National Post (National Edition)
Tensions over restrictions spark violence, defiance
U.S. GENERAL WARNS OF ‘CIVIL UNREST’ IF AUTHORITIES MOVE TOO SLOWLY TO REOPEN
Anti-lockdown protesters in Fresno, Calif., armed themselves with cameras and took their grievances to the doorstep of the city council president Tuesday.
The staged confrontation led to a minor scuffle, a citizen’s arrest and misdemeanour battery charges against the local official, and police are trying to determine whether the protesters broke any laws.
The physical confrontation is one of many in recent days, part of a nationwide pattern of protests and defiance in the face of ongoing restrictions that have kept people inside their homes except for essential trips.
Maj. Gen. Kenneth Hara, incident commander of Hawaii’s coronavirus response, warned this week that the state risked “civil unrest” if it moves too slowly to reopen.
“If we let the economy go the way it’s going, I feel there will be significant civil unrest that could lead to civil disobedience and, worst case, civil disturbance and rioting,” he said Monday, according to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
The novel-coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 81,000 people in the United States, has inspired a simmering resentment among a small minority of Americans protesting to return to work and reopen the economy. As social-distancing policies are lifted unevenly across the country, those tensions are bubbling over in scenes of lawlessness this week.
In Washington state, Port of Seattle police placed an officer on paid leave for recently posting a YouTube video that openly advocated for police to ignore the state’s stay-home order and to refuse to arrest or cite people flouting the rules. Dozens of protesters, most without masks, crowded together to march in Raleigh, N.C., to demand that the state reopen more quickly like its neighbours to the south. Anti-lockdown activists in Michigan threatened violence in private Facebook groups, including mentions of assassinating Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, the Detroit Metro Times reported.
Some high-profile dissenters are also openly flouting shutdown orders.
On Monday, Tesla chief executive Elon Musk challenged California officials to arrest him for reopening his factory in defiance of local restrictions. President Donald Trump threw his support behind Musk’s violation of the stay-home order.
“California should let Tesla & @elonmusk open the plant, NOW,” Trump tweeted Tuesday. “It can be done Fast & Safely!”
The president has not been shy about encouraging those who defy local restrictions, even as White House staffers began wearing masks to work this week. For weeks, Trump has been pushing states to reopen.
He urged Whitmer to loosen restrictions in Michigan this month. In mid-April, he called to “LIBERATE” Michigan, Virginia and Minnesota. And he called the armed protesters who stormed the Michigan State Capitol on April 30 “very good people” who “want their lives back again, safely.”
He has criticized California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, over the state’s coronavirus restrictions and retweeted a call for a Texas judge to be voted out of office for enforcing local restrictions by jailing a hairstylist who refused to keep her salon closed.
On Tuesday, as Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, warned the Senate that reopening too quickly could cause “suffering and death that could be avoided,” the president again suggested that the country return to pre-pandemic operations soon.
“Our Testing is the BEST in the World, by FAR! Numbers are coming down in most parts of our Country, which wants to open and get going again,” he tweeted. “It is happening, safely!”
Meanwhile, encouraged by the president, confrontations between coronavirus rebels and those trying to enforce social-distancing rules have grown increasingly heated.
An armed militia stood guard outside an illicitly reopened barbershop in Michigan to keep police from shutting down the operation, the Washington Post reported. The participants wore Trump cowboy hats and waved Trump flags.
In Michigan, Whitmer said she believes Republicans are “feeding a lot into the behaviour” of the protesters and armed civilians who openly defy her stay-home order.
Tensions have escalated into violence in some places.
Two men entered a Target store in Los Angeles without masks on May 1 and started a fist fight when security guards attempted to escort them outside. One of the guards suffered a snapped bone in an arm during the brawl, police told KTLA. On Tuesday, a Los Angeles County public-health official said stay-home restrictions would probably remain in place through July for the state’s coronavirus epicentre, where more than 1,300 people have died since February.
The protesters who staged a confrontation with Fresno city council president Miguel Arias banged on his apartment door until he stepped outside and told the small group to leave. Instead, the men shouted questions and insults at Arias, video of the incident shows. Arias shoved them away from his door and toward the staircase leading away from his apartment.
“I asked them to leave,” Arias told the Fresno Bee on Tuesday afternoon. “They chose not to, so I escorted them down the stairs.”
Arias called the police. So did the protesters, who were affiliated with a Facebook page called Frontline America and were led by a man who organized a shelterin-place protest last week, the Bee reported.
Fresno police arrived at the scene and decided that there was sufficient evidence to facilitate a citizen’s arrest on Arias, who was then cited with three counts of misdemeanour battery and released at the scene, police said in a statement.
“I stand behind my actions,” Arias told the newspaper. “When you open your door after somebody has been banging on it, and the first thing you see is somebody who has made physical threats against you for a long period of time and who runs online websites and social media accounts that makes threats and is a huge activist around Second Amendment and concealed weapons, my first reaction is to protect my family.”