Posted on 12/06/2014 8:58:51 AM PST by rochester_veteran
In Rochester, New York, in early December of 2014, after considerable commotion from the city’s liberal religious, non-profit, university and political sectors, the police chief and police union president, in concert with the lieutenant governor, pressured a group of Americans not to exercise their constitutional rights of free speech and peaceable assembly.
Weird, huh?
And what did these several hundred Americans intend to do?
Thank the police.
And firefighters, and other first responders.
Un-effing-believable.
In a city which had featured four consecutive days of protests against the police, a rally for the police was deemed too dangerous. In “the interest of harmony,” the police chief said, it had to go away.
Un-mother-effing-believable.
Here’s the story.
After the lieutenant governor Tweeted Monday night that he wondered when someone was going to hold a march for the police – instead of against them – I went on the air and asked people what they thought of the idea.
Response was positive.
I asked if anyone wanted to organize it.
No one did.
So I picked a date, time and place and notified the police chief’s office, asking for any advice staff there might want to give. They asked me to move the time of the rally to accommodate their shift change. I did.
Support for the rally grew dramatically.
But not among the city’s progressive elites.
Almost immediately, the folks from the activist churches and college campuses, along with at least a few Democrat officeholders, began moving publicly and privately to get the rally cancelled.
When polite didn’t work, the effort went impolite.
A man posted on Facebook that I had scheduled a Ku Klux Klan rally and that it had to be stopped. Before many hours had passed, the Catholic priest who had agreed to be the spokesman for the rally received two death threats, and a sister of Daryl Pierson, the police officer killed in September, wrote me: “RPD just called my brother and said that snitches told them that if any Piersons showed up tomorrow we will be killed.”
Then the liberal ministers said that the event had to be stopped because it was divisive, that I was trying to rip the community apart.
Then the lieutenant governor called.
And the union president called.
But I didn’t take his call, because he never takes mine.
Word, nonetheless, got passed that the chief of police and the president of the police union wanted me to cancel the pro-police rally. At the same time, we had a priest and a dead cop’s brother believing people were out to kill them.
Of course, the whole thing was just a pressure job, a battle for influence in the community, an effort by the people who run Rochester to silence any divergent voices.
The whole point was that our rally did not support their worldview, and though we repeatedly said that our event was not in conflict or contention with anybody, that it was simply to say thank you and to lend support to beleaguered police, there was no room for it in the public square.
The people calling for dialogue and conversation did everything they could to make sure there was none. People and entities which routinely hold public assemblies were willing to bend heaven and earth to make sure no one else did.
In the city of Douglass and Anthony, no one is allowed to deviate from the party line.
I passed word back to the police chief that I wouldn’t take the hit for this, that if he wanted it to go away, he would have to issue a statement in writing asking us to quit.
He called the bluff.
And in his statement, the threats he had previously cited as reason to cancel the event had been reduced to "rumors."
Instead of protecting the rights of the people, he asked us not to exercise them. I doubt that has ever happened before in Rochester.
In a move that would never be taken against a liberal rally, we were asked to disband our event.
So we followed the direction of the police chief. We folded tent. The pro-police rally has been cancelled and will never be mentioned again. Free speech and free assembly are not for everybody, apparently.
I have never seen anything like this in more than 30 years as a newsman. It is the most dispiriting and anti-American thing I have ever witnessed. It ends any pretense of balance or tolerance in the affairs of the city.
It says to the hundreds who would have gathered that their voices aren’t welcome and their rights aren’t respected.
But what it says to the police is a whole lot worse.
When support for police is labeled hate speech, well, we’ve gone to a bad place.
To be honest, it has kicked 100 percent of my backside. It has shown me sides of people and institutions which are unflattering and dishonorable. I have learned that when the heat is on, everybody heads for the door.
The bad guys won, and with this win they create the likelihood that they will always win. And the bad guys aren’t protestors out carrying signs, they are big wigs behind the scenes pulling strings.
But the worst part of all, of course, is that this event has accomplished just the opposite of what it set out to do. In the midst of a daily trashing on the evening news, I wanted to give the police and first responders an attaboy, a thumbs up, a clear statement that they were loved and that we were thankful for their service.
Unfortunately, this cancellation of the rally, and the cheering of that fact by the city’s rulers, sends just the opposite message.
And that is horrible.
I’m going to take a few days off. It’s probably best that I not speak too publicly about this matter right away. You get in trouble for swearing on the radio.
Speaking of which, from a personal standpoint, one of the bright spots out of all this was the way my two bosses stood up for me and for what was right. They didn’t flinch and they were completely positive. I am very grateful for that.
And finally, the other bright spot was the incredible response from people across the region to this invitation to honor the police and emergency responders. It is quite possible that a couple of thousand may have attended the rally. A printer contemplated preparing 500 signs. People from all walks of life organized themselves and invited their friends and put together extensive online networks to recruit participants.
Until they were told they weren’t welcome.
Not they or their opinions.
Not in this town.
While it may seem there is little we can do, for years I’ve been on a personal boycott of nearby Newark NJ (where I am quite frequently). I don’t buy anything (including gasoline or even fast food), and have declined when people have offered free tickets to NJ Devils hockey games there (because I might be tempted to buy something to eat or drink).
When these dumps die on the vine because businesses can’t survive due to the environment, they’ll reconsider some of their positions. In the meantime, Newark residents come to my town for groceries because they have no supermarkets.
Why couldn’t they have just gone ahead with their rally? To heck with what anyone said. The protesters across the nation certainly haven’t needed permits to protest, stop traffic etc. Don’t say that would make us just as bad as THEM. We’ve said that for much too long. We need to behave exactly as they do minus the destruction. What a picture it would make if the powers that be stopped a peaceful, pro law enforcement/first responders rally. Would they want to look like fools? As opposed to hiding that fact!!!
I’d love to see the rank and file beat cops and firemen call in sick.
“”I’d love to see the rank and file beat cops and firemen call in sick.””
Wouldn’t we all? Just stage a walk out - sit down - whatever!!!!
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