OPINION: Be careful out there

Oct. 30--*Editor's note: this column is being re-run with edits to correct inaccuracies which appeared in the Friday, Oct. 30, 2020 edition of the Voice.

My ears perked up two months ago when McDonough County Emergency Services Director Edgar Rodriguez reported that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had alerted state and county directors to prepare for the possibility of "civil action" on Election Day.

Monday's Wall Street Journal reported on a big-city dilemma: how to keep voters safe without deploying a police presence that could be considered intimidating. The Journal article, and a second one written at midweek for the Daily Mail Online, were sent to me by syndicated news tipster Jeff Crilley.

Reporters Joe Barrett and Zusha Elinson wrote in the Wall Street Journal that Michigan, a state where weapons are allowed to be openly carried, has banned the presence of firearms at polling places. New York City has advocated having a police officer on guard at polling sites.

Generally, the reporters wrote, most states are "encouraging officers to be nearby, but not at, election sites." Policing the polls has historically been discouraged or even forbidden by law.

Holden Walter-Warner reported in the Daily Mail Online that the New York City Police Department held a briefing Tuesday on Election Day strategies. Chiefs and commanders said they see "no credible threat" right now. They dismissed fears of an excessive presence of supporters that President Donald Trump had urged to be observers to the polls.

"We're more prepared," said New York Chief Terence Monahan. "We've done more training." The executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, Chuck Wexler, told the New York Times that many police chiefs around the country have extended officer shifts on days just before and immediately after Election Day. New York City has deployed extra officers since Monday.

President Trump's often-quoted statement to the white supremacist Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by" is being cited by the International Crisis Group as evidence that far right militia groups could take matters into their own hands on November 3. Elizabeth Burdick, a gun shop owner in Pennsylvania, told the New York Times, "Gun sales have been crazy."

Heather McMeekan, president of the Democratic Women of McDonough County, warned the city council Monday about "men with trucks" who have used their vehicles in a threatening manner towards groups and individuals in the community, a concern she has raised several times since February this year. McMeekan said Monday that increasing vitriol and alleged vehicle harassment has led some members of the Black community to fear they will be targeted as election day approaches.

Resident and WIU Professor Emeritus Essie Rutledge also separately expressed concern during public comment about vehicle violence and intimidation, and asked the council to make Black community members aware of a potential threat.

"There are people in this community who have felt threatened by the fact that trucks, men in trucks, have tended to drive very close to them which gives them the feeling that they will hit you and I have an experience like that," Rutledge said.

Rutledge said that she had also experienced a car driving "very close" behind her as she was walking down the street.

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