The job of police
This comment from “boatbuilder” is brief and spot-on:
We ask men to take on the harsh and dangerous business of policing criminals, and demand that nothing unpleasant happens.
We don’t want anything unpleasant to happen at their hands, that is. The person with whom they’re interacting, innocent or guilty, criminal or not, is given a lot more leeway to perform the unpleasantries.
Perfection is demanded of cops, and of course there will be many exceptions and even a relatively small number of cruel and unjustified acts that constitute crimes. Each exception will be fully exploited by the left, but only if it involves a white officer and a black arrestee, which is by no means the only time such things happen.
And not only that – if the officer’s act is not bad enough, it will be lied about to make it seem even worse. And the punishment will be Draconian, as we’ve seen with Chauvin. Although he hasn’t been sentenced yet, I’m referring to the overcharging and then the guilty verdicts despite the near lack of evidence for the most egregious crimes with which he was charged, and the relatively poor evidence for even the least serious one.
The goal, as we’ve said before, probably is to undermine police departments so greatly that cops will either resign or back off from arresting people or both, crime will increase, and the populace will end up clamoring for a federal solution of some sort. The goal is always to increase leftist federal control.
The only black lives that matter to those in charge of BLM are their own, and those few who die at the hands or in the custody of white people (mostly police officers). The black lives that will be snuffed out as a result of lack of policing are just collateral damage in the worthy cause of ever-advancing leftist federal control as well as societal collapse leading up to it.
White liberals (not leftists; liberals) are mostly unaware of this strategy and are playing a virtue-signaling game with their support of BLM and other leftist groups with the same agenda. The press is probably composed of some liberals of that mindset, but also many dedicated leftists who are well aware of what’s going on and are fully compliant with it and eagerly enabling it. Any black person who is against this movement is labeled Uncle Tom or worse, and looked on as a racial traitor.
This is an echo of trends back in the 1960s that culminated in a great many murders of police officers by various black liberation groups. One difference is that back then there really was quite a bit of actual racism of the overt kind throughout society. The second difference between then and now is that these violent movements of the past had a lot less general support compared to now. But fifty years of indoctrination in leftist ideology has transformed our society fundamentally, so that more people are in favor of their radical aims, and social media is another aid to the spread of such beliefs. The leftist radicals of the 60s could only dream of such a tool.
It is no surprise that police officers have been leaving in droves in cities such as Seattle. Why would anyone want to be a police officer these days?
Been said for a long time that cops exist to protect the criminals from the rest of us. Without cops….
In my tiny little hamlet of 200 people in upstate NY we have 2 police officers who work about 10 hours a week handing out speeding tickets. There was an article in the local paper pointing out that our village was the only one in the region that hadn’t yet submitted a “plan” for “police reform” (whatever the hell that entails) that’s required by our fair Governor… you know… Andrew “grandma killin’, booby grabbin’, emmy winnin'” Cuomo.
I honestly can’t tell if the absurdity of the current state of affairs has yet penetrated most well meaning liberal’s awareness. I can only hope so. Because it going to take more than just us Conservatives to right this ship (assuming it can still even be righted at all). But I fear that things are going to have to get a lot worse before enough people actually do something.
Last night I had a chance to visit with the president of the Omaha Police union. Nice guy. Black. He had covid and was in a coma in the hospital but recovered.
I told him how impressed I was with two Omaha police officers involved in a recent shooting incident. These two guys are about the age of my son. My son might have played baseball against these guys.
The cops pull over a car; legit traffic stop. They tell the occupants to show their hands. The women in the car do, but the guy in the back doesn’t.
The police cam video was just released. The cops immediately see that the guy in the back is digging in his pants. “He’s digging!” “Show your hands.”
Cops break the window and drag the guy out of the car. One cop gets his hand on the guy’s hand in his pants and feels his finger on the trigger. “He’s got a gun.” “I ain’t got no gun.”
Cop disengages. Pulls back. And shoots the guy dead.
The dead man, Kenneth B. Jones (say his name) was a convicted felon. And, in fact, he had a loaded handgun. If the cops hadn’t acted so quickly and decisively, they’d be dead.
All of this in under a minute.
A Creighton Law student (@TheRileyWilson) tried to start a race riot in Omaha alleging the cops had “murdered” a black man. He deleted that tweet but went on to tweet more about how a black man was killed in traffic stop.
DDB went after this law student hard along with the Dean of the now low-rated Creighton School of Law. @JFershee tweeted to me that he was “proud” of @TheRileyWilson.
I’m mortified at what is going on at my alma mater with the liberals on the Law School faculty. However, I’m very proud of the smart, brave and quick police officers of the Omaha Police Department.
Be wary of politically congruent (“=”) events. In particular, of a diversity racket lurking in black holes… whores h/t NAACP. Sometimes, back holes, too. It can be a clear and progressive burden. Not that “burden” h/t Obama. That said, take a knee, beg, good boys, and girls, too.
Cornhead. I must have missed the reference to DDB. Wonder what the women who were in the car knew, and thought about what they knew.
