Posted tagged ‘Riots’

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Update on Al-Aqsa unrest

July 21, 2017

Update on Al-Aqsa unrest | Anne’s Opinions, 21st July 2017

Just a quick update with what’s been happening today on the Temple Mount and Friday prayers at Al-Aqsa.

Last night, as the cabinet discussed the measures to be taken on the Temple Mount, the Arabs continued to riot violence, leaving 42 Arabs and 5 policemen injured:

Israeli police spokeswoman Luba Samri said Palestinians threw rocks and glass bottles at the officers outside the Old City’s Lions Gate following evening prayers. Police responded with tear gas and riot dispersal methods. Samri said 5 officers were hurt.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said that 36 of the protesters were taken to the hospital for treatment. Two of them were in serious condition after being hit by rubber bullets.

https://twitter.com/Behind__News/status/888109361460985857

As I mentioned last night, Israelis were worried that our government would cave in to pressure to remove the metal detectors at the entrance to Al-Aqsa. Thankfully, the cabinet did NOT surrender.

The Political-Security Cabinet decided on Thursday night, after a four-hour meeting, that the magnetometers will remain at the entrance to the Temple Mount as part of the new security measures at the compound. The decision was taken the evening before the Friday prayerrs at the site, when large numbers of Muslims ascend the Mount..

The Cabinet also authorized the police to make every decision “in order to ensure free access to the holy places, while maintaining security and public order” on the Temple Mount.

“Israel is committed to maintaining the status quo on the Temple Mount and the freedom of access to the holy sites. Israel is committed to protecting the safety of all worshipers and visitors to the Temple Mount,” said a statement.

…

Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan told Channel 2 News in an interview that the metal detectors must remain on the Temple Mount because “the security interest in preventing future attacks in the wake of a desire to imitate what happened [last week] has to prevail.”

“We must continue to install them (the metal detectors) on all roads to the Temple Mount. If the Shin Bet is opposed to the security measures, then it should offer alternatives, and that did not happen.”

They also instructed to prevent under-50 year old men from entering the Mosque. Yisrael Katz, Likud Minister for Transportation, said “we won’t concede our sovereignty on the Temple Mount“.

Israeli Transportation and Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz (Likud), who serves as a member of Israel’s Secrity Cabinet, on Friday said that the Cabinet decided to keep magnetometers on the Temple Mount and did not leave the decision up to the police.

“The Temple Mount is in our hands,” Katz said, quoting the soldiers who liberated Jerusalem’s Old City during the Six Day War. “We will not cede sovereignty. The State of Israel is responsible for preserving law and order on the Temple Mount.””Contrary to reports, the Security Cabinet decided to continue using every security precaution which was begun immediately following the despicable terror attack, including the use of metal detectors. The State of Israel is responsible for implementing this policy.”

Earlier on Friday, Israel Police announced that entry to the Old City and the Temple Mount would be closed to men below the age of 50, and that private vehicles would not be allowed to enter the Old City or the nearby Sultan Suleiman Street.

The police also closed certain roads around the Old City area:

Following internal police consultations on Friday morning, Jerusalem Police chief Yoram Halevy ordered the continued operation of the metal detectors and restricted entry to young men, allowing only those over 50 or women of any age to enter the Old City.

Muslim worshipers perform noon prayers by the Lions Gate, outside the Temple Mount, in Jerusalem’s Old City, July 20, 2017. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

Checkpoints at the entrances to Jerusalem will also be bolstered, as well as police patrols in the alleyways of the Old City and on paths taken by Jewish and Muslim worshipers to the Temple Mount and Western Wall.

Police also announced that some roads around the Old City will be closed to vehicles, including Sultan Suleiman Street and various circumference roads in the Old City basin.

Halevy issued a special notice to officers posted at the metal detectors “emphasizing the importance of ensuring the dignity of the worshipers” as they pass through the gates.

It is important to note that the directive emanated from the government to the police. If the choice had been left up to the police themselves, they might well have removed the magnetometers simply in order to “keep the peace”. This is certainly a short-term measure but that is how the police operate if left to their own devices. But they would not act against government directives. This is the way the government should act also regarding Jewish prayer rights on the Temple Mount – they should instruct the police to permit it, and it is up to the police then to enforce those rights.

In protest, the Mufti of Jerusalem called on Muslims to pray outside the Mosque rather than go through the security gates. I’m pretty sure that suits us all fine. It leaves the Temple Mount free for the Jews, and the Muslims can pray wherever they want.

Muslims pray outside Al-Aqsa, pointing their backsides towards the mosque

A win-win situation for all, as long as the Muslims stop their rioting.

I will update here if there is any more news before Shabbat.

UPDATE: 3 Palestinians killed, 200 injured in further riots.

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L.A. Police Commission Makes Violent Protests Like UC-Berkeley More Likely

April 28, 2017

L.A. Police Commission Makes Violent Protests Like UC-Berkeley More Likely, PJ Media, Jack Dunphy, April 28, 2017

(Jack Dunphy is the pseudonym of a police officer in Southern California. — DM)

University of California, Berkeley police guard the building where Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos was to speak. (AP Photo/Ben Margot, File)

Announce that the law will be enforced, then do it. Perhaps this is too much to ask these days.

