Tuesday, October 27, 2020

Riots in Philadelphia after police shoot and kill a man armed with a knife.

 

A shop that was looted in the rioting. BBC/Reuters.

Riots broke out in Philadelphia after police shot and killed Walter Wallace, a mentally ill man that was charging at officers with a knife. BBC. 30 police were injured in the riots and many businesses were looted. One of the officers suffered a broken leg after a deliberate ramming attack. 91 rioters have been arrested. Wallace was having a mental health incident and was shot and killed after not dropping a knife and approaching officers. The officers shot seven times each and did not use tasers as they were not issued them. Police are preparing for new riots and businesses are closing up shop to prevent looting. 



My Comment:

Apologies for posting Ben Crump. The man is a racial huckster and is quite frankly evil. He's a major cause of the riots and his utter lies about the police has directly led to deaths. But he's the one that published the footage (and caused the riots) so if I wanted to show people what really happened I had to use his tweet as it isn't really available elsewhere.  

The shooting itself seems like a classic case of a justified shooting. Walter Wallace was clearly out of control and even his own mother couldn't stop him from trying to attack the cops or dropping his knife. I didn't see anything that comes close to showing that the police did anything wrong here. With Wallace being so close to officers and being armed with a knife if they hadn't shot they would have likely been stabbed. They did nothing wrong here. 

Of course that doesn't matter to racial hucksters and racists like Ben Crump. They always change the framing so that the lives of the officers don't matter but the life of a mentally ill, violent and dangerous man. Race had nothing to do with this shooting, it was Wallace's actions that caused his death. But Black Lives Matter and other racists couldn't care less. 

The riots were of course terrible. There were several attacks on officers including the major ramming incident that left an officer with a broken leg. I'd post the video of that but the quality was terrible so I am not going to bother, but the point is that the rioters were specifically targeting officers who were trying to keep the peace. 

And the businesses that serve Philadelphia? They were looted. Far from helping black people these rioters are destroying the businesses that serve their community. And those businesses, that employ and are possibly even owned by black people. And these businesses may end up being shut down. 

Given where this riot happened it could have a huge impact on the 2020 election. Philadelphia is the major Democratic stronghold in Pennsylvania and anything that can depress turnout for the Democrats could cost them the state and also the election. A riot could do that very well. People will be too busy with their destroyed businesses and jobs to vote and they might be too scared to do so. And I think there will be more then a few people in Philadelphia that will no longer support the Democrats after they have experienced the violence their rule can cause. Given the riot, Joe Biden's recent comments on fracking and the fact that Trump won the state in 2016, I can't see Biden winning this state in 2020. And that means he will likely lose the election. 

It's also a major problem for the Democrats nationally. The summer of riots has faded into the background. There hasn't been as many of them recently due to a change in coverage and focus from the media, which is now talking about Coronavirus 24/7. They figured out that riot coverage damaged their chances and did not want to talk about it anymore but the Philadelphia riot will bring the issue back to the forefront just a week before the election. To describe this as an own-goal would be a massive understatement. 

Finally, I think this demonstrates how fragile the Democratic coalition actually is. I have no doubt that the leadership of the Democrats, the neo-liberal wing, wants nothing to do with these riots anymore. But the woke side of the party absolutely does and their leadership, including Ben Crump, want the riots as they fundraise off of it and gain power from them. These groups are fundamentally opposed and only their mutual hatred of President Trump allows them to tolerate each other. Regardless of the outcome of the election, that is a problem that isn't going to go away. Trump will either be out of office (not likely) or will never run for election again, meaning the cracks in the Democrat's coalition will likely be the biggest political story soon... 

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