By Steve Pomper
I’m giving up saying, “what’s next?” in response to the anti-police psychosis perverting our political leaders’ sense of equal justice. It seems, every time I even think what’s next? some leftist buffoon answers it.
Case in point, according to Syracuse.com, Ithaca, N.Y. Mayor Svante Myrick has announced a mind-twisting plan to dismantle the police department and replace it with a bizarre social justice warrior delusion of public safety.
Myrick intends to “create a new Department of Community Solutions and Public Safety.” Great! That title is so “woke,” after reading it, I may never sleep again. This is more than semantics. The mayor intends to split the department into “two divisions: One an unarmed force of ‘community solution workers’ and the other an armed unit of ‘public safety workers’ who respond to and investigate crimes.”
The mayor is doing this because a convicted felon allegedly committing another crime, in a city a thousand miles from Ithaca, reportedly with enough fentanyl in his system to kill a water buffalo, died in police custody. The Ithaca P.D. did nothing to warrant the mayor cancelling their department. But Myrick the Woke won’t let the officers’ non-guilt stand in his way. He has public safety to impede, a free society to suppress, and a traditional culture to crush.
First, and most obvious, the plan the mayor and others have for dividing a police department into armed and unarmed is mindboggling. They base this division of labor on statistics gleaned “after” the incidents have been resolved. A high percentage of calls did not require a use of force. So, the conclusion is armed cops weren’t/aren’t necessary. But, no one can know “non-violent” incidents related to homelessness, drug addiction, mental illness, neighbor disputes, etc. will be non-violent until after the call.
I was dispatched to many “non-violent” calls that became violent after police arrived, which, of course, the anti-cop leftists will blame on the cop’s failure to de-escalate. There are also calls officers respond to where they suddenly have to respond to an un-related violent disturbance erupting nearby. Happens all the time.
I can’t tell you the number of times the dispatcher gave me information about an incident that was not what I found on arrival. This is not the 911 operator’s or dispatcher’s fault. They get the information from flawed human beings who are under stress. You’d have to be psychic to determine which calls will not result in violence. A firearm is one of those things you’d much rather have and not need than not have and need—right now!
A civilian would run the community solutions department rather than a police chief. With so many chiefs appointed by anti-police, leftist mayors, that might not matter. But this next item does matter. Adding to the monumental insult of dismantling the police department based on myths and lies about officer misconduct, current police officers “would have to reapply to keep their jobs as “public safety workers.”
Not surprisingly, Myrick said he came up with the concept following “community dialogues, meetings and protests over the last several months and years.” There is one thing lacking in this formula for diluting public safety: he didn’t include the cops in the discussion. Why, Mr. Mayor? Because ACAB?
In fact, the police were so out-of-the-loop, the cops said they felt “blindsided.” This was obviously true, as the mayor didn’t even try to deny not including the police. Rather, he apologized for it (too little; too late). Ithaca Police Benevolent Association (PBA) President Thomas Condzella said the cops had been left out of the public safety discussion even though, “We are the experienced professionals.” With any other profession, hearing from the people who actually do the work matters. Apparently, not with law enforcement.
Condzella believes the mayor is “deliberately hamstringing the police department to” bolster his case to abolish the traditional police department. He added, “Violent crime in the city of Ithaca is steadily rising. However, our ability to address it is decreasing by the day, almost as if by design, to further this proposal.” Condzella also said he sees devious mayoral attempts at union busting.
Condzella claims Myrick is exploiting Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s follow-the-crowd police reform mandate by taking it way too far. The union president hopes the city council will “show leadership” and shut down the mayor’s irresponsible attempts to gut public safety in Ithaca.
Just like other leftist political petri dishes proliferating around the country, in conclusion, Condzella asks the city council, “Are you willing to test this new public safety model on your employees and your constituents when actual lives hang in the balance?”
Unfortunately, in far too many American cities, mad (political) scientists, working in municipal laboratories, hold their employees and constituents in psychological captivity where leftist leaders experiment on them as if they were lab rats.
As for the question, are Ithaca’s politicians willing to risk people’s lives “to test this new public safety model…?” I hope the answer is a resounding, NO!