Fanning The Flames Of "Mostly Peaceful" Protest

Are we really at the mercy of the protesters?

Apologies for the light posting lately. It’s not that I have nothing to talk about - quite the opposite, really - but my energy for writing hasn’t been there these last several days. Some of this is due to work, some of it due to poor sleep. I even briefly considered abandoning this post altogether.

But wait! I’m Super-Secret Agent Max Remington and I finish what I start. What I’ve done instead is shorten this post and made it more focused. I’ll discuss the other things I’d originally planned to include in a future essay.

Let’s get to it.

George Floyd, He Isn’t

You can tell it’s an election year because the media is playing up deadly police encounters involving Blacks again. In the last presidential election year, we had George Floyd - who is 2024’s cause célèbre?

Meet 26-year-old Dexter Reed:

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The way the media covered the incident is obviously a big part of the story, but we’ll touch on that as we go. First, what happened?

From CBS News:

The shootout occurred on March 21 in the 3800 block of West Ferdinand Street, toward the southern end of the Humboldt Park neighborhood.

The shootout followed a traffic stop when five plainclothes CPD tactical unit officers in an unmarked squad car pulled Reed over. In body camera footage, officers tell Reed to roll down his window and ask him, “What are you doing?”

After rolling down his window, Reed started rolling it up, prompting officers to repeatedly tell him, “Don’t roll the window up,” and, “Unlock the doors.”

Within seconds of the beginning, the conflict escalates frantically and deadly.

Here’s police bodycam footage of the incident (WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT):

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Notice Reed is wearing a mask. I doubt it’s because he’s worried about COVID. It’s also worth noting that, at the time of the shooting, Reed was on pre-trial release for felony gun charges stemming from an incident last summer.

Here are two other bodycam videos. The officer at top is the one who is hit by Reed’s bullets:

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Make no mistake - Dexter Reed shot first. When shooting at police, there’s just no other way for the encounter to end except in death. Not only that, at least one officer was wounded. This was hardly an unjustifiable response by officers. But did they really need to fire 96 shots, as many are asking?

I’m not sure what the premise of the question is. Not only did Reed shoot first, there’s no magic number of bullets fired guaranteed to stop an attacker. Actually, there is: one. But one round doesn’t always do the job, let alone find the target. In the real world, you shoot until the threat is stopped, even if it means ending their life. It’s terrible, but the alternative is often worse. Not to mention there were a total of four officers on-scene and all of them opened fire, so you’re already going to have dozens of rounds discharged. I’ve also yet to see anywhere that all 96 rounds struck Reed, but the headlines make it sound like he was ripped to shreds like a tiger killing its prey.

There are valid questions about the incident. Why was Reed pulled over? The official justification was that it was for not wearing a seatbelt, but it’s not clear how the police were able to notice that. If there was no way they could’ve seen he was not wearing his seatbelt due to the tinting of the vehicle’s windows, they probably couldn’t see that Reed was Black, either, so there goes the racial profiling explanation. The four officers were also part of a special-purpose unit, not patrol, so it’s not clear if it’s normal for them to stop drivers for such violations.

Still, the fact that Reed opened fire on the cops is a sure sign, whatever prompted them to stop him, they were onto something. Equally significant is his behavior when first confronted by police. An account on X noted that in many of these deadly encounters, especially involving Blacks, the common thread is non-compliance on the part of the suspects, like they’re going out of their way to escalate the situation. We’re all nervous when encountering police - myself included - but what you often see in this incidents goes beyond simple fight-or-flight kicking in. Reed rolls down the window, as instructed, then suddenly starts rolling them back up, all the while telling the police he’s trying to do as they tell him.

It makes you wonder - what are Black parents telling their sons in the notorious “Talk?” That cops are going to kill them? If so, don’t be surprised these encounters often end as violently as they do. If you tell someone an interaction is going to end badly for you, what other response is there except to fight like a cornered animal? Not to mention all parents of all races discuss with their kids the ins and outs of interacting with police. Yet it’s Blacks who disproportionately see these interactions end in bloodshed. Why is that? Are the police really that racist? Or is something else happening?