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Imagine you’re at work one day when your boss calls you into his office. “Uh oh,” you think, “this can’t be good.” And indeed, despite the gloss he tries to put on it, it isn’t. The company has adopted a new policy, he tells you, one that will change the way you are evaluated in the performance of your duties.

There are new criteria to be used, criteria designed not to measure how well you performed a given task, but rather to inform you that, no matter how well things may have turned out for you and your company, you should have performed it differently. What’s worse, the judgment will be made not by your peers, your superiors, or even by people in your line of work, but rather by people who have never done your job – and couldn’t if their very lives depended on it.

If you didn’t quit on the spot, you would very likely look askance at your boss and this nonsense he’s peddling. And you would return to your office in the discomfiting knowledge that the place is being run by imbeciles.

You now have a sense of what it’s like to be a police officer in Los Angeles these days.

I have often written of the politics of Los Angeles, one of the more peculiar aspects of which is that the city’s police department is overseen by five mayoral appointees to the police commission. In addition to setting policy, the commission is vested with the authority to determine the propriety of an officer’s use of deadly force.

In making these determinations, the commissioners weigh not only an officer’s decision to fire his weapon, but also the tactics he used as the incident unfolded. And, even though an honest appraisal of such an incident would presumably require a certain level of experience and expertise, not one of these commissioners has ever served so much as a single day as a police officer.

Last October, I wrote in this space on the current fashion of police “de-escalation,” i.e., the avoidance of using force in restoring order, obtaining compliance, and making arrests. Like all fashions, this one was inspired by ephemeral considerations, to wit, mostly ill-informed opinions on high-profile police use-of-force incidents recently seen in Los Angeles and across the country. The Los Angeles police commissioners, five of the most ill-informed people you’re ever likely to find in one room, recently codified this fashion in the form of a new use-of-force policy for the LAPD.

In truth, the new policy (PDF) is not at all a drastic departure from the one it replaces. The changes amount to no more than a few words, these intended to emphasize the desire for alternatives, if any are available, to the use of deadly force. So it is not the policy itself that officers find objectionable. Rather, it is the knowledge that their fate may one day rest in the hands of the people whose idealistic notions of police work cannot be squared with how police work is actually performed.

In my October piece, I linked to this Los Angeles Times article concerning the September 2015 shooting of Norma Guzman, who was killed while approaching officers with an 8-inch knife. Though LAPD Chief Charlie Beck ruled the shooting to be “in-policy,” the commission disagreed, arguing that the first officer to fire on Guzman should have “redeployed” to a safer place.

And this is where the commissioners’ lack of real-world experience becomes obvious and alarming. They disapproved of the outcome, so they propose that different actions by the officer would have resulted in a better one. But in doing so they fail to consider what might have happened had the officer done what they think he should have.

In the video accompanying the Times’s story, we can see that the passenger officer alights from the police car and apparently spots Guzman walking toward him. He draws his weapon and, we are told, orders her to stop and drop the knife. She fails to comply and is shot when she gets to within about ten feet of the officer.

The driver officer, having exited the police car and come around the rear, also fires as he sees Guzman approaching his partner. In the commissioners’ imagination, the passenger officer should have distanced himself from Guzman before firing. But consider that in doing so, he would also have distanced himself from his partner, whose view of Guzman was momentarily blocked by the police SUV.

One can easily imagine a scenario in which the passenger officer “re-deploys” only to expose his unwary partner to the danger posed by Guzman. What’s more, this scenario might easily have resulted in Guzman being between the officers, thus creating the danger of deadly cross-fire.

What’s more, had the passenger officer “re-deployed,” the commission’s euphemism for “run away,” he may have violated the LAPD policy that prohibits partners from separating. Had he done so and left his partner to face Guzman alone, the commission surely would have found fault with either officer or both if Guzman had been shot.

It’s one thing for police officers to critique the actions of their peers with the aim of improving safety, it’s quite another for five political appointees with no relevant experience taking months to evaluate decisions officers must make in an instant. No less authority than the U.S. Supreme Court has made this clear, ruling in Graham v. Connor (1989) that “the ‘reasonableness’ of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight.”

In the current climate, hindsight on police matters abounds, and the acuity is most often less than 20/20, with the L.A. police commission perhaps in need of a long white cane and a seeing-eye dog. And with all this myopic second-guessing comes the apparent reluctance among some police managers to uphold the law whenever there is a risk of a violent encounter with those who are breaking it. The most notable recent example can be found on the campus of the University of California, in Berkeley, where the campus police chief so disgraced herself at the Milo Yiannopoulos event earlier this year.

Following that disgrace, I offered some advice to her and her campus overseers on how to handle a visit to the campus by Ann Coulter, who was scheduled to speak on April 27. Already the campus officials have embarrassed themselves once more, first by rescinding the invitation to Coulter, then by rescheduling her appearance to a date during the week before final examinations.

