Whether or not you want feds to arrest rioters really comes down to whether or not you're fine with the rioting.
@realcaseyrollins I don't think that follows. Consider:
Alice isn't "fine with rioting". But a given number of police can disperse many more people than they can detain, so she wants the feds to stop making arrests and just break the riots up instead.
Bob isn't "fine with rioting". But he feels strongly that the feds need to mind their own business and leave enforcement to the municipal or state police.
Carol is "fine with rioting". She has a jury summons and hopes to make a political statement by refusing to convict a rioter (jury nullification). She wants the police to arrest as many as possible to maximise her chances of getting on a rioter's trial.
> In her view, the police can more effectively stop riots if they forget about making arrests and just chase rioters from the streets
False, that's been the policy for weeks on end, to just spray down the riot with gas until they disperse. It's been working pretty well, hasn't it?
> separating mechanism from policy
This is a good point, but I'm getting sick and tired of people endlessly putting forth plans that don't work and are literally being proven to be ineffective before our very eyes! At some point, one must wonder whether or not the ignorance is willful, or due to #MSM brainwashing. Proposing mechanisms that don't work (like just chasing rioters) does nothing to help anyone. I want plans that will help people.
@realcaseyrollins I'm not on the west coast, but it worked great here. The plywood is off the windows, the people protesting racism and the people protesting the mask order stand out of the way and shout at passersby, and life goes on.
The first few nights just saw the police outnumbered. Every arrest took two or more cops away from crowd control at a time when they needed every man they could get. Then policy changed, and they decided to just march down the street with pepper spray and tear gas if things got rowdy. Over the course of a few days, the story went from the crowd re-forming after being cleared, to the crowd dispersing after being cleared, to the crowd behaving and no longer getting cleared at all.
@khird Wow! That's an interesting story. I haven't seen any examples of this happening in major US cities, but I'm glad it worked where you live! 👍🏾 Peace is always good to see.
@khird Well see this is the reason we tried that first. Where you live, it worked out. In other places, not so much, unfortunately.
@realcaseyrollins ah, but that's a different proposition. "Stopping riots" != "Feds arresting rioters".
Alice, for instance, opposes *arrests* because she sees them as an ineffective use of resources. In her view, the police can more effectively stop riots if they forget about making arrests and just chase rioters from the streets, so the feds are allowing the riots to continue longer than necessary by pursuing bad strategy.
In compsci we talk about separating mechanism from policy. The same idea applies here - the question of mechanism (should the feds be making arrests) should not constrain the choice of policy (are we fine with rioting).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_mechanism_and_policy