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Toward a De-policed America
I was asked by the folks over at National Review Online to submit my thoughts on the recent event in McKinney, Texas, in which a police officer was shown on video responding (poorly, in my opinion) to a teen pool party that had become unruly. You can read my piece over at The Corner, but I’ll summarize it here by saying it appeared to me that the officer lost his composure even as his fellow officers maintained theirs, a judgment in which the town’s police chief concurred.
The officer in question, Eric Casebolt, resigned today, and though I’m critical of his actions I’m not without sympathy for him nor do I believe he should have been hounded from his job. That a 10-year career should be lost over a momentary lapse in which no one was injured is an injustice. Casebolt is the latest victim of the mob, joining Darren Wilson, of Ferguson, Missouri, and, more recently, the Baltimore 6. Wilson was ultimately cleared by every investigative body that examined the case, but he still had to leave his job and live in hiding. The crucible only just begun by the Baltimore 6 will be even more grueling, but I’m confident that none of them will be convicted of a single charge, and that they will prevail in a civil case against State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby and everyone else who lent a hand to this travesty.
The incident in McKinney is but one more step on the way to a de-policed America, a condition that’s already on vivid display in Baltimore, where 128 people have been murdered so far this year and where there is no sign of political will to see this deadly trend reversed.
That a 10-year career should be lost over a momentary lapse in which no one was injured is an injustice.
Unless that momentary lapse is representative of his conduct over the entire ten years, and the only thing that is different is that this time he was caught on video. None of us know whether that is true. But without knowing more facts, none of us are justified in deciding what is an “injustice” in this situation. For the moment, all we know is that this officer manhandled a teenage girl who posed no immediate threat to anyone that I could see, and who the officer was not arresting. He also pulled his gun on another teenager who posed no threat that I could see. That is not good stuff.
IMO more about a collapse of society than any increase in police brutality. There is more than enough evidence that the initial reports are not the full picture.
Way different in my day and I will give you a personal incident.
Fall of 1971, after a high school football game, a fellow junior was hosting a slumber party. It was in a shotgun house on the grounds of her parents’ home. It wasn’t in the best part of town, but once had been and her parents owned the entire block.
Naturally we guys showed up. Yes there was some underage alcohol involved, and music, not loud by today’s standards.
Being dark and around midnight the cops showed up, guns drawn. We ran like hell, those of us not in front or inside that is. I will swear to this day that when one cop told me to “Halt” as I was sprinting alongside the house that I froze in mid stride in mid air.
This anti police sentiment sweeping the nation is just plain unAmerican. Oh and all these procedural manuals and following everything to the letter of procedure never allows for commonsense decisions in the field. Like I said underage drinking, they never questioned that part. Everyone departed peacefully.
I was discussing this move toward de-policing the country with friends and the thing we can’t figure out is to what end? What does an impotent police force do for the left (as that is most assuredly who is trying to make this happen)?
I wonder if it is a mixture of motives:
I have to disagree. Concern about police aggression is not a partisan issue, although the circumstances that trigger that concern probably are partisan. But if some EPA military style SWAT team came swooping down on your property, I think you would get supportive of a measure of “de-policing” pretty quick.
If a civilian grabbed and wrestled an innocent person to the ground without provocation, isn’t that assault, regardless of whether it results in injury? If a police officer does it, is it only a “lapse of judgment?”
Now maybe there were circumstances we do not know which would make this response an injustice; but the behavior of the other officers makes it less likely, rather than more, that his actions were reasonable. He could indeed have escalated a nuisance situation into a dangerous one and lost the confidence of his fellow-officers. It could have been part of a pattern of behavior. We don’t know those things, but nor do we know anything that would have made his decision less bad.
Yes. Let’s de-police America. Not entirely, but almost so. The only other alternative is not anarchy but rather an armed, vigilant citizenry that is much scarier to most would-be criminals than a distant uniformed officer. Let’s leave the police to deal with those stupid/crazy enough to commit crime in the face of such overwhelming force.
Ok, I heard Mark Levin last night—that viral video was taken 23 min.after the start of the ruckus. He was by himself, called for back-up, was being charged by 2 women (1 the organizer, who was charging admission for an event she didn’t have permission from the HOA to hold), & 2 big guys. The girl was a fence-jumper & wasn’t cooperating. There were over 100 people involved. The resigned cop served overseas, and was a special self-defense instructor before becoming a cop in 2005. I hope I got that put down correctly. But it’s true—we don’t know everything that went on!
How, exactly, does Mark Levin know all of that?
I don’t know, but I bet he has better sources than most of us here….
I disagree with respect to criticism over the Officer’s decision to pull his gun. I watched the video closely and there are two teenage boys who are clearly sneaking up on the Officer while he is engaged with the girl on the ground. His gun was exposed and he would have a reasonable concern that the boys could be trying to take his gun from him. Criticize him for grabbing the girl, but not for pulling the gun on those two punks.
Call taking will be the new operational procedure in police work. Self-initiated activity leads to trouble. Park the car in a quiet spot because what you don’t see cannot lead to job loss or indictment.
Dispatcher: 9-1-1 What is your emergency?
Caller: There are two people breaking into my car.
Dispatcher: Are you in the car?
Caller: No
Dispatcher: It’s only property sir.
Caller: It’s my property.
Dispatcher: Are you insured?
Caller: Yes
Dispatcher: When their done call the Telephone Report Unit they’ll give you a case number for your insurance company.