Some of the remaining Seattle cops are leftist. I saw one comment at the article about the Graham dinner that the writer had been assaulted by a homeless guy who threw a cup of hot coffee in his face, The writer shoved the homeless guy and was arrested by a cop and charged. Charges were finally dropped but I suspect the cops who are left in Seattle are Stockholm Syndrome types.
A Creighton Law student (@TheRileyWilson) tried to start a race riot in Omaha alleging the cops had “murdered” a black man.
Sorry, but I think law students and young lawyers are mostly beyond help. I have two children, both in their 50s, who are lawyers and lefties and cannot be reasoned with.
A secondary goal (or maybe it’s really the primary goal) of these largely unreasonable attacks on the police is to purge police departments of officers who honor their oath to “protect and serve” the public. This leaves behind those cops happy to serve the whims of their political masters.
Richard Aubrey. DDB is David D. Begley, me. Cornhead.
Nothing has really been said about the women other than they showed their hands and got out of the car right away.
The thing I can’t get over is all this happened in one minute. If the cops would have been slower, they could have been killed. College basketball has a 30 second shot clock so that’s just two possessions.
Sooner or later, its going to occur to the dead victim’s significant others that the people enabling the crime, that is, the mayors, city council members, police chiefs and proscecutors are directly responsible for the dead victims.
Make redress of grievance impossible and you ensure justice through ‘other’ means. Not necessarily mobs in the streets but rather ‘surgical’ operations…
“Each exception will be fully exploited by the left, but only if it involves a white officer and a black arrestee, which is by no means the only time such things happen.”
I disagree. If the arrestee is black, the left will do everything possible to exploit the incident, regardless of the race of the officer(s). I recall three of the officers involved in the Freddie Gray detention were black. And, one of the cops on the scene with Chauvin was Asian.
Granted, it’s harder to exploit such incidents when the officers are minorities (particularly if they’re black), but, the left endlessly recites the refrain that all police are propping up and defending white supremacy and systemic racism
The police are the cutting edge of Big Government. Their job is to enforce the law, no matter how stupid or unjust the law really is. The police are a necessary evil.
Ackler:
In all those cases there was at least one white officer involved. And to the left, Asians are honorary whites for these purposes. If a black officer is ALSO involved, he or she will be targeted too. But I can’t think of a case used this way in which the officer or officers are solely black. That’s what I’m referring to. And in the Noor case – Somali officer and white victim – the left defended the officer, if memory serves me.
In the Zimmerman case, the “bad guy” wasn’t even a policeman, and he was one of those “brown people” we often hear about. But it was good enough for the rioters/lynchers.
Keith Heacock. Say his name. As if.
And to the left, Asians are honorary whites for these purposes.
as are also Jewish peoples…
Two [black] girls, ages 13 and 15, who were charged with the murder and carjacking of a Pakistani immigrant killed last month while working at his job delivering food in Washington, DC, have reportedly reached a plea deal with prosecutors.
Mohammad Anwar, 66, died when police said the girls, armed with a taser, sped off in his car as he clung to the driver’s side with the door open and crashed seconds later just outside the ballpark of the Washington Nationals.
On Monday, the teens reportedly reached the plea deal with prosecutors that would ensure they will not be held past the age of 21 nor be placed in a prison facility.
Last week, the teens appeared via video in DC Superior Court as their lawyer and prosecutor, Bonnie Lindemann, discussed the case with Judge Lynn Leibovitz.
According to The Washington Post, Lindemann gave no indication that her office would try to transfer the older teen’s case to adult court. Under DC law, the 13-year-old could not be prosecuted as an adult due to her age.
The judge set the next court date for April 20 to discuss the status of the case.
A video of the incident shows the encounter unfolding in a minute and a half, ending with Anwar’s Honda Accord on its side, the girls climbing out and a fatally injured Anwar sprawled and motionless on the sidewalk.
In Portland, Oregon, where violence has skyrocketed after the city council cut several police programs amid calls for change, officers are leaving in droves. Portland’s police department said the number of mid-career cops heading for the exit was “unprecedented.” And in some cases, they’re moving on for lower-paying jobs.
The exit interviews from the “overworked, overwhelmed, and burned out” officers are quite telling.
According to The Oregonian, one retiring detective wrote that officers were shown “zero support.”
“The city council are raging idiots, in addition to being stupid. Additionally, the mayor and council ignore actual facts on crime and policing in favor of radical leftist and anarchist fantasy. What’s worse is ppb [Portland Police Bureau] command (lt. and above) is arrogantly incompetent and cowardly.”
The retiring officer continued: “The only difference between the Titanic and PPB? Deck chairs and a band.”
Since July 1, 2020, 115 officers have left the department, which is “one of the biggest waves of departures in recent memory,” the paper said.
Dodger:
They’ll have to hire unemployed artisanal bicycle frame brazers and IPA brewers to fill the thinning ranks. It’s going to be interesting.
