While he did not identify the source of his information in his statement, in a March 15
Wall Street Journal op-ed defending his remarks, Johnson confirmed that first set of numbers came from
a study by the
Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit data collection, analysis and crisis mapping project. The property damage figures are from a different source.
...
“The specific ‘570’ number he referred to was the total number of all violent or destructive demonstrations recorded in the U.S. between May and August 2020, not just events that may have been linked to the Black Lives Matter movement,” Jones said. “Ultimately, ACLED recorded more than 10,300 demonstrations associated with the BLM movement in the U.S. during all of last year. It was an overwhelmingly peaceful movement: The vast majority of events — 94 percent — involved no violent or destructive activity.”
(Note that Johnson was using an outdated figure of 7,750 protests.)
Johnson jumped to the conclusion that the violent riots were the fault of BLM or antifa protesters. But that’s not the case either. ACLED’s data does not say that at all. In fact, the violence may have been more the result of police behavior than the actions of demonstrators. Thus it is misleading to frame all of these events as “BLM riots,” Jones said.
“Due to methodological and source information constraints, ACLED does not systematically code the perpetrator or instigator in events that do turn violent or destructive, so it would be inaccurate to say that the remainder were ‘BLM riots,’ ” Jones said. “ACLED data indicate that BLM-linked demonstrations faced much higher levels of police intervention and force than other types of demonstrations, for example, and in many of these cases police took a heavy-handed approach to break up the protests, prompting clashes with demonstrators and escalating the events into violence. Additionally, in some cases, violent or destructive behavior may have broken out as a result of aggressive intervention by counterdemonstrators or nonstate actors like militia groups, and BLM-linked demonstrations were also targeted in dozens of car-ramming attacks throughout the year.”
ACLED also recorded in 2020 that more than 2,350 right-wing demonstrations took place across more than 1,070 locations in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. But the police response was different.
“Over 9% of all BLM-linked demonstrations — or nearly one in 10 events — were met with intervention by police or other authorities, compared to just 4% of right-wing demonstrations,” a February ACLED report said. “When responding to BLM-linked demonstrations, authorities used force more than 51% of the time, compared to just 33% for right-wing demonstrations.”
A similar issue exists with Johnson’s citation of 25 deaths from the riots. That number comes from a Guardian analysis of ACLED’s database as of October, which found that at least 11 Americans were killed while participating in political demonstrations and another 14 have died in other incidents linked to political unrest.
“The [25] figure includes the Kyle Rittenhouse shootings, for example, as well as a shooting classified as an act of ‘violent far-right’ domestic terrorism by the Center for Strategic and International Studies,” Jones noted. “So it is incorrect to say that ‘BLM and antifa … riots … killed 25 people.’ ”
Another one of the deaths was actually at a “patriot rally,” not a BLM event. “Lee Keltner, a navy veteran who made custom western hats, was shot after a ‘patriot rally’ in Denver on 10 October,” the Guardian reported. “Video and photographs of the incident appear to show Keltner slapping a security guard for a local news crew, who responds by pulling out a gun and shooting him.”
Some demonstrators died when cars drove through or rammed into crowds of BLM protesters. “Summer Taylor, a Black Lives Matter protester who worked in a veterinary clinic, was killed in such an incident in Seattle,” the Guardian said. “So was Robert Forbes, a black protester from Bakersfield whose sister recalled him demonstrating decades earlier over the brutal police beating of Rodney King. In St Louis, Barry Perkins, a father of two, was killed after being dragged and run over by a FedEx truck during a protest in May.”
The list of 25 deaths also includes two California law enforcement officers killed by an alleged anti-government “boogaloo” extremist.
In other words, Johnson carelessly suggests the BLM and antifa demonstrations are the cause of 25 deaths, but the list cites numerous examples of deaths linked to far-right actions.
