Originally a comment by Freemage on Reporter arrested at Trump rally for filming while brown.

Ariel

March 14, 2016 at 1:53 pm

I’m watching this from far away, although, I must say, I’m more and more interested in the upcoming American election.

Recently I’ve gone so far as to read an article in our press titled “The most complicated electoral system in the world”, explaining the details of the American voting system. The experience was traumatic. I’m still shaking. And it is all *your fault*!

Anyway, I’m not particularly surprised that the police got nervous intervening during clashes in which some police officers were hurt. Yeah, I know – attacks against the journalists are always newsworthy, but still. When shit happens, people become nervous and the journalists – or, in general, those at the frontline – are particularly vulnerable. Do you think that the journalists became a special, selected target? If so, this would be a real worry indeed (justifying to some degree the accusations of fascism). But is it the case?

Well, this may be a case of chocolate and peanut butter–two great tastes of fascism, blending into a new and utterly terrifying whole.

You see, the Chicago PD have a long history of violence against PoCs, and they’ve resisted any effort at making them accountable. In particular, for years they used the state’s wiretapping law to justify prosecuting citizens who dared to record them while they were on the job. That finally got shut down by the state Supreme Court–and even then, prosecutions continued for several months while the cops feigned ignorance.

I also point you to the Laquan McDonald case, one of the many ugly incidents that has been behind the Black Lives Matter movement. A cop pretty much outright murdered a teen in front of five other officers, and the various institutions involved pretty much sat on the case in order to ensure it wouldn’t interfere with Emanuel’s re-election campaign.

So, the cops here are primed for just this sort of fascist thuggery.

I’ll note, too, that the official law enforcement folks have been involved in other instances at Trump rallies–in one, it was the Secret Service that pummeled a protestor; in another, the local sheriff’s officers decided to tackle the protester who got sucker-punched. I’m not suggesting active collusion, here–just the convergence of natural allies.