'Tis The Season -- To RIOT

Criminal justice reform is the gift that keeps on giving

As of tonight, it seems New York City has again surrendered to the rioters. Why? And how?

First: understand something. The NYPD has a well-staffed and trained Mounted unit. That is, officers on horseback. And one of their primary remits is to control disorder.

Additionally, NYPD has a unit called “ESU” — the Emergency Services Unit. They are NYPD’s version of what is commonly known (thanks to the old television show) as “SWAT.” They are trained and equipped for riot-control.

(Clashes b/w NYPD and rioters)

Here’s the point: both these units are trained and tasked with ending mass disorder. Yet a look at the X app today (links in the images above and below) demonstrates that not only were neither of these units deployed — but the cops were badly outnumbered, despite there being ample warning about what was planned.

Readers, riots are extremely difficult to control once they begin. The best way to end them is to ensure they don’t start to begin with. An overwhelming demonstration of police numbers — to include NYPD Mounted — would’ve gone miles towards achieving that.

Further, once the riot began: all bets are off. Deploy Mounted, deploy ESU, deploy all disorder control units. A review of video from the scene reveals that even the line-level cops here are not in “hats and bats” (that is, deployed with riot helmets and batons).

(A protestor burning a stolen NYPD hat)

Your narrator was out there during the “mostly peaceful” Summer of Love in 2020, when many of the same rioters did billions in damage to our city in the name of George Floyd — a career criminal whose story must now be viewed with some skepticism (see our upcoming podcast). We were told at the time that City Hall did not want police out there wearing helmets because “the optic” could “exacerbate” things.

It seems that timorous approach continues. New York’s leadership — likely direct from City Hall — has again decided on capitulation, leaving the streets to a mindless mob with swastika placards. Ah, Christmas in New York….

I’ve been saying it in this space for a good while now, and I reiterate: Eric Adams will be a one-term mayor — if he finishes this term! — and it’s down to a lack of political courage. He knows what must be done. He’s afraid of the progressive left, and so he’s not doing it.

And so instead of an optic that will “exacerbate” things, the optic now is: surrender.

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Follow The Money

Who is funding all this?

As soon as the anti-Israel groups (and that’s what they are, don’t believe otherwise — I’ve been out there) took to the streets, they were well-organized, well-funded, and well-sourced with professional placards, flyers, websites, etc. How?

This seems to be a question the authorities are loath to ask — yet it remains the key. After the mob did a reported $75,000 in damage to the Schwartzman building of the New York Public Library (don’t believe it — they did far more), one would think that the City would put an emphasis on the power brokers behind-the-scenes of these rioters. They have not.

So let me spell out the formula: Arrest the rioters. Hit them with the highest charges you can. Ensure you debrief everyone. Put together a picture of the organizations funding and controlling all this. Flip some subjects. Bring heavier indictments. Go after the organizing entities for conspiracy, RICO, and restitution.

Done. Likely — for good.

This, by the way, applies to the feds as well (hey, stop laughing!).

If this sort of activity were coming out of the right wing, everything I just described would be underway, with enormous resources dedicated to it (compare the response to these ongoing riots to the one-time event of J6). Instead, we are once again capitulating to nihilistic, ignorant progressives who are running roughshod over a town already on the ropes. Mostly, because they’ve been allowed to.

This is how western civilization dies, folks. Which is exactly what this mob wants.

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Bullets

Think the lack of enforcement has had no effect on a city that has been declining since the one-two punch of Bill deBlasio and COVID? 93% of New York retailers have been hit by shoplifters. New York retailers lost $4.4 billion in 2022. Meanwhile, our genius Governor vetoed a bill to simply set up a task force to look at the issue. The perp lobby is strong in Albany these days…. It’s no accident that the Hamas cause has been conflated on-campus with other radical anti-police, anti-western civilization tropes, such as BLM. It’s all been planned, according to this fascinating account. The article does not reference, however, this seminal 1967 publication, which most credit with actually beginning the union of the black nationalist/Palestinian causes (click the below image for the link).

(The June/July 1967 issue of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. That appears to be a crude caricature of then-Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan)

A piece here, from NPR, gives a more nuanced view — pointing out that early on, “Black identification with Zionism predates the formation of Israel as a modern state." So why did Israel lose black support? According to NPR, it was the 1967 war, at which point, “It became much easier not to see Israel as, you know, the brave little republic farming in the desert and instead see it in their view as a Western-sponsored interloper, a colonial settler state that had dispossessed a people of color.”

This is all far from academic, readers. This conflation of the two causes — BLM with the Palestinians — is why our campuses are enflamed, why the riots are underway, and why none of this is going away soon.

In the end, Israel’s main offense has been to be too successful, too pluralistic, too tolerant — in short, too western. They look too much like America. It can’t be tolerated.

And so at heart, the stakes are nothing less than the validity of western civilization. (Notice that all the ire regarding the Israeli blockade of Gaza never mentions the Egyptian blockade along Gaza’s southern border. One can’t help but wonder why).

As the Chinese curse goes: “May you live in interesting times.”

They must be enjoying this in Beijing. And Moscow. And Tehran. And Caracas….

But never fear. Jake Sullivan’s on the case!

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