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Good Cops? Bad Cops?
Dear Ricochet readers.
I need your help. I’m conflicted. I’m struggling to come to grips with my feelings on all this. Actually, I’m struggling to push aside my feelings and let logic and reason run the show. Like many of you, the best way for me to do that is to write about it.
A few weeks ago, when police were alienating many of us by chasing surfers off the beach and arresting moms for taking their kids to the park, I remember thinking to myself that one day, those police officers are going to need the support of people like me. One day they’ll be sitting at home complaining to their spouses that the public just doesn’t appreciate and support them like they used to. Well, fast forward a week or two, and it turns out that one day is today. Police behavior is at the heart of the current unrest in some of our major cities, and the cops could sure use some friends right now.
I’ve been giving the subject of policing a lot of thought lately. It started as my anger was growing over the government overreach in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. I mostly blame ill-informed and maybe even politically motivated (pronounced Democratic) politicians, but it was hard to escape the fact that the street-level face of all those insane restrictions was the police. Government was making terrible policy, but the police were the ones enforcing that policy. “Just following orders” has been pretty much discredited as a defense as I recall. I sense that a lot of police officers knew that the policy they were executing was ill-advised, but few individual officers felt that this was the hill upon which they were willing to die. Police unions could have and should have stepped in to preserve the integrity of those they represent, but they failed to do that. Maybe they shared the government’s view that the policies were appropriate. Most Americans apparently do. That’s too bad. In the long run, it damaged the image of the police only days before that image would come to matter the most. As a rule, I don’t have much affection for police unions. I see them as just another public sector union seeking benefits for their members at the expense of the rest of us. The irony is not lost on me that I saw them as a potential solution to a real problem back then. Now, it seems like just one more data point in support of my view that all public sector unions are a menace to good governance.
Now we are witnessing scenes of rioting and looting in response to what appears to be criminal behavior by one or more police officers in Minneapolis. The tarnished image of the police is certainly not improved any when the Minneapolis Chief of Police admits that he withdrew officers from the scene of the worst of the rioting out of concerns for their (the police) safety. What in the world is going on here? The police were all on board when it came to arresting business owners who were trying to keep their heads above water and preserve what was for many, their life’s work. But when it came to protecting life and property from an unruly mob, you know, their actual job, that was just too risky.
I don’t hate the police and I sure wouldn’t want their job. Maybe part of the problem is the mindset of some of the applicants who do want that job. My understanding is that police forces take measures to weed out those officers. I sure hope that is the case, but I guess that is an ongoing and imperfect process. And to be honest, when I see video of rioters swarming an abandoned police vehicle or frantically looting the local Target, or burning down the neighborhood AutoZone, I think what the cops need to do is just shoot a few of those sons of [redacted] and keep shooting them until they go home. Yeah, I know. That would be an overreaction and be totally counterproductive. I get it. But tell the truth. Aren’t there at least a few of you honest enough to admit that your first reaction was the same as mine? No? Maybe it’s just me. Or maybe that video of looters beating up a lady in a wheelchair trying to obstruct their looting doesn’t really bother you all that much. For my own part, to be honest, I did kind of enjoy the sight of those rampaging nitwits throwing rocks through the windows of CNN Center in Atlanta. I know it’s wrong. I feel kind of guilty about that.
Here’s what I think I know. We need the police. And the police need to act with authority. Police must rely on the illusion that their authority is near absolute or else every two-bit hoodlum may choose to test the limits of that authority. Police need to be tough, even to the point of appearing uncompromising at times. But acting with authority is just that, an act. At the end of the day, they don’t have anywhere near enough manpower to police a population that doesn’t consent and desire to be policed. I think the police know that. Antifa and the rest of their ilk certainly know that. They are probing, and provoking, and testing the application of that knowledge even as we speak. And people like you and I should know that as well once we push away all the emotion and sit down to rationally fit all the pieces together. We’ll get through this. Minneapolis will get through this. Our nation will get through this. We have to. We’re seeing the alternative on our TVs and computer screens, and it’s an alternative that is too terrible to contemplate.
Thanks for listening, Ricochet readers. I feel a little better now. Thoughts?
Published in General
Then you will be jailed.
I know the feeling. I bid a job a few months ago, and thought 8 and wrote 6; a $160,000 mistake.
Probably not. I might be dead, though.
But good. Thank you for saying so much of what I’ve been thinking recently.
Have no doubt if you defend your home and kill somebody especially a minority, you will see the inside of a jail. You may eventually get off or more likely plea down to a lesser charge but it will cost most you own to get and stay out of jail.
If I drag them into the house, the police won’t even bother to arrest me. I’m not sure how it is in Louisville, but that’s pretty much how it is in Knox County.
Thirty-five years ago when I lived there, KY law was pretty clear: If you have reason to believe you are in imminent danger of suffering death or grave bodily harm, you can use lethal force in self-defense.
Long, but worth it, @GrannyDude! Thank you for sharing it.
Plus “Put the weapon down” in a strong command voice and the smooth footwork as he advances.
Amen.
Turning up the heat under the frog in the pot. The police get accustomed to enforcing chicken[expletive] orders (those that aren’t already fine with it) and the citizens get moved one more step to being subjects. Government efficiency isn’t always a good thing.
The more every aspect of life is formally regulated, the more corruption becomes the most reliable way of humanizing the system.
Thoughts: There will always be good cops and bad cops. I would say the majority are good and bad eggs are rare. The recent cop who killed George Lloyd is a bad person. The guy should not have been an officer. On that note, its a very ugly job. How many people do you know who put on a uniform and go out to protect the public and risk their lives day and night? You have to love people as well as law and order because you see a lot of ugly. I feel the same way about firefighters and medical personnel. We need them and they deserve respect.
I don’t think things improved in the inner cities during the last administration. There was an opportunity to bring jobs, clean up the crime, improve the quality of life where minorities have a stake. It didn’t happen. In fact, the tensions multiplied. Why? I do think that there are very bad elements that are inciting the rioters and want it to spread. Is this about George Floyd if you are burning down hundreds of minority-owned businesses or is this about something else?
The police were also in so many words, told to stand down, during the last administration – remember Baltimore? So they did, and crime accelerated.
As somebody put it: the effect of bad cops is greatly amplified by the blue wall of silence.
So were the three cops who stood by for eight minutes and did nothing to stop the killing. I don’t know how the cops were assigned, whether they arrived independently or as a group. But think about this for a moment: If the majority of cops are “good”, what is the probability that four bad ones would be the only ones involved?
This was not the first incident for this cop, and that makes one ask: Why was he still a cop?
Union
I believe you are right, and there is where the cleanup begins … if it begins at all.