If you had to select a single story that illustrated the insanity of our times, Save Jerseyans, it might be the sad, sorry saga of Mount Laurel resident Edward C. Mathews.
By all accounts? He’s a major league asshole (at the very least) related to alleged harassment of black neighbors. That viral video is pretty incriminating. I’m opposed to the concept of a “hate crime” (since most crimes aren’t exactly committed out of love, and also aren’t committed against a group), but harassment of individuals is a different issue altogether. There aren’t too many people out there who felt bad for Mathews after he was taken into custody in dramatic fashion on Monday.
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But this story gets stranger from there. We wouldn’t be talking about it otherwise.
The county prosecutor is reportedly looking at charging protesters (the “mostly peaceful” variety) who gathered outside Mathew’s home, assaulted officers with flying objects and caused property damage to innocent neighbors. The prosecutor’s office is also looking at how past complaints against Mathews were handled by local authorities.
The mayor of the Burlington County community, a Democrat, is doing what wokers do: behave dramatically and, in so doing, doing his best of inflame the situation to reap maximum political benefit. Stephen Steglik wants a federal probe and is alleging systemic racism despite the fact that his all-Democrat local government oversees the police department. “The events that have transpired in Mount Laurel have shed light upon larger systemic issues, throughout our state and country,” he said in a statement. Steglik was initially elected to council in 2018. What’s he been doing for the past 2 1/2 years to address these systemic problems? Post-Mathews, he wants ato set up a diversity and inclusion board.
Let’s review:
Mathews is an obvious loser in all of this and the least sympathetic on the list. If he faces jail time? He’ll need to move the moment he gets out.
Mathews’s neighbors (who by all accounts didn’t do a damn thing wrong) lost, too. They sustained property damage brought about by a vigilante mob which, from the sounds of it, should’ve been protesting Mount Laurel’s Democrat government if it didn’t like how the police were handling the situation. Rioting outside of the alleged criminal’s home accomplished… what? Exactly?
The protesters/rioters, whatever, lost. Some may end up being charged with crimes. Others cheapened their otherwise valid complaints by resorting to violence and sowing greater discord at a time when that’s the last thing America needs.
The mayor lost. He promptly threw his law enforcement community under the bus by alleging systemic racis before anything was probed or investigated. Like the mayor of Minneapolis following the death of George Floyd, he had an opportunity to rise above the chaos yet elected instead to pour gasoline on the fire.
Mount Laurel’s police are also losers. See above. The department’s reputation will now draw regional and possibly national scrutiny, and many of its decisions going forward will be viewed, rightly or wrong, through a lens of suspicion.
Everyone loses in these situations. Racism is poison, folks, and the Left’s reaction to it is, in a terrible bit of irony, so often a potent delivery system to further disperse hatred widely throughout the community. Reckless behavior from elected officials, the Media, and mob-like tactics by protesters succeed only in driving people further apart than they were before the original incident(s). Every. Damn. Time.
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