Muriel Bowser—the radical leftist mayor of Washington, DC—sought to flip the script on GOP-led criticisms of her colleagues in cities like Chicago, Portland and Seattle that have been racked by violence stemming from recent race-riots.
MPD does their part to protect residents and visitors. We need our prosecutors to do theirs. pic.twitter.com/FU39f9ZA6F
— Mayor Muriel Bowser (@MayorBowser) August 31, 2020
Several far-left cities have prosecutors—some of them backed financially by globalist mega-donors like George Soros—who have outright refused to arraign the rioters following their arrests on charges like looting, assault, arson and vandalism.
But those protests recently have taken a violent and dangerous turn, with deaths in Kenosha, Wisc., and Portland, Ore., over the weekend arising from clashes between opposing ideological groups.
Mayors like Portland’s Ted Wheeler have desperately tried to deflect blame to the Trump administration—first for sending in National Guard troops, which they claimed helped foment the violence, and now for failing to do enough to help address the problems.
But in Bowser’s case, the prosecutions largely fall under the purview of the federal Justice Department since the District, as the nation’s capital, contains considerable federal property.
According to Just the News, Bowser claimed in a missive posted via her Twitter account that U.S. Attorney Michael Sherwin had “declined to prosecute 41 of 42 rioting arrests made on August 13 and 14.”
She also criticized assaults on police officers—even as some blue-led states, like neighboring Virginia, have pushed to decriminalize such assaults.
“When violent criminals are not held accountable for setting fires, and destroying and vandalizing property, they are emboldened to escalate their criminal activity,” Bowser said, echoing the longstanding concerns of pro-law-and-order conservatives.
Sherwin’s office issued a statement in response, defending its work. Through Aug. 1, it said, it had brought forward charges in 121 criminal cases stemming from the riots.
“Most recently, over this past weekend alone, the office brought criminal charges against five individuals linked to protest-related violence—two of those cases involved assaults on police officers,” said the statement.
“Since the protests began, this office has never turned down a single case for prosecution in which there was sufficient evidence to support probable cause,” it continued.
It wasn’t entirely clear whether Bowser’s about-face was intended to make a broader political point or simply to deflect from her failures as tensions continued to escalate.
Bowser has faced criticism for hypocritically allowing mass demonstrations in violation of social-distancing guidelines while also targeting conservative groups and law enforcement with extra restrictions.
Following Trump’s speech at the Republican National Convention last week, public figures including Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Georgia state Rep. Vernon Jordan were accosted by rioters outside the White House.
Democrats nationwide seem to be losing the war of words as the images of the violence, paired with their inaction, reflect poorly in recent polls.
That spurred presidential nominee Joe Biden recently to halfheartedly denounce the rioting, following four days of utter silence during the Democratic National Convention, where Bowser was one of the featured speakers.
