Thursday, September 22, 2016

A Tale of Two Law Professors.

University of Tennessee's Glenn Reynolds:



“Yes, that was my post,” he wrote in an email to the News Sentinel. “It was brief, since it was Twitter, but blocking highways is dangerous and I don’t think people should stop for a mob, especially when it’s been violent.”
...

“I deleted the tweet so that I could respond on Twitter, but immediately linked to it on Twitchy so that no one would think that I was 'airbrushing' it,” Reynolds wrote.

Reynolds also expanded on his comment in a post to his blog:

“I’ve always been a supporter of free speech and peaceful protest. I fully support people protesting police actions, and I’ve been writing in support of greater accountability for police for years.

“But riots aren’t peaceful protest. And locking interstates and trapping people in their cars is not peaceful protest — it’s threatening and dangerous, especially against the background of people rioting, cops being injured, civilian-on-civilian shootings, and so on. I wouldn’t actually aim for people blocking the road, but I wouldn’t stop because I’d fear for my safety, as I think any reasonable person would.


" 'Run them down' perhaps didn’t capture this fully, but it’s Twitter, where character limits stand in the way of nuance.”

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/local/twitter-suspends-glenn-reynolds-account-after-tweet-urges-motorists-to-run-down-charlotte-protesters-394398621.html



The University of North Carolina-Charlotte's Touissant Romain:

This is the Charlotte public defender in the middle of the protests-CNN






He inserted himself between the wall of armored police and the amorphous crowd of demonstrators. As police advanced on the crowd, firing tear gas, he waved his arms forward, gesturing for protesters to leave.

His reason for being there was simple: He can't take on any more clients.

"We can't lose any more lives, man. I'm a public defender. I can't represent any more people," he told CNN's Boris Sanchez.

"We don't need any more people to go to die, no more people to be arrested. We need to take a stand and do it the right way. People are hurting, man. People are upset. People are frustrated. People need leaders. I'm not trying to be that leader. I'm trying to prevent people from being hurt."
...
"There's always one that's going to end up being bad. There's one other that's there to do good. I'm here to do good."