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False Accusations and the Race Card
My wife reported something to me this morning, which occurred yesterday.
She took our older daughter to the dentist for an appointment. A black man came into the lobby and complained about paying his bill. My wife described him as big and towering, and he was talking to a fairly small white woman behind the counter.
All of a sudden, he fell down and claimed that the white woman working the counter at the dentist’s office had hit him. He took out his cell phone to film himself and sort of rolled around on the floor.
My wife witnessed this event, and his claim was absolute nonsense. A blatant lie, apparently in an attempt to get out of paying a dental bill.
This event is interesting in itself, but my reason for posting it relates to the current anti-cop rhetoric. As an example, one comment here at Ricochet at another post stated: “The officer Chauvin (fits, doesn’t it?) had police brutality complaints from those of all races.”
Now I doubt that the person making this comment knows the details of even a single complaint against Ofc. Chauvin. I doubt that the person making this comment knows whether the allegations were credible or not. Apparently, it does not matter.
People lie. They do this all of the time. I would expect that people interacting with police lie more often, in an effort to evade responsibility for an offense that led to the interaction.
Moreover, reports of police wrongdoing are usually filtered to us through the media. If you don’t understand, by now, that the media has a hateful and anti-cop agenda (among other bad agendas), and that the media regularly lies and misleads and distorts the truth so selective editing, you haven’t been paying attention. At least in my opinion.
I have a bias in favor of the police. I do not think that it is an irrational bias, actually. I’ve known some cops, and they’re generally fine people doing a difficult job. They have little or no incentive to oppress anyone. They just try to enforce the law and keep us reasonably safe. I know that there can be exceptions. They have to put up with unbelievable behavior, I think.
None of this seems like rocket science to me. So I have difficulty understanding why so many people, including many of my Ricochet compatriots, seem willing and even eager to believe unlikely tales of police misconduct, generally made by people who are criminal suspects, and generally reported by a media system that is unreliable at best, and actively misleading at worst (probably tilting toward actively misleading most of the time).
I find it very frustrating that I cannot rely on news accounts. The Tony Timpa story is yet another one. The Buffalo story looks like another. I just saw one out of Jacksonville, I think, in which I followed the link to a video of a white man claiming that he was mistreated by police (including being tased) for no reason. As usual, the video showed only tiny snippets of the event, but even on that part, you can see the guy forcibly resisting arrest — and then it cuts to an interview of him, in which he claims that he did not.
Skepticism regarding accusations of police misconduct seems like the proper response.
Published in General
I live by the simple rule that everything I see is meant to provoke and not inform.
I got scammed by a black woman years ago with the help of a white woman. I was heading home from work, stopped at the corner of a busy one way, watching traffic in order to turn. As I pulled out, all of a sudden there was a little (maybe 10/12) yr old boy on a bike in the side of my car. He fell backward rolling and screaming. I was horrified. His older brother (I assume) was there also. I jumped out, left my door open with purse, cell phone, and said we need to call the police. Suddenly a white woman came running up and was all excited telling the boy his mother was going to be mad, not to call the police. I followed them behind one of the buildings, left my car running, purse and phone inside, and as I caught up to them, another woman came running up and said she was my witness. She made us exchange names, addresses, phone numbers, then they all left. I went back to my car, it was ok, nothing gone. Pulled over and called my husband pretty shaken. He called the police, and they told him not to give them money, go home and make a report the next day. The next day at lunch, I went to the wrong precint, so had to go the following day. The woman had already made a hit and run report on me. The cop said she had my number, name, where I worked, etc. and told me to hold onto that paper with her name. I called the witness, who said she was a social worker who had been on welfare, she said the boy threw the bike into the side of the car when I took off, and it was a scam. So the next day, the mom of the boy, called me at work and asked it the police had seen me. She wanted money. I pretty much said no. It did go away, but I was worried. I guess the police were on there way to my workplace when I was at the station, and so they dropped it at that point. Thank goodness for a person that saw it and knew what to do. My witness was hispanic by the way. I don’t think it was so much about race, as about getting money. She said those kids were waiting for someone like me not paying attention. I was really upset that I might have hurt that boy, been careless, and was truly distraught. I’m also pretty favorably biased toward the police. I’ve had some as customers, and so have my husband and children. They are just trying to do their job most days.
We have had our Business door broken down by thugs numerous times, and the police have always responded promptly. For all those businesses that were destroyed, those cops don’t like it either. Many of them know those owners, have been out patrolling day after day. They are part of a community. The police know probably more about a community than a mayor or governor, they have to work among them every day.