Sometimes, the police can lose control of themselves and the situation. They’re only humans managing a chaotic situation. They’ll then behave irrationally, like shouting contradicting commands (“Roll over! Stop resisting!”), making things confusing for the citizenry. However, “Roll the window down” means, “Roll the window down.” Not to mention anyone with a lick of common sense would understand that rolling your window down, then rolling it back up in the presence of a police officer is suspicious behavior. In far too many of these incidents, the suspects willfully disobey or resist, forcing officers to take drastic measures in response. We can insist on restraint from officers all we’d like, but isn’t it just as reasonable to expect prudence out of the citizenry, especially if we’re going to assume people like Reed are just like you and I, going about their day?

The response from Black Lives Matter & Co., of course, is that Reed wasn’t shot for non-compliance - he was shot because he was Black. That clearly isn’t the case, but let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that it is. Just how often does this horrible act of racial injustice occur?

Far less frequently than we’ve been led to believe. Nate Hochman explains in The American Spectator [bold mine]:

Of course, the widely repeated shibboleth about police brutality toward black men is, as an empirical matter, nonsense. According to the Washington Post’s own police shootings database, a total of 162 unarmed black men have been shot by police from 2015 through 2023 — an average of 18 a year, in a nation of more than 330 million. Well over 2,000 police officers were killed in the line of duty over the same time period, according to the National Law Enforcement Memorial Fund.

It’s more than reasonable to suspect those 162 unarmed Black men shot over that eight-year period were engaged in criminality or resisting arrest when shot. The descriptor “unarmed” has been conflated with “non-threatening,” but everyone knows they don’t mean the same thing and it’s maliciously dishonest to say so. This isn’t to completely absolve the police of wrongdoing - they’re government employees, after all - but it’s to say that unarmed Black men are hardly being “hunted down” by police.

Take a look at this map of all the shootings and all the officer-involved shootings in Chicago:

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The victims of most of these shootings are Black men. Whatever one thinks of the police using force, it’s quite obvious: get rid of all the officer-involved shootings and it won’t change Black males’ life prospects in Chicago for the better. Not one bit. I’d reckon the same dynamic applies throughout the rest of the country. But since when do the facts matter?

Obviously, the Left wants the death of Reed to serve the same galvanizing purpose George Floyd’s death did in 2020. Will it? Hochman doesn’t think so:

With all of that said: The Left might pine for a George Floyd redux. (We’re only six months out from an election, after all; and these days, what’s an election year without a few good old-fashioned race riots?) But they shouldn’t hold their breath. The simple fact is that the conditions that enabled the rolling revolution of 2020 were specific and unique — and while they may have left a legacy that endures to this day, they are unlikely to fully resurface anytime soon.

The most obvious of those novel conditions was the pandemic — and specifically, the fact that the spark that lit the wildfire came during the most draconian period of lockdowns, when large swaths of the country had been marinating in something akin to mass solitary confinement for months. Another factor was President Donald Trump, who invited a unique hatred from the left-wing base and an unprecedented hysteria from left-wing elites, and who served, in the minds of both demographics, as a constant, ever-present reminder of America’s white supremacist evil. (Once Democrats took back the White House, of course, the U.S. miraculously became a good and decent country again).

So far, the killing of Dexter Reed hasn’t sparked widespread outrage beyond left-wing activist circles. I don’t think President Biden nor Vice President Kamala Harris has commented on the incident. I noted last year that police shootings, even of Blacks, doesn’t trigger the same sort of widespread outrage is once did just several short years ago. I think there are two big reasons for this.

First, the events of 2020 drained the outrage reservoir for most Americans. It’s exhausting being outraged all the time; we were outraged the entire year, not to mention locked down due to the pandemic. Second, I think the crime surge following 2020 opened many peoples’ eyes to the reality of not only how violent our country really is, but who’s doing the crime, most importantly. This was aided in large part by bodycam footage corroborating the accounts of police in many of these incidents. Other things, like the complete discrediting of BLM as nothing more than a get-rich-quick scheme for its frontmen and women, have created a public far less sympathetic to the message as were only a short time ago.

