Hunting Over Bait

While entrapment is illegal, arresting people for breaking the law in response to someone else being arrested is not.

If we had a properly function justice system, any protests that fell to being a riot would result in scads and scads of people being arrested and the fomenters who changed it from a protest to a riot would suffer heavy charges.

Without bail.

Someone who (allegedly) instigates a riot is clearly a threat to the community and too dangerous to be at large while their innocence is proven.  Though if they're at the center of a second riot because of their arrest...  What a great piece of damning evidence!

For example, (Only) Black Lives Matter protests that turned to violence, destruction and arson because a career criminal's life long arc led to it's logical conclusion to police gun fire should be welcomed as probable cause to get professional agitators locked away for a good long time.

Florida has a good example of doing it right, actually.

Saint Petersburg had a race riot in 1996.

"What do we do next time?" loomed big in everyone's mind.

That the cops came up with was:

1. Identify the leaders.

2. Swiftly arrest them.

3. Hold them incommunicado for as long as the law allows.  24 hours.

4. Hold them for the maximum amount of time allowed without charging them.  30 days, 40 with good cause.

5.Turn them loose, uncharged.

Number three derails the third parties who provide bail money.  In 24 hours the momentum for most riots dissipates without these leaders.

Number four, once a threat to the community is expressed by the arresting department, means they get to stew and be ineffective at foment.

Number 5 kills their ability to use their incarceration as a form of martyrdom.

It works!

It worked in St Pete while Minneapolis burned.