Regular readers will understand why I’ve waited until now to talk about the recent police-involved shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota, the resultant cop-killing atrocity in Dallas, and the other deadly ripples we’re seeing spread from it all. That’s because regular readers know one tenet here is to wait until information is in from both sides before we judge and condemn.
Our President, whom we are told once taught Constitutional Law, implied to the nation and the world that the two officer-involved shootings were bad acts, yet as details slowly emerge we find that in both cases the cops apparently shot armed men who appeared to be reaching for guns…men who, the cops had reason to believe even before each contact was made, might well be armed and dangerous.
We are seeing marchers turning violent. We are seeing them block highways, not just keeping decent working people from getting to work and home from work, but potentially blocking ambulances from saving innocent lives. All so those marchers can “make a point” and feel good about themselves for doing something they think is positive.
At the Denver airport today, I read in the Denver Post of a 14-year-old black youth who said he would run if he saw police, for fear they would murder him, because he had been led to believe that cops were epidemically murdering innocent black people for no reason. When you run from police, you arouse their suspicion and, in the Supreme Court’s guiding Illinois v. Wardlow decision, give them Reasonable Articulable Suspicion that warrants their pursuit of the fleeing person. Things have now escalated. Being chased by the police will seem to confirm the false fear that police want to kill that young boy, and if he panics and does something stupid and things get violent…the cycle of tragedy will continue. Whoever told that kid to react that way should be ashamed.
For decades, I’ve spoken against the old paradigm of law enforcement that says, “We don’t discuss our cases in the press, it will all come out in court.” It’s a paradigm born in the responsibility of the officers to remember that those we arrest are innocent until proven guilty, and we can’t defame them and bring heartbreak to their loved ones until they have been adjudicated in a court of law. But when it is the police who are the accused, their silence and reticence to tell their side of what happened is seen by the public as a plea of no contest and, sadly, as an admission of guilt. Within 24 hours of a shooting like the ones in Louisiana and Minnesota, the investigators generally have a damn good idea of what happened. If the police had “gotten ahead of the meme” by publicly stating what the investigation showed thus far had actually occurred, might these ripples of tragedy have been prevented?
There is still much to be revealed. “The truth is out there” … but not “out there” to the public and in the media. Much of the “breaking news” that people acted upon was “broken news.” And, I fear, those ripples of violence have not yet settled in the troubled waters in which our nation is now swimming.
Your discussion here is welcome.
I sometimes despair that we have the intellect to understand and act appropriately, but succumb to the worst political instinct to deceive and incite violence.
All the good will I had for our president evaporated with his comment ‘they acted stupidly’ said without evidence.
The entire “Black Lives Matter” movement is based on the lie that Michael Brown was surrendering to the officer at the time. Absolutely no amount of proof of injury to that officer will change the minds of BLM and those with an agenda.
My point is to agree with you, Mas, that some times the first story is the only story that matters, and I would have no problems with the police releasing info immediately to show not only probable cause for a stop but the same for extreme caution AND justifiable use of deadly force.
Thank you for this piece, Mas.
It would be great if we could get it to the masses and street marchers for their consideration and possibly even their comprehension. However, just as unfortunate as the times we find ourselves in is the fact that such a well written, logically stated and reasonable piece doesn’t fit the narrative of the Presidential Main Stream Media.
The only promise kept by the great divider, our current president, has been to fundamentally change our Great Republic by fundamentally destroying it. Obama’s disdained hatred of America is certainly made evident by his willingness to destroy us from within under the banner of fundamental change. Any sane individual with even the smallest hint of integrity, honesty or moral and ethical fortitude would never fundamentally change something that the individual has claimed to love.
I’m afraid that with such an immoral and deceptive man in the White House, we’ll be looking at a scenario of history repeated, in that it feels awfully much akin to the Summer of ’68.
Be well, be safe and be blessed in all things,
…~ Benny
The other side of the coin is that the violence/protest is a continuation of the same problem. While the use of force are all separate incidents, the reaction is not related to those individual incidents. I believe that to be the ultimate challenged for our communities.
All in all I find the situation rather Capt Ahab-ish.
A tragedy all the way around – those “black lives matter” an other protesters don’t help their cause at all. Need more folks like Chief Brown and other “regular” people out there more as they are doing on CNN. They say photo’s don’t lie, but they certainly do! Had occurred to me that being afraid (nervous) and running aren’t helpful in these situations yet they are facts at this time – just sad.
Mas, well-stated, as you usually do! Dallas PD is hurting. Funerals and burials are beginning today and for the next few. Hopefully, people will calm down and wait for the “results” of the investigations. Dallas Love Airport will be a no-fly zone for a while as President Obama comes in.
What’s most distressing is how quickly these “events” are tried and the sentence handed down by the Court of Public Opinion. The cops involved were tried and convicted on Twitter in real time. The President and the governor of Minnesota didn’t even wait for the video to finish downloading before condemning the act, and the media gleefully interrupted bloody video loops with ads for shampoo and shaving products. By the time the facts begin to emerge the lynch mob will have already turned their attention to Kim Kardashian’s latest indecency. For armed citizens this is troubling because we know that if we are ever forced to deal a lethal blow we will most likely be convicted by the mob before the facts ever come to light. I’m sure that police officers feel this pressure times ten.
I like your idea of “getting ahead of the meme” but I’m afraid that the public may not even have that long of an attention span, and the media is not interested in justified self defense. The answer of course is for our elected officials to stop inciting violence. Governors, presidents, and reporters should not have said the things they did. We ought to hold them accountable for the violence that their words have caused. Sadly I think that won’t happen – it seems that the fox is guarding the henhouse.
Some police departments run Citizen Academies. These are not to train officers or even non-sworn volunteers. They are oriented toward informing citizens what the police actually do and why. There are clearly anti-police radicals behind the current movements but lots of people are essentially duped by the radicals and the media (I repeat myself.). Widespread use of Citizen Academies, especially as they focus on use of force decision making could be a useful tool in inoculating against this behavior. Participants could even be encouraged to take to social media to talk about their experiences. Yeah, there would be an expense involved but compared to the costs of a feeding frenzy by the media and the long term attrition of connection with the community, it would seem to be a bargain.
