While taking a morning walk recently in his New York City neighborhood, actor Rick Moranis (Ghostbusters, Honey I Shrunk the Kids) was punched in the head and knocked down in an unprovoked attack, CBS News reports.
“Criminals appear to be emboldened,” retired police SWAT Sergeant Steve Rodriguez told Budget and Tax News. “They know police can’t do anything.”
Peaceful protests during the day regularly dissolve into rioting, looting, vandalism, and other criminal activity after dark, The Federalist reports. The surge of lawlessness has revealed a large divide between the country’s two major political parties over law and order and citizens’ right to self-defense.
“No one is held accountable,” retired police chief Tony Hovanec told Budget and Tax News. “With these lenient prosecutors and no bail, people are arraigned and just released. The court systems let everything go, and when they let little things go, it just gets worse.”
“If people don’t know the difference between peacefully protesting and felony rioting, then you tested positive for stupid,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) told FOX News.
“Burning down businesses and trying to hurt cops and trying to hurt lawful protesters who disagree with you is a crime, and these people ought to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” Kennedy said.
St. Louis couple Mark and Patricia McCloskey were indicted by a grand jury for brandishing firearms when rioters threatened them during the Floyd protests. The McCloskeys stood outside their house while hundreds of people tramped through their yard towards their home. Mark McCloskey said the mob “threatened us with murder, with rape, with arson, with burning our house down, taking over our house, and even killing our dog.” The couple showed the trespassers that they were holding firearms.
The McCloskeys, both attorneys, have stated they were within their Second Amendment rights to have guns and that Missouri’s castle doctrine law allows the use of deadly force against intruders.
Circuit Attorney Kim Garner, a Democrat, charged the couple with felony unlawful use of a weapon. Garner described the scene at the McCloskey home as a “peaceful protest” and said “the display of guns risked bloodshed,” The Wall Street Journal reports.
Out of the mob of hundreds of people, nine were arrested and charged with misdemeanor trespassing. The charges were later dropped.
“Every single human being that was in front of my house was a criminal trespasser,” Mark McCloskey said. “They broke down our gate. They trespassed on our property. Not a single one of those people is now charged with anything. We’re charged with felonies that could cost us four years of our lives and our law licenses.”
The McCloskeys are questioning how they can be punished for acting within their rights while rioting, looting, and vandalism occur with few or no consequences for the clearly criminal behavior. While politicians continue to brand these activities as “peaceful protests,” businesses are damaged and residents terrorized, under threat of prosecution if they defend themselves.
The difference in how Democratic leaders and Republican leaders are responding to the mob activity, physical attacks, and anarchy is stark. Republican governors such as Ron DeSantis (R-FL), Greg Abbot (R-TX), and Eric Holcomb (R-IN) are proposing legislation and taking executive action to discourage lawlessness and punish those who engage in criminal behavior. Democratic vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris, in stark contrast, established a fund to provide bail to free criminals arrested for rioting in Minneapolis. Harris asked all of her Twitter followers to “chip in” to “help post bail for those protesting in Minneapolis,” The Federalist reports.
Former First Lady and Democratic Party leader Michelle Obama recently said in a video for presidential candidate Joe Biden’s campaign that Republicans are “lying about how minorities will destroy the suburbs, whipping up violence and intimidation,” the New York Post reports. Obama describes the lawlessness as “an overwhelmingly peaceful movement for racial solidarity” and says “only a tiny minority” of the protests have been violent. Obama has called President Donald Trump racist for even talking about the violence that has occurred during anti-police riots.
After hundreds of rioters ran rampant through New York City, looting and destroying businesses, Mayor Bill De Blasio, a Democrat, refused to call in the National Guard to assist the police as President Trump had suggested. De Blasio described the chaos as “overwhelmingly peaceful protests” with just minor interruptions by a small group of criminals, the New York Post reports.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, a Democrat, has openly and repeatedly sided with the mob.
“I hear you, I see you, and I am going to be with you all the way,” he told them as he voted to reduce the city’s police budget and eliminate 84 officers, KGW-TV 8 reports.
President Trump, a Republican, continues to condemn the riots, commenting particularly on the damage to black-owned businesses.
“Thirty percent of the people in the suburbs are minorities,” Trump said. “And so, we’re ruining this American dream for everybody” by allowing the spread of violence and destruction, Trump says.
Andrew Pollack, father of school shooting victim Meadow Pollack, told FOX News he blames the Democrats for his daughter’s death.
“My daughter paid the ultimate sacrifice because of those Democratic policies, and I’ve been hurt by the Democrats more than anybody in this country, and I hold them responsible,” Pollack said. “Democrats put these policies in place that don’t believe in holding kids accountable or arresting them while they’re juveniles.”
“Everywhere blue policies—generally now referred to as ‘progressive’—have prevailed, they have failed miserably, particularly for those parts of the population, such as the working class and minorities, that they purport to serve,” writes Joel Kotkin for National Review.
“Given the now-popular concept that traces all statistical inequalities to ‘systemic’ racism, one has to wonder when progressives will confront the real impact of their own policies,” Kotkin writes.
While the McCloskeys are defending themselves from what criminal defense attorney Jonathan Turley calls a “legally dubious” prosecution, rioters across the country face little to no accountability in Democratic-run cities. After a weekend of setting fires and blocking roads in September, more than 50 people were arrested in Portland. Most were quickly released without bail, Breitbart reports.
Tucker Carlson on FOX News expressed concern over the “double standard” in which people like the McCloskeys, trapped in their home by violent mobs, are prosecuted for defending themselves.
“The mob is winning if things like this happen,” Carlson said.