Ali Velshi, a reporter for MSNBC, was hit by a rubber bullet while covering an entirely peaceful protest in Minneapolis in May. Last week Trump laughed about the incident at a campaign rally. “I remember this guy Velshi. He got hit in the knee with a canister of tear gas [inaccurate] and he went down. He was down. ‘My knee, my knee.’ Nobody cared, these guys didn’t care, they moved him aside. And they just walked right through. It was the most beautiful thing. It’s just called law and order.” Trump’s crowd laughed.
Photojournalist Gary Emeigh was assaulted while covering a protest in Dover May 31. In Dennis Forney’s Sept. 25 column in this paper, Emeigh says people were all organized and lined up in the median. As he pulled into a turning lane he was assaulted by “mostly white young people… who were using the protest as a front.” Emeigh states there were 40 state police lined up only 20 or 25 feet away. “They just stood there and watched as the guy hit me and the other kid smashed the window of my car and stole my stuff. It was only after I chased the grabbers that they came and got me across the road.”
According to Emeigh, the troopers told him they “were under orders from the Governor’s Office not to engage.” Emeigh also says “he heard the police ended up arresting a bunch of them, but the attorney general let them go.”
Note: Forney does not provide confirmation from the governor’s office, the attorney general or the state troopers as to the accuracy of the statements in his column.
On Sept. 27, about 25 cars, divided in groups of five, drove through Sussex County as part of a Democratic Party caravan. On Savannah Road, just east of Five Points, two of the drivers were pulled over by state troopers and given tickets for $82 for unnecessary horn honking.
Disparate as these three incidents seem, there is a disturbing connection.
Forney interviewed House Speaker Pete Schwartzkopf for his recent column and Rep. Steve Smyk for an earlier column on the May protests that Forney describes as “protests that rolled across the nation like wildfires.” (From this introduction we know where this commentary is going to go.)
Schwartzkopf and Smyk, both former state troopers, think “the violence in Delaware was fomented, armed and funded largely by outside groups - whoever they may be and for whatever purpose.” Schwarzkopf also thinks it was police intelligence that kept the rioting away from the Rehoboth protest. Both men want federal agencies to investigate “what happened in Delaware.” Neither offer any explanation of the motive of these outside groups, why they would come to Delaware, or how they are funded.
In June, Schwartzkopf stated people who decide to peacefully protest when there’s “a 50-50 chance it’s going to turn violent should be held accountable if something bad happens.” In Forney’s column he attempts to modify that statement. Now he says he “doesn’t blame the peaceful protesters.” But he goes on to say that “peaceful protests are like kindling ready to catch fire.” Without kindling you don’t have a fire, so it seems Schwartzkopf really holds the view that the bad guys wouldn’t show up if peaceful protesters would just stay home.
Forney provides a link to a letter written by the DE Police Chiefs’ Council, State Troopers Association, and Delaware Fraternal of Police titled “Delaware’s Law Enforcement is under attack!” The police groups describe Jennings’ decision not to prosecute protesters as “politically motivated” and claim she “behaves more as a political activist and less as a public servant.”
Sidenote: The Delaware Fraternal Order of Police endorsed Donald Trump. The FOP believes the “Democratic Party’s views are diverting from law enforcement.” Trump also received the endorsement of the National Troopers Coalition, which represents troopers in 41 states, including Delaware.
We have a president who laughs when a journalist is a victim of an unprovoked attack by police.
A victim of violence who says state troopers told him they didn’t intervene because they were following orders from the governor’s office.
State troopers and police who maintain they are under attack from Delaware’s attorney general.
State troopers giving tickets to Democrats for blowing their car horns.
What happens to equal treatment under the law when we have police associations endorse a president who promotes violence and laughs when people get hurt?
What happens to law and order when a victim of a violent crime is told by police they did nothing because were following the orders of a Democratic governor and attorney general? (Attorney General Jennings clearly stated, “police should step in only when public safety is endangered.”)
What happens to our right to assemble when the message from our local representatives is ‘Stay home?”
We lose that protection. We lose those rights. We become a police state.
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