Top Three Takeaways – April 13th, 2021
- What a mess in Brooklyn, Minnesota. It’s hard to imagine an experienced police officer mistaking their handgun for a taser but evidently that’s what happened. In life there are mistakes you can recover from and other’s you can’t. There’s no recovering from that kind of a mistake and it’s the kind that just can’t happen. But it did, so now everything is awful in Brooklyn, Minnesota and everything is that much more strained everywhere else. And it’s yet another horrible version of a similar thing. While what the officer did can never be excused, the entire situation was entirely preventable. You’re familiar with the saying “we make our own luck”. When it comes to luck, we do generally have a strong hand in what it looks like. And once again in the case of the death of Daunte Wright, his luck, the very worst kind – was possible by a series of bad decisions. Had Daunte not been driving on an expired tag he wouldn’t have been pulled over. Had he not had a warrant out for his arrest at the time he was pulled over he wouldn’t have been arrested. And had he not attempted to resist arrest and escape he wouldn’t have been killed. While almost all of the attention will be placed on the deadly actions of the police officer, and rightly so, somewhere along the way it’d be helpful if protestors also preached accountability. If you do the right thing, it’s not a guarantee that you won’t one day have a regrettable confrontation with law enforcement, but in nearly every high-profile case of police involved deaths of Blacks, the victims were perpetrators before becoming victims. That should at least be part of a broader discussion.
- The definition of a protest... Here’s the textbook definition of a protest. A statement or action expressing disapproval of or objection to something. Here’s what it isn’t. Anything physical or violent. Which btw, means the term “peaceful protestors” is redundant. Protestors by definition are peaceful. What people who continue to abuse the term protests are compensating for are those who aren’t protestors. Throwing objects, damaging property, looting – none of that is protesting. That’s all fitting of the...
- Definition of riot. Which the state of Florida is in the process of formalizing the in form of HB 1 which is set for one final vote in the Florida Senate after clearing its final committee hurdle last Friday. Should it become law these are the definitions of riotous behaviors in Florida. 1. An act of violence committed by a gathering of three or more people assembled for a common cause. 2. Violence is defined as property destruction, threats of harm to others, or the physical harm of others. 3. A more serious charge of an “aggravated riot” would occur if more than nine people are involved in the riot with damage exceeding $5,000. I understand why this bill is controversial but, on its merits, why would it be? Who thinks unlawful assembly with threats of violence or actual violence is acceptable? Anyone opposing HB 1 should be made accountable to that question. Because a protest is not a riot, and every protest is peaceful. This isn’t complicated, unlike politics.
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