The media operates in the twilight zone in which speech they don’t like is violence, but mass riots with deaths and billions in damages was mostly peaceful.

Denver, which was harder hit by the Black Lives Matter race riots than most people realize, and it’s now facing lawsuits over its efforts to prevent further violence.

Denver Mayor Michael Hancock’s administration on Monday mounted its most forceful defense to date in support of the city’s police officers and their response to the violent George Floyd protests in 2020.

Mayor Hancock is black. He’s well on the Left, supports racial reparations, spoke at George Floyd protests, but at the same time pushed back against the media narrative that there was no violence and no riots. That’s not unusual for black mayors who have the freedom to say things like that.

There’s a great moment in this Q&A where Hancock shuts down the Denver Post’s insistence that the police were the ones causing the violence.

Q. In the last couple days, when police have kept their distance at the protests there’s been zero unrest among protesters. In retrospect, was the amount of force in the first few days a mistake?

A. Let me just say this: I watched and was involved and monitoring action on the street from Day One. There was a decided change in the tone of the protesters from day to night in the first few days, where officers had the same tactics that you see today where they just stood back and really managed the perimeter. We saw bottles, rocks, very deadly weapons being introduced in the night time.

Not much changed, as we move toward today, except for the tone of the demonstrators. What you see are peaceful demonstrations occurring today because the demonstrators took it upon themselves. They stopped people who picked up bricks. People try to tag, they’re saying, “Stop, we’re not doing that here.” It allowed for Chief Pazen, Director Robinson, other members of the cabinet, including myself, to get out and walk with the demonstrators, and they have been peaceful.

So, yeah, we’re glad that our officers have been able to stay in their posts without coming under projectiles direct in their way and allow these protests to continue peacefully.

Faced with a federal lawsuit, the administration is once again emphasizing that the riots were violent.

In opening arguments for a federal lawsuit, assistant city attorney Lindsay Jordan acknowledged officers made mistakes.

But she argued to the jury that the use of pepper balls, tear gas and other less-lethal weapons were needed because of the “unprecedented violence and destruction” that accompanied the racial justice demonstrations.

The media’s response to that is more denial.

The bottom line though is that if you’re part of a riot or even in the vicinity of people fighting police, you risk becoming collateral damage. That’s not a matter of outrage, just reality. Once there are people fighting cops, you either get out of there and don’t make the same mistake again, or you accept the consequences.