It’s a question that’s being raised around the country — where are the police when political protests turn violent? Specifically, where are police to protect conservatives and Trump supporters who are attacked by Leftists and “Antifa” protesters at free-speech rallies and other events, such as those that drew all-out assaults in Berkeley, California (ironically the home of the original Free Speech movement in the 1960s)?
As attorney and Republican National Committee (RNC) member Harmeet Dhillon tells Fox’s Tucker Carlson in this aggravating segment, the police are often nowhere to be found because liberal politicians and civic leaders have ordered them to “stand down” and simply let violence occur. This has led in numerous cases to conservatives and Trump supporters actually being injured, which wouldn’t have happened had there been adequate police protection. Because of this, plaintiffs in San Jose have filed a lawsuit over a Trump rally in June of 2016 which turned violent when progressive protesters assaulted some of the attendees. This is very similar to the action that occurred in Charlottesville, Virginia recently and elsewhere in the interim in that police in many cases have stood back and let fighting take place while they stood idly by.
In almost all cases, this hasn’t happened because officers lack the strength, the will or the tools necessary to protect the public; in fact, just the opposite is nearly always true as many police departments now have a surplus of ex-military gear that they have access to if they need to control crowds. But as Carlson and Dhillon discuss, this isn’t really a police issue, so much as it is a civic one.
