Anti-police rhetoric is not necessarily new but we are being exposed to more of it. Media mouthpieces lambasting every inkling of police work as if they authored the texts taught in police academies is an anomaly drawing laughter and ire, especially from those who know better: Cops. And politicians with vats of propaganda cooked up for sale to citizens who unwittingly buy into the falsities are highly paid wizards brewing manufactured outrage.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is harping on zero borders, everything free for everyone, and unchecked immigration (which will logistically allow some bad-asses into our nation). Her pro-immigration crux? Rid our country of federal immigration enforcement officers (ICE). Sadly, AOC has congressional cohorts who back her severely flawed logic and reckless ideations. Claims of federal LEOs committing atrocities at the borders is preposterous. ICE agents enforcing immigration laws is wholly conceivable, despite lawmakers saying otherwise.
In the same context, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal, already presiding over a sanctuary state whose local law enforcement officers must refrain from any cooperative efforts with ICE, CBP and DHS, spits on federal immigration laws. Immigrants, illegal ones, have it made in the land of Grewal. Now, per Grewal’s 14-page Law Enforcement Directive 2019-3, all New Jersey LEOs must use pronouns when addressing transgender folks, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, “…even if the name isn’t on official records.”
Citizens swiftly and baselessly lash at cops for doing fundamental police work —for the good of all. One can only imagine the brothers/sisters of the NYPD and how they are being so despicably maligned, even when not on a call. Many media reports lately have echoed the same tone: NYPD cops are underserved and unsupported by their own command staff and the public egged on by elected officials who pander to so-called constituents. Debasing cops and encouraging folks to be brazen based on personal wants (NY’s AOC is complicit) is the absurdity LEOs endure. Never mind the rule of law; the nonsense has burgeoned to a mindset of Take, take, take…and We do what we please!
The atrocious behavior of some citizens reacting to the rigors of police work and the laws we all agree to abide by has indicators that imply perpetuity; it surely is intensifying.
On November 10, 2019, Associated Press writer Michael Sisak wrote: “In law enforcement circles, there’s a growing feeling that people are feeling emboldened to act out against police officers. In a series of attacks over the summer, several officers were soaked with water , others were hit with a milk carton and Chinese food and another had his body camera ripped off.
“Police unions say frequent criticism of police from city politicians and reform advocates is stoking anti-police sentiment.” Not surprised? Me neither.
Remember Jussie Smollett and his humongous hate-crime hoax? It was announced that he “filed a malicious prosecution counterclaim in federal court late Tuesday against the city of Chicago, including multiple Chicago Police Department officers,” according to The Wrap. Remember Chicago prosecutor Kim Foxx, the one who gave Smollett his soapbox…the one who also snubbed her nose at Chicago PD’s cops? Foxx’s role was rife with conflict of interest in a case “plagued with irregularities.”
Smollett’s lawsuit contains the following language: “Mr. Smollett has suffered and continues to suffer substantial economic damages as well as reputational harm, humiliation, mental anguish and extreme emotional distress in an amount according to proof at trial.” I’m gonna guess that’s lawyer-speak for My client is butt-hurt and he did nothing wrong. Anyone observe the following this guy had when the story broke, and then when it broke again? “If you build it, they will come” is apparently not much different than If you say it, they will believe it. It is just used wantonly. So much for ethics and moral turpitude. Instead, some are reckless and with attitude—a bad one.
What happens when citizens feeding on a propaganda pizza decide to extra-inflate the ego and delusional mindset of an actor caught up in his own fiction? This: Smollett’s lawsuit (“counterclaim”) arrived right after the city of Chicago filed a lawsuit against him, seeking to be reimbursed for $130,106. to recompense for CPD’s investigative costs (otherwise known as taxpayer dollars). The GoFundMe page dedicated to raising money for him to “fight hate crimes” surpassed its projections. According to NPC Daily, “The goal was 1 million but in a staggering wave of liberal support, the cause grew to 5 million in only a couple of days!” A “wave of liberal support”? Oh, neat…a clue. The absurdity of it all boggles the mind.
I could dissect this ad nauseum, but it’ll still leave me to wonder about personal responsibility and the psyches of people who believe society owes them everything they ask for, and the enablers who toe the line with official capacity.
Why does law enforcement keep getting the short end of the stick?
Mr. Sisak heard from current John Jay College of Criminal Justice instructor Joseph Giacolone, a former NYPD police sergeant, who framed it quite well: “The message is that there are no consequences for your actions. You’re a victim and you’re a victim of society and you’re a victim of racism. And the police are the enemy because they are the tool […] used to oppress you. That’s basically the message that has been filtered down.” I get what Mr. Giacolone is saying, but it is more like plunged than filtered, and the MSM thrust the handle. A shame.
