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BRYNGELSON: Where’s the crime?

| November 30, 2022 1:00 AM

A recent article from our old friends the AP, reported that retired Boise Police Captain Matthew Bryngelson is being investigated for his ties to The American Renaissance Conference, which the Southern Poverty Law Center condemns as a bastion of Nazis and White Supremacists. The SPLC has lost credence since refusing to censure Antifa, who worked to destroy Portland, and aspects of Black Lives Matter, such as their embrace of Marxist principles.

But this investigation is especially concerning because it is a search for a crime that has not been identified. They intend to investigate all 22 years of Chief Bryngelson’s work. Are they planning openly to solicit grievances of 22 years ago? Most alarming is the Boise mayor’s statement that she expects cooperation of police and union, otherwise they should resign. Re-stated, if they don’t rat on a hypothetical crime, they are out. This reminds me of both the Salem witch trials and Red Guard depredations in China: manufacturing a supposed crime to fit a political narrative.

Nearly 60 years ago, I was active in the early Civil Rights Movement. Today, I am discouraged at the way our movement has been perverted. At that time, I was called before my university’s Dean of Women because I dated a Black African. Today many college administrations support the muzzling of any view other than extreme leftist. It seems that in our search for justice we have veered wildly in the direction of perpetual grievances.

MIRIAM OWENS

Coeur d’Alene