DOJ deploys community resource unit to maintain order among protests at DNC

Last week's Democratic National Convention was a carefully crafted spectacle designed to solidify the coronation of Kamala Harris as the party's presidential nominee, and part of the orchestration involved a heavy police presence designed to keep dissenters at bay.

As the Washington Examiner reports, the Biden-Harris Justice Department deployed a cadre of officers from its Community Resource Services (CRS) arm on Thursday in order to ensure order and prevent the sort of massive conflict that could have otherwise marred the VP's formal ascension to the top of the ticket.

Federal intervention facilitates calm

As a pro-Palestinian protest group took to its previously permitted march route on Thursday, its members did so while accompanied by members of the CRS.

The use of those federal resources was likely prompted by the fact that earlier in the week, some activists who took part in the March on the DNC managed to break free from their city-sanctioned route and to breach the outer security perimeter near the United Center, where party delegates and leadership had gathered.

According to the Examiner, CRS officials in green vests, together with local Chicago police, did their best to steer members of the media away from the street, vowing to pull their press credentials if they did not comply with instructions.

Notably, neither the DOJ nor its CRS division offered comment when asked to explain why the additional support was deployed only on Thursday, but not earlier in the week when President Joe Biden was poised to speak.

“Unremarkable” protest numbers

According to the Associated Press, despite earlier warnings that this year's DNC was set to rival the 1968 convention in terms of internal division and unrest, the groups that managed to get a foothold to voice their discontent were smaller and less disruptive than expected.

Student organizer Liz Rathburn expressed satisfaction with what did occur, however, saying, “This is a very large contingent of people who are not willing to stand by quietly while people who are committing genocide are in our city. We showed the world that.”

With that said, however, Reuters suggested that protestors were largely left disappointed by the attention -- or lack thereof -- paid by Harris to their cause.

In her nomination acceptance speech on Thursday, Harris repeated prior support for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and insisted that all hostages needed to be set free.

Harris reiterated her belief in Israel's right to self-defense, while underscoring what she says is the need for Palestinian self-determination, but she did not take a distinctively different or firmer stance on the conflict than she has in the past.

In the end, however, it appears that the planned mass protests did not move the needle -- or Harris' public positions -- on the subject by a significant degree, and given the deployment of DOJ-supported officers, that was – at least for the time being – by strategic Democratic Party design.