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So, You Want to Be a Vigilante . . .
So, you want to be a vigilante, well you better have a plan. Soros prosecutors and city officials that are more interested in prosecuting police officers and preventing police officers from doing their job are adding to the chaos for citizens who obey the law.
The frustration of crime victims is understandable. At one time, there was a promise between the victim of a crime and the state. The state would seek and prosecute the criminal, and the victim would not avenge themselves. That has changed in some cities. Now, some judges and prosecutors act as advocates for the criminal.
From Second City Cop:
Two men were shot on Sunday morning after they successfully tracked down a robbery crew that mugged their relatives, only to have the offenders open fire on them, according to a Chicago police report.
[…]At about 7 a.m., a 64-year-old man and a 69-year-old woman were robbed by three gunmen in the 1600 block of South Miller Street, according to a Chicago police report. CPD said the crew pistol-whipped the woman, took property from both victims and fled in the Kia Soul.
Two relatives of the victims who were robbed on Miller Street decided to track down the offenders. Within minutes, they found the Kia Soul and the robbers in the 3700 block of South Ashland. Their plan quickly went sideways when the robbers opened fire on them, according to a CPD report.
Police said an “unknown number of offenders” shot a 44-year-old man in the elbow and torso and shot a 19-year-old man in the thigh. A ShotSpotter detected 12 rounds fired at the scene. Both victims were taken to Stroger Hospital in fair condition.
They found the robbers, but they didn’t plan well for the encounter.
As former police officer, I understand the frustration of citizens who obey the law and the frustration of police officers who are not allowed to enforce the law. Big box stores and small businesses are closing their stores due to state-sanctioned looting in some American cities.
I was in the cheap seats watching deputies, state troopers, and police officers trying to prevent the breach of a federal courthouse in Portland. They were hampered by a federal judge who constantly changed the rules of engagement for these law enforcement officers. Approximately 90% of the rioters who were charged with crimes were never prosecuted.
Published in PolicingThe Department brass (and democrat politicians) are terrified that people (and folks) are going to start taking the law into their own hands, because THEY KNOW the police can’t or aren’t permitted to take any risks enforcing the law. If/When they do, cops risk suspension time, employment security and prison.
The public isn’t restricted by all that Use of Force stuff or have to have cameras on so that four or more different agencies can figure out how to [Redacted] up cops lives. Some of the public has figured this out. More will shortly. And when they do, they’re going to wonder why they’re paying massive taxes and fees for a multi-billion dollar Department that doesn’t do [Redacted].…and then we’ll see some change.
We’ll be long gone, but the view from the cheap seats is sure to be entertaining.
In the long run, people will take the law into their own hands more and more. It is only a matter of time.
In Columbia, when the government could not control the drug cartels, you had citizens forming their own criminals groups.
Warlordism is the natural state of Man. As the government retreats, others will step up. It is the very message of the opening of the movie The Godfather.
A day is coming when strong men set up protection and use violence to shut down criminals. And they will be supported by otherwise law abiding citizens.
It will get interesting if the enforcement disparity between certain states/cities grows. The doom spiral will grow as those who prefer police forces and a legal system going after crime move to those places where that still continues. Those left behind will get it hard.
The future looks more grim with each passing year.
Now, the liberals who support “defund the police” and related causes are mostly just stupid, but the leftists who start and promote these causes know exactly what they are doing.
The underfunded, undermanned police will be by to escort the EMTs and coroner personnel and to make sure the citizens involved have valid FOID cards.
It is not enough that citizens accept crime, they must pretend not to notice. The Soros DAs will double down on citizens who fight back. Recall that 1,500 murders in NYC were secondary to the need to get the dangerous super-thug Bernie Goetz–even getting a new grand jury to indict when the first one would not. That is the unchanged lefty mindset.
It really is a move towards a Cyberpunk style dystopia, where the rich have security, crime is otherwise ignored, and the non-rich have to somehow get by in the anarchy.
Mayors and governors have been starting to backpedal on that, and often try to claim that it was Republicans who actually wanted to defund the police.
What makes me angry is that there is no reason for citizens to be placed in danger to do what police officers should being doing.