I find it unlikely that another Floyd-like incident will galvanize the public, especially the left-leaning faction, like it did in 2020. This is good news; the last thing we need are coast-to-coast riots that bring the country to the brink of civil war. Not to mention, there’s already plenty of civil unrest already thanks to the situation in the Middle East. At the same time, it’s difficult to imagine we’ll get through the summer without an escalation in the level of unrest and violence in the country. There’s still a lot of time between now and the presidential election in November, a lot of time for bad things to happen. Remember, Floyd’s death occurred over the Memorial Day weekend; we’re still in April.

Maybe the summer will just see an intensification of the ongoing protests; I consider this the most likely scenario. It’s still something we need to prepare ourselves for, as it’ll become more of a permanent fixture in the American landscape as the country further destabilizes internally.

Protesters Have More Rights Than You

We’re headed for a hot summer of crime and unrest. So what do we do about it?

For now, don’t listen to Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR):

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It’s not that I find the act of dragging protesters out of the streets morally abhorrent. If you ask me, that’s too kind a response to their indefensible behavior. The problem is, in order to use force against protesters, the law must provide license for doing so. It doesn’t. Senator Cotton’s advice is a set-up for failure. We live in an anarcho-tyranny and the protests, including the violent ones, are fully sanctioned by the Regime. Sure, the authorities eventually start arresting the law-breakers, but this is mostly a symbolic gesture. If they really cared about the disruption and terror caused by these acts, they’d crack down much harder on them from the start, as well as establish clear boundaries on what constitutes peaceful protest and what doesn’t.

It’s not complicated. A peaceful protest doesn’t block roads. They don’t obstruct safe passage to anyone who doesn’t want to get involved. They may be loud, but they’re not a nuisance. I’ve seen what a peaceful protest looks like and they look nothing like these Israel-Gaza war protests. They most definitely didn’t look like BLM or anti-Trump protests. A peaceful protest is, at worst, a minor annoyance. But they’re not supposed to be as disruptive or threatening like the far-left’s protests have become. Inhibiting free movement and obstructing safe passage is false imprisonment. Whether it’s exactly the same as being held hostage by gunmen is besides the point. If someone else is controlling your movements, even if only temporarily, it’s captivity. Full stop.

Blocking access to airports, as anti-Israel protesters did in Chicago last week, is hardly a minor inconvenience:

Nor is shutting down the Golden Gate Bridge. What are people expected to do? Drive all the way around the Bay? Swim? How exactly have protesters been inconvenienced that they get to inconvenience everyone else? This isn’t just about sending a political message: this is also about power, letting us all know who’s really in charge.

Why do we tolerate it? A big part of the problem is cultural. Due to the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam War, protest and political activism are considered virtuous, as American as apple pie. It’s tough to argue against this - after all, we don’t live in a free society if we can’t speak out against those in power - but what we’re seeing today goes well beyond discontent, nor are they even speaking out against those in power. Blocking access to airports and bridges constitutes civil disobedience which is, by definition, illegal. The law is being broken in the interest of sending a message one believes wouldn’t be heard unless people’s lives were disrupted.

I’m not one to hide behind the law - that’s how anarcho-tyrants justify terrible outcomes - but the point is that there exists no justification for civil disobedience or violent protests. This means, in theory, that citizens are perfectly within their rights in using reasonable force to stop the people blocking roads, but how many of you would take the risk in doing so, knowing how the state has handled these types of cases in the past? Are we really at the mercy of the protesters?

Well, yes. When it’s you against the mob, the mob wins, every time. Is there really nothing to be done? The short answer: practically speaking, no. The long answer: avoid, avoid, avoid.

Former police officer Don Shift had good advice in his book Suburban Defense: A cop’s guide to protecting your home and neighborhood during riots, civil war, or SHTF. He writes [bold mine]:

One of the major concerns currently is how to respond if a driver finds their vehicle in the midst of a hostile crowd. Mollycoddling of rioters and mobs have made being a motorist caught in a crowd a legal risk instead of just a safety one.

