BLM Protesters were not all peaceful. Many of those found themselves confronted by cops trying to protect the public and public property. This professional victim class has decided to sue the city of Detroit, and the city has said thank you. We’re suing you back.
Related: The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Marxist Black Lives Matter (BLM) Movement.
Detroit’s demonstrators are part of a “civil conspiracy,” the city’s countersuit alleges, “to disturb the peace, engage in disorderly conduct, incite riots, destroy public property,” and resist police orders, among other “illegal acts.” The countercomplaint asks the court to issue judgments declaring that the protesters engaged in this conspiracy and “defamed” the mayor and police, and to award the city damages.
I don’t see that going anywhere, nor do I expect the “protesters” suits on excessive use of force will do much either. But it’s a process.
The City of Detroit’s top attorney said he was “pleased to hear” that injured protesters filed a federal lawsuit against city officials and police on Monday because now the city plans to sue demonstrators.
“The litigation will provide the City an opportunity to counter with our own suit — to stop further violations of law and to hopefully reduce the assaults on police officers,” Lawrence Garcia, the City’s corporation counsel, said in a statement.
Regardless of who or how there are hundreds of hours of video and some untold number of images of the violence perpetrated by some of these protesters. The police, put in an untenable position, were asked to stop or limit this violence in the context of a protest against police abuse of force.
The question of how much force is acceptable to prevent the destruction of public and private property will depend on the laws in Detroit.
As an example, here in New Hampshire if you are trying to burn someone’s house down with someone in it, shooting you dead is an acceptable use of force.
Anything less than that would be more acceptable.
As for Detroit, individual cases might be more successful on either side (depending on the evidence), but that does not seem to be how this is playing out.
Note: The featured image was not taken in Detroit.
