In the summer of 2020, the increasingly partisan and left-wing corporate media refused to acknowledge the nation was being consumed by violent riots. Because there were thousands of protests, many of them lawful and small, the media chose to call them “mostly peaceful” — even though several hundred large protests were documented as violent riots.
From the media’s perspective, it was all for a good cause. So, who cares if a few people are killed, a few billion dollars of property damage is done, and tens of thousands die from a COVID summer surge as a direct result?
In many cities, mayors and police chiefs deliberately had their police patrols stand back and let the damage happen. They wanted to give the rioters, including the violent fascists ironically known as antifa, room to wreak havoc, set buildings on fire, and beat up anyone caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Those mayors and city leaders may soon regret that decision, thanks to an obscure federal court decision handed down last week. The decision pertained to the well-documented Baltimore riots of April 27, 2015. These riots followed the funeral of Freddie Gray, who died in police custody.
A group of small business and property owners, outraged by the city’s neglect of their establishments and refusal to provide taxpayer services, sued under Maryland’s Riot Act. That law shields municipalities from liability if they were either unaware a riot was likely or were unable to prevent “theft, damage or destruction.” Even then, a city that uses “reasonable diligence and all the powers entrusted to them to prevent or suppress the riot” cannot be sued.
On Aug. 26, Federal District Judge Stephanie Gallagher refused to dismiss the case against Baltimore. In her ruling, she maintained the plaintiffs brought enough evidence to create a genuine question of fact for a jury to decide what the city knew and whether it did what it could to keep the peace. Especially damning for Baltimore’s cause was then-Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’s infamous admission after rioting on April 25 that she “gave those who wished to destroy space to do that.”
Gallagher continued:
The City anticipated that protesting on April 27th — the day of Freddie Gray’s funeral — might again turn violent and destructive. As predicted, the protests on April 27th did, in fact, lead to violence and property damage. The City did not declare a state of emergency, which would have allowed it to assist the BPD in obtaining additional police resources, until several hours after rioting had begun on April 27th. Finally, the City did not announce a curfew until several hours after rioting began, and that curfew did not go into effect until 10:00 PM the following day.If this scenario sounds familiar, it is because liberal leaders in a very large number of cities behaved similarly at some point during the violent riots in 2020. On multiple occasions, politicians and police leaders deliberately weakened or held back responses to violence and property destruction. Most memorable was Seattle, where authorities actually permitted armed secessionists to form a lawless autonomous zone in the middle of their downtown area.
State laws obviously vary, and other judges may see it differently. But Gallagher’s persuasive reasoning will open up opportunities for plaintiffs in many cities to seek recourse for the damage the city allowed. For all the abuses trial lawyers commit in the name of helping injured plaintiffs, this is precisely the sort of wrong that our tort system exists to rectify. If lawsuits such as this Baltimore case start to succeed, it might make future mayors think twice before turning their cities over to the control of whoever happens to be the most violent jerk in the vicinity.