Remember that if you drive into a crowd (for any reason) and have to use force of any kind, you may be branded as the aggressor for driving in to the wrong place at the wrong time. Prosecutors who are looking for a conviction or plea bargain would suggest that the “right” thing for you to do was allow your car to be vandalized and burned while the crowd beats you to death rather than use force against them. Unfortunately, some of us live in areas like that in this day and age.

Self-defense applies when driving a vehicle even with the crowd. However, it is the motorist who will be on the defensive in any morally correct use of force. Few weapons are more effective against humans than several tons of metal moving at high speed. When a vehicle is used deliberately to kill or injure someone, the crime is “assault with a deadly weapon.” You can put yourself ahead of the game by not being near an angry mob in the first place.

Easier said than done, of course. We are all creatures of habit who stick to routines. Not to mention, there isn’t always a long way around to your destination. That said, being aware is the essence of preparedness. Know if there are major demonstrations going on in your area. If they are, find out where it’s happening and at least attempt to chart a way around it. You don’t, under any circumstances, want to drive into an ongoing hostile demonstration. If you can’t find a way around it, it may be better to just not leave home. It sounds ridiculous, but think about it: not only are you going to be late, anyway, is it really worth risking your safety over? I know it’s not that simple, so I hope nobody regards this as me being flippant, but unless it’s something like going to the hospital, driving into a large demonstration is a bad idea.

What if you do end up in a situation like those heading to the airport did? Should you just miss your flight? What if you do need to go to the hospital? Should you just die? Of course not, but realize your options are limited. It’s ultimately up to the state to not allow protests to hamper our lives, but as long as they privilege protesters’ rights over ours, we are where we are.

More from Shift:

While it may be infuriating to have the road closed by armed insurrectionists or criminals (as well as dangerous), playing possum may be the best tactic here. Police are often present but not willing to interfere with the protesters or rioters for fear of agitating them, but they will arrest you should you attempt to force your way through. You may very well be shot at by the antagonists. In most states, the armed protesters will have the benefit of the doubt when it comes to a self-defense claim.

And:

From a devil’s advocate point of view, the crowd doesn’t want to hurt anyone. They are there to use the delay in traffic to spread their message to a captive audience. A misdemeanor or infraction of playing in traffic doesn’t justify assault or use of deadly force, no matter how angry or inconvenienced anyone is. Thus, in an unsympathetic (to the motorist) prosecutor’s perspective, the crowd was not presenting an imminent threat to the motorist.

If a motorist then gets out of the vehicle and initiates a fight, the motorist is the aggressor. Should a motorist try to force his way through the protesters (or if he gets out and yells, etc.) and protesters draw weapons, the protesters would only be responding proportionately with deadly force (guns) against deadly force (the vehicle). After all, the protesters are not doing anythingworthy of being run over or shot, so they would be justified in using force to avoid being run over.

The lesson: stay inside your vehicle. In a roadway, it’s really the safest place to be. Getting out there and confronting a mob is dangerous and exposes you to all sorts of risks. If these people could be reasoned with, they wouldn’t be falsely imprisoning you in the first place. How often do hostages convince their captives to let them go?

Shift continues:

No one should be stopped by civilians for political reasons in the road, especially under the threat of violence. Legally, the protesters should be arrested for illegal detention of the motorists. In a sane world, using reasonable force to overcome the illegal detention should not be controversial or risk prosecution.

In a semi-rule of law situation or when protesters are just being jerks, I recommend playing possum. Don’t escalate the situation. Remain calm and get through the moment without being shot or arrested. Getting out of the vehicle only exposes you to risks. Yelling at the protesters won’t get you through and may provoke them to violence. You are playing into their hands by getting angry so they can escalate their behavior. Remember an armed roadblock is their strong point and you will be fighting presumably at a disadvantage. Never fight on someone else’s terms. Getting through the situation peacefully looking like another sheep is the best option many times.

