Los Angeles city leaders have responded to the Pico-Robertson synagogue attack, and if suggested measures are put into effect, we may see a new mask ban for protesters.
Mayor Karen Bass and other city officials released statements Monday evening. Bass spoke on behalf of the city’s elected officials and condemned the events that took place in the Jewish community.
“What we witnessed was antisemitism in the heart of one of our Jewish communities. This violence was designed to stoke fear. It was designed to divide, but hear me loud and clear — it will fail.”
Bass made some surprising and welcome suggestions on steps that could help solve this issue for the future:
“We also will be contacting and having a conversation with our city attorney, Heidi Feldstein Soto, to talk about several things that we need to examine, for example, permits for protest, the idea of people wearing masks at a protest, and establishing clear lines of demarcation between what is legal and what is not.”
If actions meet with those words, it could set an example for how the rest of the nation should respond to these violent protests. While there isn’t a lack of law for peaceful protests, there is a lack of enforcement. Compounding the issue is that we also do not have decisive action about protestors deliberately concealing their identities while they protest violently, hatefully, and destructively.
Just days ago, New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg dropped nearly all charges for the Columbia University rioters who trespassed and encamped inside the university building, destroyed property, and assaulted others because Bragg claimed they could not infallibly identify those charged. His main reasons were masks and removed security cameras. Bragg’s excuses hardly pass for anyone with a brain, but one simple way to fix it would be a mask ban. (Of course, in this case, one would have to want to fix it in the first place, which Bragg does not.)
OUTRAGE: DA Bragg Drops Charges on Nearly All the Columbia Rioters Arrested
Our country has seen a rise in violent riots since the death of George Floyd. If we continue to allow protests that break the law and harm others, it will become the norm, as we are seeing now. Today, it may be the Pro-Hamas groups, but it will be whatever the next conflict is, too.
Masks have been controversial since COVID-19, and they have gone from being forced upon us by the government to now, if this passes, potentially being banned during certain events. Conservatives are hardly complaining about the latter. It would sure be an irony of events for California, of all places, to be the first place to ban people from wearing masks.
In the statements released, City official Katie Yaroslavsky also talked about special funding for increased security for non-profit organizations.
“I spoke with assembly member Gabriel this morning. He reaffirmed the state’s commitment to including $40 million in funding next fiscal year for nonprofit security grants, which is going to help provide security services to Jewish institutions.”
Police Chief Dominic Choi mentioned that one arrest was made from the riot, and investigations were still ongoing for others. One out of the dozens shown in the violent X videos is not an impressive number.
In a perfect world, everything promised would materialize, and the police would enforce the rules they make. But this isn’t a perfect world, so we might not hold our breath. Still, this will add to the momentum of others calling for more accountability for the “free-speech” crowd who think they can break the law in the name of their cause.
