Protesters’ City Hall tantrum was shameful
Several hundred people stormed Phoenix City Hall on Wednesday to scream and rant and rage against the Phoenix police. Their method for expressing their opposition to what they say was an excessive use of force at last week’s anti-Trump rally: an excessive use of anger and rhetoric, with a heaping dose of heckling on the side.
Absolutely, it was disturbing to see police deploy tear gas — and pepper balls and foam projectiles — on the streets of Phoenix in the final minutes of what had been a peaceful rally to protest President Donald Trump’s visit Aug. 22.
Just as it was disturbing to hear that some protesters hurled bricks, frozen water bottles and lit objects at the cops. Did the police go too far? The protesters want answers to what happened here. The city wants answers to what happened here.
Every citizen should want answers to what happened here, to clear the air of tear gas and troubling images of our police as a military presence.
We need a rational, reasoned analysis of what police were up against and their response.
What doesn’t help in getting to the truth of what happened here? An angry mob that decided to abandon decorum and commandeer a city meeting.
Redeem Robinson called Mayor Greg Stanton a coward for calling a recess when things got raucous.
“Mayor Stanton and members of the council, don’t you ever, as long as you’re elected officials, run from the people when we hold you accountable,” he scolded.
Robinson wasn’t holding city leaders accountable. He was holding them hostage to a mass temper tantrum.
It’s difficult to take seriously a mob that takes over a meeting, insisting that they be heard but shouting down anyone with whom they disagree. A seething crowd that decried the use of “chemical weapons” (read: tear gas and pepper spray) and slammed Police Chief Jeri Williams, who is African-American, as “black window dressing.”
Protesters opposed hiring California-based OIR Group to conduct an independent investigation, saying the company wouldn’t be objective given its previous dealings with Williams while she was police chief in Oxnard.
So the city bagged the independent investigation.
I question whether any investigation — if it cleared the police — would be accepted by the protesters, who questioned why police even have access to chemicals for crowd dispersal.
Have they not seen what has happened lately when police have crossed their arms and taken a hands-off approach? Did they not see what happened in Berkeley, California, last Sunday, when black-clad antifa thugs turned violent? At a time when police elsewhere have turned to stone and allowed chaos to reign, the Phoenix police made a decision that it wouldn’t happen here. Not on their watch. Did they go too far in their zeal to keep the peace? I don’t know.
Did the protesters and ranters go too far and damage their own credibility in their zeal to make a point? Yep.