Looks like there are heavy rumors about a riot in Evansville In tonight.
We shall see.
I live in Evansville, IN and this article was in the Evansville Courier newspaper this morning:
Evansville protest organizer: 'If there’s no police line, you can’t throw a bottle at it'
Thomas B. Langhorne, Evansville Courier & Press Published 9:16 a.m. CT June 6, 2020 | Updated 10:23 a.m. CT June 6, 2020
EVANSVILLE, Ind. -- If there is violence at
Saturday's protest event in Evansville, a local organizer said, it will be because police — not protesters — got out of hand.
Lindsey Krantz, a local woman calling herself "Ursula Curiosa" — she acknowledged it is not her real name — said law enforcement officers and counterprotesters should not show up at the 5 p.m. protest at Four Freedoms Monument. The event is meant to protest alleged injustices in the way police treat blacks and specifically the Memorial Day killing of George Floyd, a black man who was in the custody of Minneapolis police.
Krantz's view that violence is law enforcement's go-to response to dissent may not be shared by everyone who shows up at Saturday's protest. The event is expected to draw hundreds of people to Downtown Evansville and perhaps just as many shades of discontent.
The very presence of law enforcement officers alongside them will be provocative, Krantz warned.
"People are afraid that they’re going to get attacked by the police –
because that’s the role of the police, is to attack black people, poor people," she said.
Saturday's event is not intended to be a violent protest,
Krantz said — but "the very nature of the police is to escalate things."
"If there’s no police line, you can’t throw a bottle at it," she said.
Evansville police Sgt. Patrick Phernetton visited Krantz's residence Thursday seeking assurances there will be no violence. He didn't find Krantz at home but spoke to her by phone afterward, a conversation she acknowledged.
Police are working hard to head off any potential for violence, said Phernetton, who heads the police department's VIPER (Violent Incident Prevention Enforcement and Response) unit.
"I could not get her to commit to — all I asked of her, what I wanted was a few particulars, like were they planning on staying put, where they planning on marching? So we’d know how to plan for traffic control and that sort of stuff, but she wouldn’t give me any details," Phernetton said.
"Then I asked if she would pledge to at least put out for people to be peaceful, and she would not commit to that either."
Krantz said it is police officers who should have to explain themselves, not her. She thinks law enforcement agencies should be defunded and abolished. The laws they enforce are intended to "control people," she said.
Everyone is brutalized by police, Krantz said, "including people who’ve never interacted with the police who, for example, pay their rent so that they don’t get evicted by the police."
"’The modern public police system is the institutional descendants of the slave patrols from the early colonial days in the United States," she said. "And as far as the alternatives to the police, we need to have a system of care, not a system of how many bullets can I bring to solve a problem."
Saturday's event is dubbed, “I CAN’T BREATHE: Protest Police Brutality,” according to a Facebook page Krantz said she created. It follows by one week
a protest in Evansville that brought more than 500 people together. On Wednesday,
at least 200 people protested the Floyd killing in front of the WEVV 44 television station Downtown.
Krantz said she hopes Saturday's protest attracts members of ANTIFA, an organization President Donald Trump has called a violent left-wing terrorist group. Members of the organization and supporters often dress in black, covering their faces with masks or helmets.
"ANTIFA is just anyone who is not a fascist. It means anti-fascist. If a person hates ANTIFA, it might be because they are a fascist, such as Trump," she said.
People are afraid, Krantz said. She invoked the day in 1970 when members of the Ohio National Guard fired shots into a crowd of Kent State University demonstrators, killing four of them and wounding nine students.
But what if someone attacked police at Saturday's event?
Krantz referred the Courier & Press to
MPD150, a site that says it is "working towards a police free Minneapolis."
"We will achieve this by presenting a practical pathway for the dismantling of the Minneapolis Police Department; the transference of its social service functions to community-based agencies and organizations; the replacement of its emergency intervention functions with models not based on military methods; and the redirection of resources to support community resilience and people-directed development," the site says.
Krantz had one last comment of her own on that subject.
"I don’t believe in arresting people ever, and I think that the police should be abolished," she said.
She is one of several organizers of recent protests. Not all share the same views or mission.
Link:
Evansville protest organizer: 'If there’s no police line, you can’t throw a bottle at it'
c-vine.com
