“Supporting the police” doesn’t mean giving a free pass to bad cops.
Being against cops who murder black people, plant drugs in drivers’ cars, or throw smoke bombs at good cops while trying to overthrow our government doesn’t make you anti-police.
Justin Lee (photo, left), now 26, of Rockville, Maryland, is a Capitol rioter. During the riot he “took a smoke bomb from another rioter, pulled the pin, and threw it in the direction of Capitol police stationed in a tunnel that connects to the Capitol,” where rioters where trying to break through police lines to gain entry to the building.
More than three years went by before he was identified and arrested. Meanwhile, six months after the riot he was hired by Montgomery County, Maryland, to be a police officer. He was immediately suspended without pay when he was arrested in October 2023, and now he’ll be terminated.
The Montgomery County police department’s website is here. It’s a big department with 1,300 officers, just outside Washington D.C., and potentially could be called on to help protect the Capitol if there’s a repeat of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. If Officer Lee was part of that police line, would he open doors to let rioters in?
That won’t happen, because as a convicted felon, Lee can’t be a cop again. I support the Montgomery County police department and its good officers, but I don’t support this bad cop. That doesn’t make me anti-police, it makes me pro-good police.
Related story: Here’s another bad cop you shouldn’t support. Support his police department, though.