I’d have had some former church members up on federal charges.
Shouting (rudely) in a church service is not the same thing as “threat, harm, or intimidate.” And I say rude because the name for this supposed ICE assistant came off the internet, and I don’t mean the church’s website. I would remind the assembled multitude of Michael Cohen the former Trump attorney, and Michael Cohen the prominent commentator on Twitter.
Not the same persons.
This is in the vein of suing (or is it investigating? Accounts differ) Frey and Walz for not approving Trump’s lawless actions (I’m assuming Trump wants them charged with treason). Stupid, is what I’m coming around to.
I don’t know what these protesters did, and that’s the problem. Did they threaten anybody in the church? Or were they just obnoxious? My point being: “obnoxious” is not “intimidation.” The latter is a legal term of art; the former is a social descriptor.
There are basic questions to be asked here. Was this a worship service the protesters interrupted? Or a congregational meeting? Don’t answer that it was on Sunday (was it?). Every church I ever attended had congregational meetings scheduled after Sunday worship. Everyone was already there: captive audience, sort of. What do we know about this event? News reports? Reporters are basically second-class idiots. They know next to nothing, and if it isn’t explained to them in very big letters and very small words, they won’t learn anything new (I know that’s harsh, but I’ve dealt with reporters and their reporting, and I never recognized the reality in their “story.”). I sometimes think they think “ignorance” makes them pure; or something. Anyway, don’t expect them to understand anything about any subject, or to report all the facts you need to know.
Which means, this is why prosecutors do investigations, and don’t announce the results of their findings until they go to court. There are many reasons for this, ethical and otherwise, but the basic reason is: you don’t know what you don’t know, and you don’t find out from news reports. They are basically gossip, and almost nothing in them can form admissible evidence in a court of law. Which is what you need if you’re going to prosecute a crime.
So is there even any basis for charging violations of the Ku Klux Klan Act? Literally nobody knows yet. I’m not asking stupid questions. The details matter. What can be presented in court, matters. It’s all that matters.
But Dhillon wants to try her case on social media. The place where facts don’t really matter.
I have had church members try to intimidate me in congregational meetings. It never occurred to me to make a federal case out of it. For obvious reasons.
It needs to occur to the head of the DOJ Civil Rights Division.
Lagniappe: it’s funny how this happens. I publish a post, and I find a tweet.
The family’s statement is a nice example of press criticism which I endorse. Credulously repeating the statements of the government because “objectivity” and “fairness to both sides” is just indefensible. As Joe Scarborough said, DHS has been lying, albeit for a longer time than the shooting of Renee Good.
And yet the gossip goes on.
