Anatomy of an organized riot: U-Haul van delivers riot supplies to Louisville BLM march

Anatomy of an organized riot: U-Haul van delivers riot supplies to Louisville BLM march
Louisville Antifa BLM protesters, from Twitter.

It’s usually not this easy to put the sequence together.  The screen capture below shows everything in one place: the supposed spark to the protest, the trending slogan “Burn Louisville” (i.e., incitement to go beyond protest), the U-Haul van in a parking lot with black-garbed “black bloc” agitators unloading riot supplies – including protest signs with Antifa’s trademark “A” on them.

Packaged social justice agitation, with logistics, and Twitter as the Greek chorus. Screen cap, annotation by author

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The same signs are then seen being marched through Louisville by the BLM/Antifa/black bloc demonstrators.

The full thread here, from Shelby Talcott, has a nice timeline, if you look at the time hacks on the tweets.

Observe that within minutes of the “protest march” beginning, black bloc thugs are trashing and smashing the windows of small businesses along their route.  It doesn’t appear to have amounted to much so far; we’ll see if the destruction can be contained as the evening wears on.

Kentucky was prepared, and the National Guard appears to have been deployed already.  It looks like the Guard is being used in the same role we’ve seen before in other locations: blocking off streets to keep the “demonstrators” corralled in a confined area.

The police were also out in force, and very quickly surged to perform crowd control.

The day isn’t over yet, but it will be interesting to see what Louisville and Kentucky have achieved by preparing in advance and being ready to react quickly.

One thing they’ll be able to do is trace the U-Haul and figure out who rented it.  Whether the customer information tracks to someone in-state or an entity out of state, it will help both state and federal authorities develop their case files on who’s organizing and paying for these riots.

A reminder on the pretext for the incipient riot: i.e., the grand jury decision on the three police officers involved in the death of Breonna Taylor.  There were no charges against two of the officers.  The third, Brett Hankison, was indicted on three counts of “wanton endangerment” for having fired into the house Taylor was in, after a man described in media reporting as Taylor’s boyfriend started firing at the police from it.  (There is a dispute as to whether he was still Taylor’s boyfriend at the time of the shooting.  It doesn’t appear to be disputed that he was the suspect sought in the warrant the police were executing.)

The limited charges returned by the grand jury would be due to circumstances that have not been emphasized to the public (and in the case of one may not have been previously reported.  It seemed to surprise everyone).

Breonna Taylor’s alleged boyfriend, as mentioned, fired at the police before they fired back.  The grand jury apparently agreed that the police were then firing in self-defense, even if one officer strayed over the line into wanton endangerment in the process.

A trial jury is likely to agree.  Trial juries, regardless of racial make-up, have regularly affirmed that self-defense fire by the police is warranted.  In general, Americans appreciate the truth that we don’t pay the police to die rather than defend themselves against gunfire, lest bystanders get hurt.

The other circumstance—the one that seemed to surprise observers – is that the police, although they had a no-knock warrant, in fact knocked and identified themselves at the outset.  According to Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, a witness confirmed that they announced themselves clearly as police officers.  So Taylor’s boyfriend had reasonable opportunity to know whom he was shooting at.

We can only deplore and grieve the death of Breonna Taylor, who surely did not deserve to die that day.  But the police were shot at in the execution of a warrant, and on the face of it had a right to defend themselves.  Once the boyfriend started shooting, they also had a duty to contain or neutralize him as a public safety threat.  They didn’t have the option to just stand down and let go a still-armed shooter – one wanted on a criminal warrant – with the possibility of menacing the surrounding neighborhood or taking hostages.

The perpetrator in this situation was the shooter, who fired on police seeking him under a warrant.  We will see how the case develops at trial.  It may not be that easy to get a jury of any racial make-up to convict the police officer, even on the lesser counts he was indicted on.

J.E. Dyer

J.E. Dyer

J.E. Dyer is a retired Naval Intelligence officer who lives in Southern California, blogging as The Optimistic Conservative for domestic tranquility and world peace. Her articles have appeared at Hot Air, Commentary’s Contentions, Patheos, The Daily Caller, The Jewish Press, and The Weekly Standard.

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