Background: Americans for Prosperity is having its annual summit this weekend, and the Occupy movement decided to send some people over to disrupt it – which is to say, they tried to rush the building. They failed, of course – the American Left simply is not very good at demonstrations* – but in the process of expressing their inner kindergarteners (the ones that weren’t using actual kindergarteners as props/riot shields, that is) some protesters got hit by a car. And we almost had an incident over it – only it turns out that ‘protesters got hit by a car’ actually means ‘some protesters threw themselves in front of a car.’
Imagine my surprise:
Police said early Saturday that a driver will not be charged for striking three people taking part in an Occupy DC protest in downtown Washington.
Lt. Christopher Micciche of the D.C. police said the driver was not cited because he had a green light when his vehicle struck the three on Friday night.
He said witnesses told police that the three pedestrians “either ran toward or jumped in front of the moving vehicle.” He said one pedestrian jumped on the hood of the car. One of them was cited for being in the roadway.
Now, objective reality probably would not have been enough to shut down this nascent meme cold – Zionist police conspiracies, and all that: but I’m thinking that the Occupiers’ own racism may have worked against them in this case. You see, the Occupiers were reported as looking out for luxury cars throughout the evening; so did somebody see a spiffy silver Lexus and decide Sure, that has to be one of those fat-cat One Percenters? Because if so, well, oops:
Ignore the melanin levels – not difficult, of course, unless you’re a progressive – for a moment and notice the clothing. Which is perfectly acceptable and respectable attire for driving around DC in the evening; but it would be distinctly under-dressed for AFP’s “Tribute to Ronald Reagan Dinner.” So I think that it’s safe to assume that the fellow was not late for the event and trying to get in. Or that, in fact, that he had any interest in the Occupy movement at all: I know I said to ignore the melanin thing, but it turns out that it’s a great way to determine whether somebody is an Occupier or not.
Note, by the way, that the above picture is taken from a video of the incident that does not obscure the man’s face and license plate. Given that the cops have determined that the man was not guilty of anything except having the bad luck to be the spearhead that three Occupiers impaled themselves upon, that video should probably be fixed before somebody decides to sue…
Moe Lane (crosspost)
*Five years ago I could never have typed that out without being roundly mocked for it. Then again, five years ago we didn’t have the Tea Party as a baseline with which to judge other movements for their effectiveness and power.
Occupy DC was effective in pushing a 78-yr-old woman down some stairs, sending her to the hospital with a bloody nose and hand/leg injuries. This is what democracy looks like!