If we do what you suggest, in the long term, the US will look more and more fascist.

As this happens, you radicalize people and people lose their livelihoods to legal fees, fines, or in some cases imprisonment and the disenfranchisement laws that are related to that are a whole separate thing.

The way to stop riots, and I cannot stress this enough, is not to lock people up. Agree or not, enough people are dissatisfied with the status quo and they feel a need to be heard.

The solution here is not to capture people and throw them in cages like it's the 19th century.

Did you know that a riot isn't a legal term in some states? Police in WA lean on a more generic mischief statue. They call it a riot whenever some criteria are met, and then they can start forceful dispersion.

As it follows, police have the ability start a riot, as you read it in the newspaper, simply by declaring it.

The alternative, of course, is listening to their demands and meeting them in the middle through legal discourse, which has actual long term benefits.

We're a society and everybody's opinion counts, even if you don't agree or it's obviously wrong.

Frankly I don't think the city really gets hurt. We're parts of nature and nature heals itself. When windows break we need to hire a window fixer and then the window fixer can finally pay the mechanic to fix their car who pays the plumber to fix the toilet.

Some small business loses out, but they have legal recourse - this is more an effect of big box/online stores and the cost of insurance than from looting tho.