This editorial is brought to you by a staff writer at Law Enforcement today.
Louisville, KY- On September 23rd, 21-year police veteran Maj. Aubrey Gregory and Officer Robinson Desroches were shot during a riot in Louisville, Kentucky.
The next day, Gregory showed up for morning roll call wearing a hoodie emblazoned with the message “Nobody cares. Work harder.”
Desroches remains in the hospital, recovering from a gunshot wound to his abdomen. He is expected to survive.
[embedded content]Gregory’s colleagues greeted him with applause when he walked into the squad room, and likely will do the same for Desroches when he is back on his feet, which will hopefully be soon.
The two police officers were shot by 26 year-old Larynzo Johnson, who is expected to be charged with first degree assault of a police officer and first degree wanton endangerment.
The reason Johnson shot the two officers as he indiscriminately fired many rounds into a crowd of police officers, is likely no more complicated than the fact that they were police officers.
More than that, the liberal media would have us believe, Johnson was outraged that officers involved in the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor were not charged. To draw attention to the supposed “injustice” of not charging those officers, protests and riots broke out in Louisville.
Louisville Attorney General Daniel Cameron announced that none of the Louisville officers would be charged in Taylor’s death. Before he concluded his statements, a rented U-Haul truck emblazoned with anti-police and logos associated with the anarchist terrorist group Antifa, parked and distributed “riot supplies” from its interior.
[embedded content]The planning required to rent the truck, create the riot supplies, load the truck, bring it to a pre-determined location, and notify others where it is so that they can collect such things as protest signs, shields, masks, and other supplies, demonstrates that the protest and subsequent riot were planned in advance of the AG’s announcement.
Presumably, if he had announced that the officers would be charged with first degree murder (an unjustifiable charge given the evidence), the riot would have taken place regardless.
Why wouldn’t it? After all, the exact same thing happened with George Floyd. After his death, the four officers involved were immediately terminated. One, Derek Chauvin, was immediately arrested on a murder charge.
A couple of days later, all four police officers were charged with second degree murder. And yet the protests and riots took place anyway. They called for “justice” after the most they could have legally expected had already been granted.
They protested and rioted for “justice” despite the fact that an investigation into Floyd’s death had barely started and had not concluded.
The Louisville protest and riots were no different. In both cases, there was a plan to riot regardless of the evidence, the status of the investigation, or how the police and elected officials reacted to the events.
On that basis alone, these events need to be viewed as the criminal enterprises that they are. They are not sincere “protests”. They are pre-arranged riots, designed to destabilize the rule of law in our country.
The rioters have created the fiction that “peaceful protests” mysteriously become violent riots after dark. And yet, we have U-Haul trucks in Louisville and pallets of bricks elsewhere that indicate premeditation of violence.
Hence, these were always meant to be riots, not “peaceful protests”. The riots were designed to begin with people waving protest signs and chanting to create the appearance of a protest but then, as day turned to night, the first phase of the activity melted into the second, full-fledged rioting.
Can Johnson’s shooting of two Louisville officers be separated from the pre-planned riot it took place within? I don’t think it can. The reason is that people who participated in the riot intended to riot from the moment they joined forces as a mob and prepared themselves for violent altercations with police.
Johnson had a loaded gun and was surrounded by people calling for the police to be abolished and/or killed.
Police have been shot during other riots, and after them, by riot-inspired attackers. Johnson may be the only man punished for this crime but he is not the only person responsible for it.
The other rioters who gave him cover, the riot/protest organizers, the media who encourages anti-police sentiment, and elected officials who refuse to enforce the law against rioters have contributed to shootings such as the one in Louisville.
It is hard to imagine honest elected officials overtly conspiring with domestic terrorist organizations such as Antifa and BLM to intentionally assault law enforcement officers. Nevertheless, the facts speak for themselves.
Antifa and BLM have inspired and participated in many, possibly all, of the protests that became riots. Antifa and BLM representatives have applauded the actions taken by rioters, shown no remorse for the resulting death and destruction, and encouraged more.
Elected officials have given “stand down” orders to police, relegating them to potentially dangerous and always humiliating duty as targets for abuse, bricks, fireworks, and occasional bullets, such as those fired by Johnson and others.
After violence and riots have occurred, those same elected officials, and others, have released arrested rioters back to the streets to commit more mayhem.
It may be that Portland mayor Ted Wheeler never called a specific Antifa leader to plan devastating attacks on his own city but his actions helped cause those attacks as surely as if he had participated in planning them.
Without friendly elected officials, who are coincidentally all Democrats, these riots would have been quashed before they started. We know that because BLM and Antifa have been notably unsuccessful in Republican cities.
The way these riots and the violence they cause breaks down looks very much like the proxy crime of conspiracy or complicity.
Someone shoots at and injures one or more police officers. That is the end result of a chain that extends backward through many others who encouraged and enabled the crime.
Other rioters cause distractions to law enforcement in the form of other crimes that must be dealt with. Protesters before them create camouflage that enables rioters to stage themselves in readiness for later riots, and they provide some political cover by disguising their intentions.
Riot organizers have to know that violence will occur because they plan for it in advance, and actually call for it in their public statements. Elected officials grant protest permits and tell police to stand down, thus making the riots possible in the first place.
Without those critical “stand down” orders, almost unique to Democrat cities, the riots would be stopped before they started. And last, to continue with more riots, many arrested rioters and protesters are then released by sympathetic district attorneys, bought into office, that is, supported by big pocket Democrat donors like George Soros.
And last, you have the donors themselves, who do nothing to stop the violence and everything to continue it while remaining at arms-length legally speaking, as they sit back and watch their proxy armies commit mayhem on the streets of America.
It is a great thing when a police officer survives a gunshot wound. It is even better when he can walk into the station the next day for role call as Maj. Aubrey did. The best of all scenarios is that he doesn’t get shot at all because elected officials across America have his back.
Attorneys general must follow through on the lawful actions taken by police officers by prosecuting the criminals they arrest. Mayors and police chiefs must allow police officers to do their jobs so that they can stop protests from becoming riots. More than that, the public must be shown that our elected officials respect the police by backing them up.
What we have seen is a recipe for disaster that Democrats have been perfecting for decades. It’s time it is identified as the poison it is, and for its makers to be arrested along with the small fry petty criminals like Larynzo Johnson.
I’m glad he got arrested but I’m still waiting to see what happens to district attorneys, mayors, BLM activists, and others who have allowed this disaster to happen. At this point, impeachment may not be enough “justice”.
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