While Los Angeles has gotten most of the national attention, anti-Trump protests are happening all over the country right now. As we’ve learned over the years, all sorts of people think they’re allowed to operate with the impunity. Inevitably, someone will also try to run over protesters with their car, something we saw yet again at the protest in Chicago, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.
On Tuesday, someone drove into a group of protesters, sending many scrambling to avoid being run over. The driver did end up hitting at least one person. The driver reportedly found herself blocked by the protest, and some of the cops on the street attempted to direct her right, away from the protesters. Instead of following their instructions, the driver turned left and drove into the protesters. One officer even tried to get her to stop, but she just kept driving. So far, Chicago police have yet to release any information about the driver or whether she’s been arrested.
We once again have to state that driving your car into a crowd, even if it’s a crowd of protesters you disagree with, is wrong, and the people who do it deserve to be aggressively prosecuted. You simply don’t have the right to kill people with your car, even if they inconvenience you. You’d think that wouldn’t be a particularly controversial statement, and yet, somehow, it is.
Cars as weapons
You don’t have to like protests. That’s fine. In fact, you don’t even have to agree with protests happening in the first place. Your opinions are your own. But when you make the decision to drive your car into a crowd, you cross a line that’s truly indefensible. The courts may not convict, but that’s attempted murder. Still, people who hate protesters do it all the time. We saw it in Florida just a couple months ago when a guy tried to run over anti-Tesla protesters, and we saw it last year when another guy drove into a crowd protesting Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
During the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, it happened not once or twice but at least 66 times. What’s worse, most of those drivers never faced any charges after driving their cars into crowds of protesters. You also can’t forget the time James Fields killed Heather Heyer with his car for protesting the Unite the Right rally back in 2017.
Florida even went as far as to remove penalties for some drivers who hit protesters, but even if it’s legal in your state to do so, there’s no getting around the fact that if you think that makes it OK, you’re a sick, twisted individual who has no place in a functioning society. Only get worst people get excited about the possibility of being allowed to seriously injure or even kill someone without consequence. That’s psychopath behavior.
We’re also days away from what will likely be the largest protest in the U.S. since Trump took office again, further increasing the risk of car attacks. Those of you who plan to attend your local protest shouldn’t let that risk deter you, but at the same time, keep your head on a swivel. You never know when some terrible person will decide to use their car as a weapon in an attempt to silence you, and doing what you can to see them coming could be what it takes to keep yourself and your fellow protesters out of the hospital or, God forbid, the morgue.
