Nate Jackson · Sep. 8, 2020

With so much still going on in the world of Peaceful Protesting™, we offer this brief roundup of recent events.

On Friday, the Fraternal Order of Police, the largest police union in the U.S., endorsed President Donald Trump for reelection. “During his first four years, President Trump has made it crystal clear that he has our backs,” said FOP president Patrick Yoes in a statement. “Our members know that he listens to the concerns of our brothers and sisters in uniform and is able to make tough decisions on the issues most important to law enforcement. President Trump is committed to keeping our communities and families safe.”

In Washington, DC, Deon Kay, an 18-year-old black man, was killed by police last Wednesday. Naturally, DC’s branch of Black Lives Matter seized the opportunity to accuse cops of racism: “DC police murdered a Black man today.” Organizer April Goggans alleged, “This is the systematic way that MPD operates and polices black bodies. They see him, they jump out, they barely stop the car and run after him.”

The truth? As we noted in our Friday Executive Summary, Kay was brandishing a gun when he was shot (one time, by the way), as was revealed by quickly released body cam footage. Family members say he was tossing it away, but a cop only has a split second to make that decision. And Kay was a “validated gang member,” according to Police Chief Peter Newsham, and officers knew him and the threat he posed. That his death didn’t fit the leftist narrative is why the story didn’t draw nationwide attention.

In other news, protesters have been using an interesting tactic: paying visits to, and in some cases vandalizing, the homes of city mayors. These include DC’s Muriel Bowser, Chicago’s Lori Lightfoot, Portland’s Ted Wheeler, Pittsburgh’s Bill Peduto, Oakland’s Libby Schaaf, Los Angeles’s Eric Garcetti, and San Jose’s Sam Liccardo. Given that these “visits” are generally to Democrat BLM-supporting mayors, Schaaf was baffled: “It feels a little Twilight Zoney that many of us got into public service because we wanted to fight the man. Now we are deemed as the man.” Translation: You reap what you sow.

Early last week, Aaron “Jay” Danielson of Portland’s Patriot Prayer group was murdered, allegedly by antifa member Michael Forest Reinoehl. We note it because the city’s district attorney released an affidavit on the charging that indicates Reinoehl “appeared to be targeting the victim prior to the shooting.” That’s quite a different story from the 17-year-old kid in Kenosha who got all the media attention.

Media attention that is otherwise devoted to the fiction that these protests are mostly peaceful. Media attention that doesn’t tell you when black protesters use white people as shields. Or when they harass or attack obviously innocent white people simply because they’re white.

On a final note, we want to be careful not to take delight in someone’s serious injury, but a Portland protester got what was coming to him when he tried to kick a lit Molotov cocktail at police and instead caught his own feet on fire. Let’s just say the Internet has had fun with this one.