Narrative by omission or simply careless?

A week ago the BLM nonsense made its way into our own neighborhood.

I received a call from the Sheriff prior to the rally held Saturday as he was reaching out to local activists and performing due diligence.  In my case it was pretty simple, he wanted to reach one of the counter protest organizers, and I simply had the phone number for said organizer.

The Sheriff explained that there would be a lot of folks there, but the police presence would probably outnumber the gathering crowd.  As it turned out, the crowd WAS quite large, and all the followers who have been brainwashed into thinking ‘systemic racism’ is a thing, showed up to kumbiya with whomever would listen.

Somehow they talked the heads of the local police into speaking and (in my opinion) grovel a little to appease the people who were going city to city calling for their extinction.  The Sheriff for his part later said he was surprised and disappointed when the list of demands were made.

The demands are as follows:

These are demands of us as anti-racist community members, and demands of the Grand Traverse County Sheriff, County Commission, City of TC Police and City Commission.

1. END PROFILING PRACTICES: City and county LEO immediately cease practice of profiling response calls when citizens profile our neighbors by calling police on someone who is breaking no laws but simply because the think the person ‘doesn’t belong,” “looks suspicious” or other codes for saying these neighbors are BIPOC, possibly experiencing homelessness or mentally ill etc.

2. REPLACE WITH RESOURCE REFERRALS: instead of responding with an armed officer to such profiling calls, train your police and 911 to screen and ask questions to point the citizen to Homeless Outreach or CMH, or simply to reiterate that a person has a right to be on a public street or sidewalk, to exist i the community without being questioned and harassed.

3. ESTABLISH ANTI PROFILING POLICY AND PROCEDURE: Within 3 weeks, produce policy stating this profiling practice is prohibited and adopting best practices for the 911/poice referral process

4. CITY AND COUNTY – BODY CAMERAS AND DASH CAMERAS INSTALLATION AND MANDATORY USE: divert funds from *current* budget, rather than increasing police budget. Establish mandatory policy every officer wears a body camera, to be left on at all times. Police officers shutting off camera while on duty should trigger immediate disciplinary action and shutting camera off in a criminal incident should result in firing.

5. COUNTY SHERIFF DEPT PROVIDE BIANNUAL IMPLICIT BIAS TRAINING: We acknowledge and support the city police’s implicit bias training. We call on the Sheriff to support his officers and staff by providing immediate and annual implicit bias training. By June 30, launch mandatory implicit bias training for all LEO (city and county) with a training program selected by BIPOC led anti racism task force

6. END RACIST ICE/CBP HOLDS: Sheriff department immediately halt all ICE and CBP holds of nonviolent people detained by local police, a practice that is believed to be unconstitutional and is totally voluntary current practice. Do not call ICE/CBP when stopping Latinx people in our community.
Within 30 days, written sheriff policy stating it will not cooperate with ICE and CBP for voluntary holds of non violent people detained by local police
Transparent budget breakdown for sheriff dept budget which is 40% of 40mil budget is sheriff office within the next 2 weeks

7. REALIGN BUDGET PRIORITIES toward proactive community support. THe sheriff department’s budget is 40% of the county’s general fund budget of $40 million. 30% is considered high for municipalities nationally to spend on law enforcement. Work with black and other BIPOC to realign general fund budget to divert 15% of sheriff budget to non policing community health and safety issues.

8. COMMITMENT FROM POLICE UNIONS not to protect membership who engage in criminal behavior toward people in their custody

9. ESTABLISH AND FUND FROM THE SHERIFF & CITY POLICE BUDGET, an independent citizen oversight commission, with membership being human rights commission representatives, civil rights attorneys as well as a majority of at large black and other BIPOC and other marginalized constituencies such as disability, LGBTQ+ and migrant workers. Budget should provide for infrastructure to allow proper oversight. Police cannot and should not investigate themselves. The Commission should act as a review for complaints and refer to AG or Civil Rights Commission as needed.

10. ALL ANTI RACIST GT COUNTY AND CITY RESIDENTS PLEDGE TO ACT IN AN ONGOING WAY ON THESE DEMANDS – pledge to stand with black and BIPOC neighbors in this community by vigorously pursuing these policy changes with your elected and appointed sheriff and chief of police, police unions, city and county commissions until they are all in place and properly funded.

This list demands a post of it’s own, on the insipid nature of these communists trying to soft pedal their failed ideology on the back of a single incident in Minnesota.

As far as I am concerned, the Sheriff’s office is one of the FEW legit expenses of county government. Law and order allow us to reach maximum liberty and actually enjoy the fruits of our labors.  City Police similarly uses local knowledge of the people to provide a level of security we could not have otherwise.