The shootee behavior in most of these incidences in so volatile and antagonistic that I believe most of them are actually suicide by cop.
Mas, Great take on the Hate Driven events being spread by the National Propagandist Media.
Personally, I think it is only a part of the Liberal Democratic plan, to generate as big a swell of “Anti-Gun” Fear, Fervor and Activism, as possible, in order to support more Draconian Laws that will Disarm all, or most, of America’s Obedient “Law Abiding” Citizens,
Thus, leaving only the Firearms in the hands of the Criminals, the Down Sized, Obama-ized, Military, and Government Controlled Law Enforcement Agencies, all of whom, like the NAZI Gestapo, will “Follow Order’s”, with sufficient “Fire Power” left to Enforce the Politician’s version of “Law and Order”!
Some quotes I’ve collected, and agree with, since the shootings:
“[Atlanta] Black Lives Matter organizer Sir Maejor said the rally in Atlanta was scheduled before the Dallas shooting. People are angry over police violence against blacks and need an outlet to demonstrate peacefully, he said. ‘Black Lives Matter doesn’t condone shooting law enforcement. But I have to be honest: I understand why it was done,’ Maejor said. ‘I don’t encourage it, I don’t condone it, I don’t justify it. But I understand it.'”
“Democratic Rep. Marc Veasey, an African-American from Fort Worth who also represents part of Dallas County, said he was ‘deeply saddened that five men and women in uniform lost their lives bravely protecting the people of the DFW Metroplex, as they do every day. … This appears to be a vicious and calculated attack on our law enforcement community, but we must remember that violence of any kind does not solve violence against another community… The loss of one life to gun violence should be treated as a tragedy.'”
Three from folks who I usually disagree with but who got it right this time:
“[Donald] Trump canceled a speech in Miami on Hispanic issues. He instead released a lengthy statement calling the shootings in Dallas ‘a coordinated, premeditated assault on the men and women who keep us safe.’ He called Sterling and Castile’s deaths ‘senseless’ and a reminder of how much more needs to be done to ensure Americans feel safe in their communities.” (As often happens with The Donald, he may not have meant that the way it came out and will later walk it back.)
“‘All of us need to acknowledge that this is about more than just one or two recent incidents,’ Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida said of this week’s shootings. ‘The fact is that there are communities in America where black families tell us that they are fearful with interacting with local law enforcement. How they feel is a reality that we cannot and should not ignore.'”
“Newt Gingrich … said black Americans are ‘more likely to end up in a situation where the police don’t respect you and you could easily get killed. … Sometimes for whites it’s difficult to appreciate how real that is and how it’s an everyday danger…'”
And this, hours before the shootings, from someone I ordinarily do agree with:
“Obama spoke Thursday in Warsaw, hours before the Dallas shooting rampage, about police killings of two black men, Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, La., and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minn. He called those killings ‘symptomatic of the broader challenges within our criminal justice system, the racial disparities that appear across the system year after year, and the resulting lack of trust that exists between law enforcement and too many of the communities they serve.’ He immediately added, ‘To admit we’ve got a serious problem in no way contradicts our respect and appreciation for the vast majority of police officers who put their lives on the line to protect us every single day.'”
And this from Roland G. Fryer, Jr., the author of a recent report, “An Empirical Analysis of Racial Differences in Police Use of Force”, being widely flouted in the conservative press to falsely imply that there’s no fact behind the Black Lives Matter movement. (The report says that “On non-lethal uses of force, blacks and Hispanics are more than fifty percent more likely to experience some form of force in interactions with police. Adding controls that account for important context and civilian behavior reduces, but cannot fully explain, these disparities.”):
“Mr. Fryer wonders if the divide between lethal force — where he did not find racial disparities — and nonlethal force — where he did — might be related to costs. Officers face costs, legal and psychological, when they unnecessarily fire their guns. But excessive use of lesser force is rarely tracked or punished. ‘No officer has ever told me that putting their hands on inner-city youth is a life-changing event,’ he said. For Mr. Fryer, who has spent much of his career studying ways society can close the racial achievement gap, the failure to punish excessive everyday force is an important contributor to young black disillusionment. ‘Who the hell wants to have a police officer put their hand on them or yell and scream at them? It’s an awful experience,” he said. “Every black man I know has had this experience. Every one of them. It is hard to believe that the world is your oyster if the police can rough you up without punishment. And when I talked to minority youth, almost every single one of them mentions lower-level uses of force as the reason why they believe the world is corrupt.'”
While agreeing that it is never a good idea to do something that may arouse the suspicion of a LEO, the 14 year old in Denver’s fear that he may be murdered by the police may be unfounded. But the fact that he has more than a 50% better chance of being subjected to the use of non-lethal force than a white person certainly indicates that some concern on his part is entirely justified.
Doesn’t the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Illinois V Wardlow only apply if the subject is fleeing in an articulatable “high crime” area or there are other “reasonable suspicion” factors in addition to the act of fleeing?
I believe the Illinois Appellate and Supreme Courts found that a citizen has the right to avoid police contact and that fleeing from police was a form of avoiding a police encounter, even in a high crime area. I stand to be corrected, but I believe the U.S.Supreme Court ruled against Wardlow because it held that officers make the decision to stop based on the totality of the circumstances, in this case, “high crime” area plus fleeing.
On a separate note, I realize that I am probably the sole commenter on this site that has no problem with BLM groups exercising their First Amendment right, up to the point of rioting, committing violence or blocking roadways. I feel they have this right whether their grievances are based on real or imagined perceptions.
I am saddened however that in watching dozens, possibly hundreds, of people speaking on behalf of BLM on television, I have yet to hear the first one utter the phrase, “Please, stop resisting” arresting or detaining law enforcement personnel.
