Police union slams co-chair of new panel reviewing CPD use-of-force policy

A new group appointed to review the Chicago Police Department’s use-of-force policy came under immediate fire after its co-chair as “psychopaths with guns.”

Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzara demanded the resignation of co-chair Arewa Karen Winters, saying her remarks make it clear the working group will be a kangaroo court.

She began: “Good morning to my beautiful, broken city” — then blamed police for doing the breaking.

“As far as I’m concerned, [they are] psychopaths with guns. So I am infuriated. I am furious.”

“The announced function of the police to protect and serve the people becomes the grotesque caricature of protecting and preserving the interests of our oppressors and serving nothing but injustice,” Winters said.

“They are there to intimidate blacks to persuade us ... that we are powerless to alter the conditions of our lives. They have circled the community with a shield of violence, too often forcing the natural aggression of the black community inwards. That’s from Angela Davis,” she said, referring to the author and political activist.

Winters’ remarks appeared to make the mayor uncomfortable; Lightfoot wore a face mask which hid her full expression, but appeared to move her eyes from side to side and shift her feet as Winters was speaking.

Catanzara said Lightfoot either failed to vet Winters or chose her deliberately to push a “far-left,” anti-police agenda that includes licensing police officers.

“There’s not even a fair shake. She should be immediately removed from that position. She has a clear agenda, even before she steps in the door,” Catanzara said of Winters.

“If you cater to that squeaky wheel, people are going to be distracted from your lack of a plan for the riots that you did nothing to stop,” Catanzara said.

On one day in Chicago, 137 police officers were injured while performing their jobs. Take any factory in America that you choose, and if this happened at that factory, then OSHA would immediately shut the place down until the workers could do their jobs in safety and expect to go home at the end of the day unscathed.

Why can’t the police expect to do likewise? Will less use of force by the police help insure their safety to do their job, or will more force stem the death and injury to them? We as a society should not put them in harms way and let them be helpless. Both sides of this question should be considered by the group appointed by Mayor Lightfoot. Police should not be uncertain about their safety as they respond to a call. They carry guns to protect themselves but when they cannot use them, then the policeman must not only fight for his own life and limb, but also must fight to keep the perpetrator from taking his weapon.

There has been a common denominator to just about every death at the hands of policemen lately because those being confronted by the police are not doing what the police are asking them to do and expect them to do. And it can’t be because all of them had a hearing problem. Nope, but they all had a behavior problem. Unless the Mayor’s whatever group addresses this side of the issue, nothing meaningful will result from their efforts.

“Why can’t the police expect to do likewise?”

“Because they’re police. Even if every cop does everything right and every police department does everything right, some of them are going to get hurt, and some of them are going to die.

If that is unacceptable to you, you should choose a different line of work.”

Why did you ever assume that I was a policeman. I earned my living as an engineer. I have the utmost respect for all of those that are willing to, as you said, get hurt or die. I am old enough to remember when it was extremely rare for a policeman to get seriously hurt while doing his job. I can remember when it was almost unheard of for one to be killed.

Now it is common place. Please pay close attention to my reference to a “common denominator.”

I think that it was John Adams that said (and I am going to paraphrase because I can’t remember verbatim), “Our form of government was intended only for a moral people. It will work for no other.” If it wasn’t John Adams that said this, then whoever did was a very wise man with a very keen vision for reality.

I asked a sheriff friend of mine once what his biggest challenges was. He shared with me that it was hiring men smart enough to be deputies yet dumb enough to do it for the pay. We may be about to see a mass exodus from the profession of law enforcement.

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Without Virtue There Can Be No Liberty
by Mount Liberty College | Jul 21, 2018 | Constitution

To our Founding Fathers, it was obvious, or “self-evident,” that self-government, or a democratic republic, could only be perpetuated by the self-governed. Reflecting these precepts, a contemporary German writer to the Founders, J. W. von Goethe, stated: “What is the best government? — That which teaches us to govern ourselves.”[1] And, a later, prominent 19th Century minister, Henry Ward Beecher, simply said: “There is no liberty to men who know not how to govern themselves.”[2] Self-governance consists of self-regulation of our behavior, ambitions and passions. To this end, the Founders fundamentally believed that the ability to govern ourselves rests with our individual and collective virtue (or moral character).

