Chicago announces double standard for arresting Democratic Convention protesters. Will even that work? – Wirepoints

By: Mark Glennon*

NBC Chicago reported Monday that the Chicago Police Department told it, for the August Democratic National Convention, “vandalism and violence of any kind will not be tolerated” and, “Those who continue to be in violation of dispersal orders after a reasonable amount of time will face arrest.”

Wouldn’t it have been nice if such a policy had applied to the 2020 rioters in Chicago?

The same dual justice system was announced by Cook County States Attorney Kim Foxx a couple months ago, though few noticed. For four years, the public policy of the Cook County state’s attorney’s office has been not to prosecute criminal violations tied to protests and demonstrations if the office deems those actions “peaceful.”

But Foxx told The Chicago Tribune in April that her office’s policy on protests won’t be in effect for the convention. A Tribune editorial commendably called out the unequal justice, writing that the policy should be scrapped not just for the convention but for everything. Equality under law obviously demands that.

Most lawbreaking was fine when protests purported to be about George Floyd in 2020, but when they are directed at a Democratic convention, well, we can’t have any of that, right?

During those 2020 riots, were protesters who failed to disperse when ordered arrested? Was vandalism and violence stopped?

No. For the most part, only a fraction of the looters and vandals were arrested and prosecuted, and mere failure to disperse or to obey curfew orders in effect did not lead to arrests. If your memory of that is failing, the specifics are in the Chicago Inspector General’s detailed Report on Chicago’s Response to George Floyd Protests and Unrest. The Chicago Tribune also published its own report.

Most lawbreakers were not arrested, for many reasons. A primary reason, heavily emphasized by the inspector general’s report, is that the city had no coherent policy in place for “mass arrest” circumstances. That means a procedure necessary when a large crowd fails to honor a lawful dispersal order or curfew. No mass arrest procedure in those circumstances means no arrests for most of those disobeying an order or curfew. Chicago, in other words, did not have policies in place to arrest those lawbreakers.

The inspector general’s report includes many other accounts of why police didn’t make arrests for offenses like failure to disperse. From the report:

While there may have been a shared understanding that arrests for low-level offenses were discouraged, there was confusion about what constituted a low-level offense. The Superintendent told OIG that he instructed CPD members not to enforce low-level offenses and to avoid using force unless there was “significant” violence or an officer was assaulted. The Superintendent described his philosophy as “bend[ing] over backwards” and “go[ing] as far as you can” to allow people space to engage in protests. Other senior CPD members concurred that arrests for low-level offenses were discouraged…. [A]t least one Sergeant who spoke with OIG said they refrained from making any arrests for violation of the curfew, because doing so sounded unconstitutional, and they were afraid they would get sued if they did.

The Tribune also found few arrests for anything short of violent conduct caught red handed. Its report summed it up this way: “Despite the level of violence and destruction, few people were arrested or prosecuted.”

And now we have the CPD and Kim Foxx saying they will hold lawbreakers to a different standard, making arrests even for failing to disperse.

But maybe their dual justice plan won’t work anyway. That’s the view of a Chicago cop who blogs as Second City Cop, writing Tuesday that “No one believes this.”

“First up,” he wrote, “there is almost no enforcement for these types of events. ‘Protestors’ are given free rein to block streets, expressways, buildings, etc. Then phone calls are made. Many phone calls. Then a warning may be given….and another set of phone calls goes up the chain. Then, if they’re lucky, another warning. The entire process takes upwards of thirty minutes before a final warning’ may be given and actual arrests undertaken. By then, it’s too late.”

He concluded by referencing 2020: “Remember how many panty-fa and #blm types faced any actual charges, fines or jail time? And how many ended up being plaintiffs against CPD? So to make a statement like this is just noise, and they’ll take this as a challenge to do something.”

Double justice standards are wrong under any circumstances. In August, maybe even that won’t work.

*Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints.