I don’t even know where to begin.

Some clown named Ryan James (I say clown as that description will over both staff and anyone who contributes this kind of nonsense) was in Charlotte, NC, covering the race riot for the Daily Beast. I won’t call it a “protest” because it is very clear by this point that it is nothing but a mob action devoid of any political principle larger than beating people and stealing stuff. Naturally, he is with the demonstrators. We get this breathless intro:

The protests started peacefully when hundreds of protesters gathered in Marshall Park in Uptown Charlotte around 7 p.m. Wednesday night after a police officer shot and killed Keith Lamont Scott on Tuesday. Police say Scott brandished a firearm when they entered the Village at College Downs neighborhood to serve a warrant on another man.

Many protesters held Black Lives Matter signs and some angrily denounced police violence with megaphones, but the protests were peaceful overall.

A group of protesters then walked to the Charlotte Police Department headquarters before the crowds grew into the thousands, making their way down East Trade Street to the Omni Charlotte Hotel.

As police in riot gear began to move in a single file line into the hotel, protesters beat their fists on the glass front doors. Officers responded by firing the first round of tear gas, forcefully pushing the crowd out of the hotel’s entrance. A protester smashed a window at the City Smoke restaurant directly across the street from the hotel. Another spray-painted an obscenity on a police car in the middle of the street.

Then the utterly predictable happens:

Around 8:30 p.m., a civilian fired a pistol indiscriminately into a crowd of dozens outside the hotel, turned and ran, leaving a man laying on the ground in a pool of blood on the sidewalk. There was a loud pop, then panic and confusion. Standing about 10 yards away, I looked down the barrel of a pistol. Several people were screaming, saying someone was shot in the head and a crowd quickly formed around the victim, a black male. I thought to myself, “Oh my God, why?” Breathing heavily, I called 911, pacing around in the street. I could be the person on life support. The bullet had whizzed past me. But here I was, still breathing, and reporting this tragic news unfolding in front of me.

Let me get this straight, he’s in the middle of what can only be called an anti-cop riot. One rioter shoots another and what does this guy do? He calls 911. This is a metaphor for the silliness, the shallowness, the inanity of this riot and the people participating.