Responses to things which have been said here:
“We are seeing marchers turning violent. We are seeing them block highways, not just keeping decent working people from getting to work and home from work, but potentially blocking ambulances from saving innocent lives. All so those marchers can ‘make a point'”
First let me say that I do not condone or support violence or threats of violence in any form or manner from _either_ side of this issue. I do support nonviolent civil disobedience, however. Which brings me to:
“those ‘black lives matter’ an other protesters don’t help their cause at all”
Utter nonsense. They said the same of the anti-war protesters and Civil Rights protesters in the 1950’s-1970’s, both of which helped to bring about change. Such actions cause people like Donald Trump, Newt Gingrich. and Marco Rubio – see my prior quotes posting – to become aware of and think about things which they would likely have never given a serious thought to otherwise. That’s the purpose of protest.
“we find that in both cases the cops apparently shot armed men who appeared to be reaching for guns…men who, the cops had reason to believe even before each contact was made, might well be armed and dangerous”
“What’s most distressing is how quickly these ‘events’ are tried and the sentence handed down by the Court of Public Opinion. The cops involved were tried and convicted on Twitter in real time.”
Yes, the level of distrust in the black community has arisen to the point that the very slightest suggestion or possibility of irregularity by the police will be presumed to indicate impropriety. That court of public opinion is fairly justified in jumping to that conclusion when a black college professor can say, “‘Who the hell wants to have a police officer put their hand on them or yell and scream at them? It’s an awful experience… Every black man I know has had this experience. Every one of them. It is hard to believe that the world is your oyster if the police can rough you up without punishment.” (See my quote section, above, statements of Roland G. Fryer, Jr., Professor of Economics, Harvard University.)
Everyone who has read my prior postings on this subject knows that I believe that both the concerns raised by the Black Lives Matter movement and the need to allow LEO’s to protect themselves and society are vitally real and important. And that achieving both is not impossible. But anyone who takes the position that there’s no real problem here or that public figures such as Obama, Trump, Gingrich, and Rubio are somehow betraying the nation or law enforcement by acknowledging the existence of the problem or by not saying “we support the police, right or wrong” or “we support the police, period” is just wrong.
William, the core take-home lesson from the Wardlow decision seems to be:
“Headlong flight–wherever it occurs–is the consummate act of evasion: it is not necessarily indicative of wrongdoing, but it is certainly suggestive of such.” Though the totality of the circumstances must always be taken into account, the “high crime area” element does not seem to have been the foundation of the decision.
The Court’s wording in re: “indicative” vis-a-vis “suggestive” is not self-contradictory double-speak. It essentially says that flight isn’t proof positive of guilt, but it’s a damn good clue…and a clue is the key ingredient to reasonable articulable suspicion, which in turn justifies investigative detention.
Even if police departments could “get ahead of the meme” and release relevant information ASAP, I am not confident that it would do any good. The politicians, activists, and their cheerleaders (the mainstream media) are uninterested in facts. “Truth” is whatever fits The Narrative and promotes The Agenda.
In the infamous Rodney King case, we were repeatedly shown the part of the video in which a cop was hitting King. The earlier part, in which King attacked a cop, was edited out. In the Ferguson case, we were told that the “victim” was a “gentle giant.” The media continued to push the false “hands up, don’t shoot” meme long after it was proven that Brown attacked the cop, and that the shooting was in self-defense.
The “black motorcyclist” in Miami turned out to be a drug dealer who was trying to run over a cop hen the cop shot him. It turned out that the “unarmed bridegroom” in New York was trying to run over cops with his SUV when they shot him. And Freddie Grey killed himself in a freak accident when his crash-for-cash scheme backfired on him.
And in all of those cases, the media downplayed or ignored the exculpatory evidence when it came out.
I don’t doubt that a lot of white people have negative attitudes toward blacks. but those attitudes did not form in a vacuum. And police are at the forefront, because their job involves altercations and confrontations.
A cop sees a car parked in front of a fire hydrant. He asks the owner to move it. The owner, who is black, accuses the cop of racism. Later, the cop stops a driver for running a red light. The driver accuses the cop of racism. The cop catches a kid stealing hub caps off of a parked car, and the thief accuses the cop of racism.
After half a dozen incidents like that every day, sooner or later, the cop is bound to start thinking, “If I am going to have the name, I may as well play the game.”
Progressives cite statistics showing that blacks are more likely to be arrested, and often receive longer sentences. The Harvard study found that blacks were not more likely to be shot by police, but that they were more likely to be handcuffed or physically restrained.
What Progressives try to ignore is that blacks commit over 50% of the crime, and 24% of the violent crime, and that they are 40% of the cop-killers. They also tend to be repeat offenders, they tend to commit felonies as opposed to misdemeanors, and they often resist arrest.
None of which matters to the Social Justice Warriors. Violent crimes (the “knockout game,” and increasing incidents of black-on-Asian violence) are ignored. Terrorism is spun to fit the Narrative (blame the NRA for a massacre committed by a registered Democrat who pledged allegiance to ISIS). And justified shootings are twisted around, making the aggressors look like innocent victims, and vice versa.
BTW, former President Bush’s dignified eulogy in Dallas was a stark contrast to Obama’s self-indulgent, narcissistic, exploitative, race-baiting rhetoric. For Barry, it’s always about himself, or promoting the leftist agenda, or both.
Mas,
I respect your opinion on gun issues. However, when it comes to the way the police interact with the black community you’re a broken record. Have you ever seen a case where you acknowledged racist cops have violated the rights of a black citizen? Admittedly I haven’t read everything you’ve ever written but it looks to me like your cop background has distorted your perspective so badly that you can’t concede that in some contexts and communities the police are the oppressors, not the protectors. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you actually believe all the lies your cop buddies tell, but nobody else does.
By the way, I’m a 66 year old white male and I’ll bet I’m a lot more conservative than you’ll ever be. I just believe the Bill of Rights applies to all citizens, even the poor, black ones.
