And you donated $25 to the group that organized the protest (but had no idea a violent infiltrator was going to show up). Or you went to a meeting of the group. Or you were on a conference call for protest planning. Or you were in the crowd on the day the stone was thrown or the "peace" was "disturbed."
Under the civil asset forfeiture laws, being used hand-in-glove with the new RICO law, everything you own can now be seized -- instantly, and before you're even convicted of anything. And once you've admitted you were a "co-conspirator" -- you donated, or showed up, or were on the call, or even a member of the chat-room -- you're now facing serious time in prison.
So, as is usually the case with RICO prosecutions, the prosecutors bring you in and offer you a deal: help us bust the leadership, and we'll let you go. So you end up being the stone-thrower at the next demonstration. Or you go to prison.
And, in the meantime, the local or state police department has already converted your home, car, and retirement accounts into cash and used them to buy a new tank for the police station.
And to the inevitable clueless-to-their-privilege white person who says, "Riot laws aren't controversial and they'd never use laws like this so broadly; that would be wrong," please talk with any person of color and ask how the "uncontroversial" drug, loitering, and, for G-d sake, even taillight laws have been enforced.
The families of Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, Samuel DeBose, and Sandra Bland (among thousands of others), and increasingly in Trumpworld, anybody who looks Hispanic or Muslim, or even has a Muslim-sounding name like the son of Muhammad Ali, can tell you something about selective enforcement of the law in America.
This is not what democracy looks like.
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