When the little boy got away from his grandpa (who took a nap and the toddler knew how to open doors) and ended up in our back yard, the responding officer called the off duty cop who usually patrolled and he knew right where he came from.
That is certainly true as it relates to the Professional Media.
That’s not true. City passes laws that are oppressive and then judge the cops based on metrics for revenue generated and stops generated and so on. Workers in a system always respond to the incentives/metrics by which they are evaluated. Unfortunately, it is hard to design a system with metrics based on “total customer satisfaction”.
Wow, what a cop hater you are!
It’s not true that the cops that I’ve known are generally fine people doing a difficult job? Do you know them?
And what oppressive laws are you talking about? Speed limits? Parking regulations?
Impounding, for one. I’ve heard from many credible, conservative sources over the years (no, I don’t remember which sources specifically, only that I found them credible at the time) that it can be nearly impossible to get back property after it was wrongfully taken, and laws are designed to facilitate this as both a revenue source and as a means of leverage.
I generally agree with your take on police, but good policemen can be corrupted by unjust laws they are sworn to uphold. Up to a certain point, it doesn’t even make them bad people, just human. Also, few of us are simply taking press reports of complaints against Chauvin at face value, but if the number of complaints exceeds that of other cops with similar years and beats, its still a red flag.
I don’t judge Cops by the media. I judge them by their own words and their own stories from when I am around them.
I don’t believe most media reports at face value. However I know its an issue because I have family (and their friend’s) and church friends who are cops. I have friends who are great cops. However I also have heard others in their view points and them tell enough stories to know how often they are often jack asses on the job and prone to violence, self justified in their over reaction. Also when real cop abuse comes about how they are not offended and don’t speak out against the minority that are abusers. Any other profession would have issues with public stories of bad behavior that is rare and would throw those people under the bus.
Also I know how Cops are way to tribal in their thinking (a small majority from experience). Even thinking resisting arrest should be a capital crime since it somehow rebellion against the nation. Don’t get me wrong I love them almost all of them I would say are God fearing Men who attend church. So overall I would say they are good decent people many (a decent minority) are unfortunately hypocrites when it comes to their occupation.
Also because of experience. My home town Cocoa, FL cops are jerks and harass people all the time because they don’t have enough real work to due. They have decades of abuse so I think they should be disbanded and let the county sheriff take over. To give you an idea they went about breaking law. They were interrupting church services and writing $500 dollar ticket to everyone attending church during the lock down. This type of behavior is nothing new for them. Cocoa Cops I would be protesting against them any day.
On the other hand, I think Brevard County Sheriffs are highly professional and great and I would counter protest against anyone saying anything bad about them.
Needing Cops does not mean they need to have as much power as they due right now let alone good checks and balances. We have to few investigators and way to many patrol officers. The hard work of investigating crime is ignored to often which is what will reduce crime much more than patrol officers.
We need to praise well run departments and criticize the badly ran ones (mostly because of Mayors elected sheriffs don’t tend to have bad departments. At worse they are just mediocre).
Why do cops so adamantly resist body cams? Is it because they don’t want to be judged by their worst day? It seems to me if there was a record of the outrageous provocations cops have to put up with it would mitigate a lot of the borderline or frivolous complaints they are subjected to.
I agree the vast majority of cops do a much better job than I would, but I also know in any unionized organization, the majority of union activity is to protect the bad apples that no one else wants to work with anyway. I recall many years ago my mother worked at a GM assembly facility and she would sometimes come home choking with frustration at how the UAW shop stewards were devoting 85% of their energy to defending the 3% of hardcore druggies, drunks or malcontents that made everyone else’s life miserable [and let the Japanese eat our lunch.]
I do think cops may be more harsh with young men, whatever color, esp. drivers. At least it was when both us and our kids were young.
I’d hate to work being filmed all day. I hate it when someone watches me over my shoulder. I wonder if in the end, the pros and cons of body cams make much of a difference and in what way.
I am in GM territory too, and there was an episode years ago, quite a while ago, and the details are fuzzy, but a group left work to play hockey or something like that and co workers punched them in and out. I believe they were fired, then rehired, with back pay of course.
I agree with the unionization seems to make the workplace less friendly, both between workers and between worker and management.
My husband was in a union on the railroad, and they were subject to random tests, but they still had some drinking/alcohol problems.
Petty Bo: “I agree the vast majority of cops do a much better job than I would, but I also know in any unionized organization, the majority of union activity is to protect the bad apples that no one else wants to work with anyway.”