Facts are always inconvenient, at least for those who rely on emotional hysteria to advance political movements. Here are two sources I’ve encountered in the last week that provide perspective:
https://www.facebook.com/chiefofpolicebillpartridge/videos/1703688743217499/
https://www.amazon.com/War-Cops-Attack-Order-Everyone/dp/1594038759
It may seem that my following comments are off-topic but, really, they are not.
Humans evolved to function, socially, in small, tribal, hunter-gatherer groups. Living in a heavily populated, urban, civilized environment is a new thing for us. We have only been doing it for a few thousand years now. Not long enough for the slow process of evolution to catch up.
As a result, our instinctive, natural reactions are almost always at odds with our current environment. One of the first humans to realize this problem was Siddhartha Gautama (aka Buddha). He did not think in evolutionary terms, of course, but he realized that natural human behaviors were inappropriate for civilization. In response to this enlightened concept, he taught a system (Buddhism) to cope with this problem. I am not talking about the quasi-religious (ritual and re-incarnation) claptrap that has grown up around Buddhism over the centuries here. I am talking about the role of Buddhism as a life-style choice. BTW, I am not a Buddhist myself but I do admire SOME of the insights that the Buddhist have regarding humanity and human behavior.
The Buddhist knows that, to cope with civilization, humans must often behave in a counter-intuitive, non-natural manner. This requires discipline of both the mind and body. Buddhism (as a life-style not a religion) requires the practitioner to train himself to behave counter-intuitively. This is reflected in most Buddhist teachings. For example, the 11th Century Buddhist philosopher Atisha di Pankara developed a list of sayings to illustrate this mode of thought. Here are some of his sayings:
The greatest worth is self-mastery.
The greatest precept is continual awareness.
The greatest action is not conforming with the world’s ways.
The greatest generosity is non-attachment.
The greatest effort is not concerned with results.
You will note the counter-intuitive nature of these items. Buddhist believe that the world is always in flux and that NOTHING is permanent. Since nothing is permanent, when you attach yourself to the things of this world, you set yourself up for suffering when the world takes them away from you. Attachment equals suffering. Therefore, you must develop the strength and discipline to detach yourself from this world and accept the non-permanence of existence.
I would like to add one item to the above list. Call it the TN_MAN’s contribution to Buddhist philosophy:
The greatest evil in the world is the desire to do good.
The above seems counter-intuitive but, as I pointed out before, going against our natural reactions is what is really needed.
If you study the history of the world, you will see a continual stream of fanatics who (a) believe that they have a magic formula that will greatly improve the world and (b) have a duty to inflict their magic formula on the world and destroy anyone or anything that tries to stop them. Everyone from Karl Marx to Carrie Nation to Adolf Hitler to our current President Obama believes that their ideas will do the world “good”. That it is a noble cause to fiercely fight to “make the world a better place”. All of their ideas, from communism to the Prohibition of Alcohol to Nazism to gun control to Black Lives Matter to the plan of ISIS to create Allah’s paradise on earth prove to be nothing more than disasters that disrupt society and (sometimes) slaughter millions.
The harm that the evil people of the world do pales in comparison to the manifold harms caused by the fanatical do-gooders of the world. Believe me, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are good men bent upon “making the world a better place”!
It is said that a wise man prays to have neither poverty nor riches. He says that prayer because he knows how destructive both extremes can be. Well, the wise man will also pray that his hands do neither evil nor good.
A true Buddhist will never attempt to create a utopia on earth. He knows that the world is always in flux and that such an effort is a “fool’s errand”. The Buddhist is enlighted and knows that it is enough to simply mind your own business and do no harm to others. He knows that the greatest evil in the world is the desire to do good.
That is what is behind ALL the problems that you see with America and the World today. The World has a continual plague of do-gooders who are grimly determined to “make the world a better place” even if they have to kill you to do it! The World will never actually BE a better place until the human race reaches the enlightened level of the Buddha and abandons all utopian visions about “making the world a better place”.
“The Court’s wording in re: “indicative” vis-a-vis “suggestive” is not self-contradictory double-speak. It essentially says that flight isn’t proof positive of guilt, but it’s a damn good clue…and a clue is the key ingredient to reasonable articulable suspicion, which in turn justifies investigative detention.”
Gotta strongly disagree with you, Mas. Any innocent citizen should have the right to leave any scene he wants without being stopped or considered a suspect. LEO doesn’t know if he’s innocent or not…too bad IMO, my right to leave as a free citizen outranks your “suspicion”. That was an awful ruling for freedom and will, hopefully, be clarified and reversed someday but I fear not as the way the country has been moving is to limit rights, not increase them.
An addition to your item. Not only is blocking major highways inconvenient, but it is extremely dangerous for all of the vehicle occupants who suddenly find their limited access highway has become a parking lot. Anyone who has worked as a uniformed officer on a limited access highway can tell you this.
We don’t have a President. We have a thinly veiled anarchist. No more, no less.
I have to wonder if the Wardlow case was argued on the basis of a Article I, Section 6 of the Illinois Bill of Rights in addition to the 4th Amendment argument which, ultimately, was unsuccessful. U.S. Constitutional protections establish minimum standards which the state’s may not violate. States may establish more rigorous standards or greater levels of protection for their citizens.
I know nothing of Illinois state Constitutional case law, but had the Illinois Supreme Court ruled in a similar fashion on the basis of the state Constitution, that would have been the end of the matter.
Can you comment on the way the case was argued?
I would suggest that today many people, based upon either personal experience or that of others whom they know, have ample reason to avoid police, be it by turning and walking away or even running. Although Wardlow is president, I have to wonder if it would be decided the same today as it was originally.
Walt White: Of course there are bad cops. No community of 800,000 is going to be free of bad people. Bad cops reflect on the vast majority of good ones, and make us all look bad. But, when you cheer when a bad cop gets fired or sent up the river, remember that it was good cops who investigated him, and fired or arrested him. It’s why we have Internal Affairs functions.
