Senate Republicans should pass a federal statute against looting prior to, or at least as part of, any legislation on “police reform.”
The nation’s cities have been terrorized for the last two weeks by rioting and looting that has accompanied the protests against the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Memorial Day.
In many cases the looting has been carried out in broad daylight while police, protecting “peaceful protests,” have been unable to stop it.
And ironically, many of the victims have been members of the communities that Black Lives Matter wants to protect.
Looting is typically a state crime. But according to many governors and mayors, the looters and rioters came from out of state to carry out their crimes.
Even though arrest records confirm that most of the culprits were, in fact, local, there are some cases of people crossing state lines to loot.
One man, speaking on live television to a KTTV 11 Los Angeles reporter as he joined in looting a shoe store in Santa Monica on May 31, claimed to have traveled from Indiana.
There is no existing federal statute against looting except by members of the military. But there is a federal statute against rioting, which applies to anyone who travels across state lines, or uses interstate communications, to riot or to incite riots.
A federal statute against looting could be structured in exactly the same way, and could also include additional penalties for looting alongside peaceful protests that are legitimate exercises of First Amendment rights.
Democrats are pushing for “police reform,” and Republicans seem desperate to follow. It is not clear what impact federal police reform would have, given that many such reforms have already taken place in recent years.
The bigger problem is that passing police reform, at least by itself, would reward the violent protest of the past two weeks with political success. That, in turn, would guarantee that radical activists will turn to similar methods in future.
To this day, no one — no participant in the looting, no Black Lives Matter leader, and certainly no elected Democrat — has apologized to the many communities devastated by the looting, though many of the victims are also minorities.
Worse yet, supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement have argued that violence is justified, or that attacks on property do not actually constitute violence — even if the property owner loses their ability to earn a living, and even after the killing of retired police Captain David Dorn, murdered while defending a friend’s business from looters.
Our political leaders must not abandon people in communities, of every color, who have been devastated by looters and rioting, in a vain effort to appease radical activists and the “woke” political commentariat.
Call it the Captain David Dorn Act, and remind Americans that there is a clear moral line between legitimate, peaceful protest and political violence.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His new book, RED NOVEMBER, is available for pre-order. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.