John Adams stated it this way, “Public virtue cannot exist in a Nation without private Virtue, and public Virtue is the only Foundation of Republics.”[3] In this regard, the revolutionary war was as much a battle against “the corruption of 18th century British high society,”[4] as it was against financial oppression. While the Founders and American colonists were very concerned with their civil liberty and economic freedom, demanding “no taxation without representation,” they were equally concerned with their religious liberty, particularly in preserving their rights of individual conscience and public morality.[5] With respect to the vital need for virtue in order to establish and maintain a republic, the Founders were in complete harmony:

George Washington said: “Virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government,”[6] and “Human rights can only be assured among a virtuous people.”[7]

Benjamin Franklin said: “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.” [8]

James Madison stated: “To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical [imaginary] idea.”[9]

Thomas Jefferson wrote, “No government can continue good but under the control of the people; and … their minds are to be informed by education what is right and what wrong; to be encouraged in habits of virtue and to be deterred from those of vice … These are the inculcations necessary to render the people a sure basis for the structure and order of government.”[10]

Samuel Adams said: “Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. He therefore is the truest friend of the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue.”[11]

Patrick Henry stated that: “A vitiated [impure] state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom.”[12]

John Adams stated: “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”[13]

Virtue ennobles individual character and lifts society as a whole. Virtuous principles eschew prejudice and discrimination, confirming that “all men are created equal.” Virtue encompasses characteristics of goodwill, patience, tolerance, kindness, respect, humility, gratitude, courage, honor, industry, honesty, chastity and fidelity. These precepts serve as the cornerstones for both individual happiness and societal governance.

[1] Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe, translated by Bailey Saunders (MacMillan & Co., New York, 1906), Maxim No. 225.

[2] William Drysdale, ed., Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit, Selected from the Writings and Sayings of Henry Ward Beecher (D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1887), p. 72.

[3] John Adams to Mercy Otis Warren, April 16, 1776. A. Koch and W. Peden, eds., The Selected Writings of John and John Quincy Adams (Knopf, New York, 1946), p. 57.

[4] Marvin Olasky, Fighting for Liberty and Virtue (Regnery Publishing, Washinton D.C., 1996) p. 142.

[5] See, e.g., Id., Olasky, Fighting for Liberty and Virtue; Richard Vetterli and Gary Bryner, In Search of the Republic: Public Virtue and the Roots of American Government (Rowman & Littlefield, New Jersey, 1987).

[6] Victor Hugo Paltsits, Washington’s Farewell Address (The New York Public Library, 1935), p. 124.

[7] Washington to Marquis De Lafayette, February 7, 1788, John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., The Writings of George Washington, (U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington D. C., 1939), 29:410.

[8] Jared Sparks, ed., The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, (Tappan, Whittemore and Mason, Boston, 1840), 10:297.

[9] Speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 20, 1788. Jonathan Elliot, The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution (J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, 1891) 3:536.

[10] Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1819. ME 15:234.

[11] William V. Wells, The Life and Public Service of Samuel Adams (Little, Brown, & Co., Boston, 1865), 1:22.

[12] Tryon Edwards, D.D., The New Dictionary of Thoughts – A Cyclopedia of Quotations(Hanover House, Garden City, NY, 1852; revised and enlarged by C.H. Catrevas, Ralph Emerson Browns and Jonathan Edwards, 1891; The Standard Book Company, New York, 1955, 1963), p. 337.

[13] John Adams, October 11, 1798, letter to the officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts. Charles Francis Adams, ed., The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, (Little, Brown, and Co., Boston, 1854), 9:229.

https://mountlibertycollege.org/without-virtue-there-can-be-no-liberty/

City Councils across America have voted unanimously to approve a resolution intended to abolish the existing police force and replace it with something else.
At least as safe as Mogadishu.
What exactly that is hasn’t been spelled out yet.
Can anyone spell “Sharia”, Sharia Islamic law, or redundantly Sharia law is a religious law forming part of the Islamic tradition. It is derived from the religious precepts of Islam. Christians, Jews and atheists might consider leaving ASAP!!
Attention citizens of ChicagoStan, MinneapoliStan, Chazistan, San FranciscoStan, SeattleStan, LAStan, NYCStan, and ?????Stan!
Your new BLM/Sharia/Antifa non police force is here to help you!
Don't call 911!
We will find you!
Have your weekly public safety donation, in cash or Bitcoin, handy in a sealed brown paper lunch bag!
Thank you!
ma'a as-salaama!!!
Remember, don't call us, we will find you when we want to.
Below are pics of some of Obama’s Civilian National Security Force, aka your new
BLM/Sharia/Antifa non police force!
At least as safe as Mogadishu.
Vote for Mogadishu, get Mogadishu
Thanks to DCBryan1 for the photo above!
“Hello, alt-911? A gang is trying to break into my house!!!”
“We know. We’re already there.”

Coming soon to any/all blue cities controlled by insane liberals, who hate cops, new BLM/Sharia/Antifa non police force!

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