Originally posted on June 10, 2020

By all accounts, Martin Gugino was a gentle man, a longtime activist for social causes. On June 4 he was part of a demonstration in Buffalo when he was roughly pushed by riot police, fell to the ground and suffered a serious head injury. As of this writing he is still in the hospital in serious but stable condition.

This is already a bad situation from any number of angles. After watching one of the many videos of the incident you almost have to conclude there is something broken with our policing. It is bad enough that the authoritarians supporting Trump are busily making up stories to discredit Gugino and justify the police actions. Trump himself got involved with yet another tweet:

Notice Trump’s choice of words: “[Gagino] could be an ANTIFA provocateur”. I guess that is, strictly speaking, a true statement. After all, he could be the Easter Bunny. The “scanner” was almost certainly his cell phone. And risking death is a “set up”?

Just how low can a person go? Especially when that person is the President?