Steve from MA: Steve, please re-read the decision. Anyone is free to walk away from a cop who doesn’t have at least reasonable articulable suspicion to stop him. The Wardlow decision refers to headlong flight, and “flight equals guilt” has been a precept of human ethics since pre-Biblical times.
Richard, I had no part in the Wardlow case, and have not seen a transcript of the arguments, advocates’ briefs, or amicus curae briefs that might have influenced the highest Court. What matters is all of us, cop and citizen alike, have to go by the opinion rendered by the court, not the arguments offered by the advocates.
Mas, the mainstream media will predictably lie in reporting any event when they can advance their political agenda by doing so. Right now, that agenda seems to be promoting a race war in the US for whatever reasons. I suspect that most average American citizens of all races still believe, as they were told, that the recent events in Minnesota and Baton Rouge involved police shooting two “unarmed black men” to death. I have seen no apologies or retractions for such erroneous reporting. The propaganda press will simply ignore the police side of the story.
By the way, the rifle used by Johnson to ambush the Dallas PD is kind of unusual. It started off as a “Saiga” IZH-240 semi-automatic sporting rifle in the Soviet 5.45x39mm. Someone re-converted it to AK-74 configuration by moving the fire-control group forward a couple of inches and installing the AK parts, including the pistol grip. Some modification was also required to allow the 30-round AK-74 mag to be used. I would not have gone for the folding stock and high-mounted scope, but it worked for him. The 3/4-inch cheek-piece riser came off in the explosion and is shown to the right of the rifle in the photo. Even the $90 optic might not have been too bad on a low-budget “assault rifle.”
1. The automatic “it’s the cops fault”, began when President Obama used the most powerful microphone in the world and the Boston Cambridge Police arrested the African American man the experienced not a racist Seargant was referred as “ACTING STUPIDILY” and also referred to him as an “IDEOT”. Before demanding that ridiculous embarrassing beer summit.
2. The Black Lives Matter needs to be classified as a hate group they are not peaceful when you shout throw bricks at police severing the spine of one the other day and block major traffic infrastructures.
3. The New Black Pathers are clearly a hate group allowed to operate freely.
4. Why are we allowing all this unrest, blocking highways, roads, jumping on top of semi trucks, holding ambulances..???? How come the national guard is not out assisting and arresting these people instead of no rule of law for these radical clearly haters?
5. The real goal is to declare martial law I feel by Obama and come for these guns.
6. Who is going to want to be a policeman anymore between calls for police officers killings by ISIS, Isalamic Terrosists and now Obama uses his microphone to spew out racial divide which has the BLM, Black Pathers and sparks up plots to ambush as demostrates this week in Texas, Georgia and Tennessee among other places.
Mas,
I am going to stay out of this conversation, if I can, due to the fact that, (if no one has figured it out yet) Dallas PD is where I spent my 34 years in law enforcement. I knew and worked with of the victims, knew another, but only seeing him on occasion, the rest were hired after I retired. This subject is too close to home for me at the present, my tolerance for the anti-cop, race baiters, is at at a low point.
I place the blame on a group of folks who are purposely pushing narratives, either for personal gain, political power and control, or a desire for anarchy. I discovered this, this morning, and applaud this man for standing up and taking the initiative. Some will say he is grandstanding, and this may be so, but remember, the KKK was destroyed by a lawsuit (and rightfully so).
Please take the time to read the entire complaint.
http://www.freedomwatchusa.org/pdf/160709-ComplaintASFILEDEntryt17719994461.pdf
Or, if you want the summary version-
http://www.weaselzippers.us/283044-former-federal-prosecutor-sues-obama-blm-founders-al-sharpton-for-inciting-race-war/
Deaf Smith: The current President is a communitarian, not an anarchist. The United States was founded on libertarian principles which he opposes. If you look up all three on Wikipedia, you will see what I mean.
TN_MAN: You are 100% right about the harm done by do-gooders. They are arrogant, self-righteous tyrants with no respect for anyone else’s values or aspirations.
In spite of the intense partisan debates on both sides concerning the recent police shootings, which generally leave me numb, I keep wondering why so many young American men (all races) don’t know the importance of remaining calm and cooperative when stopped by the police.
No doubt racial profiling and other forms of injustice exist but apparently no one has ever explained to a lot of young dudes that in regard to police encounters aggressive behavior and language, resisting arrest, actively fighting with cops, refusing to keep hands out of pockets, etc. often lead to people getting tased and pepper sprayed, behinds whipped, and in the worst cases shot to death. Could it be that many young males think it’s unmanly to cooperate with cops, or are they competing for Darwin Awards?
Someone should educate these fools about personal survival.
TN-MAN, with respect I don’t agree with everything you’ve said. “The greatest evil in the world is the desire to do good” I suppose that would depend on the defining of the “good” that’s being done.
Maybe, it’s just better said not to infringe on another’s rights, or liberties.
PAUL EDWARDS, I’ll go along with what you’ve said, I feel Obama, is wanting to create martial law. In order remove firearms from our homes.
tc said, “blacks commit over 50% of the crime, and 24% of the violent crime, and that they are 40% of the cop-killers. They also tend to be repeat offenders, they tend to commit felonies as opposed to misdemeanors, and they often resist arrest.”
What that is intended to imply is this: 100% of black people are criminals and should be treated as such. It implies that Prof. Fryer’s statement (see my posts above) that, ““‘Who the hell wants to have a police officer put their hand on them or yell and scream at them? It’s an awful experience… Every black man I know has had this experience. Every one of them. It is hard to believe that the world is your oyster if the police can rough you up without punishment.” is meaningless because all black people deserve to be treated differently than white people because there’s such a high percentage of crime in their community. It says that because of those statistics innocent individuals should be subject to disparate treatment and, often, violations of their civil rights just because other people in that community are, in fact, criminals.
