OPINION:
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser deserves kudos for her handling of the issues involving COVID-19 in her city. However, her recent remarks about President Trump were way off-base (“Bowser slams ’gross’ Trump remarks about D.C. protests,” Web, May 30).
So-called “peaceful protestors,” carrying and throwing makeshift weapons, approached the White House and tried to breach the barriers on Pennsylvania Avenue. They threw themselves against the riot shields of Secret Service Agents and attacked Secret Service vehicles.
President Trump indicated that the mob would be attacked by vicious dogs if its members breached the White House grounds, which they were clearly trying to do.
Ms. Bowser said the president had glorified violence with his comments, which hearkened back to the time decades ago when Alabama politician Bull Connor set his dogs on peaceful civil rights protestors — both adults and children. But the comparison is unfair. The White House mob was there with the intent of entering the president’s home by force. They were projecting their anger onto Mr. Trump, which was inappropriate and unwarranted.
The president’s statement about the dogs was not a glorification of violence. It was a warning. Furthermore, the response would not have stopped with dogs. The mob had gone from a temporary, thin veneer of peaceful protest to an attempted attack on the leader of the United States.
Thus Ms. Bowser’s additional statement that she was standing with those exercising their First Amendment rights while the president was behind his fence, acting out of fear, was based on incaccuracies. Carnage and violence are not peaceful. The president was showing common sense.
HESSIE L. HARRIS
Silver Spring, Md.
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