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David French vs. Jack Dunphy on the Stephon Clark Shooting
Over at National Review Online this week, I’ve been involved in a polite but pointed debate with David French over the Stephon Clark police shooting in Sacramento. On March 29, Mr. French wrote a column in which he called the incident “deeply disturbing and problematic.” Among my objections to Mr. French’s piece was his assertion that police officers consider the “background level of risk” in a situation before deciding on a course of action. “According to the City of Sacramento,” he wrote, “it’s been almost 20 years since a cop was shot and killed in the line of duty.”
I found it astounding that Mr. French would have that expectation of police officers, and said so in a March 30 post at NRO’s “The Corner.” Mr. French responded to me in an April 4 piece on NR, to which I replied yesterday.
In criticizing the officers who shot Clark, Mr. French draws on his experience as an Army JAG officer in Iraq, where he sometimes accompanied combat patrols, during which he “experienced tense situations where you didn’t know whether to shoot or hold fire.”
As I make clear in my responses to Mr. French, I have the highest respect for his service in the Army and for his talent as a writer. But while I respect his service, I don’t believe it necessarily confers on him expertise in civilian law enforcement. A military patrol, after all, may unexpectedly come under enemy fire, but soldiers do not engage in foot pursuits of lawbreakers whose dangers are not immediately discernible. But if one is willing to accept that Mr. French’s year in Iraq gives him insight into police work, I ask you give according weight to the 30-plus years I spent with the Los Angeles Police Department.
I won’t rehash the entire debate here, but I invite you to read Mr. French’s pieces and mine, then submit your comments below. I’m always enlightened by the thoughts of the Ricochet community, and I thank you in advance. And in case you missed it, our own Robert C.J. Parry (@robertcjparry), who served as an Army infantry officer in Iraq and Afghanistan, wrote his own response to Mr. French’s first column, which you can read here.
Published in Policing
His criminal background may speak as to why he would resist, and the level of resistance, and disobeying the commands. He had prior encounters with police, and arrests and survived those encounters. Prior charges and convictions for pimping, and robbery indicate a history of violent behavior.
Regardless of a courts decision to offer him a plea deal to reduce his charges that does not lessen the fact that robbery is a crime that involves violence, or the threat of violence, and pimping is no different.
There is nothing wrong with police revealing his prior criminal convictions to counter the narrative that he was a wonderful person, or his behavior on the night in question. Wonderful people don’t try to break into vehicles, or homes. Wonderful people are at home watching a television they paid for, and drinking beer that they didn’t steal.
Yes I’m a cynic.
I don’t care about it much when I find out that the person killed was prior. I care about it in an academic sense. I would of course not sentence said person to death for being a criminal. I believe in justice and innocence until proven otherwise and all that jazz.
But if a scumbag works really, really hard to get himself killed and succeeds, I’m probably not going to rend my garment or do much ululating.
You’re probably right about this.