This article contains news and liberal commentary.
In Aurora, Colorado, anti-police protesters (and who is for Aurora cops?) “could face years in prison over what critics say are trumped-up charges,” stemming from “a July 3 protest in which a crowd of 600 surrounded an Aurora police precinct with 18 officers inside, blocking doors with ropes, boards, picnic tables and sandbags for seven hours,” demanding charges against two cops involved in the fatal arrest of Elijah McClain, a black man.
Cops have charged the protesters with theft “for allegedly taking signs from counter-protesters” and “attempted first-degree kidnapping” for “attempt[ing] to imprison or forcibly secrete 18 officers with the intent to force them or another person to make a concession to secure their release,” i.e., holding them for ransom.
Read story here.
I have no use for hostage-takers. Send in Delta Team and shoot ’em! But being as they’re alive and in custody, they have to be given fair trials, and they’re presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law.
Now I have a question. Let’s start with a hypothetical crowd of mostly peaceful and law-abiding protesters with scattered acts of rioting, looting, arson, and violence. If the police randomly grab people out of the crowd, haul them off to jail, and imprison them (whether for hours or days), without probable cause and having no evidence the arrested individuals committed any crime, shouldn’t those cops be arrested and charged for kidnapping innocent people?
After all, in every sense of the word, they’re kidnappers, too.
Photo above: Rioters torched two Aurora police cars on May 31, 2020 (story here); video below: Aurora police violently attacking a peaceful music concert crowd on June 27, 2020 (story here).
If the cops are singling out people and forcing them inti their vehicle, and then taking them to their home or other location and locking the person in, Sure that is kidnapping.
If on the the other hand they stop someone on the street under their duties as an officer and stops them they are arresting that person, and subsequently takes the person to a holding area or jail, that is not kidnapping. Or if it is, then it is the government kidnapping people, and the individual police officer cannot be held responsible. The officers get certain powers with the badge, if you are in a posse you take n oath from someone with the badge and authority.
There is this thing called false arrest, and cops can be charged under that, as that is what you are describing in the final paragraph, but it is not kidnapping. And there is habeas corpus or at least there was until the Obama administration suspended it.
What makes you think governments don’t kidnap people?