“None of which matters to the Social Justice Warriors,” says tc. S/he’s absolutely right. It doesn’t matter because it is irrelevant. Attributing characteristics of some members of a racial group to all members of that group is something else, too, but I’ll refrain from naming it here.
@Mas and Walt White: It has to be remembered here that this isn’t just a good cop / bad cop issue, especially if you define those two roles by whether an officer violates the law or departmental policy. Yes, that is sometimes a problem and an issue and sometimes bad or incompetent cops get disciplined or discharged due to the good work of the good cops, but the bigger problem is the systemic issues arising around the way that black people, especially but not only black men and other people of color (and also LGBTQ people and mentally disabled people) are treated by law enforcement in ways which do not make the officers bad cops under that definition or in ways which do make them bad cops but fall between the cracks due to lack of witnesses, blue privilege, blue wall of silence, fear of reporting or retaliation, disinclination to report because of the belief that nothing will be done, or other reasons.
Mas,
I’m a longtime reader, LFI 1 and Front Sight basic graduate, lifetime NRA member, retired gunsmith, and devoted advocate of responsible civilian firearms use. So clue me in; what is the unrevealed circumstance that justifies shooting a man 5 times at near-contact range, after he has informed you that he is in legal possession of a firearm, but before it is visible? And, perhaps more importantly, why is the legal standard for LEO accountability so much higher than that for an armed citizen?
tc,
I like what you said about cops getting the truth out, only to have it distorted by the media.
Here is an idea that might work; if a police department’s public relations person could actually get on-the-air with Fox News, or some talk radio host, and tell us the facts as soon as possible, that might help. I’m sure leftists won’t listen to conservative news outlets, but at least some in the population could see that two different stories are being told. Also, media outlets watch each other, so if Fox was telling the truth, while some other channel was lying, it might make people less trustworthy of that outlet in the future. Notice I did not say to give information to the Fox News channel. I mean for the public relations officer to relay the news directly to the public, no spin, no editors.
Ronald Reagan was known to go directly to the people, bypassing the media. Also, in the First Gulf War, Generals Colin Powell and Arnold Schwarzkopf would give briefings to the media from a tent, and we would watch the briefing on TV. I really liked that. A friend told me we were getting the military’s propaganda. I told him I preferred the military’s propaganda to the media’s propaganda.
Here’s the problem with my idea; it will work until the day comes when a public relations officer goofs, and reports information that later turns out to be inaccurate. The perpetrator’s lawyer will use that to get the judge to declare a mistrial, or get it dismissed. That is why cops don’t report on events until all the facts are in now.
as you have pointed out, and as the responses have shown, there are many different points of view on this subject. The situation in Louisiana and Minnesota, are two incidents that mirror many others that have happened; the police are responding to a situation where they believe the suspect to be armed and dangerous and are coming in hyper-vigilant, to people who are confused and unaware and have no idea that they are being viewed as being dangerous. So it takes very little for some innocent move, or some stupid move (such as a 12 year old would make) for tragedy to happen. This is combined with feelings of persecution that the black community has not felt since the early days of civil rights. Add in the stresses of unemployment, lack of job opportunities (for everyone), and mix in a slanted media attention that focuses on these police killing blacks, and totally leaves out the number of similar situations that occur with police killing whites. Topped off with additional biased reporting that leads everyone to believe that these are not just police killing blacks, but WHITE police killing blacks. And a president who talks about how we are underfunding our efforts to help people of color – seeming to totally forget that there was ever “the Great Society”, or Affirmative Action, Kennedy’s plans to “lift them by their boot straps” and a host of other programs intended to end poverty, which only resulted in millions of tax dollars being wasted. And yet, the call is for more social programs that only benefit the people administrating them. Top this mix off with a bunch of conspiracy theorists (on all sides of the story) who pumping out an even more distorted viewpoint, to people who get all their facts from social media, and the answer is, we’re screwed! Sadly, at this time there are no solutions. We know all the gun laws, gun bans, gun registration, isn’t going to make anyone safer. Yet we also know that guns are ending up in the hands of people who absolutely shouldn’t have them. We know that social programs to hand out money don’t work, and we know that with the shift to internet shopping, the basic retail job that has been the cornerstone of employment for the marginally skilled is disappearing, along with the manufacturing jobs. Our education system has failed us and our children, and we’re at the mercy of THEM to TAKE CARE OF IT. And THEY cannot, and we’ve reached a point where it is nearly impossible for us to do anything either as we no longer have the tools to work with. All that seems to be left is anger and hopelessness. and that’s a damn poor future.
While out for jog, if there are police present, I always stop and walk until they pass.
Richard made a good point about citizen academies helping to foster a better image of the police, but unfortunately the people who needs them most are the ones who have already made up their minds either way about law enforcement.
The last PD I worked for had both a citizen academy and ride along program which were popular. In fact, every one of the people going through the academy even got to fire a H&K MP5 in full auto under the supervision of the tactical team, something neither I nor any other non-TAC member officer were allowed to do. Over the 8 1/2 years I was with my last PD, I had approximately 20 ride alongs and most of them were fine, but a few were scumbags who signed up mainly to aggravate the police and attempt to gather evidence of their racism and brutal activities.
The worst one I had was a white female in her twenties who was homely and dumpy, and had her wallet on a chain. The first thing she asked me when we were alone was the caliber of my pistol which was a SIG 220. When I told her it was a .45, she asked who I planned to blow apart with such a cannon. Then she pointed at the four magazines on my belt and wanted to know why I carried so much ammunition and how many people I planned on shooting that night. To mess with this person, I told her I have a 50 round box in my trunk if more ammo was needed. She started ranting and raving about rogue cops and practically accused me of being one. For awhile, I actually thought this woman was a plant used by fellow sneaky officers to mentally screw with me, she was that crazy sounding. Fortunately, she did not ride with me the entire 10 hour shift and left early, but not early enough to suit me.
I mention this incident to show that radically anti-police scum have always been around. Only now they seem to be increasing in number and many are becoming more violent, especially the people who aren’t white. I have been out of the job for many years and don’t miss it except for the delicious free donuts.
