By Steve Pomper
We’ve all been there. You’re discussing, debating, arguing with someone about cop stuff. They think they know what they’re talking about, but you do know. But you didn’t have that drop-the-mic info to end the exchange.
Later, we always think of the sharp-witted things you wished we’d said. You probably weren’t armed with the right facts. So, if you want to be prepared the next time you’re arguing against the radicals’ “police are brutes” mythology, check this book out first:
The book Justified Deadly Force and the Myth of Systemic Racism is written by Suffolk County Police Benevolent Association (PBA) president and military veteran, Officer Mike Simonelli.
Recently, a friend and former fellow officer, Mike Solan, who is also the Seattle Police Officers Guild president, hosted a captivating exchange with Officer Simonelli on his podcast, Hold the Line.
This is not a book review per se, and it won’t do justice either to Mike’s interview or the other Mike’s book, but there’s a cure for that. Listen to the interview and read the book. I’m just here to point folks in the right direction to arm yourself with info.
I love the book’s title, as I often focus on the radical left’s conjuring anti-police myths, which includes knee-jerk accusations of police murder, brutality, and racism, which statistics never legitimize. Officer Simonelli focuses on how the media allies with the radical left to create a police brutality mythology that cops wantonly execute black men.
He links the despicable anti-police reporting by print and TV media with the police incidents the radical left chooses to exploit for the event’s racialist effectiveness.
From Simonelli’s Prologue: “The current narrative of racist policing has been pushed by the professional media with a religious-type zeal, amplified by social media influences, and then accepted by the masses on the left as gospel.”
When you dissect these twisted into “controversial” incidents, you find that the “victims” are rarely innocent. Often, the suspects were committing crimes when they met their demise and have a significant criminal history.
Officer Simonelli features the infamous incident in Ferguson, Missouri, where, essentially, AG Eric Holder’s DOJ cleared Officer Darren Wilson of wrongdoing after an investigation that found Michael Brown had robbed a store and then was trying to get Officer Wilson’s gun when the officer shot him.
Yet, Brown is often celebrated as a hero, with, as Officer Simonelli describes, dignitaries and celebrities attending his funeral, while Officer Wilson and his family were forced into seclusion for their protection. Also, despite the DOJ clearing Officer Wilson, the feds weren’t about to go away without any scalps. They still plastered the police department with a “pattern and practice” smear claiming, what else, brutality and racism.
Adding to the radical left’s absurdities, Simonelli recalls Michael Brown’s mother, Lesley McSpadden, was among the “Mothers of the Movement,” featuring “seven mothers who lost their children to gun violence and police brutality…” whom a national political convention featured in 2016.
Brown was attempting to grab a cop’s gun when the officer shot him. But instead of condemning his violent actions, the radicals made him a martyr, honored his mother, and vilified a police officer.
How does what didn’t happen in Ferguson, even according to the DOJ, amount to police brutality—unless you believe in anti-cop myths? Simonelli refers to a FOX News Channel story the next day, “Mothers of the Movement’ Mix Righteous Rage and Myth.”
Rage that they lost ch zildren, for whatever reason, of course. But they misdirect that rage toward the wrong targets—the cops. Seems the movement is more about myth than righteous rage.
While researching topics, I still find images at radical left websites featuring the Michael Brown’s mythical “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” with propagandized young people, their faces enraged and hands aloft.
Officer Simonelli’s book includes a case study of “Michael Brown [vs] Justine Damond” (Brown was black, Damond was white). Damon was an Australian immigrant shot by an officer in 2017 in Minneapolis. While Officer Wilson’s actions in the Brown shooting were deemed justified, the officer’s actions in Damond’s shooting were more problematic.
At just before midnight, Damond called police to report she heard a woman screaming in an alley behind her house. A veteran officer driving with a rookie officer (Somali-American lauded by DEI types) in the front passenger’s seat responded.
Damond walked up to the driver’s side of the patrol car. Startled and reportedly “fearing an ambush,” the newer officer drew his sidearm and “fired one shot across the inside of the vehicle past his partner, through the open driver’s side window and into Damond’s body.”
One incident caused violent riots with national and worldwide media attention and is still talked about today, while the other, though prompting a statement from the Australian prime minister, barely garnered a candlelight vigil.
I’m not going to draw any conclusions about the rookie officer’s actions, but the facts are that, for whatever reason, he shot an innocent complainant. That’s something you’d think the anti-cop media would glom onto. In the end, a black cop who shot an innocent white female garnered five percent of the media attention that an innocent white cop who shot a black male did.
Officer Simonelli also discusses the most infamous Saint George Floyd’s in-police-custody/likely OD death, which happened at an opportune time for the radicals. The country was marred by the CCP virus attack and heading into a heated election season. The radical left needed a reason to hurt people and break their stuff on a national level. So, they created one—and they blamed the cops.
Saint Floyd was a convicted violent felon reportedly committing a crime at the time of his arrest whom the ME’s office indicated had ingested a fatal amount of fentanyl and other drugs before his arrest. Yet, Minnesota’s criminal justice system never exhibited any doubt, despite available exculpatory evidence, that the police officers involved would be convicted and sent to prison.
Officer Simonelli emphasizes, academics, other activists, and media have had a massive influence, pushing the police murder, brutality, racist myth. But even with that, as John Adams said, facts are stubborn things. Almost all people eventually tire of people lying to them, whether directly or through propaganda. They eventually notice that what they’ve been told is not what they’re experience daily.
Let’s leave this discussion with a recent, visceral example of Officer Simonelli’s contentions. This 4th of July in Chicago highlights the author’s contentions about the radical anti-cop left and media. They don’t care about a black person’s death unless it’s at the hands of a police officer—especially a white cop.
This past Independence Day weekend, the carnage in Chicago was staggering. According to NBC News, “109 people were shot and 19 were killed” in 74 incidents. These grotesque numbers were reported but virtually only in passing. Where is the radical left’s outrage for those lost black lives? Maybe you can find it, but I can’t.
Let’s let Officer Simonelli have the last word, since we’ve been talking about his book. “This book cannot teach someone to have the courage to stand up for the truth, but it will provide the tools for those who are brave enough to educate themselves, their loved ones, and repudiate those blinded by the false god of racism.”
Make a difference support the NPA