Democrats’ acceptance of violence from their own partisans, especially labor unions, is a major warning sign that they’ll turn away when it happens again in the future, but it’s especially disconcerting to see Attorney General Peter Neronha celebrating violence against police officers:

If I seem to be exaggerating, it’s only because I’m not accepting as an excuse that Neronha’s only going along with the default Democrat spin on labor history. Review even the retelling of the incident provided by Rhode Island’s radical union activist Patrick Crowley:

Unlike many other local factories, the Sayles Company Mill and Bleachery in Saylesville remained open, and Crowley said the workers there seemed content. …

On Sept. 7, about 75 UTW workers from other factories stood outside the Bleachery, trying to persuade employees to join the strike. The situation escalated when neighborhood children and teenagers joined the picket line after school. Crowley said that afternoon, a picketer threw a rock at deputy sheriffs hired to guard the factory. The sheriffs’ attempts to calm the crowd backfired, leading to a brawl lasting several hours. …

Though the picketers retreated, they continued to stir up mayhem by pulling fire alarms, removing manhole covers, and opening fire hydrants, causing the street to flood. …

By the afternoon of Sept. 11, nearly 3,000 protesters gathered outside the Saylesville Bleachery. Protesters famously stopped a dump truck full of bricks meant for Pawtucket City Hall’s construction, and hurled them at law enforcement.

What Neronha characterizes as somebody “simply exercising his rights” involved agitators’ starting a riot even though the local workers were content, attacks on security and on police, and riotous vandalism of a working-class neighborhood.  This led to a crisis point involving an exchange of gunfire from police and (yet more) projectiles from “protesters.”

Behind the veil of history, I wouldn’t say with certainty that officers were innocent or that the rioters were wholly guilty, but it’s extreme bad form for the state’s highest law enforcement official to do the opposite.  Moreover, this isn’t merely a matter of historical dispute.  Owing to the Presidential debate this week, we’ve been hearing, again, about January 6, 2021, when a Capitol police officer shot Ashli Babbit for, some would say, “simply exercising her rights.”

Perhaps it’s a naive wish, but I keep hoping for a time when people can acknowledge that human interactions get messy, and we can try to discuss them with truth and accuracy first and our interpretations and conclusions second.  Instead, we get government officials whom those of the opposing faction should not trust if they find it politically expedient to prosecute us, including, apparently, Peter Neronha.

Featured image by Justin Katz using Dall-E 3.