In first canceling the event, university officials said it was “not possible to assure that the event could be held successfully — or that the safety of Ms. Coulter, the event sponsors, audience and bystanders could be adequately protected.” In this they admit their own ineptitude and their unwillingness to accept the fact that in order keep these people safe they may have to use force against those who threaten them.

It’s quite simple: Announce that the law will be enforced, then do it. Perhaps this is too much to ask these days.

Categories: Academia and the left, Bureauracy, Law enforcement, Lawlessness, Riots
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Beware ‘Democracy Spring’

March 21, 2016

Beware ‘Democracy Spring’ Front Page Magazine, Mark Tapson, March 21, 2016

democracy_spring_crop

As the 2016 field of election contestants narrows, Republican Presidential frontrunner Donald Trump has become the stormy center of campaign news coverage and a lightning rod for violent tension at his rallies. Many in the left-leaning media place the blame for the heated confrontations at his events on Trump himself; others on his supporters. Few are pointing the finger at the swelling numbers of leftist protesters aggressively organizing to shut Trump down altogether.

A recent analysis of ABC, CBS and NBC news coverage found that all three broadcast networks have made the violence plaguing Trump’s rallies the near-exclusive focus of their campaign coverage. Their reporters specifically placed 94% of the blame – 46 instances to 3 – on Trump and his campaign, while virtually ignoring the protesters such as those who forced the cancelation of Trump’s recent appearance in Chicago.

As Monica Crowley observed in the Washington Times, the hordes of protesters who swarmed the Chicago arena and forced Trump to cancel were operating “straight out of the Alinsky playbook: create chaos, blame the victim, stop free speech and advance progressivism.” It is “the same leftist revolution that’s been roiling America for decades.” That is evident if for no other reason than the fact that domestic terrorist Bill Ayers showed up at the Chicago protest to give it his imprimatur.

In conversation with Sean Hannity on Fox after the Chicago cancelation, Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke calledthe protesters “a totalitarian movement”:

“You have cop haters. You have anarchists. You have criminals. You have some rowdy juveniles. You have organized labor. And there is a spattering of well-intentioned people who are being exploited in this, and they’re the ones pushed out front, and those are the ones pushed out in front of the camera as they do their dirty work.”

Aaron Klein wrote at Breitbart that some of those same radicals are now plotting a mass civil disobedience movement to begin next month called “Democracy Spring” – a name which echoes the “Arab Spring” that unleashed not democracy but bloody Islamic fundamentalism across the Middle East. Democracy Spring was organized ostensibly to transform a political system corrupted by “big money interests.” The members intend to meet up on April 2 at the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, then march to the Capitol building in Washington D.C. for a sit-in that will constitute the “largest civil disobedience action of the century.” They claim to be fully prepared to provoke and accept the arrest of thousands of their activists, in preparation for which they will be holding mandatory nonviolent civil disobedience trainings twice a day and securing pro-bono legal counsel.

Though Democracy Spring claims to be nonpartisan, signatories to this movement include leftist actor and Occupy Wall Street supporter Mark Ruffalo and Code Pink founders Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans, as well as progressive organizations such as NOW, People for the American Way, People for Bernie, Young Democratic Socialists, the George Soros-funded groups MoveOn.org and the Institute for Policy Studies (the left’s oldest think tank and a supporter of Communist and anti-American causes), and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the largest socialist organization in America. The DSA’s Chicago branch literally transported protesters to Trump’s canceled Chicago event, according to Klein.

As the Democracy Spring website declares, “The stage is set for a bold intervention to turn the tinder of passive public frustration into a fire that transforms the political climate in America, that sparks a popular movement that can’t be stopped.” The “drama in Washington” they are planning “will rock the business-as-usual cycle of this election and catapult this critical issue on to center stage.”

Klein notes that Democracy Spring’s website does not mention Trump by name, and it stresses nonviolent intentions. But considering the aggression inherent in the radical left, as evidenced in the Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter movements, it is highly likely that demonstrations involving mobs of thousands will result in violence somewhere along the line, and the news media will find a way to characterize it sympathetically as understandable pushback against the rise of “fascist” Trump. At the very least, the Democracy Spring mob and their radical ilk likely hope to provoke violence from Trump’s followers, which they can then use to deflect responsibility and pin it on the billionaire candidate who has become the target of their hate.

As the election season heats up, the proper response to the left’s violent provocations must be zero tolerance. It is time progressives were held accountable for their criminal aggression and for their totalitarian impulse to silence conservative candidates and disrupt the election process. As Monica Crowley wrote, Donald Trump’s campaign “is merely the current pretext for the latest battle of a revolution that seeks nothing short of the destruction of the American democratic and capitalist system.” That revolution cannot be allowed to gather momentum. Trump got it right when he announced recently that he would begin pressing charges against protesters who broke the law. That’s a good start.

Categories: Democracy Spring, Donald Trump, Leftists, Riots, Trump rallies, U.S. media
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