It’s one thing to protest. If people think the death of George Floyd involved racism by the police, they have a right to protest. But when they engage in violence they cross the line. Unfortunately, white Antifa activists have hijacked black protests in Minneapolis and other cities, attacking the police and engaging in violence.
Many of the rioters in the big cities came from other states or the suburbs; they are not from the downtown areas of the cities they are terrorizing. Nearly two-thirds of the protesters in Detroit came from the suburbs. Attorney General Bill Barr said, “In many places, it appears the violence is planned, organized & driven by anarchic left extremist groups — far-left extremist groups using Antifa-like tactics.”
In the past, the left has gotten caught paying young people to travel to urban areas and riot, so this is not surprising. One ad from Moveon.org said minorities were preferred. These rioters have no connection to the community they’ve been bussed in to destroy, so it’s easier for them to destroy it. Barr noted that it is a federal crime to cross a state border to engage in violent riots, implying that the feds can come in, arrest and prosecute rioters if the blue state leadership and law enforcement do nothing. The attorney general of Minnesota can be seen in a photo smiling and holding up a book promoting Antifa.
Members of the black community called out white Antifa for causing violence in their space. One black woman angrily filmed a white Antifa member spraying Black Lives Matter on a business, telling her that was wrong since black people will get blamed for it. She said they were trying to protest peacefully.
The AP took a lot of close-up photos of blacks protesting and rioting, making it appear that the rioting was primarily driven by blacks. But photos taken from a distance reveal far more white Antifa rioters than blacks. This video of rioters taken outside the White House doesn’t appear to include even one black protester. The only blacks are law enforcement.
In another video, a black small business owner can be seen in tears because the rioters destroyed his bar, which he had put his life savings into. This video shows legally armed black business owners standing outside their shops to protect them. How is white Antifa destroying black businesses justice for Floyd?
Staffers for Joe Biden’s presidential campaign bragged about donating to a fund to pay bail for the rioters who were arrested. So let’s get this straight: They are going to pay bail to let white Antifa members out of jail who were arrested for looting and destroying black-owned businesses.
Democratic Minnesota Governor Tim Walz says “white supremacists” and Mexican drug cartels are behind the violent rioting. But there wasn’t much evidence of white supremacists. The rioters who defaced CNN’s sign stood on top of it holding a Mexican flag and Black Lives Matter banner.
Democrats posted a meme on the Democratic Underground claiming that the officer who killed Floyd, Derek Chauvin, was spotted at a Trump rally standing right behind Trump, wearing a Cops for Trump t-shirt. But commenters on their own website disputed it, pointing out the facial differences.
The left is equivocating the violence to the violence of the American Revolution. But the Founding Fathers did not steal and destroy the property of innocent people who had done nothing wrong. It was a horrific abuse by police. But it was likely not a racist incident, because a few bad apples in police departments have done similar things where the victim was not black and the cop white.
In 2016, Tony Timpa, a white man, was pinned down by police for nearly 14 minutes, killing him. Bodycam coverage showed Timpa yelling, “You’re gonna kill me!” The officers joked that he had fallen asleep, and one yelled, "It's time for school, wake up!" Another responded, "I don't want to go to school! Five more minutes, Mom!" One of the officers was black, although he wasn’t the main one holding Timpa down. His killing was very similar to Floyd’s. Charges against the officers were dropped, and they were merely placed on administrative leave temporarily. There wasn’t any rioting.
And where’s the outrage over a police officer pinning a young black man by the neck backward onto the roof of a car? In the video, filmed on May 22, a young woman standing nearby keeps repeating, “He can’t breathe.” Could it be because the officer was black?
What I learned as a prosecutor is that most of the Antifa protesters engaged in violence are doing so because they have criminal records and are mad at the police for getting caught. They are using a genuine misuse of police force to push through their agenda of reducing the power of the police to stop them from their criminal activity.
Fortunately, black leaders are speaking up denouncing the violence. They have tremendous influence. They don’t want Soros funded white Antifa coming into their neighborhoods, destroying them and making their people look bad. Cincinnati City Councilman Jeff Pastor teared up denouncing the rioters for recruiting 14-year-old black kids to attack the police. He says it’s not fair to drag these young kids into it. He’s furious at the instigators using Martin Luther King Jr.’s name to justify doing this to children.
Rep. Vernon Jones (D-Ga.), who made waves recently for supporting Trump, called Antifa out on Twitter. “I refuse to allow a bunch of ANTIFA affiliated thugs to come to my beloved city of Atlanta and burn it to the ground, under the guise of #BlackLivesMatter. They don’t give a d*** about black lives. They only care about DESTRUCTION.”
One brave black woman stood in front of the protesters and rioters in Brooklyn on Saturday in the midst of a violent demonstration and told them repeatedly they need to protest peacefully. There appeared to be Antifa rioters farther back in the crowd who were hurtling bottles and other objects at the police. There have been over 300 arrests in New York.
Trump announced on Sunday that Antifa will be designated a terrorist organization. He tweeted, “It’s ANTIFA and the Radical Left. Don’t lay the blame on others!” The left has been crying racism so much that it sparked the protests, then incredibly had the nerve to commit violence to make things worse. Finally, the public is onto them.