#MobRule and the Forgotten Man [+video]
After a long winter in hibernation, many in my Baltimore County neighborhood were outside this weekend watching their kids play and chatting about the sad state of affairs in the city.
The unmistakable feeling shared by those in my neighborhood, located just outside the Baltimore City limits, was a deep sense of anger–not shock–that this city, known for its injustice, is about to violate our Constitution and place the interests of a mob over due process.
My community was sickened by the charges, but not for the same reason the capricious mayor of Baltimore expressed. Residents were appalled that a city prosecutor can, and would, chant a rally speech to placate a mob when no narrative statement or document was released detailing the probable cause of the charges.
Although our neighborhood is safe, it has never been too far from parts of the city where a weak civil society exists. Most of the residents in my neighborhood have either been victims of crime or know people who have suffered muggings, assaults, or burglaries. The infamous Knockouts came to our area as well. Just a few months ago, a neighbor was sucker-punched from behind two short blocks from our home.
If you poll any number of residents in semi-suburban neighborhoods close to major cities, you would likely find that an overwhelming majority feels that criminal justice laws are too fickle and police have not done enough to keep them safe.
Indeed, living in the same area where I grew up brings back memories of classmates coming in to school almost every day with stories of bikes being stolen or forcibly commandeered from roaming youths. And the story was always the same; the police recognized the names and addresses of those youths but could not do much more than offer some advice and sympathy because the juvenile justice laws in Maryland were always lax.
Yet, when one chooses not to engage in rioting or looting to express disgust with the system – a system that all too often fails to prosecute violent criminals, even when there are witnesses to the crime, a prosecution like the one with the 6 officers in the Freddie Gray case arises.
Hearing the news about the impetuous indictments, even as the Baltimore City Police Department was conducting an unprecedentedly thorough investigation, has reignited the sense of disquiet throughout these anxious but peaceful neighborhoods.
With a city government, led by a radical activist prosecutor pursuing trumped up charges in order to placate a mob, this will not end well for the Baltimore area. And the residents of this town know it.
At best, depending on the presentation of evidence, there is a civil case to be made here but nothing near the criminal charges that have been lodged against the 6 officers. Those charges will never hold up in court, especially on appeal. But what will happen to us when the mobs return after the evidence is presented, due process finally runs its course, and, barring any new evidence, the officers are acquitted?
The culture of vicious beatings and senseless vandalism has already percolated into Baltimore County. Throughout this likely protracted period of mob rule, possibly playing out over a period of months or over a year, none of us will feel safe traveling to stores and malls near or in the city.
In many ways we are like the “forgotten man” in Amity Shlaes’ epic book on the Great Depression. The ones who have to pay for bad choices made by politicians and other members of society but who are completely ignored during the entire public policy debate.
The public debate over police tactics and the inner city is largely a red herring. Despite the glorification and hyper-focus of the media, deaths of criminals apprehended by police are still very rare relative to the number of crimes committed and the number of people they take into custody. Like anything else, there are isolated cases where things go wrong. In some cases, the cops did absolutely nothing wrong; in other cases the cops were negligent or abused their power. These micro-level anomalies must be dealt with using our constitutional system for criminal justice, the same way we handle any accusation of crime.
The macro debate nobody wants to have is who is going to stand up for the forgotten man. We can liberalize laws pertaining to non-violent crimes. We can call for body cameras on all police officers. Heck, we can even abolish the police force. But who is going to look out for those who must constantly live in fear of violent crime?
And now that the principles of due process, presumption of innocence, and proof beyond reasonable doubt don’t apply to anyone (including black police officers) involved in any sort of fatal altercation with an African American, society is forced to live with the looming tyranny of mob rule.
Police will now be even more tepid about their approach to pursuing violent offenders. But this is not about the police; this could happen to anyone. The first high-profile case of mob rule was with George Zimmerman, a civilian.
While the media and liberal politicians, and some libertarians are looking to validate the “concerns” of those rioting, who is going to stand for those who are not rioting and don’t engage in “knockout” violence but are all too often victims of it? These are the forgotten people on the edge of suburbia, but they are most prominently those African Americans who live in inner cities but are sick of living in constant fear of violence. Who will validate their grievances?
While Obama and the Left engage in “soul searching” over federalizing and defanging the police, who will engage in soul searching about the growing epidemic of violent assaults against civilians? Who will engage in the soul searching over the slew of cop shootings, the most recent cop shot and killed in NYC?
At its core, Republicans have always stood for the rule of law and were tough against crime. It has worked for them more than any other issue because that is what the silent majority – the forgotten men of society – want of their elected officials. Republicans should not run away from it now. The challenge of defining right from wrong, criminal from victim, is as old as Sodom and Gomorrah. Republicans should not let political correctness obfuscate the truth and violate our Constitution. (See “#MobRule and the Forgotten Man”, originally posted HERE)
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