https://spectator.org/riot-ideology-james-scurlock-david-dorn-biden-1990s/
James Scurlock was a criminal. David Dorn was a cop. The two men never met, but the cause of their deaths — Scurlock in Omaha, Nebraska, and Dorn in St. Louis, Missouri — was related. Both were killed this past week as a result of the dangerous storm of violence that most media outlets describe euphemistically as “protests” or “unrest.”
Americans are being told by intellectuals, politicians, and TV pundits that this deadly chaos is about “systemic racism,” to quote Joe Biden, but what we are actually witnessing is the return of a dangerous belief system that Manhattan Institute scholar Fred Siegel called “the riot ideology.” People are being killed, businesses are being looted, and the fundamental basis of a free society is being jeopardized because this irresponsible mentality has been promoted as a solution to racial inequality, when in fact it is a major cause of the problem. The deaths of James Scurlock and David Dorn illustrate the damage done by the riot ideology.
Scurlock was shot dead after he assaulted a bar owner in Omaha’s Old Market district Saturday night. National media have tried to turn Scurlock into a martyr, with CBS News headlining their version of the story, “A white bar owner in Omaha shot and killed a black protester. He won’t face charges.” Was Scurlock a “protester”? He was not shot while engaged in a protest. Instead, as the Omaha World-Herald reported, Scurlock had been engaged in vandalism, caught on surveillance video smashing up an office on Harney Street about 10:15 p.m. Saturday night. Forty minutes later and half a block away, windows were smashed at a bar owned by Jake Gardner, a Marine Corps veteran who was on the premises with his father, trying to protect his business from being looted in the so-called “unrest.” The two men emerged from the bar, and the elder Gardner was assaulted by one of Scurlock’s accomplices. When the bar owner brandished a pistol, he was jumped by two people, and fired what he called “warning shots,” causing them to flee. That’s when Gardner was attacked from behind by Scurlock, who was shot dead.
The black youth of St. Louis have lost a role model, and why? Because the riot ideology justifies looting (and arson, vandalism, and every other kind of criminal violence) as an expression of “social justice.”
All of this was captured on video, which the district attorney played at a press conference where he announced no charges would be filed against Gardner, who had clearly acted in self-defense. National media outlets, however, have sought to portray this as “the killing of a black protester,” in the words of the Washington Post, as if vandalism and assault are legitimate ways to protest, or as if James Scurlock was killed because he was black. (For more, see John Jiang’s American Spectator article, “How the Media Fans the Flames.”)