And don’t get me started on the baffling behavior and vexing notions of NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio, the same Hizzoner who acknowledged his bi-racial son is in danger around cops. Former NYPD cop and retired Secret Service agent who guarded Barack Obama, Dan Bongino described de Blasio this way: “These stories make me sick. This disgusting, gross, unforgiveable anti-cop atmosphere permeating down from the top of New York City is a danger to every cop out there. And what’s even worse about it is the failed communist mayor of New York, de Blasio, he understands [it]. This is not a dumb guy.” Irony: NYC mayor claims his son is in danger around cops, and those very same cops are immersed in the dangers tacitly condoned by their unsupportive and seemingly anti-cop mayor.
De Blasio’s insinuation was a mere microcosm compared to Senator Bernie Sanders suggesting folks respect police “so you don’t get shot in the back of the head.” He said that. He is occupying a seat in the U.S. Senate. He is governing. He is neither supporting cops nor is he doing anything pertinent to police/community relations by exclaiming such an incendiary and preposterous statement.
Like other metropolis cities whose elected officials are errantly decriminalizing state statutes by way of refusing to enforce laws, birthing programs snuggled in the bosom of so-called “reform,” and otherwise influencing depolicing in their jurisdictions, it appears quality-of-life tenets are grossly supplanted by official acts signaling How can I babysit you better?
A golden boy governing California, Gavin Newsom endorsed/enacted a state law limiting police use of deadly force. Never mind that cops everywhere are traditionally trained to use lethal use of force if it is deemed they are confronting the same fate posed by an armed (or otherwise equipped) attacker. Immigration enforcement? Nope, none of that while Newsom is governor. He cut off federal immigration cops then freed illegal immigrant felons “to shield them from deportation” and seek refuge in his sanctuary state. Wonder if New Jersey Attorney General Grewal and California Governor Newsom chat about their complicit roles in thwarting illegal immigration enforcement under the guise of good government.
Some leaders and elected ones are embracing police oversight committees’ spawning tentacles for overreach and control of police organizations/operations. These committees are often comprised of civilians abjectly inexperienced yet somehow positioned to wedge cops in the vice grips, squeezing police practitioners into doing things the committee’s way. Sounds rather dictatorial, doesn’t it?
One civilian member of the Albuquerque Civilian Police Oversight Agency is self-described as a “homemaker” with a M.S. in Entomology. And many of these civilian oversight contingents get to decide discipline for police officers, too. These civilian oversight committees can do as much good as a non-engineer can by tutoring an engineering professor implementing his new engineering book at the College of Engineering.
San Francisco’s new district attorney, Chesa Boudin, got elected despite his parents playing a role in the murders of two cops and a security guard in the 1980s. Mr. Boudin is a career defense attorney who had zero skills as a prosecutor; notwithstanding his lack of prosecutorial experience, his voters plopped him in that particular seat. Gee, wonder how he will relate to police officers and cases they bring to his jurisdictional sphere. How will he handle cop killers? Like-minded folks intertwined in anti-police mob mentality?
I can see Mr. Boudin facilitating indictments against cops for doing their job. He’ll be among other DAs levying charges as if he were meting out of a trick-or-treat bowl, except the trickery does not result in treats whatsoever. It cancels careers. It ruins lives (Darren Wilson). How derailed can the system get? Well, voters tainted by political platforms promising utopia while circumventing laws and cops who enforce them need to look in the mirror.
Cop or not, we all know about responsibility. Cop or not, there is no mandate to engage in unproductive debates depicting duos picking at each other based on emotion-fueled propaganda from any “journalist” whose goal is to fan falsities—get the clicks, never mind the truth.
We can do better, much better. We can overcome…by holding to account those elected poles who react with knee-jerk stances instead of objective reasoning, by tasking reporters to cite facts instead of piping-hot propaganda cooked up by their anti-cop bias.
Since when is saying No, you’re wrong! or They got it right! not an option? With all walks of life, cops do it daily as a matter of course. Rightly so; it’s how/why police are purposed. Leaders with followers hanging on their every syllable need not mince words: constituents make mistakes, and it is okay to mentor folks toward better outcomes, not coddle recidivists behaving like petulant children.
We all possess perspective; it becomes a matter of myopic or broad, staying stuck on one idea (provided by a biased “leader” or media mogul) when other options are readily available to critically crystalize the picture, the entire organic picture, minus photoshopped images and/or skewed statements designed to further false narratives. Alexa Morelli wrote an in-depth exposé titled “The Media’s War on Police Officer” in which she cited “how the changes the media has made in the way they report about law enforcement officers and their activity have changed the way Americans [and others watching from afar] view and treat police officers,” and “hate campaigns” against the police.
And thank goodness organizations such as the National Police Association stand behind the merits of law enforcement officers who regularly confront the damned if you do, damned if you don’t mantra. I’d feel damned forever if I didn’t fill my oath, despite the media claiming my constitution is all wrong because it doesn’t model theirs.
Thomas Paine coined, “These are the times that try men’s souls.” Indeed, they are.