No one shows up for anti-police protest, so out-of-town organizers join nearby climate protest instead

I will get around to writing this column as soon as I stop laughing. It might take awhile. Much later . . .

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The Freedom First International SCLC is a Chicago-based organization that apparently just wanders the country looking for things to protest

The Freedom First International SCLC is a Chicago-based organization that apparently just wanders the country looking for things to protest, especially if it means protesting the police. Their leader is a guy named Gregg L. Greer, and Greer decided to show up last weekend in Grand Rapids, Michigan after news reports of police pointing their guns at some black teenagers. They didn't shoot anyone, mind you, but the gun-pointing was captured on video - and you know how that goes. So Greer and company came in from Chicago expecting to inspire a huge turnout of people to protest the actions of the cops. That didn't exactly go as planned, but give them credit for coming up with a Plan B:

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Despite media coverage in advance of the protest, no one showed up

Despite media coverage in advance of the protest, no one showed up. Not. A. Single. Person. But don't you worry about the people described by one local weatherman as a "protest firm." Once they realized no one was going to join their protest, they spotted a "climate change" demonstration nearby and managed to join up with it. The global warming people even let the anti-cop people speak, becauuse it's all the same anyway. Hey, if your protest is a bust and you can join another one, why not? Every left-wing protest is basically just for the purpose of bitching about the outratge of the moment, so they're pretty much all interchangeable. All you're really trying to do is establish that American society is evil and unjust, and there are almost unlimited ways to try to skin that cat. By the way, the incident itself was nothing more than a simple case of mistaken identity. Despite the media's insistence on pushing the racial angle, the only reason the cops pointed their guns at the boys is that they matched the description of the suspect they'd been told was lurking with a gun. It wasn't a matter of, "There's some black kids, let's point our guns at them." It was, "They match the description of the suspect, let's follow protocol." Here you can see what the fuss is all about:

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Carpetbagger protesters from Chicago weren't able to get anyone to come out for their protest

I lived in Grand Rapids for 20 years, although I've recently returned to my hometown in the Detroit area. I'm pretty familiar with the part of town in question. The Kroc Center is on Division Avenue, which to simply cut to the chase, is the worst neighborhood in the city. That doesn't mean you deserve to have a gun pointed at you if you were doing nothing wrong, but it's no surprise that there would be things going on that attract police attention. If you live in an area like this, you're more likely than the average person to get caught up in a police investigation of a violent crime. GDP growth for Obama's final year? A measly 1.6 percent You can't blame the young boys who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, but neither can you point the finger at the cops and call them racist when they were simply acting on the information they had. If you've been told there's a suspect wandering around wielding a gun, and you see someone who fits the suspect's description, you give him orders at gunpoint. It's what you do. The people of Grand Rapids seem to understand that's all that's going on here, which is why the carpetbagger protesters from Chicago weren't able to get anyone to come out for their protest. Oh well. Pretend police brutality. Pretend global warming. As long as your protesting something, it's all the same.

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