Court: Injured officer can sue Black Lives Matter organizer

[moriah]

5. What's more disturbing is the well-known and long-standing issue of "plants"...

.... in protests.

Especially since lawsuits during the 9/11/the Iraq war protest movement, as protests have shifted and the alt-right has risen, the "plants" are not law enforcement informants anymore -- but instead are private citizens who go into protests to incite violence.

Holding protest leaders accountable simply because they direct their group to engage in "non-violent direct action" -- aka, an illegal act that does not specifically involve violence -- and another person in the group decides to engage in violence will have a chilling effect.

As it stands, I still recommend that protest organizers play defense, hard.

1) Know the law and do not break it unless you have trained your group in "jail solidarity". Mass arrests have taken place when people have broken even the simplest of local laws regarding how protests may be conducted -- see April 7, 2003, NYC and the lawsuit that took place there. There was a non-violent direct action planned -- by 10 people.

The entire group of people there obeying the law but supporting their efforts were arrested, and even if the city settled the lawsuit it sucked for those people who didn't break the law to get rounded up with everyone else. The 10 who knew they'd be arrested had already had jail solidarity training.

2) Do not take the verbal word from an official about whether or not a permit is necessary for a protest such as a march that will use a public street, noise use, signs that have sticks, or anything else that could potentially create a disturbance. Either record the conversation where they say you don't need a permit if your state allows you to record in-person or phone conversations you are a party to, or get it in writing.

A guy at a local college wanted to arrange a BLM protest, and I was happy to go, but I asked about a permit since it was gonna be a march that he said would go down a specific route of streets. He said "Oh yeah, the guy at city hall said it was fine." I recommended he double-check, and sure enough, the guy was attempting to set him up to get the entire group arrested.

3) Especially if your group EVER engages in "non-violent direct action" -- aka deliberately disobeys any law -- be EXTREMELY careful who you let in the group. If people start talking violence, destruction of random property, etc, they don't need to be part of your group. Shut all such talk down immediately.

It's not cops anymore who are instigating these types of activities to get people stripped of their First Amendment rights, but individual actors who disagree with your movement doing it on their own without bribery or coercion from LE. And that makes them doubly dangerous.