Democrats know they’re facing disaster in this fall’s midterm elections, and so we can expect “mostly peaceful protests” to return this summer. An early preview:
A group of protesters marched through the streets of northeast Portland Saturday, damaging some buildings, bus shelters, and lighting a dumpster on fire at the Portland Police Bureau’s north precinct.
Based on social media posts, the group first gathered at North Portland’s Peninsula Park Saturday night in protest of the police killing of Patrick Lyoya in Michigan.
According to police, some members of the group vandalized a coffee shop, two banks, and three bus shelters on Northeast MLK Jr. Boulevard.
The group eventually arrived at the PPB North Precinct on MLK Jr. Boulevard at Killingsworth Street, where police said “one or more suspects” set a dumpster on fire in the parking garage.
Officers unsuccessfully tried to put out the dumpster fire with fire extinguishers, and Portland Fire & Rescue was ultimately called to douse the flames.
“No arrests were immediately made, but the investigation is continuing,” Portland Police said.
The first and most obvious question is, why are they protesting in Portland, Oregon, about an incident in Grand Rapids, Michigan? But the same question could have been asked about the nationwide protests about the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. In such cases, it seems, the decision of which cases of alleged police brutality demand protests is determined by (a) whether the incident is getting heavy coverage on CNN, and (b) whether Ben Crump is on the case:
The family of Patrick Lyoya, the man shot in the back of the head by a Grand Rapids Police Officer earlier this month, held a press conference Thursday afternoon alongside civil rights attorney Ben Crump and attorney Ven Johnson.
Family members, Crump, and Johnson are all speaking just one day after Grand Rapids authorities released graphic video that showed the 26-year-old man being shot in the head after a traffic stop.
CNN functions as a publicity agency for Ben Crump’s lucrative practice of pursuing wrongful death cases against police departments. Most people have paid little attention to the economic incentives of this particular “civil rights” racket, i.e., the cops kill a suspect, the family “demands justice,” Crump shows up to incite a riot and files a lawsuit, then the Democrat-controlled city government — knowing that it can’t hope to win such a case, given the demographics of the local jury pool — agrees to a multi-million-dollar settlement, with Crump taking a huge chunk of that taxpayer-funded payout, and then moving on to the next blood-soaked opportunity for a “civil right” bonanza. Everybody in this familiar kabuki pageant has a carefully scripted role, and if you’ve paid close attention to recent iterations of this saga, there are never any real surprises in the story, including the criminal record of the Heroic Civil Rights Martyr whose death is the opening act of the pageant.
Excuse my extreme cynicism about all this, but I’m particularly sick and tired of the role played by the media in such stories. The profession of journalism is being degraded by reporters and editors who demonstrate a lack of basic common sense about law enforcement.
While I am reluctant to engage in a point-by-point analysis of the Patrick Lyoya shooting, you can click here and watch the video to understand my specific complaint about how this story is being covered.
The officer pulls over a sedan driven by Lyoya, who exits the vehicle. The officer says, get back in the car. Lyoya disobeys the officer’s command (becoming “non-compliant,” as they say in the law-enforcement community) and acts confused about why the officer pulled him over. The cop says, “The plate doesn’t belong on this car.”
In other words, the license tag was issued for a different vehicle and someone (perhaps Lyoya) has put it on this car that he’s driving. As I say, to cover this story fairly requires a bit of common sense about law enforcement. A situation like this — a car with a mismatched license plate — is a major red flag. Is the car stolen? Or is the driver a fugitive who switched the plates in an attempt to avoid apprehension? Whatever the explanation might be, this is a situation requiring investigation, because of the likelihood that switching the plates was done to conceal criminal activity. In other words, this is not “just a traffic stop.”
Next, when the officer asks to see his license, Lyoya says it’s in the car. “Get it for me,” says the cop (1:12). Lyoya then opens the door to the car and says something to the passenger, Then Lyoya closes the door of the car (1:39) and tries to walk away. “No, no, no,” says the cop, and decides it’s time to put handcuffs on Lyoya, who breaks free and starts running (1:46). You see how quickly this has happened — 30 seconds earlier, the officer was waiting for Lyoya to get his license out of the car, and now he’s engaged in a foot pursuit with an unknown suspect.
Again — common sense. At this point, the cop has no idea who this guy is, because he hasn’t provided any identification. For all the cop knows, he could be chasing a serial killer or a drug kingpin. Because the media are focused on the “civil rights” narrative (black suspect killed by a white cop), there is an evident lack of journalistic curiosity about the circumstances here: Why were the plates switched on the car? Whose car was it? And why was Patrick Lyoya so desperate to avoid being identified? Because it is obvious, to anyone with a common sense understanding of law enforcement, that Lyoya was thinking about making a run for it from the moment he saw the blue lights in his rear-view mirror. Were there outstanding warrants for Lyoya’s arrest? Was he on probation or parole, and afraid that being caught driving without a license would lead to him being sent to prison?
There must be something in the background to explain Lyoya’s behavior, but good luck finding that explanation in the mainstream media. According to one blogger, “Mr. Lyoya had a criminal record that includes a conviction for a violent crime against a pregnant woman, an arrest for theft of a vehicle that was dismissed, and a DUI.” While I can’t confirm any of that, common sense suggests that Lyoya must have had some previous trouble with the law, because why else would he act the way he did? It was Lyoya’s behavior that led to the fatal shooting, which happened while he and the officer were engaged in a physical struggle over the officer’s taser. If all you know is what you get from the media, this makes no sense, as it is implied that the officer just should have let Lyoya run away. It was “just a traffic stop,” right?
Anyway, the media is obviously trying to incite riots over this incident, and we can expect this pattern to continue all the way to November.
