Digby wrote about lynching-by-car on Saturday (“A Second Amendment for Cars“), but I’m still trying to wrap my brain around it. Slate is, too:
Over the past 11 months of anti-racism protests, demonstrators have had to protect themselves: from police, sometimes; from white supremacists, occasionally; and from cars. Since the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, more than 100 incidents of hostile drivers ramming into activists have been documented. These assailants have included police officers, gun-toters, and even, in one instance, a Ku Klux Klan leader. Many, though not all, of these aggressors were charged under local statutes—but now, a growing number of Republican state lawmakers are trying to ensure that, in the future, such vehicular attacks get a pass.
On Monday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an “anti-riot” bill that allows harsher police crackdowns on demonstrators—an apparent response to the “defund the police” and Black Lives Matter movements. (“This bill actually prevents local governments from defunding law enforcement,” DeSantis said.) A public gathering of three or more people can be classified as a “riot” under the law, and anyone who “willingly” participates in such a gathering can be charged with a third-degree felony. Plus, participants in rallies that turn violent can be also be charged with a third-degree felony even if they had no involvement with the violence. Most jarring of all, the law grants civil immunity to drivers who ram into protesting crowds and even injure or kill participants, if they claim the protests made them concerned for their own well-being in the moment.
Uh-huh. Oklahoma’s bill grants protester-killing drivers criminal immunity, it seems.
Seventeen states have passed 30 anti-protest bills and executive orders, writes Nitish Pahwa. Many have expanded the definition of “incitement and riot, heightening requisite penalties, and granting state officials further power to crack down on grassroots demonstrations on both public and private property.”
And on the SCOTUS beat, Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern tweets more unsettling news this morning. First this:
Then this:
And finally this:
Is it too late to go back to bed?