Alfred L Eakin: When the man the officer contacts, in the belief that this man is a suspect in an armed robbery, states that he has a firearm and reaches as if for a gun, it is reasonable and prudent for that officer to presume he is in deadly danger. Please listen carefully to the words that man’s female companion streamed moments after the shooting, and correlate that with the statement made by the officer’s attorney, and ask yourself whether there might not be two sides to the story here.
@Tom606: I’ll give, barely, you the “white female” and “twenties” for purposes of identification and scene-setting but would you care to explain what the “homely and dumpy”and “wallet on a chain” comments have to do with absolutely anything we’re talking about here?
As long as our agitator in chief continues to fan the flames the fires will keep burning. And unfortunately having promoted the attitude that Blue is always suspect (rather than the possibility it may have been the “citizen”), that will likely take several generations to overcome – if we survive that long as a free country.
@ David S. Keough:
That is just my point. The fanatical do-gooder believes that he or she is justified in doing almost anything by the glorious nobility of “making the World a Better Place”. They believe that the “end justifies the means”.
The communists thought that they were entirely justified in striping entire populations of their personal property and then forcing them to work for “The State”. The Prohibitions thought that they had the right to force all of America to “go dry” whether one wanted to be dry or not. Getting rid of the “demon rum” justified the means.
Today, the gun-grabbers think that they “have the right” to disarm me whether I want to be disarmed or not. Ending “gun violence” gives them that “right”.
ISIS believe that it has the right to cut off the heads of infidels and to use terrorism and murder to further their cause. They are trying to bring Allah’s paradise to earth and to establish his law among men and nations! This Holy Cause justifies any means that they have to use.
I am DEAD SERIOUS about what I said. The Greatest Evil in the World is the desire to DO GOOD!
Mas,
What you say is true about the police being the ones who make the arrests of bad cops. However, you conveniently overlook the dozens of bad officers who get away with it for decades because their “brother” officers circle the wagons and either cover for them or just look away.
I suspect that your background being an officer in a small, rural state as well as meeting officers who self-select for being the good ones, has warped your perspective.
I meet and deal with police officers in a major urban area (Detroit) on a daily basis. The vast majority are decent, honest folks, including some pretty good friends. But the percentage of bad officers higher than you think.
As far as my bias goes. I’m a lawyer and NACDL member who does a lot of criminal defense. I do not for a second romanticize my clients. Most of them are people who run from weak to evil. Many are addicts. But the people who enforce the laws are supposed to follow the rules set by the legislatures and courts. If they don’t, they’re just a bigger, tougher, better armed gang. And then how are they better than the criminals?
The good officers have to do a better job of getting rid of the bad ones.
Walt White: What do you think IS the percentage of bad cops, and when you use that term are you talking racist, prone to excessive force, or what?
TN_Man: Am I correct in assuming that the thrust of your statement is that a MISGUIDED desire to do good is the great evil you’re discussing?
I never “intended to imply that 100% of black people are criminals and should be treated as such.”
Maybe it would be clearer if we consider statistics that don’t involve race. A lot more men than women are in prison. More boys than girls get punished (e.g., detention, suspension) in schools. That is not because judges and teachers are systematically persecuting males. It’s because more men than women commit felonies, and more boys than girls misbehave in class.
Similarly, a high percentage of convicted white collar criminals (insider trading, tax evasion, fraud) are white males. I doubt if the SEC and IRS are on a crusade against white males; it’s simply that most of the people who commit those crimes are white men.
So, when liberals cite statistics saying, “African-Americans are only 13% of the population, but they are 55% of the suspects who get arrested for mugging and carjacking, and they are 26% of the victims shot by cops, therefore the cops are racist, and they are harassing black people,” they are only telling part of the story. The cops can’t help it if 55% of the muggers and carjackers are black. Or if 26% of the people who try to murder cops (thus forcing the cops to shoot them in self-defense) are black.
I’ve been stopped for questioning by police (some black, some white), because I fit the description of a suspect. (I didn’t get shot, beaten up, or pepper sprayed, but then, I didn’t draw a weapon, or reach in my pocket after being told not to move.) I’m sure that it happens to innocent young black men a lot more often than it happens to me. But when a crime is reported, and a description of the perp is given to the cops, they are going to go around stopping and questioning people who fit that description. If you fit the description of 55% of the muggers, you get accosted by cops more often than someone who fits the description of 45% of the muggers. That is not my fault, and it is not the cops’ fault, either.
In fact, in the metropolitan area where I live, there is a county police department that seems to have adopted a policy of stopping and questioning one white guy (with or without grounds for suspicion) for every black suspect that they stop and question. That is. a victim calls 911 and reports that he/she got mugged by a young black man. The cops go around questioning young men who fit that description (and, unfortunately, they end up pestering two dozen innocent men before they find the right guy-if they ever do find the right guy). They then go around questioning an equal number of white men (who, obviously, don’t fit that description). It’s a waste of resources, but at least they can truthfully say that everyone in their jurisdiction has an equal opportunity to get hassled. Public safety and upholding the law are now secondary to political correctness and balancing the books.
TN-MAN, point well taken, it’s been said history repeats itself. And, its been said disarmament won’t happen in our country. It starts in our schools.
Too myself, I feel the children are being manipulated in our schools. To undermine our republic. To destroy our country, starting with our families.
No system is perfect. Slavery, and having a divided nations population to me is a immoral. However, it’s as though there’s still bondage. And for some, it’s keeps the Jesse Jackson’s and the like, in power.
Mas,
“Misguided” may be a little too vague. What does that mean? Who decides what is misguided?
I am talking about an attitude of self-righteous arrogance. A fanatical attitude that says “I have the ONLY solution and I will trod underfoot anyone or anything that gets in the way of its implementation”. An attitude that says that MY concerns TRUMP your rights.
