This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, June 1st, 2020.

I'm Caleb Brown.

When does protest work?

When do mass protest movements get you what you want? In response to the recent killings of Brianna

Taylor in Louisville and George Floyd in Minneapolis both at the hands of

police, how should protesters conduct themselves for maximum impact to end police abuse?

Sociologist Fabio Rojas has studied protest movements.

We spoke today.

I am in Louisville, Kentucky. A lot of the protests around the country are nominally

about Mr. George Floyd in Louisville. It's very different. The focus is largely on Brianna Taylor, who was killed by police a couple of months ago in her home at night, shot eight times, and as far as I I know she was not suspected of any crime.

That's where the protests are here and it's it's very unfortunate to watch a lot of

the sort of degradation of what you would hope a protest would look like.

That is, police largely being respectful of people exercising their right to in a sense petition the government for a redress of grievances

about the manner in which they have been treated, or individuals within their communities have been treated.

You imagine that protesters will understand we're here to ask for something,

but quite often, in fact, very often, that's not the way this interaction between police

and protesters ultimately goes. Give me your general sense about what we have seen

in political protests, what you in particular have seen within

political protests and how they are regarded, not just by the police who are meant to protect and serve these people

exercising their rights to voice themselves, but also like the broader how communities look at

protest. I think it really helps to think about the Bill of Rights and the First

Amendment which says that people have a right to assemble and when the bill of rice was written

...