As many of you undoubtedly know already, on Sunday evening a 27-year-old male tried to attack a Lancaster, PA law enforcement officer with a knife. The officer tried to retreat but when the man raised the knife above his head to slash the officer, the officer discharged his weapon killing the man.
This is the bodycam footage of the officer-involved shooting in Lancaster, PA that Black Lives Matter is rioting over. The perpetrator charged at the police officer with a knife over his head with clear intent to strike. pic.twitter.com/xD72TweQK4
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) September 14, 2020
As we have seen all too often this summer, because the dead man was a person of color, this became another excuse for people to protest against the police. The country is pretty much at the point where police are expected to allow themselves to be murdered or else riots will occur. Despite the fact that the quickly released body camera footage from the officer left little doubt the man appeared manic, and was armed with a knife, those protests quickly devolved into riots.
A mob marched from the scene of the shooting to the police station, chucking glass bottles, rocks, bricks, gallon jugs filled with liquid and plastic road barricades at cops, police said.
Later rioters were seen throwing anything not bolted down at police officers, buildings and vehicles.
Twelve adults — Jamal Shariff Newman, 24, Barry Jones, 30, Frank Gaston, 43, Yoshua Dwayne Montague, 23, Matthew Modderman, 31, Talia Gessner, 18, Kathryn Patterson, 20, Taylor Enterline, 20, T-Jay Fry, 28, Dylan Davis, 28, Alexa Wise, 29, and Jessica Marie Lopez, 32 — were arrested and face a slew of felony and misdemeanor charges, including arson, riot, institutional vandalism and criminal conspiracy.
People have been arrested in Portland for doing exactly the same thing and worse. The usual result was known as catch and release. Rioters were allowed back on the street with little or no bail. Not so in Lancaster. A judge reviewed the crimes charged and set a significant bail for most of the alleged rioters.
Monday night the protests in Lancaster were peaceful. How novel. Actually setting a bail for getting out of jail stopped the rioting in Lancaster. Perhaps those in Portland who handle such cases could learn a thing or two from this.