Details are still emerging about the deadly literal Nazi rally that happened in Charlottesville this month. Here’s another terrifying detail to add.
During the rally, a white man pulled out a gun and fired several times at a black protester.
Police were nearby. They did nothing.
It’s important to address a key existential threat to American freedom (and the very lives of nonwhites in America): White supremacist infiltration of police forces.
This is a real thing. In 2006, the FBI put together a report titled “White Supremacist Infiltration of Law Enforcement“, which seems self-explanatory. Even in 2006 this idea wasn’t new. The FBI’s report, while heavily redacted, notes that white supremacists “have historically engaged in strategic efforts to infiltrate and recruit from law enforcement communities.” To learn further, there’s excellent PBS coverage from 2016, that covers everything from a neo-Nazi gang operating inside the Los Angeles sheriff’s office in 1990, to Florida policemen fired for having KKK ties in 2014.
Our entire system of justice in America is based on one core assumption, that the people we entrust to uphold and enforce the laws will do so fairly and equally. But how can that be the case, when in Charlottesville just days ago, they stood by and allowed so much violence to happen around them?