Riot Suppression Quotes
Two protesters were killed. The demonstration so affected the government that they pressured the Belfast local authorities to announce substantial increases in relief. The economy and the employment picture got no better that year.
A Molotov cocktail is a glass bottle filled with gasoline and a cloth wick stuffed in the mouth of the bottle. Lighting the wick on fire and throwing the bottle at a target is a deadly weapon. Daley’s instruction if followed would have itself been a felony under Illinois law. Deadly force may only be used to preserve the life or safety of the public. If someone was making and holding Molotov cocktails in the middle of an open field and there were no people around, there would be no imminent danger and the police have many other ways of disarming and arresting the potential rioter or arsonist.
Several years before the Battle of Bunker Hill, revolutionary activity had already broken out in the American colonies—See {634132} for an example. This law gave the British authorities much more “clout” in dealing with the “seditious” American activities. It protected English law enforcement officials from being tried in local Colonial courts for murder or assault in putting down insurrections. George Washington and other Patriots were outraged over this law. See {634131}.
This proclamation was obviously unconstitutional, but at the time no one challenged it in the courts. It is yet another example, where in an emergency, executive officers of government tend to over-reach and expand their power and authority using the necessity of the emergency as the justification. This case was particularly ironic in that the mayor, so concerned with law and order that he would summarily kill people suspected of looting, was indicted and convicted for corruption the following year. His jail time was limited by a successful court appeal, and he then lost as a mayoralty candidate, but did finally get elected to the San Francisco City Council. Of course, had he been shot when first suspected of his crime—as he proscribed for others--he would never have had the opportunity to appeal and be acquitted.
