National Review Editor Rich Lowry probes a problematic piece of the program for recent urban riots.
The Charlotte rioters didn’t know whether the controversial police shooting of Keith Scott was justified or not, and didn’t care.
They worked their mayhem — trashing businesses and injuring cops, with one protester killed in the disorder — before anything meaningful could be ascertained about the case except that the cops said Scott had a gun and his family said he didn’t.
Charlotte is the latest episode in the evidence-free Black Lives Matter movement that periodically erupts in violence after officer-involved shootings. The movement is beholden to a narrative of systematic police racism to which every case is made to conform, regardless of the facts or logic.
It doesn’t matter if the police officer is an African-American with an unblemished record and numerous character witnesses. This describes Brentley Vinson, the officer who fatally shot Keith Scott.
It doesn’t matter if the victim disobeys the police in a tense situation and acts in a potentially threatening manner. Despite cops with guns drawn yelling orders at him (and his wife shouting, “Don’t you do it”), Scott exited his vehicle and approached officers without raising his hands. …
… These facts didn’t penetrate the Black Lives Matter narrative of the Scott shooting. Such facts never do. The narrative is immune to complication or ambiguity, let alone contradiction. Every police-involved shooting of a black man is taken, ipso facto, to confirm that the police are racists. When the evidence in any particular instance makes it obvious that the narrative is a lie or a gross over-simplification — e.g., in Ferguson or the Freddie Gray tragedy — the movement simply moves on to the next case, as reckless as before.
It is increasingly hard to deny that the movement is anti-police. When any evidence supporting the police is disregarded, and rioters hurl insults and objects at officers whose only offense is trying to maintain public order at a protest, the agenda is clear.
