What's happening to our country?
This isn’t Iraq or Afghanistan or any other Third World country, but you wouldn’t know it after unlawful events unfolded around the nation the past week.
Major cities in the United States of America from coast to coast came under attack last week following the tragic death of a black man by a white police officer Monday, May 25. The attacks came, not from forces outside our country, but from loosely organized domestic terrorists bent on fomenting riots and destruction in our cities.
The death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis, Minn., police officer last week is something we can all agree was a terrible thing to happen. The 46-year-old unarmed black man died at the hands of white officer Derek Chauvin who had his knee on the neck of Floyd for over eight minutes, forcing his head into the pavement. Floyd already had been restrained with handcuffs and then ended up on the ground. Chauvin has been charged with manslaughter and third- degree murder in the death of Floyd who died at the hospital.
What happened in the days and nights following this horrific event that was captured with cell phone and network television video was beyond comprehension. Minneapolis was the first major city to experience totally out-of-control looting, rioting and destruction of private and public property by angry mobs. What started as a protest over what happened to Floyd quickly turned into a riot with the burning of buildings and police vehicles. Sadly, the city seemed totally unprepared as there was a lack of law enforcement or fire department presence.
Minneapolis police were forced to abandon a precinct headquarters building as the unruly crowd set it on fire. Some officers retreated to the roof and had to be plucked off with helicopters. It reminds you of the time in 1975 when the United States pulled out of South Vietnam and the last remaining staff and military guards had to be rescued off the roof of the U.S. embassy by helicopters. The two similar incidents both had bad endings.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey brushed off the precinct incident, saying it was just a bunch of bricks, totally missing the symbolic significance of the law enforcement retreat and subsequent loss of city property. It was sickening to watch unabated destruction and looting of private businesses that people, including many minorities, have worked years to build up. An estimated 170 businesses, including some large box stores, were lost in that one Wednesday night of burning and looting by criminals whose furthest thoughts did not include George Floyd. They just used his unlawful death at the hands of a white police officer as an excuse to commit these crimes.
This scene was to be repeated dozens of times as violence quickly spread to other large cities across our country for the next several nights after agitators saw what happened in Minneapolis and received their well-coordinated marching orders from their suspected Antifa handlers. In the heat of the moment, even journalists covering these violent events were subject to attacks as they attempted to do their jobs of informing the public.
It was highly disturbing to see demonstrators outside the White House turn violent and attempt to storm protective lines formed by Secret Service and National Park officials. We don’t know what these people were thinking because the White House is highly defended.
Sadly, these nationwide riots reached into South Dakota last Sunday night when a peaceful march of 1,000 people in Sioux Falls turned violent in the evening. At the Empire Mall several businesses had windows broken by rioters throwing rocks, which should never happen here.
Gov. Kristi Noem called up units of the S.D. Army National Guard to restore order, saying this kind of violence and destruction of property would not be tolerated in South Dakota. Some of these Sioux Falls rioters were reportedly bussed in from Fargo, N.D., where riots were held there the previous evening. Good call, Guv.
It’s obvious this looting, burning and destruction in our country is about more than the death of a black man at the hands of a white police officer. Everyone knows that was wrong and the perpetrators will be rightly punished. We have a much larger problem in that the enemy within must be rooted out now.
It is becoming more obvious every day that someone wants to demonize law enforcement and start a race war in our country. We can’t allow this to happen. Lawful protests have turned into unlawful, criminal activity. Lost in all this is that we are still in the middle of a pandemic, and, oh yes, last Friday we launched a rocket with two astronauts aboard for the first time in 10 years. It successfully docked with the space station 19 hours later.