Last night I watched a store being looting. It was some kind of clothing store. This was about 1:30 in the morning L.A. time. The store had one of those roll down metal doors that cover the front of the store. Vandals had pried it up, broke the front door down, and looters were entering the store and carrying away armfuls of clothes. This went on for several minutes before the police arrived. The looters fled and police only caught one of them. I don't know how looting this store helps poor innocent immigrants being persecuted by Donald Trump's ICE.
I suspect there are a lot of people who could care less about the cause and just enjoy thieving and vandalizing. During the BLM riots of 2020 we saw people topple statues of abolitionist and poets. I guess it is empowering to topple a statue, and one doesn't care who it is a statue of.
I think there are a certain segment of the population who find a riot a festive event. Looting, toppling, spray painting, setting police cars on fire and even beating up helpless people must be an adrenaline rush for some people. I am also not buying the excuse that it is poor oppressed people venting their rage. No! It is low lives, thieves, and thugs taking advantage of a situation to get free stuff and experience the enjoyment of violence and destruction.
Defender of protest do not like it when the violence is reported or featured. Sympathetic newscasters and pundits can stand in front of a burning police car and speak of the "mostly peaceful" demonstration. I am not buying it.
What does it mean that a demonstration was "mostly peaceful?
On January 6th, 2021, 53,000 people attended the "Stop the Steal" rally where President Trump spoke and is accused of inciting the violence. The FBI estimated that between 2,000 and 2,500 people entered the Capitol Building during the January 6th attack. Assuming the above numbers are correct and using the 2500 number as the number who trespassed into the capitol that is 4.7% trespassed. We know that many of those who trespassed entered after the door had already been opened and they just entered and loitered a while and left. 1,500 people were charged with federal crimes in connection with the January 6th United States Capitol attack. The number of charges includes a range of offenses from misdemeanor violations to felony offenses like assaulting police officers. So about 2.8% of those in attendance at the protest were charged with some sort of offence. I know some people who were at the Stop the Steal rally, and they said they were not close to the action and if not for watching the news on their cell phone they would have not known about the breach of the Capitol.
January 6th was a mostly peaceful demonstration.
If you have 10,000 people taking part in a demonstration and 97% are peaceful, you could still have 300 people who are setting police cars on fire, toppling statues, looting stores, and throwing chucks of concreate off of interstate overpasses and pulling people from cars and beating them. That is a "mostly peaceful" demonstrations.
If 5,001 of the 10,000 are not burning down a city, that is a "mostly peaceful" demonstration. After all, one more than half is most of the people. I don't find "mostly peaceful" a very compelling excuse for rioters. I don't think it is the most accurate and descriptive of terms for describing what is happening.
Having said what I have said above, this is not a commentary on the January 6th insurrection, Trump's immigration policy, or Trump's authority to use the military for domestic policing or crowd control. I am simply pointing out that when someone tells me an event is "mostly peaceful" that doesn't tell me a lot and sound like an excuse for the violence.
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