The only conceivable explanation for the lack of discipline of Officer Michael Chauvin after 18 complaints was the efforts of the Police Union to protect him.
First of all, Public Sector Employee Unions are illegal under the 1935 National Labor Relations Act but sprang into existence under an Executive Order by President Kennedy in 1062.
Second, most big Cities are dominated politically by the Democrats, and those Democrat’s funding lifeblood comes overwhelmingly from the Public Employee Unions. I know my City and County of LA, and my state of California are almost totally controlled by Public Employee Unions. Power corrupts, Absolutely Power corrupts absolutely – so said Lord Acton a while back, and the Public Employee Unions have near Absolutely Power over the Deep Blue Cities. As a consequence, these Elected Public Officials, almost all of them Democrats put into Power by the Unions , are loath to go against the Public Employee Unions and their powerful Police Unions and are loath to provide Police Oversight that goes against prevailing Police Union sentiment.
As a consequence of this near complete power over Police Oversight by the Public Employee Unions, one should not expect an oversight of Police Activity that even approaches real justice. All this talk of “ending racism” in relation to policing is complete hypocrisy and utter nonsense as long as Public Employee Unions continue their sway over our Cities and States.
Just my 2 cents but I think a fair amount of poor police/civilian interactions could be addressed by ending “no knock” warrants and repealing the civil forfeiture law(s) that allow(encourage/provide incentives to police departments to impound property and keep it. Those two areas alone seem to be abused a lot and seem to lead to a poor picture of policing. Some of this could be addressed by better supervision and better laws, but where do you get supervisors that aren’t tempted to stretch the law “this one time”? And I don’t know about you, but my faith in politicians being sharp enough to write really good laws is a little slim(unfortunately, I live in Hank Johnson’s district here in GA and he is a laughing stock of stupid…literally.).
Jerry, this comment by you caught me off guard, it’s out of character for you. I think you may have stopped reading Don’s comment before the end. He was clearly talking about whether the police have bad incentives. You can agree or disagree on that point, but it’s sort of the opposite of being a “cop hater.”
Will you guys be friends? Go on, it’s worth it.
You know, I think you’re right. I’m going to put this in all caps.
DON G — MY APOLOGIES. I MISINTERPRETED YOUR COMMENT, AND OVERREACTED. SORRY ABOUT THAT. MEA CULPA.
What we need is a data set that shows the frequency of conflict between media narrative and the truth.
I too find myself saying, if the media is pushing it, I should explore the truth of the opposition point.
I was originally inclined to let this go as a simple matter of opinion. But since 12+ of my fellow Ricochetti have designated it for promotion to the Main Feed. it seems time to ask for some specifics on those “many” at Ricochet who “seem willing and even eager to believe unlikely tales of police misconduct . .” . .
It’s fully understandable why naming names is counterproductive, especially in a friendly group of generally like minded people. That’s not necessary. But, if one is inclined t0 cast stones at “many” at Ricochet, some considerable number of specifics as to content from the “many” doesn’t seem too much to ask.
Fraud, scams and injustice exists everywhere and is pervasive in all walks of life, from all races and the victims are poor and rich. All we can do is our best to protect ourselves and hope we are never a victim in a moment of weakness. And the MSM is never a reliable source of information.
This is what makes Ricochet great!
The issue of property forfeiture is another issue altogether and has little to do with routine policing. It is involved with drug laws, especially.
Every complaint about the Tony Timpa case — we don’t have a good search feature, so I can’t easily track them down. There have been many over the past few days.
Every comment about the prior complaints against Ofc. Chauvin, with no knowledge of whether they had any validity whatsoever. One of them is in comment #12 above. Dave Carter’s main feed post today did the same thing.
Then there’s the virtually universal condemnation of Ofc. Chauvin for the death of George Floyd, in which I was just about the lone voice counseling restraint. My first post was on June 1 (here), before the full autopsy was available, though we had the ME’s press release indicating arteriosclerotic and hypertensive heart disease, fentanyl intoxication, and recent methamphetamine use. Moreover, the cause of death per the ME was not asphyxiation, but cardiopulmonary arrest.
Southern Pessimist’s comment #3 stated: “I will be amazed if any jury thinks any underlying medical condition out weighs 250 pounds of force planted on his neck for many minutes even after he was unresponsive.” There is no way to have measured this force. (In the later autopsy, there was no evidence of any tissue damage to Mr. Floyd’s neck at all.) This comment got 10 likes.