Caller: Aren’t you going to send an officer?
Dispatcher: No they might decide to resist and the contents in your vehicle is not worth an officer’s job. Have a good night.
This is just one of many “viral police incidents” over the past few years that serves to reinforce a growing divide. There is a significant “us” (citizens) v. “them” (police) perception in America. A situation aided and abetted by the “war on drugs” and the fact that the police are primarily revenue agents of the state. When I put on my Libertarian hat, I would argue that we are over-regulated as a society, which places an unfair burden on law enforcement across the country.
My few interactions with the police in the past few years has been mixed, and this has lead to indifference on my part for incidents in Texas and elsewhere. Law enforcement as a whole needs some significant public relations work to regain trust.
Of course, ending the war on drugs, rescinding excessive regulation, and solving our budget crisis on local, state, and federal levels would limit an undue burden on police and law enforcement, and could ameliorate a lot of these issues.
I find it difficult to believe that any actions those children took could justify the shameful behavior of that officer.
I think that it’s more simple. The Leftists are acting on two psychological and political imperatives:
If an officer handled any of my teenagers like that I’d be unhappy.
On the other hand, in the presence of police officers my teenagers would not be caught yelling, screeching, grabbing at their equipment, running toward or away from the officers or protesting their work.
You’d see and hear, “Yes sir, no sir, how may I help sir?”
While Ferguson was a tragedy of media bias against the police and knee-jerk reaction of race-baiters, the protestors had what I thought was a positive message that no one appears to have taken seriously:
Hands up.
For goodness sakes, just put your *@#$&*&^% hands up!
None of these incidents we’ve seen on the news would have happened, Eric Garner included, if they just put their hands up!
Tommy, I don’t think you quite understood the intent of the “Hands up, Don’t Shoot” protests.
What did I miss?
It’s not just criminals who would find that scary.
They weren’t cooperating, they were mocking the police by repeating the (now thoroughly debunked) myth that Michael Brown did exactly what you say he should have.
You’re assuming a rational end goal. The truth is it’s just another example of the sort of emotion driven short-sightedness we’ve come to expect from the left. Cops are too rough on minorities, therefore cops are bad. But we all know that if the cops disappeared and the crime rate went up the same people protesting police brutality would demand to know why law enforcement is just standing by while minorities kill each other.
I thought there was more to it than that.
I thought it was an actual movement to teach people how to act when encountering an officer. I thought that’s why the sports teams were involved.
If it was just mocking, that’s unfortunate.
It should be a movement.
Put your hands up. Do as the officer requests. Be polite. Be on your way.
Yeah it was decidedly not that.
Whether or not this is an injustice, it’s part of life and I have little sympathy for this argument.
In any job, there are certain momentary lapses that cause no lasting injury to your company or co-workers but will still cost you your career (think: cussing out your boss to his face in a pique of uncontrolled rage). Everyone has to live with this reality every day in their jobs.
I suppose one could argue that police deserve a little more leeway because of the more difficult (and crucial) nature of their profession. But if this the case, then police should be proactively informing the public about which transgressions we should have patience for, not simply whining about the predictable reaction after the transgression occurs.
And of course, if new facts justify this officer’s actions, then none of this applies because, in that case, there was no transgression to begin with.
Murders in Baltimore peaked in 2007 at 282 and declined to 233 in 2013. If you hit 128 by June 1 and extrapolated this would be a 307 murder year. This is for sure a record number but is only about 8% higher than the previous peak. Not good but it is still early to predict how things will work out.
My jaw dropped when I read this. Good God man, what planet were you on when this was all happening??
Easy wmartin… I understand your frustration, but sometimes all of us drop out or refuse to follow some stories for a while. The truth is that the media exhausts all of us at times.
Tommy, good on ya for admitting you didn’t know the whole deal there. Let’s move on.
One common theme I’m seeing here is that while we all want to understand, our own experiences and those we see in the media make it difficult for us to defend the officers we want to defend. When I look back at the experiences I’ve had with police over my life it doesn’t inspire confidence. I’m a mostly law abiding citizen and pose a threat to no one, but there have been times when I was treated like a criminal – and normally when I didn’t realize I had broken some mundane law (I was once pulled in VA for not having a city sticker on my car -who knew?).
Some officers treated me very well, with mutual respect, even when they went on to write me a citation. But in the balance, I’ve dealt with far more who were overbearing, bellicose, or overly sensitive. The incident I mentioned above ended with the officer yelling in my face with his head in my window, his partner -thank goodness he was with one that day- pulled him off and let me go with a warning. This was in a small sleepy town of less than five thousand.
When even small town folks feel like the cops aren’t on their side, there’s a problem. It’s not that the cops aren’t on our side, it’s that we don’t feel like the cops are on our side. Perception is reality.
Yes, I went up to 11 a little quickly…my apologies to Tommy De Seno.
As for the rest of it, are polls showing any loss of confidence in the cops by white Americans, or is it mostly a black thing?
He was out way out of line with the girl. When he initially grabbed her it was hard to see what happened, but after he threw her on the ground he was digging his knee in her back while she was compliant. It was plainly abusive.
By itself, I have no problem with him pulling the gun on the two guys in the middle of it. They started to attack him. It looked like one of them may have tried to grab his gun. It’s more complicated by what he was doing at the time. Can they defend the girl?
This. They don’t want to de-police us. The police are useful for them to stir things up and divide us. And it works – every.single.time.
I still hear the same nonsense about Trayvon despite everything we now know.