GOOD COP, BAD COP!

Vanity ^ | 9 10 2015 | Dick Bachert

[Dick Bachert]

First, the GOOD news: Though still disturbing, the number of police officers killed each year has fallen back to mid-1960s levels. Most of THOSE lamentable 60s deaths were the result of actions by criminals suspects or really bad people during law enforcement efforts at apprehensions.

Now, the BAD news: We are seeing something very, very different today. We are witnessing the random executions of cops by those who appear to have been animated by the unfortunate race-baiting and other efforts to disrupt our culture by certain members of the political class and the consequent break-down in the rule of law. This is Third World, banana republic stuff most Americans have traditionally rejected.

The drift away from the traditional, Constitutional American ethos that the duty of the police is to protect and serve and the ongoing militarization of the police is very disturbing to those who know and understand the tragedy that sort of activity has brought upon other nations. If not curtailed, the dangerous idea that the police and the decent, taxpaying, law-abiding citizens whose resources pay for that protection and service are somehow enemies will end very badly. There is a growing sense in some quarters that the “service” the police increasingly provide is the “protection”of the elitist oligarchs by controlling and suppressing those these elites consider an existential threat to their power and control.

Normal distribution curves tell us that every barrel of apples will contain x number of bad apples. You good officers who try only to do the best job you can and are NOT on some uniform, badge and pistol power trip enjoyed by some of your colleagues know who the abusive power trippers in your department are. It is in our interest – but especially in the interest of you good, dedicated officers who may some day become targets of random, unjustified assassination attempts – to identify and do what you can to get the abusive power-trippers out of your departments. And it is incumbent on the managers of those departments to attempt to prevent those individuals from simply joining other departments by giving inquiring agencies honest evaluations of those dismissed officers. Let them take jobs where they do not carry a gun and badge and the authority of the state. Because the uniform makes you guys an easy target, you should think about that before you close ranks in that thinning blue line in a misguided effort to shield the abusive power-trippers.

I believe the increase in street and other common crime is a result of the real disrespect for law in the very highest levels of our system all the way up to state capitols, Pennsylvania Avenue, Capitol Hill and the very courts themselves. After years of it, some citizens, who may already be disposed to lawless acts finally say “What the hell, if they can get away with it, why shouldn't I?”

One final note. Can anyone remember when the term “Police State” conjured a happy, warm, comforting feeling?

Neither can I! So let's do all we can to stop before we get there.

PS: Before you attempt to peg me as a cop hater, the Best Man at my wedding many years ago was my Uncle Bob, a 30 year police officer/detective. And my only sister is married to a retired cop!

[Dick Bachert]

Along with the government schools, this is yet ANOTHER "problem" we'd better solve.

[circlecity]

"to identify and do what you can to get the abusive power-trippers out of your departments. And it is incumbent on the managers of those departments to attempt to prevent those individuals from simply joining other departments by giving inquiring agencies honest evaluations of those dismissed officers."

Or maybe just assign these bad eggs to work in the property room or some other administrative position.

[AlaskaErik]

Obama/Holder/Sharpton have set race relations back 60 years and have tacitly approved hostility towards police. They have sowed the wind and now the police are reaping the whirlwind.

[Safetgiver]

As far as I have been exposed to LE, as well as being one in the past, we (the community and the individual cops) need to return to the idea that we hire Peace Officers, not military orientated AA hires.

[Liz]

I seriously love this guy---tough-talking Wisconsin Sheriff Dave Clarke. Clarke is considered a rock star in conservative circles. Clarke is dynamic VP material.

Milwaukee’s tough-talking black sheriff, David Clarke, argued this week that white Americans have “made great strides” in healing race relations, and that sooner or later they’re going to grow tired of having their noses “rubbed in the past sins of sins of slavery." (Fox News via The Daily Surge)...

Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke didn’t pull any punches in his assessment of the Rev. Al Sharpton — who vowed to keep fighting for justice for slain Ferguson teen Michael Brown, despite the feds’ decision to drop a civil rights investigation — and characterized him on national television as less than intelligent and unworthy of respect.

“The grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri, got it right,” Sheriff Clarke said, during an appearance on “Fox & Friends.” “Officer [Darren] Wilson has been exonerated. The thing I want to know is how does he get his reputation back?”

Sheriff Clarke then directed anger at Mr. Sharpton, who spoke sharply in the wake of Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision not to prosecute Mr. Wilson, a former police officer, on civil rights charges.

