Dear Friend,

TNR’s Alex Pareene wrote about cops in Philadelphia “spraying gas directly into the faces of harmless, seated demonstrators,” while across town they “allowed an actual roving mob of men armed with baseball bats and other improvised weapons to violate curfew and move about with impunity.” He also reported on a man in Chicago—where “open carry” of firearms is illegal—who brandished a long gun menacingly at protesters. “The police had a quick chat with him and sent him on his way unmolested,” while the same department “gassed and beat unarmed demonstrators who were protesting police violence.”

Pareene questioned, “What would lead a police department—not a few misbehaving officers but every officer on the street, in this instance—to dismiss a heavily armed man as no threat (to either their own safety or the safety of the community) in one case, while, in another, viewing an unarmed local activist as so much of a threat that multiple cops decided to surround and brutally beat him with batons?”

As mainstream media conflates scenes of peaceful protest with selective views of violence and looting, TNR digs deeper to give readers the entire story. For honest, fearless journalism, try this special offer:

Get three months of unlimited digital access to The New Republic for just $5!

Alex Pareene answered his own question. “Armed white boys don’t code as a threat to them; ‘anarchists’ and angry black people do (even if the protesters are the ones at least attempting to engage in constitutionally protected behavior, while the roving white gangs are flagrantly violating the law).”

Try The New Republic for three months. Just $5 gets you full digital access to NewRepublic.com, including the online magazine; three years of back issues; and our searchable archive dating back to 1914.

Pareene got to the heart of the matter: “Good cops don’t seem to police the bad ones. (Unless directly ordered to do so by their superiors, cops simply never arrest cops for committing crimes in the line of duty.) And this means we can judge them for what they do collectively.”

Please consider joining Alex Pareene and the best investigative reporters, opinion writers, and cultural critics in America. Subscribe to The New Republic today.

Sincerely,

Kerrie Gillis, Publisher

Read Alex Pareene’s piece here.