Supporters of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump who were met with flying eggs and punches from counter protesters during a June 2016 San Jose campaign rally can sue the city’s police for allegedly failing to protect them, a new court ruling said.
Trump supporters – many sporting red Make America Great Again hats – who were attending a rally at the McEnery Convention Center were met with hundreds of anti-Trump protesters as they were shepherded out of the building via a single exit.
The suit’s 20 plaintiffs claim in a lawsuit that police knowingly ordered them to leave through an exit where protesters were waiting, despite the existence of a safer route and other exits, the San Francisco Chronicle reported last week.
The plaintiff’s said they were beaten or struck by objects thrown by the protesters. Initial accounts of the events also said at least one woman was pelted by an egg after a crowd of demonstrators surrounded her, as seen in video of the incident.
One plaintiff claims an officer told her police had been instructed not to intervene in the melee.
Are the police to blame for failing to protect victims of anti-Trump protestors from violence, especially when knowingly sending them in front of protestors?
Surely, in part. But responsibility does not stop with the police. It should go to the top. Meaning: to the mayors, Governor and other officials for whom the police work.
It’s a frightening prospect: To be at the mercy of mindless, violent mobs if the police don’t like your choice of presidential candidate. But that’s the reality in California, and it could spread to other states where President Trump and his policies are not popular.
Opponents of President Trump don’t have to worry about violence, because Trump supporters are not violent. If they were, the police would be right to arrest them and send them through the justice system. But in San Jose, like Berkeley and elsewhere, the police left the violent Trump protesters alone and apparently led Trump supporters right into the line of fire.
What good is a government if it fails to protect citizens from force? Without that protection, we live in literal anarchy.
What good is a government if it selectively protects some citizens — the politically correct ones — and feeds the dissenters to the wolves? That’s actually happening in California.
It’s going to take a lot more than a lawsuit against the police to resolve this problem.
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