Nobody wants to give in to those who have no right to obstruct your free movement. What’s the alternative, though? We’re preppers - keep things realistic. You’re not going to go “Braveheart” on the protesters. Remember: eventually, the authorities have to do something, even if they don’t respond immediately. They’ll have to, because nothing de-legitimizes those in power more quickly than a total societal stoppage. Supremely dissatisfying, it is, but the best option is, unfortunately, to just wait it out.

What if, for whatever reason, you do need to drive through the crowd? There may be instances where doing so may be justified. For example, if a crowd is armed or shouting threats at you, hanging around is clearly a bad idea. So is getting out of your vehicle and trying to make your way out of the situation on foot. What do you do then?

Shift offers the following best practices:

Don’t run people over if you can avoid it. So you ignored the first piece of advice to not drive into the crowd or they came out of nowhere and surrounded you. Remember that using your vehicle as a weapon is a crime; deliberately running someone over is murder. A vehicle vs. pedestrian self-defense claim may be difficult to argue. All of your actions must be deliberate at this point to minimize injuries and get you out of the crowd.

As said above, keep moving slowly. Honk if people in your path aren’t paying attention; a horn is to be used as an emergency signal that you can’t or, aren’t going to stop. If you honk excessively or constantly, the horn loses all meaning, you might attract more members of the crowd, or agitate them. Use a horn as a final warning to someone who won’t get out of the way or someone who was oblivious and had their back turned.

At 5 MPH or less, which is a walking pace, anyone in the way of the car should be able to get out of the way. Judicious use of the horn can help. Anyone still in the way of the car should be pushed at this speed rather than be seriously struck and injured. You would rather have them knocked to the side rather than run over, which looks bad, is more injurious/deadly, and could stop your car. Be prepared if they land on your hood or shatter your windshield as it will probably startle you.

If you must hit someone, try to do it as slow as possible and with the corner of the vehicle (so they aren’t knocked under) or with something like a mirror. Even if you do run someone down, don’t stop moving. The damage is already done and you don’t want to be drug out of the car and beaten. Your vehicle may have an impact shutoff sensor and you may find yourself in a disabled vehicle surrounded by a hostile crowd.

While driving through a crowd, they will beat on your car body, the windows, and try to vandalize the car. They may even succeed at breaking windows. Jumpers will try to get in front of the vehicle, on the hood, roof, or in the bed of a truck. If the car stops or the windows are breached, the crowd then gets more violent and starts trying to assault the driver or break windows with the intent to hurt the driver.

The crowd will already be mad at you for driving through and will take it as a mass personal affront if you start hitting people. Most drivers stop when they hit someone. The mob then surrounds the car and tries to force entry. As the driver panics and tries to get away, they hit the gas and strike more people at high speed. Stay calm and don’t panic. Aggression will increase once you accelerate and people in the mob may draw guns and even fire. Keep your foot off the gas unless you’re being shot at.

Control yourself and think your way out. Use only the minimum accelerator necessary to keep moving. Use minimum force if you must hit someone and maneuver your vehicle to minimize the impact. Utilize openings in the crowd or drive though non-roadway areas like lawns to get away. By being judicious and thinking outside the box you can argue your intent was to escape, not to hurt or kill.

It’s a terrible situation to be in. None of this may even work. Yet it’s the least bad of all the options. If they do breach your vehicle, flatten your tires, etc., now you have the right to protect yourself. But are you really going to fight off a violent mob, even if you have a gun? I’d love nothing more than to see them all get “Raided,” but again, this isn’t a movie. When surrounded by a mob, you’re at their mercy. Nothing is going to change this fundamental reality.

In the case of something like access to an airport being blocked, taking a rideshare service or taxi may be the better option. Its drivers are paid to be out on the road and you can end the ride at any time and walk the rest of the way, as a lot of the folks going to O’Hare International ended up doing. If you drove yourself or a family member or friend did, now it’s a bit more problematic. You need to worry about the vehicle and your loved one. I know this sounds insensitive towards rideshare and taxi drivers, but we outsource risk all the time without realizing it. Making a living being on the road comes with its dangers. If you can minimize your own exposure to risk, do it.

