in vigilante law enforcement.’
Only because the police seemed to be unwilling to protect their own Chief. Or were ordered not to. Data is lacking.
With dem policies calling for allocation of police funding elsewhere, or making police so impotent, by changing their effective rules of engagement, police have become useless sources of protection. So, people are minding their own homes, neighborhood, as gun sales soar.
That’s really the question, isn’t it.
Is the revolt organic? Or contrived to sway an election.
Looking more and more like the latter.
The tragic comedy continues —
A month ago; BLM organized a protest at the mayor of Seattle’s house. The mayor suddenly changed her mind about CHAZ/CHOP from being a ‘summer of love’ to dismantling it the next day.
Now that it is not her own safety on the line; will the mayor show the same zeal to protect her police chief?