Social(ist) workers will save Portland. Crime will be redefined as “redistributing stolen resources” to BIPOC and marginalized people groups by kinetic means. Burn Loot and Murder will be redefined as restoring urban areas to a state of nature, creating a wilderness from a formerly occupied stifling urban area. Ah nature, red in tooth and claw, to be experienced (once). Sucks to be them. They voted for it. Portland, then Salem, Corvallis, and Eugene; lots of ruin in a state.
@Om:
You’re waxing mighty lyrical today. Yammer and I look forward to your joining us on Mount Olympus at your earliest convenience.
I’ll pass.
The Actual Number of Unarmed Black Men Shot and Killed By Police Every Year Will Blow Liberals’ Minds.
Turned out the 2019 figure for unarmed blacks killed by police was 30, not 27. Close enough, I guess.At the Mapping Police Violence website, I downloaded their data.
Unarmed Blacks Killed by Police
2013 Black 51
2014 Black 62
2015 Black 78
2016 Black 40
2017 Black 48
2018 Black 30
2019 Black 30
2020 Black 34
Note that the number of unarmed blacks that police killed went down while Trump was President.
Unarmed Blacks as percent of unarmed civilians that police killed
2013 32.7%
2014 34.6%
2015 35.6%
2016 27.0%
2017 34.3%
2018 25.2%
2019 25.6%
2020 31.2%
Yes, this percentage of blacks is 2-2.5 times the percent of blacks in the population (13%), but there is more criminal behavior among blacks. The black murder rate is about 8 times that of whites. From 2010-2019, blacks constituted 37% of offenders who killed policemen. FBI: Table 42_ Law Enforcement Officers Feloniously Killed.
This suggests a parlor exercise for our liberal friends. Hand out pieces of paper, on which they put down their estimate of police killings per year of unarmed blacks. Then collect the pieces of paper, and read them out- all anonymous. Then give the most recent data: 30-30-34 for 2018-2020.
@Gringo:
I’ll bet those figures are much lower than the annual numbers of unarmed Black men who did every stupid thing possibly imaginable to merit being shot.
Not a great fan of the police for other reasons, but they are a necessary evil in any functioning society and they’ve been put in an impossible situation.
Zaphod to Gringo
Most likely, yes. Which reminds me of this Chris Rock contribution.Chris Rock PSA – How Not To Get Your A** Kicked By The Police.
From Quillette: When Will Activists (and the Media) Get Honest About Police Shootings?
“Policing criminals?” What happened to innocent until proven guilty? So are we getting rid of the constitution left and right?
Eva Marie:
Police do indeed arrest criminals, they are assumed to be innocent of the charges when brought to trial. A person is not assumed to be innocent when commuting a crime, say attempting to stab someone or driving his car down a pedestrian/bicycle path, or throwing a Molotov cocktail at a LEO. Life is like that.
Cops arrest suspects. And they police citizens.
Iam guessing that getting the police out of the way is part of the plan along with “open borders”. Compton, California was a successful experiment. Compton was ~100% Black.had ~100 murders per year, and accomplished nothing beyond being the fantasy backdrop for a Blacksploitation movie. The Hispanic gangs, all about “business”, attacked any Black gang-bangers, his friends and his family. Kind of like the old “Organized Crime” back east. The Compton murders went to about 200 per year for a few years. Compton is now ~65% Hispanic, has little violent crime and a growing economy that provides tax income for the pols to steal. It seems that the neighboring Watts is following the same process. Crime is down and grift is up. “Just business”.
Biden is talking of closing ICE. I guess he needs more gangsters to clean out other Democratic cities. Guess who is coming to your town/suburb/valley ? The survivors, anyway. Hey! Violent crime is way down in south L.A. Maybe if they smear it all over the state, no body will notice.
Enjoy tyour patio while you still can. The police and you are just in the way of Corruptocrat profits. And those members of the Chamber of Commerce that helped protect the election from Americans and to defend the victory from what little was left of our legal system, may have to increase their prices to pay for the added grift and security.
If you think that “THEY” are being stupid, it is because you haven’t figured out the plan. Remember to hide behind the new bars on your windows with plenty of ammo. The times they are a changin’.
I’ve watched too many videos on youtube on how fast what seemed like an ordinary traffic stop can go bad. It takes seconds. Thanks to the Chauvin trial, cops across the country now know they will not receive justice if BLM and the lefties get them in their target.
This is REALLY worth a read:
https://thefederalist.com/2021/04/26/black-cop-lies-about-institutional-racism-are-making-america-more-violent/
One danger I should’ve realized of this total demoralization of police forces across the country is the precipitous lowering of standards for and training of new recruits.
Eva Marie:
You can always declare to the offensive policeman that you are a “sovereign citizen” and that you do not recognize the legitimacy of the law or his authority to arrest you. Or have you already done this? There are lots of YouTube videos of such interactions.
Om, sorry. I don’t get your point.
“What we have is a failure to communicate.”
Not the exact dialog from “Cool Hand Luke.”