Finally, get a dashcam. Maybe two. I’ll discuss kitting out your personal vehicle in a future post, but in this day and age, there’s really no reason not to have dashcams. Your word is never enough; don’t expect anyone to believe your story without a recording of the incident. Just remember: your own camera records your behavior as much as it records that of others. Use the camera to prove that you acted prudently and reasonably, not only to show how bad the other party was acting.

Protest Isn’t Justification For Illegal Behavior

Readers know by now that I don’t enjoy responding to every bad take. However, I couldn’t let this slide. We may not be in a shooting war yet in this country, but we’re in an information war. We need to be willing to fight back against bad narratives and that starts with tackling bad takes on social media.

An academic on X recently stated in response to Senator Tom Cotton’s call to get physical with protesters:

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If there’s anything leftists excel at, it’s dishonestly framing a story while still making it seem factual on the surface. Yes, they were protesting. But that wasn’t all they were doing. Like I said before, I’ve seen peaceful protests - they don’t impede the actions of others. Senator Cotton’s advice, while imprudent, wasn’t calling for people to be attacked for protesting. It was calling for people to be moved out of the roadway. If they weren’t in the roadway, they wouldn’t be impeding anyone and, therefore, wouldn’t need to be forcibly removed.

He followed up:

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I’ll put it like this - if I’m in any other setting and Justin Kilborn stops me, prevents me from passing, even when I try to go around him, then that’s false imprisonment and the courts will recognize it as such, depending on the severity of the incident. If I try to walk by him and he won’t let me, there’s nothing that says I can’t nudge him aside. If he keeps trying to stop me, then that nudge turns into a shove. If his glasses end up breaking in the process, oh well. He shouldn’t have been in my way. Whether this is exactly the same as being kidnapped or taken hostage is besides the point.

According to Kilborn, however, all he has to do is say that he’s protesting and that the law should immediately then give him license to falsely imprison me. Perhaps that how it works in practice - we live under anarcho-tyranny, after all - but never confuse that with rule-of-law. It’s not. It’s a political faction being favored over everyone else.

More:

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Sure, you can’t defend yourself when you’re not being attacked. But again, if you’re trying to pass through and someone tries to stop you, you can use reasonable force to push them aside. Obviously, you don’t want to hit them with your vehicle unless your life is in danger. However, and this is what Kilborn-types don’t understand, nobody has the right to impede traffic. Their argument effectively amounts to, “You can’t use illegal means to stop illegal behavior.” It affirms that protesters are, in fact, committing a crime and if so, citizens can be justified in using reasonable force to make them stop. Whether the system upholds the rule of law is a separate matter.

I think what’s going on here is that Kilborn believes certain people have a right to impose their will on others. That’s really all that’s going on here. If those were far-right protesters or neo-Nazis blocking access to the airport or closing off a bridge, he’d be singing a different tune. We’ve seen this play out too many times to presume otherwise. Some people are allowed to protest, some protests are more “valid” than others. I wouldn’t assume there’s any serious thought being put into what’s being said. The old Marxist maxim of “Who? Whom?” is in play here.

Let’s close with this tweet from a different account:

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I’ll put it like this: if you try to impose your problems on me, I’ll resist your efforts to do so. We all know these people would never allow us to impose our problems and beliefs onto them. More to the point, their problems aren’t my problem. They, on the other hand, by trying to impose their will on me, have become my problem. Are they sure that’s where they want to be?

As for “live in a society,” well, isn’t that rich? In my society, protesters don’t block roads. In my society, people like Justin Kilborn and “Bread and Rosenstock” don’t belong. So yes, by all means, let’s live in a society!

Ready For Protest Season?

What are your thoughts? Do you think Dexter Reed was killed unjustly by police? What’s your reaction to Senator Tom Cotton’s call to get physical with protesters? Do you have any recommendations for dealing with them? Have you ever needed to? Shall we all just surrender any time protesters falsely imprison us?

Let’s hear your thoughts.

Max Remington writes about armed conflict and prepping. Follow him on Twitter at @AgentMax90.

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