CLARKE “I don’t expect anything intelligent to come out of the mouth of Al Sharpton,” Sheriff Clarke said, Mediaite reported. “We know he is a charlatan. Al Sharpton ought to go back into the gutter he came from. The police officer is owed a lot from him, Eric Holder and the president of the United States.”

Copyright © 2015 The Washington Times, LLC.

[Dick Bachert]

I agree. Love Clarke!

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

After a wave of police assassinations in the 1970s, the feds strongly encouraged police in the US to no longer use “Old West” style policing, in which guns remained holstered, and would only be brandished if the intent was to shoot to kill.

Instead, they were told to adopt “SWAT” tactics, which quickly turned into paramilitary tactics, assumed everyone was out to kill police, and that they should “brandish and menace” their guns frequently, “to establish control and dominance in situations.”

This resulted in a marked increase in police deaths, as brandishing a gun can not only make a normal situation bad, but makes it far easier to lose your gun. Far more police deaths were from their own gun, apart from suicide, in the hands of someone else.

And practically speaking, guns only have three modes: holstered, brandished, or firing, which is wholly inadequate for the vast majority of police encounters; which is why many police now adore Tasers, as they give them many more options that guns don’t.

Its long term result was just as bad, based on the RICO Act which was passed *prior* to the assassinations, which poured federal money from confiscated (”arrested”) property and money into local police coffers, on *condition* that they used the money to buy military surplus equipment and weapons.

Over time, this result in ridiculous and utterly unnecessary paramilitarization of local police.

In any event, this is why we need to keep a close watch of these current police assassinations, because the same scoundrels who turned our police into paramilitaries will undoubtedly start beating the drum for even more weaponizing and aggression on the part of police.

Something that neither the police, or our nation, need.

[Dick Bachert]

Spot on. Thanks for the reinforcing what some of us have been saying for many years.
Be safe!

[jessduntno]

“Milwaukee’s tough-talking black sheriff, David Clarke, argued this week that white Americans have “made great strides” in healing race relations, and that sooner or later they’re going to grow tired of having their noses “rubbed in the past sins of sins of slavery.”

It’s already later. And not just for blacks. “So and so has become the three hundred and fifth black (fill in the blank) to receive an (fill in the award, office, etc...). It’s bullshit and needs to stop...let alone the whining about past treatment.

I just heard this new gay hero, limp wristed doofus Mr. Sulu, on a TV show whining about his “terrible treatment in internment camps.” Well I got news for you, Mr. Sulu, if you were a white kid and you had a father in the Navy, like I did, you “were uprooted and lived in substandard housing” routinely. You also “weren’t allowed to have a lot of nice things and a home”...you had Q-huts and dirt floors, temporary housing, overnight relocation...nearly homeless...and all because the f’ing Japanese thought they could bomb the shit out of us and rule half of the world! THEY kill 3,000 guys asleep in their racks on Sunday morning, my life turned to shit and now, I gotta listen to all their inconveniences. Screw that. Then the years following with nukes and commies at the gate.

Where do I go for my reparations?

WWll then Korea...you know, we need to let people know there is a whole world of shit that came along with “white privilege” in the 20th century that was just plain brutal for some of us kids, especially military kids and the troops that fought these morons. And now we look like we could easily be heading into another fight against an enemy with world domination fantasies.

Growing up in the middle of all of that stuff was no day at the beach, but I don’t start every sentence with “where’s the (....) you owe me” either. And neither did my old man. He retired after almost 30 years and got a job! And not of us all recovered right away. A lot of us grew up with fathers who were shell shocked or badly damaged guys (especially career soldiers and sailors) who spent 8-10 years away from home...and at war to save the world...without any comforts. God bless them all.

And God bless all the families who will pass the day tomorrow without family members because we didn’t take Islams threat to “finish the job” at the Trade Center while Bubba was getting his knob polished by White House interns and his mannish wife was plotting a second reign, not rooting them out and exterminating them.

[Biggirl]

“Milwaukee’s tough-talking black sheriff, David Clarke, argued this week that white Americans have “made great strides” in healing race relations, and that sooner or later they’re going to grow tired of having their noses “rubbed in the past sins of sins of slavery.”

It has started already, called the “summer of Trump.”

[Himyar]

Amen! And it still continues for military families. Things are better now but it still sucks as a life style. This was brought home to me when I was asked who my best friend from childhood was. I didn’t have one. We moved too much. You don’t get to put down roots.