A few hundred people showed up in the cold last night at Frank Ogawa Plaza to protest the death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis. The “emergency march and rally” was called by Cat Brooks, who may have been disappointed that it was largely peaceful, to judge from the incendiary tweets she posted prior to the event. She spent days online stoking anger and resentment following the Memphis incident, posting pictures of violent masked demonstrators raising clenched fists—the same “black block” whose mayhem has torn downtown apart on previous occasions dating back to Occupy Oakland days. She called cops “devils,” as the Black Panthers used to do, and referred to her critics as “mfs” (mother fuckers).

I was going to write today about Judge Orrick, but then I opened my morning San Francisco Chronicle and saw something that superceded it: A column, on page 2, by the newspaper’s race columnist, Justin Phillips. This was unusual because Phillips normally writes his column for the Sunday paper. Today is Friday. It took me a second or two to realize that this was the first time ever I’ve seen Phillips’ column on a weekday. And as soon as I read the headline, I knew why.

Cat brooks is worried. A little while ago, she was dancing at the (temporary) fall of Chief Armstrong. But the powerful reaction on his behalf, especially from the NAACP, has left her baffled and defensive. Brooks finds herself at war with the greatest Black organization in U.S. history—an organization that for more than a century has led the Black community’s struggle for freedom. What an embarrassing situation for her!

One of the most peculiar things about the Chief Armstrong incident, on which just about everyone seems to have an opinion, is the people who have nothing to say about it.

Pamela Price, in a Martin Luther King Day speech, said “As your District Attorney, I will do everything in my power to be worthy of the justice-pursuing tradition that Dr. King embodied and be a drum major for real justice reforms which lead to public safety.”