In his op-ed, Johnson cited the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project to “push back” at “leftists” who claim that last year’s protests were “mostly peaceful.” But the September report Johnson cited found that “more than 93% of all demonstrations connected to the movement” were non-violent.
“[T]he senator is taking the overall figures out of context and distorting the report’s key conclusions,” Sam Jones, an author of the report, told us in an email.
Jones also said that Johnson’s op-ed overstated the number of demonstrations that involved violence and the number of people who died during them.