Americans Were Asked About Jan. 6 and BLM Riots... And the Results Say It All
The Biden administration is determined to bulldoze through its radical agenda, whether Americans like it or not.
By every measure, from the number of casualties to property damage, the Black Lives Matter riots that spread throughout the U.S. last summer dwarfed the events of Jan. 6. Yet Democrats frame the Capitol incursion as worse than 9/11 and ignore the nationwide violence of 2020.
They might be interested in how the American people view the mayhem that left more than 2,000 police officers injured and caused more than $1 billion in damages.
A poll conducted by the National Police Association and Rasmussen Reports and released July 21 found that 66 percent of likely voters want Congress to investigate the 2020 riots. Two-thirds of Americans would like answers for the chaos that raged across the country, leaving in its path the division and bitterness that still pervades our society.
Just 21 percent don’t believe Congress should investigate and 13 percent were undecided.
Support for an investigation of last year’s riots was strong regardless of race or political affiliation. The breakdown by race was as follows: Whites, 67 percent; blacks, 64 percent; Hispanics, 66 percent; and other minorities, 62 percent. By political party: Republicans, 75 percent; Democrats, 60 percent; and among those unaffiliated with either party, 63 percent.
The poll found that 49 percent of voters support the current House probe into the Jan. 6 Capitol violence. Forty-two percent are opposed.
Support could well be lower if all Americans understood that the conclusions of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s current sham investigation have already been determined and that only two Republicans, both rabid anti-Trumpers, sit on the committee conducting the probe.
Rasmussen cites a study of 68 cities from the Major Cities Chiefs Association that concluded “there were at least 574 protests that involved acts of violence, including assaults on police officers, looting and arson.”
Despite the steady drumbeat of calls to defund the police, Americans overwhelmingly support law enforcement. Less than 20 percent of voters “think America should spend less on police, and a majority want to spend more,” Rasmussen reported.
Respondents were asked if they agree that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris should meet with the family of retired St. Louis Police Capt. David Dorn, who died protecting his friend’s business from looters in May 2020, just as they did with the family of George Floyd. A large majority, 65 percent, agreed.
Voters were asked if they believe participants in the nationwide 2020 rioting and looting should be criminally charged, as were those who took part in the Jan. 6 Capitol incursion. Sixty-three percent said yes.
Sixty-five percent of voters do not believe that the U.S. flag and the pro-police “Thin Blue Line” flags are “symbols of racism,” according to the poll.
The poll found that 62 percent of voters agree that politicians who downplay the 2020 riots deserve to be criticized. This compares with 51 percent who believe those who have downplayed the events of Jan. 6 should be criticized.
Voters were asked if the current failure to prosecute criminals for “quality of life” crimes such as shoplifting, disorderly conduct, receiving stolen property and resisting arrest, has led to the recent spike in these crimes. Sixty-eight percent said yes. This includes 59 percent of black voters and 70 percent of Hispanics as well as 77 percent of Republicans, 60 percent of Democrats and 65 percent of those unaffiliated with either party.
And a whopping 76 percent think “young people should be taught to comply with police rather than resist or flee arrest.”
According to Rasmussen, the poll of 996 likely voters was conducted July 16-18. It has a margin of error of 3 percent.
The National Police Association released a statement with the poll holding elected officials responsible for the surge in violent crime throughout America’s cities.
“When the mayors of cities in which violent riots took place in 2020 refused to let police immediately stop the crimes taking place, it sent a message to violent criminals across the nation that crimes will be allowed and criminals won’t be touched,” the statement said. “For the last year violent crimes have increased nationally and the lack of support from politicians has resulted in the number of police officers declining into a short staffing recruitment and retention crisis.”
In a Wednesday interview with Fox News, NPA spokeswoman Betsy Brantner Smith, a retired police sergeant, called the current House investigation of the Jan. 6 Capitol incursion a “dog and pony show” that ignored how some of the protesters appeared to have been invited into the Capitol that day, and the death of protester Ashli Babbitt.
“People need to see that police officers go through horrible things, and Jan. 6 was a horrible thing for some of those officers. But, quite frankly, I find this whole Jan. 6 Commission, frankly, a dog and pony show. It doesn’t tell the whole story,” she said, according to Fox.
“Myself, like millions of Americans, sat there watching the testimony thinking, ‘Wait, where are the police officers who appeared – appeared – to let some of the protesters in? Where is the police officer who shot Ashli Babbitt? In fact, why aren’t we talking about Ashli Babbitt? I mean there’s so much more here.”
Citing the NPA/Rasmussen poll, Brantner Smith told Fox that Americans want to know more about the riots of last year.
“They want to hear the testimony. You know, we have a Las Vegas police officer who is still paralyzed from the Black Lives Matter riots. We have thousands of police officers around the country who are retiring because of post-traumatic stress because of the riots,” she said.
Referring to the four handpicked Capitol Police officers who testified at the House hearing on Tuesday, Brantner Smith said, “The 2020 riots, we can’t just say the whole George Floyd thing was bad and that’s what cops have to deal with and then watch these four weeping men talk about their experiences, ignoring thousands and thousands of police officers, ignoring their feelings and their experiences and their injuries.”
Brantner Smith slammed the “defund the police” movement claiming that it dehumanizes law enforcement officers.
“It’s heartbreaking,” she told Fox. “I have some cops who would rather go back to Iraq than continue to work on the street, just because of the massive amounts of blood and bodies and everything they deal with that people don’t see.
“It’s taking its toll. We already had a police officer mental health crisis in this country before George Floyd, and now the uptick in police officer suicides is reaching a crisis level.”
She argued that, “the veracity of the defund the police movement is directly related to crime in that area. We’re not saving black lives by defunding the police, by reimagining police, by vilifying the police. And that’s what I think is so disingenuous, and I think it’s confusing for people. Because I think a lot of Americans say, ‘of course, black lives matter.’ I mean, who doesn’t believe that black lives matter? But yet these policies in the name of Black Lives Matter are actually killing more black people, damaging the lives of black people than the police ever have.
“We’re reaching a tipping point and I think yesterday kind of woke some people up — I hope. I hope.”
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