There were, as the media calls it, “clashes” between “protesters” and police in Philadelphia last night. What this really means of course is that rioters and looters wreaked wanton destruction across the city and assaulted police officers at will. By the end of the night, at least 30 cops had been hurt and one officer was in the hospital with serious injuries. A female sergeant, 56-years-old, was hit and suffered a broken leg when a truck plowed into a group of officers. Elsewhere, rioters set cop cars on fire, ransacked stores, and looted police vehicles.
The ostensible reason for this latest bit of barbarity is the shooting of Walter Wallace Jr. As a video recorded by a bystander shows, Wallace was armed with a knife and approached officers after refusing to comply with their orders. This would seem to be about as lawful as police shootings get. In order to navigate around the facts that might vindicate the officers, leftists are playing their usual game of turning the focus away from the inconvenient facts and towards personal details that are not relevant to the shooting. Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Ellie Rushing, for example, tells us that Wallace was “a twin, father, and son” and that his mother “begged [police] not to shoot.” These biographical notes might make the shooting sadder, but they do not make it any less justified.
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