‘As people exercise their constitutional right to protest, it is of paramount importance that you ensure that law enforcement authorities do not contribute to the COVID-19 pandemic…’
(Michael Barnes, Liberty Headlines) After months of forced social distancing, government mandated business closures and record unemployment, Wuhan virus safety protocols vanished overnight in favor of Black Lives Matter mass gatherings.
But as virus infections are now predictably rising, congressional Democrats say they know the real reason why — it’s not the protesters and rioters’ fault; rather, it’s the police.
In a shameless display of political cynicism, Sens. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc., Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Kamala Harris, D-Calif., led a coalition of like-minded colleagues on Thursday in blaming police officers for spreading the coronavirus among “peaceful protestors” fighting against racial injustice and systemic racism.
In a letter to U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr, they wrote: “As people exercise their constitutional right to protest, it is of paramount importance that you ensure that law enforcement authorities do not contribute to the COVID-19 pandemic by engaging in practices that increase the risk of coronavirus spread, and by taking additional steps to protect public health data.”
The senators blame “forceful tactics, tear gas and widespread arrests” for increased coronavirus risks, while unwittingly acknowledging that any such police activity would be levied at non-peaceful protesters, including looters, rioters and arsonists.
Amazingly, the coalition of Democrats claim that the mass protest gatherings are in compliance with recommended coronavirus precautions, “such as wearing masks and using hand sanitizer.”
The letter includes support from non-elected officials like Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a George Soros funded group.
“Law enforcement should not use techniques that increase the risk of catching this terrible disease, nor should they have access to any demonstrator information collected during contact tracing,” Clarke said.
Dr. Malika Fair, director of the Health Equity Partnerships and Programs at the Association of American Medical Colleges, was also included. Fair took the opportunity to claim that protesters are fighting “two intertwined pandemics—one with COVID19 and one of systemic racism.”
Fair completed her residency training at Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, North Carolina, and specializes in a unique area of medicine known as “diversity and inclusion, equity, and population health.”
The unserious nature of the letter is grounded in the only attempt by the signatories to provide an example of police misuse of force.
They accuse Barr directly, saying he “personally ordered the clearing of peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square in front of the White House with excessive force, including the use of tear gas and rubber bullets.”
That claim has been thoroughly debunked.
After days of rioting and looting in Washington, D.C., police cleared Layfette Square so that a group of senior government officials led by President Donald Trump could walk safely to St. John’s Episcopal Church, a 200-year-old church that rioters set on fire the night before.
News reports alleged that police attacked peaceful protesters with batons and tear gas to clear the square, when in fact tear gas was never used and violent demonstrators were witnessed and filmed throwing rocks, bricks, frozen water bottles, caustic liquids and other projectiles at police.
What’s more, President Trump and other high officials would not have been able to walk through an area that was recently tear-gassed.
The false news stories were debunked two weeks ago by capitol police and local news, but the law enforcement-bashing congressional Democrats repeated the claims in their letter to Barr, who was there at the time.
“Moving forward, we urge you to work to permanently eliminate the use of respiratory irritants including tear gas as a crowd dispersal technique given the widespread and long-term health impacts of its use,” they wrote.
Sowing racial discord and asserting outright falsehoods is a dangerous political strategy that Democrats seem eager to employ. Blaming the police for the protest-induced surge in coronavirus infections is in-line with current cultural insanity that they are both driving and beholden to.