In his attempt to condemn Andrew Bernstein for his praise of Sheriff Ivey’s statements on how the Brevard Florida police will deal with law breaking violent mobs and those who wish to mortally harm police officers, Provenzo fails to objectively analyze the Sheriff’s statements line by line, which is what is necessary, but instead sloppily lumps Ivey’s statements all into one collective punishment that he can easily dismiss. Here is how Mr. Provenzo describes Sheriff Ivey’s statements:
“Sheriff Ivey’s threats include being run over, attacked by dogs, or killed—not for murder, not for terrorism, but for spitting, for blocking an intersection, for protesting. These are not capital offenses. The punishments described are not justice. They are theater—a call for violent spectacle in answer to serious matters.”
Is this an objective description of Ivey’s statements by someone who takes matters seriously?
Here are Ivey’s statements (taken from Provenzo’s article) line by line:
1. “If you resist lawful orders, you’re going to jail. Let me be very clear about that. If you block an intersection or roadway in Brevard County, you are going to jail.”
2. “If you flee arrest, you’re going to go to jail tired because we are going to run you down and put you in jail.” (I interpret that as the police running them down, not running them over with a police car.)
3. “If you try to mob rule a car in Brevard County, gathering around it, refusing to let the DRIVER leave, in our county, you are most likely going to get run over and dragged across the street.”
Ivey doesn’t say the police are going to do it. Ivey doesn’t say it’s always going to happen. Ivey says if you mob rule a car — which I take to be more than just blocking an intersection or blocking traffic (as this was covered in #1) you open yourself up to being run over by the driver.
(I believe this is the law in Brevard county, and possibly Florida. If a mob tries to essentially kidnap a person by blocking the movement of their car, and they feel threatened, they can run over the mob in the process of escaping the threat. For those who lived in the 1990s think of the Rodney King LA riots. I’ve attached a photo of a mob rule of a truck. I wonder what Provenzo would do with his family in a car in such a situation? Put his car in park?).
People should not have to be mind readers. The default should be when a mob of masked individuals break the law to interfere/block/restrain the movement of a law abiding citizen, that citizen can use sufficient force to safely get out of that situation. If that results in the injury of the mob then the fault lies soley on the mob, who if they survive should rethink their lives when they are in prison.
4. “If you spit on us, you’re going to the hospital, then jail.” *(This is a sentence I don’t agree with. It should read, “If you spit on us, you’re going to jail.” As a judge, if a police officer, or anyone for that matter, slapped someone for purposely spitting in their face, I’d probably let it slide with a reprimand.)
5. “If you HIT one of us, you’re going to the hospital, then jail, and most likely get bitten by one of our big, beautiful dogs that we have here.” Don’t assault a cop. If the dog sees it, the police most likely will not be able to stop them from biting you.
6. “If you throw a brick, a fire bomb, or point a gun at one of our deputies, we will be notifying your family where to collect your remains at because we will kill you, graveyard dead.” ALL THESE ACTIVITIES IN #6 SHOULD BE TAKEN AS ATTEMPTS TO MURDER A POLICE OFFICER.
As Florida Governor Ron De Santis notes,
“We have a policy that if you’re driving on one of those streets, and a mob surrounds your vehicle and threatens you, you have a right to flee…if you hit one of these people, that’s THEIR fault. You don’t have to sit there.”
What’s interesting is how the organized “protesters” deal with this Florida law. When there is a red light the mob types will go near a car, but as soon as that green light hits they are off the road. There are actually videos of this.
Nowhere does Ivey say that you will be killed for peacefully protesting. I’m not sure where Provenzo gets that from. Are there additional quotes I’ve missed? If so please post them. Nowhere does Ivey say you will be killed for spitting.* He does go too far on that issue in my opinion, but he doesn’t say you’ll be killed for it. Nowhere does Ivey say you’ll be legally killed by the police for blocking an intersection. He says “you are going to jail.” This is a remarkably bad take by Provenzo who sadly demonstrates poor reading comprehension, and a level of journalistic integrity befitting Maddow on MSNBC. Provenzo should issue a correction, and an apology to Dr. Bernstein (and Sheriff Ivey).