reverse the 'colors' and you get a summer of violence;
Contrary to exaggerated, partisan rhetoric that frames the Jan 6, 2021 Capitol Hill riot as a “deadly insurrection,” the truth is that only one homicide occurred that day. The victim, an unarmed Trump supporter, was shot and killed by a police officer with a history of irresponsible handling of firearms, who opted against a nonlethal response to an act of trespassing, and who fired his weapon in the absence of any imminent threat of death or serious injury to himself or others in his vicinity.
US Capitol Police (USCP) Lieutenant Michael Byrd’s killing of Ashli Babbitt came just six months after George Floyd’s death under the knee of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, an incident that sparked outrage, widespread calls for police reform, and nationwide rioting. In the case of Babbitt’s killing, however, the collective reaction from the American left and major media at best amounted to an indifferent shrug. Worse, many reflexively heralded Byrd as a hero and viewed Babbitt as a deserving recipient of the bullet that perforated her trachea and lung.
The contrast illustrates how partisan framing short-circuits people’s ability to uniformly and objectively apply principles to the facts before them. Put another way, an intellectually honest person can reject Babbitt’s politics, condemn her unlawful conduct on Jan. 6 and rightly conclude that she was the victim of an unjustified police shooting.........more.........
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