I see that the current slant on the Spokane anarchists in the park dust up is that the police were protecting protesters from flag loving citizens. Weren't those thugs who threatened the protesters breaking the law?. What does our Chief of Police say about that? Why did the police not arrest the vigilantes, or at least take their pictures ? And it is disturbing that there have been so many letters to the Spokesman supporting such vigilante actions.

Two of the most shameful events in the history of this state were massacres of protesters carried out by vigilantes with tacit support of the police, one in Everett in 1916 and one in Centralia in 1919. Those particular incidents were a long time ago, but recall the citizen violence carried out during the more recent civil rights movement. . Let us not return to those days of lynch mobs and the abandonment of legal protection for those we don't like.

Please, Mayor Hession, get your police force under control and adopt a policy that requires everyone on the force to understand and support the principles of people like Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine, two men without whom there would be no Independence Day