(City Journal) Nicole Gelinas - Protests on all sides of any issue are a fact of urban life. But protesters are not free to obstruct movement; the First Amendment protects only speech and assembly, not unlawful obstruction of roads, transit, or sidewalks. Yet to avoid excessive-force charges, police now refuse to stop people from blocking roadways, entrance ramps, and major transit centers, instead arresting them only after they've blocked a target, have finished with their planned action, and surrender themselves. With such leniency, it only takes a few hundred, or perhaps even a few dozen, people coordinated on social media to inconvenience the rest of us. Police could do nothing but observe them carry out their plan, then briefly detain them to write up low-level charges. If the "shut it down" crowd keeps facing no consequences, they'll keep on shutting it down - and untrammeled low-level lawbreaking will soon become a higher-level problem. The writer is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
2024-01-10 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive