Between a rock and a hard place, police officers continue to confront the scourge of rampant crime liberally brewed during tumultuous times, whereby malfeasance has open-season proportions and cops in the crosshairs while protecting citizens.
The city leadership in Little Rock, Arkansas has declared the unrelenting surge in crime, especially due to their uptick in homicides, a “public health” crisis. We are now hearing that classification when local governments address out-of-control criminality.
A few hours before composing these words, I poked my head into the Little Rock Police Department’s calls-for-service data. At 03:35 a.m. on February 3, 2022, Little Rock officers responded to a “Shot Spotter Activation,” implying the city invested in technology to aid the police with specific regard to gunfire. Here is a glimpse into Shot Spotter, as explained by Fresno, California police Chief Paco Balderrama:
Although not among the U.S. House Judiciary Committee-compiled list of police defunders, Little Rock and its elected body is officially calling for beefed up ranks in the police force’s street crimes unit to help combat the tsunami of violence rampant throughout the city, underscoring 10 shootings, some resulting in homicides, over the course of recent days.
“The loss of life is just astounding, and I look at it as basically a whole generation is being genocided,” city director Doris Wright underscored in the Board of Directors meeting.
Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott, Jr. said in a social media post, “Grateful for my colleagues on the City Board for passing a resolution (9-1) to address the community violence as a public health crisis in Little Rock. This resolution emphasizes and reiterates our collective focus on addressing community violence holistically while allowing expedited processes to deploy resources more quickly.”
The “street crimes unit” concept has been mentioned a lot lately in cities which foolishly disbanded or stupidly shrunk them down when anyone with even a thimble of brain cells could have predicted crime spikes perpetrated by malcontents egged on by irresponsible politicos and anti-police minions.
The NYPD, significantly demoralized under the twisted city governance of now-former Mayor Bill de Blasio, is now reinstituting its street-crime unit, as per the direction of newly-elected Mayor Eric Adams, himself a former NYC police captain.
In any event, street-crimes units were always a great contingent, getting right down and in there with sans-uniform attire allowing blending in like everyone non-cop, equipped with “street smarts” enabling chameleon-like feats to blend with banter and nab unsavories red-handed. In short, criminals don’t necessarily see it coming until they are in handcuffs.
Residing in Little Rock for decades, my in-laws explained their observations, mostly about the gradual deterioration of their community in a city which has had its share of criminality and socioeconomic impacts. Recently, they painted a stark picture, one candidly punctuated by the constant fear of going out and getting accosted and/or their household being subjected to depravity—at the time of our catch-up convo, an arsonist was terrorizing the community.
Little Rock PD is currently advertising its push to hire more cops to fill vacancies and strengthen their force’s mission. I’ve come across commentary having to do with LRPD’s adoption of the 21st Century Policing model pushed by Mr. Obama and his administration, the one which boldly sought to lower hiring standards for police applicants yet expect optimized public safety—a paradox.
Analyzing how Obama saw principles in policing, The Heritage Foundation published the following:
“[T]he police have had few political allies. City officials have often been quick to give in to political pressure, blaming officers and calling for prosecutions before investigations are complete and the facts are known.
“Fearing for their careers and reputations, police officers are refraining from discretionary enforcement activities. Others are leaving the force altogether, and potential recruits are opting not to join, resulting in staffing shortfalls and tremendous pressure to lower hiring standards .”
Review the eligibility tenets listed in Little Rock PD’s hiring bulletin, and discern for yourself if any particular line item implies standards are lax.
Turning from Little Rock to the Big Apple, a widely-publicized meeting of the minds occurred on Thursday at the nation’s largest municipal police agency: The NYPD. At One Police Plaza, the term “public health” mimicked Little Rock government officials referring to soaring violence.
Copious platitudes for each other consumed more airtime than the heart of the matter: Armed and violent criminals.
With the fad of concepts proffered by leaders overseeing crime-ravaged cities, “violence interrupters” is being reiterated more. Baltimore implemented violence interrupters, some of whom were murdered on the streets they patrolled while striving to effect change.
Violence interrupters mentioned by several panelists speaking at Thursday’s forum at the NYPD’s One Police Plaza was during dialogue addressing gun violence. If one could tolerate the politi-speak and over-indulgence of cheerleading and mental massaging of party cohorts for each other —especially all of them putting the White House occupier on a pedestal— then you may reflect the ubiquitous nature of our national overlords being way out of touch with reality.