Not only that, good policing protects those who cannot afford private security. It IS the great equalizer, by protecting the rights we are supposed to be enjoying.

Which brings us to the riots happening elsewhere.  Cities are burning, and the leadership of such cities are allowing the unchecked tantrums of the communist left and all those associated with BLM to burn and destroy businesses and private property.

It is the poor, the blacks, and people of color who will disproportionately bear the burden of these tantrums.  The leadership of such places that burn?  They merely fall back on US Supreme Court decisions to give themselves legal cover:

” ..Nevertheless, the Court found that the government had no affirmative duty to protect any person, even a child, from harm by another person. “Nothing in the language of the Due Process Clause itself requires the State to protect the life, liberty, and property of its citizens against invasion by private actors,” stated Chief Justice Rehnquist for the majority, “even where such aid may be necessary to secure life, liberty, or property interests of which the government itself may not deprive the individual” without “due process of the law.” “

So much for ‘Mandamus?’

For the most part however, police brave some serious shit.  We have some messed up areas in this country, and some of the people that our local and county police face daily are seriously defective.

I am not talking about the Michigan state police who don’t often engage to keep the peace, and are simply a political tool of the governor at this point.  Dec 12, 2012, they stood idly by while union protesters destroyed property and threatened lives at the Right-To-Work gathering.

Years later (last month) they toughened up however!  Thousand dollar tickets (now ruled improper?) were issued by such courageous troopers to dangerous barbers and stylists who were using haircuts as a means of protest (a protected right)

Sad.

But lets bring it back to our own local BLM protest shall we?  What you are NOT being told.

While other cities burn, and other downtown areas suffered, the police here were doing an exemplary job of keeping order.   Our deputies and city police are of the finest caliber, and while leadership for the most part prostrated itself before leftist organizers, the police kept the event under control and watched for aberrations in the activity.

There WERE counter protests, including two groups representing second amendment rights, and many others who simply may have been there to display their support for our president in some way.  The latter is where we have our ONE encounter of note.

The record eagle reported last Sunday of an altercation:

One protester, a 27-year-old Suttons Bay man, was arrested after throwing rocks at a passing truck bearing a “Trump” flag, according to TCPD Sgt. Matt Richmond. One of the rocks sliced a passenger’s hand, Richmond said, and an ensuing fist fight left both men with minor injuries.

Josh Kopietz, the truck’s driver and brother-in-law to the man injured, offered a statement to police in a nearby parking lot. He expressed frustration after the attack.

“Just because you don’t like someone’s stances doesn’t mean you get to assault them,” Kopietz said, adding that he’d come out to “support his own protest.”

“To come out here and show everybody that there’s two sides to it — more than two sides to it. And not every Trump supporter is racist.”

That protester, a Suttons Bay man, likely will face a felony charge of throwing an object at a moving vehicle causing injury, and a misdemeanor charge for assault and battery. The case awaits review by county prosecutors.

“The vehicle, my guess, was singled out because of the Trump flag,” Richmond said.

Other Black Lives Matter protesters chased the suspect down and called 911.

Remember this last part.

I was made aware of some more details that were not published in this day-after report.  I was surprised of the omission of some of the details.  Clearly today’s report was a little more ‘complete‘ as it contained a release from the local police, right?

Moeggenberg announced two new charges against the Suttons Bay man Friday — possession of an explosive substance and carrying a dangerous weapon with unlawful intent. The felonies carry maximum penalties of 10 and 5 years in prison, respectively. Rebane has yet to be arraigned on the new counts.

Moeggenberg said she added the explosives charge after investigators found a rag and bottle of 70-percent isopropyl alcohol in Rebane’s backpack. It was accompanied by several rocks, a first aid kit, goggles and a crowbar, according to a release.

OK, those details, we almost expected right?

Young adult, brainwashed with Marxist ideology attending an event spurred on by popular culture, sees Trump flag flying and throws first stone like a good little sinner. After so many events like this throughout the country its hard to imagine anything different, right?

But the media omitted two interesting points.

Rebane (the attacker) threw the rock/brick through the passing truck window.  The passenger who was injured got out to confront him, and YES Rebane through a punch, but then the injured passenger began to pummel Rebane like the little wretch he was.

Rebane then escaped and ran like a little girl and hid behind the counter protesters because THEY WERE ARMED until he was rescued by the police. < — True story

Finally, the greatest irony in all of this, is that the brother-in-law passenger of the Trump Flag bearing truck who was injured?

A black man in one of the whitest parts of lower Michigan.

Would this fact not be newsworthy at all?

I leave that up for your continued discussion.