You can’t be pro-cop and pro Proud Boys

Just a few days ago, I was saying the government’s request for a 33-year sentence for the head of the Proud Boys for his role in the Jan. 6 riots was “crazy vengeful.” Convicted murderers have gotten less time.

Radio host Dawn Stensland (Photo: Audacity)

The judge may have agreed and handed Henry “Enrique” Tarrio 22 years for seditious conspiracy.

Tarrio then pleaded for mercy and praised the Capitol Police who had been attacked that fateful day.

The judge said his contrition was way too late. He apologized only after he was convicted, which cast a sheen of inauthenticity over his statement. 

Then a funny thing happened. On WPHT/1210-AM, mid-morning host Dawn Stensland went on the attack — not felon Tarrio, but the Department of Justice for prosecuting people who broke the law, meaning the Jan. 6 rioters.

That is like blaming the fire department for fires.

She said the Department of Justice wanted Tarrio to beg for mercy. She could not know if DOJ wanted begging. I’ll take the other side: If Tarrio believed what he had done was right, he would man up and not beg for a light sentence. And if he came to believe what he had done was wrong, he should have apologized earlier.

No, he’s just a wannabe Revolutionary punk, and a crybaby, too.

I’ve known Dawn for a long time and like her a lot. I particularly like how she brings a sensible “Mom voice” to issues, along with a willingness to present alternative viewpoints. She’s a good journalist, but here she is wrong by going too far right.

Other conservatives agree with her, but you can’t be pro-cop, as they profess to be, and then defend the people who attacked cops on the Capitol grounds on Jan. 6. Viciously — with pepper spray, clubs, shields. 

Surely she didn’t miss the testimony of cops during the Jan. 6 hearings who said they were attacked by Proud Boys and others on the Capitol steps. Many officers were injured, some testified they were in fear for their lives.

Just so there is no misunderstanding — the hundreds of thousands who gathered to hear President Donald J. Trump speak did nothing wrong. Trump was not charged with inciting violence. The ones who gathered outside the Capitol did nothing wrong.

The ones who broke through police lines, smashed windows, crashed through doors, and entered the Capitol, they were wrong. Some of simple trespass, others of felonies, and it is those people who were identified and prosecuted by the Department of Justice. 

Prosecuted, not persecuted.

Personally, I think some of the sentences are too heavy, but the government was, Dawn said, sending a message.

Dawn is right about that.

And the message is democracy will fight back.