This story out of Virginia is really quite something. If I'm understanding it correctly, it very much appears as though the city's (Black, female) police chief was placed on administrative leave and then fired as retaliation for her investigation and attempted prosecution of criminal activity related to "Black Lives Matter" protests in the wake of George Floyd's killing. The only attempt at a justification for the firing I've found is that perhaps she was overzealous in the charges she pursued, and even that critique is disputable. There is also "an unspecified conflict of interest" that has not been established or expounded upon. Her real supposed transgression, it would appear, is that she sought to hold prominent people accountable for illegal acts -- resulting in punishment for her because said prominent people believe, apparently correctly, that they're above the law. Via NBC News:
The police chief of Portsmouth, Virginia, was fired Monday in what she suggested was a politically motivated move moments before criminal charges were dropped against a prominent state senator and several local Black leaders accused of conspiring to damage a Confederate statue during a protest this year. The latest twist in the case involving state Sen. Louise Lucas, a high-ranking Democrat who is Virginia's most senior Black legislator, drew praise from members of her own party who condemned the charges. Portsmouth police in August charged Lucas and 18 other plaintiffs, including a school board member and members of the local NAACP chapter and the public defender's office, with conspiracy to commit a felony and injury to a monument in excess of $1,000. When Greene, who is Black, later announced the charges, she said Lucas and others "conspired and organized to destroy the monument as well as summon hundreds of people to join in felonious acts." According to the police version of events in a probable cause summary, Lucas was with a group of people who were shaking cans of spray paint, and she told police that they were going to vandalize the statues "and you can't stop them ... they got a right, go ahead!" At the Portsmouth protest, demonstrators managed to rip off the heads of some of the city's Confederate statues while toppling another statue, which police said fell on and critically injured a demonstrator.
Someone was badly hurt during the melee, which is one of the many reasons mob rule is dangerous. I'm no fan of Confederate statues and monuments, but there's a legal method for determining how and where they should be displayed. Criminal mobs must not be allowed to wreak havoc and destroy property with impunity. Notice how Sen. Lucas does not seem to be proclaiming her innocence, rather spitting fire at the very notion that she'd face consequences for her alleged actions.
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