As they say, only in America…

In most places protesters who throw rocks, burn down buildings and burn up cars, and those who assault police officers can expect to get a bit of pushback from police.

In America you can expect to get a check from the government. A pretty hefty check, too. Nearly $10 grand.

This is the result of a class action suit filed by the National Lawyers Group, who even the New York Times characterizes as a “left-leaning” lawyers’ group. Personally I would call them a bunch of anti-American communists, because that is what they are.

The settlement applies to people who participated inthe George Floyd protests in New York.  “Up to to up to about 1,380 people who “were arrested and/or subjected to force by N.Y.P.D. officers” at 18 specific locations in Manhattan and Brooklyn.” How we know who was not arrested but were subjected to force during the protesters is a mystery to me. I guess that since we know the George Floyd protesters were model citizens who were engaged in a public health activity, we should just trust them.

This is, of course, utterly absurd. Not that it is inconceivable that some people’s rights might have been violated. I am quite well aware that some police can become overzealous and cross the line, and am firmly committed to the idea that citizens shouldn’t have to be afraid of the police. Yet the concept of a class-action suit for such things is absurd.

Violent protesters, as a class, should not be presumed to be oppressed by the police. In almost every case during the Floyd protests the “protesters” got no more than they deserved, and often less. In many cases the police were the victims, not the perpetrators, of the assaults.

Not that anybody in power would be seen to care, even those who did. For some it was just too volatile a situation to inflame, and for most who remained silent it was pure cowardice.

That goes especially for the City of Minneapolis. Derek Chauvin, the police officer who restrained Floyd, clearly went too far in restraining Floyd. But the autopsy clearly shows he didn’t kill him–Floyd died of an overdose from meth and fentanyl.

There is literally no physical evidence that Floyd was even restrained from the autopsy. None. Yet Chauvin was convicted of murder, and rookie officers with days on the job went to jail. I am not certain what punishment Chauvin should have been subject to, but conviction for murder was not the right one. He just didn’t kill Floyd.

Derek Chauvin to appeal conviction for murdering George Floyd to U.S. Supreme Court after Minnesota's high court denies him https://t.co/eqyDSayrJ2

— Not the Bee (@Not_the_Bee) July 20, 2023

The Supreme Court will be looking at his appeal, apparently.

Yet none of these facts matter.

It is galling to see that after the destruction wrought by the 2020 riots the final result will be a country torn asunder, lives snuffed out and ruined, tracts of cities left in cinders, and the rioters getting a payday.

This is not how civilizations survive.

Let me reiterate: police can and do abuse their power, and when they do there should be punishment and recompense to the victims. But none of that is what is happening here. The police involved either were overcharged or slandered, the victims of the riot remain victimized and often ruined, and the taxpayers are paying the rioters for their service in harming the country.

What a country.