Doctor Robert’s comment #3 stated, among other things: “Mr Floyd was killed by the actions of the officers who restrained him by pressing on his neck while he lay handcuffed on the pavement. That only the fellow whose weight was actually applied has been jailed and charged is a prosecutorial failure, one which I hope will be remedied soon. All four of them are culpable; the other three had a duty to pull off Officer Chauvin.” This comment got 21 likes.
[Cont’d]
[Cont’d]
To his credit, Doc Robert later acknowledged that I made some good points (in comment #16). But then he shifted his argument, saying: “But c’mon, if a citizen under your arrest is having a heart attack, complaining of inability to breathe, one’s first duty is not to apply a knee to his neck. One’s duty is to see that he can’t use this as a ruse to escape or injure you, then provide first aid.” This comment got 13 likes.
(After my post on the full autopsy report, Doc Robert came around to my point of view.)
DonG’s comment #19 stated: “I expect Chauvin to be charged with Murder 1 and eventually be convicted. It was not reckless. It was a deadly act and he knew it was a deadly act, and chose to do it. Malice aforethought.”
In an otherwise good post 2 days ago, Keyden Smith-Herold referred to “the deeply troubling and reprehensible killing of George Floyd – a black man at the knee of white police officer in Minnesota . . .” (Here.)
Then there was this post by Sabrdance, about the tragic death of Breonna Taylor, caught in a cross-fire during execution of a warrant against her boyfriend (who appears to have been an associate of drug dealers, or at least suspected as such, and then shot a cop). It gave rise to some troubling comments.
Bryan G. Stephens (comment #33) said: “The police have a duty to die to defend the citizens. They want to be warrior cops? Act like it, and do their duty. I believe the police do not exist to protect the people at. They are not used that way. All cops are not enemies of the people. More and more though seem to be moving that way.”
Sabrdance commented at his own post (comment #38): “So, I don’t believe the cops, either. There have been too many CYA incidents where cops screw up and then race to cover up their mistakes by blaming the person they shot.” Sabrdance’s comment #43 was pretty bad, too, and Bryan’s #44 in response.
Bryan’s comment # 49 was: “In Canada, the police forced someone in a Storm Trooper outfit on May 4th to the ground. Clearly in Costume. The list of stupid actions goes on and one. The police cannot be allowed to make mistakes without consequenses when they have all the power. They are allowed to shoot people and walk away. It is only rarely that they are actually sucessfully held accountable. Until that happens, “enforcement” is a means to bully. I don’t want to depend on individual cops to be good apples. The whole system, top to bottom, is broken.”
Dave Carter’s post of June 1 (here) mischaracterized both the George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery incidents, in my estimation.
These are some examples that I could find without undue searching.
What kind of work do you do?
How would you like every second recorded and stored for years, and then available to be edited and manipulated against you?
Also, after whining about body cams for years, now people like the ACLU and defense lawyers fight like crazy to get the video excluded as evidence as it more often then not actually supports the police and their actions against the criminals they are constantly in contact with.
Your argument about not knowing whether previous complaints against Chauvin would have merit if there weren’t 18 of them, whether you could show that there were similar numbers for other cops, and those making the complaints were routinely filing complaints against other cops.
My argument was that Chauvin case is indeed not about race. It was about poor training. If a cop can’t tell that someone being arrested is high on drugs and that there are potentially serious health risks as a result and the stress from apprehension is going to add to those health risks, then there is something seriously wrong with training. Those health risks need to be taken care of first.
Much of your argument I found irrelevant. Yes, criminals lie. Cops have been known to lie as well. I would point no farther than the FBI and the whole FISA process and Flynn case.
Even worse are prosecutors. Lawyers! Duke lacrosse was a local example. Lawyers get caught up in narratives even worse than reporters. And both have serious consequences.
This on a site were most oppose wearing masks? Which is more intrusive- being filmed all day or wearing a mask in a store?
Almost all deaths are due to “cardiopulmonary arrest” since typically death is defined as the cessation of cardiac function (on the street no one carries an EEG machine). The term has little meaning in this context- the question is why did he have a cardiopulmonary arrest.
And, thankfully, the internet and people on the ground with cameras are providing alternative ways to inform.
You’re going to start seeing cameras everywhere if stunts like this happen more and more . . .
Reminds me of the “rape epidemic”. Remember that old chestnut. Why would a woman lie about such a thing? Believe all women (unless they are accusing lefties).
Government takes, through civil forfeiture, more of people’s money and assets, than the sum of all reported theft.