There is nothing like a riot to bring out the evil in people — or the good.
As Baltimore’s dimmest and worst set fire to businesses, hurled cinder blocks at fire engines and torched a construction site for senior citizen housing – all in a pointless expression of impotent frustration — CNN interviewed an elderly Vietnam vet named Robert Valentine, who had stood between rioters and police.
“I’ve been through the riots already,” he said, referring to similar events that had occurred in the same place in 1968. “This right here is not relevant. They need to have their butts at home. They need to be in their home units with their families studying and doing something with their life. Not out here protesting about something that is not really about nothing.”
He added: “They do not respect this young man’s death.”
The young man, of course, is Freddie Gray, who died after his spine was severed in the custody of the Baltimore Police Department earlier this month. His death cries out for justice, and the city has been slow to offer an adequate explanation.
But none of this justifies this week’s unrest — not even in the slightest. The very social contract from which rioters wrongfully tried to exempt themselves this week is the only thing that can keep the police honest — the only thing that can save, heal or fix Baltimore. President Obama was absolutely right when he remarked that “there’s no excuse for the kind of violence that we saw.”
Unfortunately, some writers and pundits are now trying to justify the rioters’ folly. They have described their violence against life and property as a wholly or partly justifiable means for effecting social change, bringing needed national attention to the issue of police brutality.
This is easily disproven, especially in this case. Freddie Gray was already a national cause before any act of looting, arson or attempted murder (the act of throwing a brick at another human being can be described no other way) had taken place. Peaceful protests were held. A conversation about police violence and racism in Baltimore was well under way several days before the riots because journalists had been doing their jobs.
The print media and national television news were filled with wall-to-wall reporting and discussion of the excessive force by police. There was a robust discussion about previous city settlements with police victims, and about the arguably inordinate protection that Maryland law and union rules give officers in cases where they take life.
Likewise, the killings of Eric Garner and Walter Scott had generated national outrage, and received copious coverage without any significant civil unrest. Talk of police reform was already well advanced, and enjoyed bipartisan participation.
So no, Monday’s riot was not the language of the voiceless, but of several hundred violent people whose concerns were already widely understood. In their lawlessness, they not only disrespected Gray’s family — who had asked for just one day of peace to bury him — but also betrayed the very reason police brutality had aroused such widespread public concern in the first place.
Americans listened, responded and called for change in recent months after a series of well-publicized incidents in which they saw the rule of law under threat from officers who would make themselves the law. Then on Monday night, the rioters did precisely the same thing, imitating the injustice of those they accuse.
There are only two sides to this debate, and they are not morally equal. On one side is criminality, rioting and police brutality — all similar human choices that chip away at the rule of law and deserve the same kind of response. Those who would justify any of these things as an appropriate response to the others has taken a side that does not seek justice, but rather longs for the opportunity to unleash its own injustice — to be the one who enjoys the privilege of plundering others and administering unjust beatings and extrajudicial killings.
On the other side, opposite the rioters and their abetters, is the rule of law. It is a great treasure the American people enjoy more than most others on earth, and the main reason America is today a peaceful and prosperous place. The rule of law prescribes equal treatment of rich and poor, black and white, the police and the powerless. It survives in a very imperfect world where justice is often missing, but it has an important safeguard to account for human weakness. It provides strong institutions that can peacefully change laws and policies for the better without blood-lust or vengeance.
President Obama explained this perfectly in November when he addressed rioting in Ferguson, Mo. “There’s never an excuse for violence,” he said, “particularly when there are a lot of people of good will out there who are willing to work on these issues.”
Americans of good will — including many in Baltimore who stayed home in horror — know which side is the right one. It isn’t a close call.
