I'm guessing the second 'he' refers to the letter writer and not the chief. It's a little unclear from the sentence.
This seemed like a very well written and thoughtful rebuttal to some of the concerns in the letter. I didn't get a tone that it was showing the letter's author they weren't 'well adjusted'.
> [..] this after many protesters doing similar things elsewhere had been violent and criminal.
If the protesters in Tennessee weren't being violent/criminal, why compare them to the protests in some other cities? It was mentioned that the highways were kept open after the first night.
Sounds like the whole thing went pretty peacefully. If letting the protestors close an onramp or two the first day was the price for avoiding a riot or revolt that may have been an excellent decision.
The Problem with the chief's reply is that it ignores the citizens VALID safety concerns and then makes assumptions concerning the citizen's adjustment to society. If there had been no safety concerns, then the chief might have been justified in his assumption, but when the police force allows people to do large scale illegal acts that directly affect the lives of the people around them, then you can hardly say that concerns for safety aren't valid.
So whether the citizen's concerns for safety are valid or not is the point that the article relies upon to justify the chief's response. I submit that the citizen's concerns for safety were valid, whether or not I would have felt the same (you have to "step out of your comfort zone" and try to avoid biases to understand that), and therefore the chief's reply was assuming and biased.