Wednesday, June 03, 2020

The Park Police: "No tear gas was used!"

In Western Journal, C. Douglas Golden reports,
According to Fox News, a statement Tuesday by the Park Police said “no tear gas was used” in Lafayette Park and that the steps that were taken were “to curtail the violence that was underway.”

“At approximately 6:33 pm, violent protestors on H Street NW began throwing projectiles including bricks, frozen water bottles, and caustic liquids,” the statement read.

“The protesters also climbed onto a historic building at the north end of Lafayette Park that was destroyed by arson days prior. Intelligence had revealed calls for violence against the police, and officers found caches of glass bottles, baseball bats, and metal poles hidden along the street.”

The statement acknowledged that “[a]s many of the protestors became more combative, continued to throw projectiles, and attempted to grab officers’ weapons, officers then employed the use of smoke canisters and pepper balls when protestors did scatter from the area.”

Other details began to emerge that made the situation seem less like it was the caprice of a president wanting a photoshoot and more like a series of events that had been put into play long before the president’s walk to St. John’s.

...There’s plenty of fulmination to be had about the “deliberate instigation of violence” by the president for what’s seen as a mere photo-op, not as a show of strength and solidarity after a psychically symbolic attack on an American icon. Little, if any, anger is spent upon the violence of the rioters.

The church, it seems, had burned itself. The Park Police acted upon a group of protesters as pacific and calm as a summer breeze. No, it’s the authorities who represent violence — and that violence starts at the top. Why they even used tear gas! Or maybe not, but what’s the difference?

To ignore or elide over the violence that desecrated St. John’s is to countenance it — and that’s exactly what the media did. “Protesters Dispersed With Tear Gas So Trump Could Pose at Church,” indeed.
Read more here.

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