Protests worth furor
No lover of freedom could resist the irony of a public protest squelched in the heart of downtown Spokane on the Fourth of July.
Surely, the right to speak freely must be embraced on Independence Days of all days.
Yet, once again, the lessons of freedom come clothed in images both provocative and defiant.
That day a group of demonstrators, calling themselves ASAP Spokane, marched from Peaceful Valley to Riverfront Park, protesting against police brutality. They wore black T-shirts and black pants. Some of them covered their faces with black bandannas. And they carried signs that said: “Stop the Violence” and “Police the Police.”
They unfurled a large American flag and sat on it in the midst of the community’s annual Fourth of July celebration. It’s not clear what led to their protest – a deep and abiding concern about the integrity of the Spokane Police Department, certainly a noble cause – or simply a chance to flock together for an anarchist event holding nearly the same potential for excitement as the prom.
It’s even less clear exactly what happened that evening.
Spokane Police Officer Jay Kernkamp describes trying to help a fellow officer photograph the demonstration when 18-year-old Zach St. John grabbed his left arm, demanded his badge number and ultimately clutched his throat and squeezed.
St. John tells an entirely different story. He says he was sitting on a bucket when an officer knocked him off. “Bam, I was on the ground,” under arrest.
He told a Spokesman-Review reporter that he thought the felony assault charges would be dropped by the next day. But they weren’t. “I don’t want to be here,” he said. “I’m not into (messing) up my life for a cause.”
This case requires us to hold two conflicting values in our heads simultaneously. First, we must recognize that the right to free speech extends to every citizen. And, second, we must equally require that the law be upheld. If St. John is found guilty of assaulting a police officer, he must take responsibility and suffer the consequences.
It may take a trial to finally sort through the facts long enough to reach the truth.
But here’s what makes the American form of democracy so strong: That judicial process will be conducted not with fists or guns or billy clubs, but with the power of words.
It is precisely because language wields such influence that we must not deny our citizens the right to speak out. That Independence Day-worthy freedom must extend to us all, no matter how obnoxious, how annoying, or how astoundingly naïve.