At least recently slain NYPD Detectives Jason Rivera and Wilbert Mora were accorded recognition. Emphasizing that one dreadful phone call no police spouse wants to ever receive, blue-family widows in the crowd and elsewhere were granted respect and honor. Otherwise, it was about them touting intent to remedy America’s gun violence once and for all.
A lot of high-profile political figures in that NYPD auditorium, one day after the police force buried yet another colleague slain fighting the good fight. I wonder what anti-police barker Susan Sarandon feels about the hypersensitive hosting of collaborative elected officials —U.S. president, his attorney general, several U.S. senators and congresspersons, NY’s governor, NY’s attorney general— and all respective motorcades and entourages satiating Secret Service logistics. (Zero Republican politicos were present.)
In reference to the latest police funeral and condolences of cops attending in support while on-duty officers worked the beats, Ms. Sarandon tweeted the following:
Given the roundtable of highfalutin political figures in the One Police Plaza space, as thousands of law enforcement officers worked the streets wondering if they’ll get to go home one more time, doesn’t that mean we all know who exactly is absolutely needed? Isn’t the purpose of this meeting about public gun violence and public safety and the cops who confront it on the daily?
Some suits posture and platform while cops do the dirty work of policing the battle zones day in and day out. These tremors have been going on for decades, and cops know it all too well. As one of Little Rock’s board of directors, Capi Peck said, “I wish we would have done this long ago. It’s not new. It has escalated.”
As Little Rock police Chief Keith Humphrey spoke into a bank of media mics, “You can’t stop stupid. You can’t stop people who have a lack of respect for other people’s lives.” Yikes! Those words readily apply to some anti-police elected officials.
Now seems an appropriate time to reiterate a statement by Jordan Peterson: “You are not obligated to associate with people who are making your life worse.” And that’s why many of us associate with the badged men and women in blue.
The president mentioned allocations of funds to hire more cops and pay them overtime, after which he implored the use of Shot Spotter technology, such as the ones already in use in Little Rock. The NYPD has utilized Spot Shotter technology for years, nothing new to their variety of crime-fighting gameplan.
Per the NYPD, “In March 2015, the Department began employing ShotSpotter, a technology that pinpoints the sound of gunfire with real-time locations, even when no one calls 911 to report it. This technology triangulates where a shooting occurred and alerts police officers to the scene, letting them know relevant information: including the number of shots fired, if the shooter was moving at the time of the incident (e.g., in a vehicle), and the direction of the shooter’s movement. ShotSpotter enables a much faster response to the incident and the ability to assist victims, gather evidence, solve crimes, and apprehend suspects more quickly.”
Overall, the flip-flopping anti-police-turned-pro-police leftists sat in One Police Plaza and preached anti- violence to the choir, never deigning to take responsibility for the grotesque levels for which they are responsible (irresponsible). In the middle of them all, the president flipped pages so swiftly —as if there were a mere few words (bullet points) upon each slice in the binder— stammering the defund-the-police fiasco pushed by his political party. Now, going the other way, especially after that same party realized their fault-lines opened to swallow them whole, funding the police is back on the plate, portions of which point toward hiring more cops. (Hopefully, not according to the “lower hiring standards” specs per the Obama plan.)
Last but not least: victims! How many victims were needlessly targeted because of the antithetical approach puffed up by leftist regimes of all levels across the nation? Cretins with cart blanche roamed with repeated messaging from people in power espousing soft-on-crime policies as the new normal.
Gee, even children know the cops versus robbers formula, and what happens when the good guys are made to be the bad guys while the real bad guys roam rampantly.
The new, seemingly self-serving script plopped on the table is tardy! I imagined cops sitting there in NYPD HQ, listening to this dialogue spoken by liberal politicos telegraphing We’re gonna save you all as if police officers haven’t been doing that since chronicling crime stats on an abacus.
Seems we never have to look for reasons to detest politics; they provide ample ammo to cringe over their ways and trickery and empty promises and falsities…while American streets serve as the big stage for depraved actors while courageous cops continue to fight the good fight, one we all know is winnable without pretense botching up the blue.
I’m not suggesting I have the ultimate answer to resolve all of criminality globally. But there is merit to the fundamentals of combatting crime by allowing law enforcement to descend upon criminals of all stripes on a continuous basis without these politics-induced free passes and myopic reforms and arbitrary allowances from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
Whether it is categorized as a public health issue or an epidemic by any other name, cops have been on the frontlines and remain there. Seems we are once again at the crossroads to choose the right path, not the kneejerk, emotion-based, minion-influenced, fallacious one adopted and plunged by all narrow-minded governments in America.