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The President and the Police
I have a new column up today over at PJ Media, in which I reject the criticisms of President Trump’s recent speech to police officers in Brentwood, New York. A sample:
In the course of that speech, the president made an unscripted aside in which he made light of police officers being “rough” with people arrested for violent crimes. Borrowing from comedian Jerry Seinfeld, Mr. Trump admonished his audience not to worry about someone arrested for murder hitting his head while getting into a police car. The cops in attendance laughed and applauded, as did I and most cops who watched the speech.
The reaction among the bien pensant crowd was all too predictable. USA Today ran a finger-wagging story under the headline, “Police after Trump speech: We don’t tolerate ‘roughing up’ prisoners.” In New York City, Los Angeles, and elsewhere police brass jumped in line to condemn the speech and by extension the president himself.
The USA Today headline is misleading in its use of the word “police,” implying that most cops took a dim view of the president’s remarks. This simply isn’t so, and it illustrates the divide that exists between rank-and-file cops, i.e., those men and women out on the streets doing what cops must do, and their bosses high in the chain of command.
The higher one goes on the promotional ladder in any police department, the more removed one becomes from actual police work. For police chiefs, and those aspiring to become one, concerns about the grit and tumult of police work are forgotten in favor of political considerations, which most often involve adopting the beliefs (or pretending to) of their city’s reigning political establishment. And in any city you could name, the political establishment regards President Trump — and those so debased as to have voted for him — as anathema.
Contrary to the claims of his critics, the president’s speech was not an endorsement of excessive force by the police. There is a simple reason Mr. Trump’s remarks were so warmly received by police officers, as I explain in my column:
Later in the speech, the president said, “We have your backs one hundred percent. Not like the old days.”
And there you had it. Far from applauding a presidential license for abuse, those cops in Brentwood, indeed cops everywhere in the country, were applauding a man who, unlike his predecessor, appreciates their work and is willing to express his gratitude for it publicly and without qualification. And what a welcome change that is from the Obama years.
As always, I look forward to the commentary from my friends in the Ricochetti.
Published in Policing
I’ve had just about enough of the bien pensant crowd; they’ve overplayed their hand. They can whine all they like. No one cares anymore. By the way, did they complain when Seinfeld said it?
I don’t know if anyone complained when Seinfeld said it, but Seinfeld himself has said he won’t do college gigs anymore because no one on campus has a sense of humor. You can’t do comedy with the easily offended.
I think cops giving perp’s a pine shampoo on occasion is necessary (and kinda fun to watch if its a real dirtball).
“Woke” friends actually think people are going to take the accusation that he was condoning brutality seriously
I’m in the middle here. On one hand, I get the joke, and I’m not all offended. On the other hand, when a policeman arrests someone for murder, they are an accused murderer. It’s not the officers’ place to decide that the perp is guilty and worthy of physical abuse. He should always remember that the perp is assumed innocent.
Now if the perp gets violent with the officer, well, he gets what he gets.
Everyone understands this. That’s why it’s a joke and not police department policy. We are at a point where it is impossible to make a joke without extensive qualifiers. Even then, you’re probably a racist, sexist, homophobe, Isalmophobe, transphobe, and overall bigot. If this needs to be explained, we are in very deep yogurt.
This is why Seinfeld can’t go to college campuses anymore. Or, more broadly, this is why we can’t have nice things.
I’m completely on board with backing up the police and giving them all that they need, including the understanding of just how tough their job is.
But the president of the United States has to be circumspect in the things he says. He is not speaking just to an audience of policemen. Everyone else is listening. He can explain to the police that he has their backs without making statements that are going to needlessly rile half the electorate.
Is he condoning police brutality? I don’t know. I don’t know if he knows. But remarks of this sort are not helpful in getting people who do worry a lot about such issues to calm down.
I know some just will not come around…they despise Trump and nearly everything he says. I think he has a sense of humor that enables him to endure the sometimes high stress of his job. His humor is totally not PC and that’s what I like about it. I guarantee he couldn’t care less if some holier than thou types get all up in a huff, Donald Trump will not change. Thanks @jackdunphy for posting this. Because of “Fake News” I hadn’t heard anything other than police are up in arms about Trump’s comment”. I should have known there was the other side of the story.
That is correct.
However, you are overestimating his importance. Police officers do not report to the president. Their approach to dealing with citizens is determined by a host of other far more important factors, the president’s off-the-cuff remark falling very low on that list.
If they weren’t calmed down under Mr. Obama, I don’t think they are going to calm down under this president, regardless of what he says. Looking back over the eight years of the previous administration, it’s hard to imagine how a president could have been more damaging to police/citizen relations.
Mr. Trump’s response to that may be a bit over the line but some kind of corrective is required that also takes into account the law-enforcement side of “people who do worry a lot about such issues,” which are clearly not what you meant when you used that phrase. That, in itself, is telling of how distorted the issue has become.
You know that, and I know that, but I’m not talking about the reality of police conduct. I’m talking about a hot-button issue at a time when the country seems to be a tinder-box on racial issues, of which (supposed) police brutality has been one of the most salient factors. Why increase the emotional temperature for the sake of a slight joke?
I refer you to the rest of my comment. About the emotional temperature, consider the years 2009-2016, as I mentioned above. Also, the Left/BLM/SJWs are not the only people who deserve consideration. If the president saw fit to throw the opposite side a bone it doesn’t strike me as being out of line, though he could have done it more artfully. As I noted in the previous comment, the fact that you only consider the sensibilities of one side is troublingly asymmetrical. It turns out that the law enforcement community also “…worry a lot about such issues.”
What a buncha crap. Anyone who has ever worked with the police knows they live for the rough-up part. I’ve seen this in civil execution situations, in domestic dispute situations, in traffic stop situations. (Please spare me the my-daughter -is -in-police- academy comments.) Many people who go into police work have expunged juvenile records. They like violence, and it’s a good thing they do. NOBLE just does not like Trump.
To say nothing of the union politics they have to endure. Here in Ohio, the state troopers all have to belong to a union, and the union routinely opposes things that the troopers themselves favor.
This is not a fair comment. I do consider the sensibilities of the police. I don’t know where you get the idea that I don’t.
Here is my point: The president could comfort the police, show them that he supports them, without aggravating the other side. He could simply have said something about how he knows they have it tough, that he appreciates them, that he wants to give them all the resources he can, that they are the thin blue line between civil society and chaos, and a hundred other things that would be supportive. And about which no one who focuses on police brutality would have a legitimate reason to complain.