Protest movements, including sit-ins, rallies and yes, even verbal disruptions, have been part of America since its inception. Free speech is one of the country's bedrock principles.
But as President Joe Biden said in the spring, when protests against the war in Gaza spread across college campuses: "Dissent is essential for democracy. But dissent must never lead to disorder."
That was the case at the Democratic National Convention — large protests, with minimal disorder — until Tuesday night. That's when Chicago police arrested dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters outside the Israeli consulate, after some members of the group turned violent, damaged property and "physically confronted and attacked" officers, according to police.
Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling made a point of defending his officers, saying the department "did everything that we could to deescalate that situation."
Let's just say it: When you march straight into a line of police, as police say demonstrators did, then refuse to disperse and are apparently bent on causing trouble — well, expect to be arrested. Maybe, in fact, that's what you're looking for, to make some sort of point.
And as long as the arresting officers follow procedure, they're not "thugs" denying people's right to free speech, as an organizer for the group claimed. In this case, the police were doing their jobs, which is to protect the public and our city.
Chicagoans don't want a resurrection of the ghosts of the 1968 convention. In fact, as Snelling said Wednesday, "Let's stop talking about 1968. This is 2024."
Thankfully, most of the protests and demonstrations against the war in Gaza during this week's DNC were peaceful, until Tuesday's chaos. And on Wednesday, pro-Palestinian protesters marched peacefully from Union Park toward the United Center just as the evening's events were about to get underway.
Tensions did rise for a brief moment earlier Monday, when dozens of people got into a standoff with police after they breached an outer security perimeter near the United Center, where the DNC is being held.
But it got much hairier on Tuesday, when members of a group called Behind Enemy Lines walked straight into a line of police officers near Ogilvie Transportation Center, where demonstrators had gathered during their protest at the Israeli consulate.
Behind Enemy Lines did not "shut down the DNC" as they advertised (clearly sending out a red flag to police and to everyone else involved with the DNC). Instead, they ended up sparking mass arrests by officers working to contain the violence at the scene.
The DNC doesn't wrap up until Thursday night. We hope there are no more confrontations like Tuesday's.
As one of four young men at Union Park told a Sun-Times reporter about a Chicago police commander he and his friends talked with: "We approached him, and he was friendly. We just want a peaceful protest, and we know they have jobs to do."
It is important to note this: Behind the Enemy Lines did not have a permit to protest, and the group is not affiliated with the organizers of the much larger, and mostly peaceful, pro-Palestinian march on Monday.
Snelling made that point after Monday's short-lived incident outside the United Center: "What I’m not going to do is associate the group that stayed behind and breached the fence with their planned protest. There were peaceful people in the crowd. There were people who just wanted to have their voices heard."
Think back through our history: Had people not made their voices heard, calling out the status quo and injustice, much-needed reforms such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the end of the Vietnam War might never have happened.
Protesters who have come out specifically for the DNC have the same right to make their voices heard — without the added noise, and the disruption to the city as a whole, of people looking to draw attention of a different and worse kind.
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