There are legitimate concerns in many of the areas that I mentioned. For example, there are legitimate concerns about the downsides of the over-consumption of alcohol. When you carry it to the limit, however, of passing a constitutional amendment (as the Alcohol Prohibitionists did) to FORCE everyone in the county to “go dry”, then you cross the line.
There are legitimate concerns about firearms and their use and availability in society. However, when you carry these concerns to the limit whereby you are dismissing and trampling on the 2nd Amendment Rights of the American People, you cross the line.
As our friend Liberal Dave has pointed out, the Black Lives Matter people have some legitimate concerns. When you carry it to the point, however, of gunning down more than a dozen Dallas Police Officers, you cross the line.
When a fanatic pushes “Goodness” to the extreme limits for the sake of securing a “better World”, it turns into the worst kind of evil. It produces the kind of mentality that leads to oppression, wars and (in extreme cases) genocide.
Too much of anything is bad. Water is one of the most basic ingredients of life but too much of it will leave you dead by drowning. Goodness is not an exception to this rule. To much “goodness” is very, very bad indeed!
@Mas: The good cop / bad cop problem, besides at least partially missing the point as I pointed out above, is also compounded by the the question of what makes a person a bad cop, which is much the same as the question of what makes a person a criminal. Is a cop who ordinarily conducts himself professionally and in accord with the law but who on one isolated instance either by accident, negligence, recklessness, anger, or intent steps outside those standards a bad cop? Or is a bad cop one who does so occasionally? Regularly? In a big way or a small way? Viewed from whose perspective or whose lens? Caught or undetected?
If the standard is that an officer is a good cop only if s/he has never, ever violated, stretched, or abused the law, departmental regulations, or a citizen’s civil rights in the very slightest way in the course of their duties, then I rather expect that the percentage of bad cops is very near or equal to 100%, just like the number of criminals in our society if judged by that standard is very near or equal to 100% of the non-infant population. If the standard is that bad cops are only those fired or prosecuted for violations, then I suspect that the percentage is well below 5%. If the standard is somewhere between those extremes, then it is for good or for ill in the eye of the beholder. That’s yet another reason that the bad cop / good cop dichotomy isn’t particularly useful for addressing the concerns of the black and minority communities.
Mas Says: “…states that he has a firearm and reaches as if for a gun…”
This is a key issue being overlooked by many.
When I tell an LEO that I am carrying, that is the end of my movement. I will not make any other movement that isn’t at the direction of the LEO and even that will be done slowly
In the unlikely situation (for me) that I had multiple LEO’s telling me conflicting commands, I would slowly raise my hands; if not already up, and wait for them to physically take me.
This is a basic part of CCW and interaction with LE.
Back in September this blog, in an entry titled POV, linked to a video of a police officer making a traffic stop. As the officer stands at the driver’s side door, the officer’s body cam video clearly shows an adult male “reaching” for a clearly visible handgun lying on the passenger seat, yet the offcer doesn’t fire a single shot, let alone, four or five. The officer is lauded for the manner in which he handled the situation.
Fast forward to the Minnesota Castile incident. According to the officer’s attorney, the incident escalated due to the presence of a gun. This gun might well have been legally in Castile’s possession yet the officer allegedly fired numerous rounds at or into Castile. There may be forthcoming evidence from the investigation that Castile appeared to be reaching for the handgun.
One glowing difference between the two incidents is that the officer may have thought that the driver (Castile) appeared to match the description of a recent armed robbery suspect, provided the police scanner recording we’ve all heard between the officer and dispatch is authenticated. The former traffic stop I alluded to was merely a headlights infraction.
I suppose which officer you get and how that officer handles an individual situation is a matter of pure luck. Or is it? Stay safe, all!
Mas says: Walt White: Of course there are bad cops. No community of 800,000 is going to be free of bad people. Bad cops reflect on the vast majority of good ones, and make us all look bad. But, when you cheer when a bad cop gets fired or sent up the river, remember that it was good cops who investigated him, and fired or arrested him. It’s why we have Internal Affairs functions.
I reply: That is just not true. It usually takes a citizen video or public pressure to force the police to do anything about bad cops. I am a former cop of about 8 years, and I am not of the opinion that most of them are good cops. They lie, steal, testily, make false arrests, make illegal searches, cover up for each other, and constantly lie on police reports and none of the foregoing is uncommon and it is rarely believed by judges or juries and it is rarely prosecuted or punished. Part of the problem is that police are allowed by law to be dishonest, that is, lie to you. However, if you lie to them, you are just another lying scumbag and can be criminally prosecuted (for example, 18 U.S.C. Section 1005).
If a cop commits a crime, they are not treated like other criminals. For example, it is extremely rare for one cop to arrest another cop on the spot. If there is even a prosecution, there is usually a long, drawn out investigation (the cop often being paid during the investigation). The citizen arrested on the spot is not paid on their job for doing nothing during the investigation, and it is more likely than not that the mere arrest will cause the citizen to be fired from their job. Cops have this feeling of immunity that no other citizen (other than maybe politicians) have. Cops know the chances of discipline are slim. It has only been since their shenanigans have been exposed recently by video that we see cracks in their invincibility. (Note, I think the Mike Brown shooting was justified, but that doesn’t mean the other high profile police misconduct was justified.)
Even when cops are suspected of a crime, the Supreme Court (Garrity v. New Jersey, I believe) says that cops suspected of a crime *must* be given immunity from prosecution before they can be punished for refusing to talk to internal affairs or other investigators. No other employee can be given immunity from prosecution if they exercise their Fifth Amendment right to remain silent. If the employer tells a Walmart checker to talk to the police, or “you will be fired,” you will be fired and not given the immunity from prosecution that an employee cop would get. If a cop is suspected of committing a crime, however, he or she must get the immunity before they can be fired for not talking (they can be fired, but not criminally prosecuted, for refusing to talk *after* they get the immunity).
I agree with you most of the time, but when it comes to cops you seem to have the blinders on (in psychology, it is called “compartmentalization”).
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