Police in Neptune Beach, Florida, say Caleb James Williams, an 18-year-old supporter of Republican Donald Trump, brandished a machete at two women, ages 71 and 54, who were holding signs supporting Democrat Kamala Harris last week outside an early-voting polling place. Police Chief Michael J. Key Jr. said officers found eight people — seven juveniles and an adult — whose objective was “to protest and antagonize the opposing political side.” We are all free to support whichever candidates we want, but as Chief Key put it, “First Amendment-protected [free speech] goes out the window the moment you raise a machete over your head in a threatening manner.”
A machete-wielding teenager isn’t the only disturbing thing we’ve seen this election cycle.
A machete-wielding teenager isn’t the only disturbing thing we’ve seen this election cycle. Police in Phoenix arrested a 35-year-old man they said set fire to a blue U.S. Postal Service mailbox in that city, an attack that reportedly damaged or destroyed as many as 20 ballots. Phoenix police said the suspect, Dieter B. Klofkorn, said he didn’t have any political motivations in setting fire to the mailbox and that he just “wanted to get arrested.” In even more direct assaults on democracy, boxes set up specifically for ballots were set on fire in Vancouver, Washington, and in Portland, Oregon. Investigators believe the crimes are connected.
Such violence could presage something even more awful during and after Tuesday’s election. In addition to those fires, we’ve had two assassination attempts against Trump this year. And in March, Trump warned that there’d be a “bloodbath” if he isn’t elected again.
On Sept. 23, during the International City/County Management Association conference in Pittsburgh, I told an audience of 170 city managers and other city leaders at the National Forum of Black Public Administrators to be prepared for violence. Speaking as a 40-year veteran of law enforcement, I told them that if the worst-case scenario enfolds it will be up to them to ensure their communities’ safety and security during and after Tuesday’s election. A Friday webinar the organization hosted suggests that these public officials have since been talking to one another about preparing for whatever happens.
Granted, it has generally not been the job of people in local administration to worry about civil unrest related to voting or the announcement of the winner of a presidential election. But given everything we’ve seen over the past few years, it’s imperative that officials at every level be prepared. I was encouraged by what Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner told NBC News on Thursday: “If people think they’re going to erase votes in Philly or terrorize people who are here to protect those votes, we’ve got some handcuffs, we’ve got some jail cells, and we’ve got some Philadelphia juries who want to hear why, exactly, it is that somebody thought they could erase our votes or terrorize our elections workers.”
Krasner said his “patriotic” team was ready to handle any situation that arises on Election Day and that attempts to undermine the free exercise of democracy would be “utterly unacceptable.”
The federal government has a role in upholding the laws and protecting the election, but local leaders must be visible and vocal, too. Krasner said the right things in Philadelphia, and the police in Neptune Beach did the right thing. But — and there is a but — we can’t assume that all law enforcement officials will act as guardians of democracy. Portage County, Ohio, Sheriff Bruce Zuchowski, who is running for re-election, made a Facebook post that referred to Haitian migrants in the state as destructive pests and suggested tracking “all the addresses of the people who had [Harris] signs in their yards” so that “when the Illegal human ‘Locust’ (which she supports!) Need places to live…We’ll already have the addresses of their New families…who supported their arrival!” Krasner said the right things in Philadelphia, and the police in Neptune Beach did the right thing. Portage County NAACP President Renee Romine told MSNBC Digital that at an emergency meeting her organization held about Zuchowski’s post, there were “people almost in tears” and “not wanting to go to the voting polls” because Zuchowski’s office provides security for in-person absentee voting. Appropriately, the county’s Board of Elections voted to remove the sheriff’s office from that security role, which Romine described as a “big win for the people.” The late Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill famously said, “All politics is local.” It is clear that we must now add that “all democracy is local.” We can all hope that there will be no acts of election-related violence or intimidation that local law enforcement officials have to respond to this week. But, for democracy’s sake, we do need them to be ready.
Cedric Alexander
Cedric Alexander, a former commissioner of community safety in Minneapolis, is a law enforcement expert with over 40 years of experience in public safety. Alexander has also been deputy commissioner of the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services and an assistant professor at the University of Rochester department of psychiatry. He is a former national president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE). He is the author of "The New Guardians: Policing in America's Communities for the 21st Century" and "In Defense of Public Service: How 22 Million Government Workers Will Save Our Republic." 