I’ll give you an example in one of my felony stops. A two-man robbery crew robbed a nightclub at gun point. I caught up to them less than two miles from the nightclub. Based upon the description of the vehicle I started the traffic stop.
As the first car in I took the shotgun out of my car.
A.- Because it was a residential street and residents were watching from their windows in my line of fire. If I threw a round from my handgun it would endanger onlookers.
B.- I placed my car just behind the middle of the driver’s door. That allowed me to stand behind the engine block of my car.
C. I knew if I had to fire the shotgun the barrel would rise a bit, so I aimed slightly below the window of the suspects driver door. The nine 32 caliber pellets in each shotgun shell are going to penetrate the door, but not rise to hit someone’s living room window.
All of those decisions were made in a matter of seconds. A lot of citizens paid for my training and the training for the officers that joined me on that felony stop. We recovered the stolen cash and 2 handguns from the robbers.
Judges, prosecutors, and elected officials should let police officers do their job. Part of that job is to remove incompetent officers from the streets.
Hear, hear
Sadly, the “remove incompetent officers from the street” part might be the least common practice of them all. Especially if “remove from the street” is supposed to be more than just remove them from THIS street so they can pop up on another street in the next town…
It’s entirely possible that, as they say a relatively small number of criminals in NYC account for the majority of the crime, a small number of bad cops keeps floating around from place to place. Because nobody wants to do anything long-term (or permanent) about the problem. Remind you of anything? *cough*bad teachers*cough*catholic priests*cough*
I think it’s probably a bigger problem than that, but dealing harshly and permanently with repeat offenders would help clean up the police as much as it would help clean up the criminals. It would probably also make it less likely for a pattern of misconduct to begin, if swift and certain reaction is expected.
The latest example I remember was a guy in Arizona who just changed his name (to “Michael Corleone,” yet) and the state Brady registry didn’t bother to keep up.
On top of that, some agencies keep their own lists and don’t even share them as they should.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6acncE5nNg
I cannot give the reader the full experience of police work. There are times when you have to think outside the box. Training does not eliminate those who test well, but their moral compass is skewed and that is a problem that is not unique to police work. The military has the same problem. The military has stockades and brigs and ‘General Discharges’ that involve the unwritten phrase ‘Not fit for military life’.
I remember a violent domestic dispute, a husband wife knock-down brutal fight and a child that was going to see both his parents being arrested. I asked the youngster if he had anyone I could call to come and get him.
He gave me his aunt and uncle’s phone number. According to the protocol I was supposed to call Child Services. I had the dispatchers to do a background check on the aunt and uncle after they arrived at the scene. They had been fighting to get custody of their nephew and I was not the first police officer to answer a domestic violence call involving his parents.
He had his own room in their home to include a piano they purchased so he could continue his piano lessons. They had no criminal arrests. I made the decision to send him home with his aunt and uncle. I decided that after a rough night with his parents he might as well have breakfast with two people that loved him in the morning rather than two strangers.
That is called discretion, and I was more than willing to take the heat for sending him to a home with two people that loved him.
I may be misremembering this, but I seem to recall that anonymous police blogger PC David Copperfield wrote 15-20 years ago that the British police bureaucracy was stripping police officers of the right to exercise discretion. (They certainly were hamstringing officers with paperwork/regulations which made policing ruinously costly and time consuming.)
There are two types of offenses. Violations that do not call for imprisonment and the penalty is a fine. Crimes that do call for imprisonment as a penalty. In the case of a traffic violation, I had the option to issue a cite, or I could give them a verbal warning.
There are traffic crimes such as DUII, Reckless driving, Reckless endangerment, Vehicular assault and homicide.
In the case of the domestic violence call both husband and wife took turns becoming the aggressor and admitted that to me. So, I had no discretion in making the arrest because the child witnessed the fight. That becomes a felony under Oregon law.
I had some discretion with certain misdemeanor crimes. For example, I cited one young man with a misdemeanor for altering a second driver’s license to indicate he was 21 years old. He did not have a criminal record, so I wrote a cite that included a court date, but I did not take him to booking. Unless he made an ass of himself in front of the judge, he wasn’t going to get any jail time he would probably pay a fine. I assume he plead guilty because I never received a subpoena to appear in court.
Greatly appreciate your insights!