This needs to stop

I don't know what the media coverage in the rest of the country has been like, but here in Southern California, we've been seeing what amounts to lawlessness on the streets here for the past two days. Basically, thousands of high school students have been walking out of school for the past two days to "protest" laws being debated in congress that would crack down on illegal immigration. (I suspect a lot of them are just happy to ditch school, but that's a different matter.)

These kids have been running wild in the streets, sometimes blocking traffic on the freeways during rush hour traffic, and so far there hasn't been much of a police response. Thankfully, that may be about to change.

Thousands of students skipped classes and took to the streets again today to protest proposed toughening of immigration laws. But authorities clamped down, thwarting attempts to block freeway traffic, rounding up some youngsters and issuing truancy citations. Small numbers of arrests were reported.

[...]

Police issued 100 truancy citations to students in San Pedro.

Now, we're talking about twelve thousand kids who left schools in LA County, so there needs to be more of a police response, if you asked me. I just saw the Police Chief, the School Superintendent, and the Mayor (who was recently praising the protestors) on the news, all of them saying that this needs to stop and promising that there would be severe consequences if the walkouts continue. Chief Bratton also called the students' attempts at blocking freeways "insanity."

I'd also like to see an investigation into who exactly is organizing all of this. The kids I've seen on TV are saying that it's being arranged through MySpace.com, but somebody is instigating this lawlessness. If it's teachers, they ought to be fired.

Mickey Kaus has been covering the protests since the weekend. Keep scrolling.