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Why are police doing nothing to stop destruction caused by riots?
“Why,” a friend asked recently, “are the police doing nothing to stop destruction caused by riots?” I decided to share my response on Medium because I suspect that he is not the only one questioning police action and stategy during — and after — the demonstrations and riots that followed the murder of George Floyd last spring. In fact, the police in various American cities were criticized by people on both the right and the left. On the right, police were condemned for acting too slowly, or without sufficient force, and for tolerating property damage. On the left, the police were often portrayed as part of the problem, rather than the solution. And there may be some truth to that: statistics show that law enforcement used force against leftwing demonstrators three times more than they did against their rightwing counterparts.
Before responding to this question, however, I should note that it assumes facts that are not in evidence. Our impressions of a riot are generally formed by what we see and hear on television — but that is never the whole story. The lack of a large, visible police presence during a riot, or the failure of the police to prevent damage to cars, buildings, etc., does not mean that the police were “doing nothing.” Police may be deployed strategically to other areas of the city to prevent expansion of the rioting or…
