from ReasonThe dumb drama around this past weekend's "Straight Pride" march in Boston has taken an increasingly bizarre turn, as a Boston judge has taken it upon himself to overrule both prosecutors and defenders who want to drop charges against some people arrested during the parade.
It's hard to decide where to begin when describing this roiling hornet's nest of culture-war madness. The story includes not just the typical performative conflict between alt-right marchers (complete with Milo Yiannopoulos on hand as parade grand marshal) and leftist counterprotesters, but also conflicts with police unions, reformist district attorneys who want to ease up on overly harsh penalties for nonviolent crimes, and the tough-on-crime types who want to stop them.
On Saturday, around 200 tiresome alt-right trolls put on a "Straight Pride" march in Boston. They were vastly outnumbered by counterprotesters—some of which were allegedly members of antifa—and things, unsurprisingly, got messy. A confrontation between cops and counterprotesters ensued, and some officers were recorded using pepper spray on some of the crowds:
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Suffolk County's new district attorney, Rachael Rollins, was elected in 2018 as a reformer pledging to scale back on the prosecution of low-level offenses. During the campaign, she offered a list of crimes for which her office would likely decline to press charges. The list includes simple drug possession, minor driving offenses, disorderly conduct, and any charge of resisting arrest when a person is not charged with any other crimes to justify the arrest.
Many of the arrests were simply for disorderly conduct and were not of a violent nature. It's not unusual for a D.A.'s office to decline to prosecute these arrests, and Rollins went to court to ask Boston Municipal Judge Richard J. Sinnott to dismiss charges against seven of these nonviolent offenders (including the man mentioned above who had been arrested while simply talking to the crowd).
but Judge Sinnott was like "not so fast". He refused to dismiss, he was charging bail for people who the prosecutors had not asked for bail for and removed a defense attorney for mentioning that is now how the state law works. The DA has asked the MA supreme court to have a look at Sinnott. The Boston PD union, everyone's favorite, are demanding EVERYone be prosecuted.
