By Steve Pomper
If there is ever going to be genuine change to decrease Baltimore’s soaring crime, it can come only after an honest realization of the true problems there. But that’s not likely. Creating a myth about bad cops has become too necessary for political fundraising. But it’s not so great for people who need the police such as in low-income, high-crime communities.
While not unique, Baltimore’s woes may be noteworthy because of its recent history with dreadful political leaders like those giving rioters “space to destroy.” But, is Baltimore, or any leftist-run city interested in the truth? No because the truth doesn’t advance the radical cause.
For example, in an AP story about the collision between police staffing difficulties and “police reform” efforts, they quote police recruit Antonio Martinez. “‘There’s clearly a goal to change things up here. I want to be a part of the change,’ said Martinez, adjusting his department-issued duty belt.”
But what does the police recruit mean by “change?” Not to disparage Martinez because I don’t know what he thinks needs to “change.” I’d like to believe he feels change means not the cops but the politicians who have screwed up that once great city. The problem is, too many good young recruits may believe the false narrative or pretend they do to get the job.
Can you imagine what oral boards, some now include civilians, are asking would-be police officers these days? First, recruits in some jurisdictions are pressured to believe the “problem” is with the cops. That the “change” must be in altering police behavior and tactics because of the myth cops are “hunting minorities in the streets.”
But no legitimate statistics bear this out. In fact, FBI data consistently show the opposite. Yet, police academies are now teaching this social justice garbage to recruits. Like the training scenario in Washington state’s academy in which, according to The Seattle Times, essentially teaches recruits baseball bats are not deadly weapons.
We can see the disconnect between necessary police training and unnecessary police “reform” in a series of police academy training photos MSN included in their coverage of the AP story. One photo shows recruit Alhaji Fofana overhand striking at a rubber tire target (simulating a person) with an asp (collapsible metal baton).
Guaranteed, if someone captured that officer on video, using that technique, even if the suspect had just committed a heinous murder, the media and radical leftists (I know, redundant) would crucify this poor officer, want him fired, and then petition to have Alcatraz reopened as the only incarceration worthy of his crime.
We’ve seen this fake overreaction recently when the NPA reported on the case of Washington D.C. cops punching a suspected drug dealer, armed with a gun, and resisting arrest. The media and far-left activists are roasting those officers on their social justice spit.
And it doesn’t help that the issue is being covered by such a biased media. For example, the AP writes, “Amid the national reckoning on policing in the U.S. since George Floyd’s killing….” The national reckoning intimates a reality that there’s some evil the police need to reckon for. No facts back this up, only biased anecdotes, toxic rhetoric, and anti-cop mythology. Yet, they report as if the need for police reform is a given.
The necessity of continual improvement does not equate with a necessity for government-mandated reform. While law enforcement should always strive to improve, this doesn’t mean there is a need to transform it into something it’s not meant to be.
Floyd was one incident in one American city. In one-on-one conversations, any sane person will admit it’s ridiculous to judge an entire profession by the actions of one or a few employees in one agency. No one would say the restaurant industry must be “reformed” because a person got food poisoning and died after eating at one restaurant in Hackensack.
Yet, the far left was able to (as it has also with Covid) create mass hysteria, which has led to a mass psychosis where too many people believe absurdities about cops. It is ludicrous for people in San Francisco to look with disdain at an SFPD officer because of something that happened 2,000 miles away. Though every lucid person knows this, if they’re good little leftists, they need to adhere to the narrative or risk being bullied.
The most significant problem with policing is social justice and equal justice—traditional policing—are negative and positive, polar opposites. Policing won’t be “fixed” until politicians allow cops to return to equal justice and the rule-of-law. However, those politicians refuse to relinquish the myth about cops. So, they continue to treat cops poorly but still expect to recruit good candidates to become cops.
Now, the “word on the street” I’m getting is that some agencies are beginning to call back candidates they initially rejected. Oh, that’s going to work out just fine, right?
The Left says it wants to “reform” the police by recruiting officers who think more like they do. In cities like Baltimore, this will only hammer the last proverbial nail in the city’s coffin. Leftist cities don’t want to “fix” policing. They want to destroy traditional policing and replace it with policing created in their image. So, that’s exactly what they are doing and precisely what communities are getting.