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Leftists Poisoning the Public Mind Against Police
Just a few years ago, police officers were assumed to be protecting the public from bad actors. When your home was broken into or you were mugged on the street, the first to be called were the police. They would send someone out to wherever you were, take your report, and send you to a hospital or otherwise help you out of your predicament. If you saw a police car parked at a coffee shop, you would think to yourself, “what kind of doughnuts are those officers eating with their coffee?” You would expect off-duty officers to be providing security at various public events, and you felt safer.
Those days are gone. In many big cities, police are assumed to be hostile to the public, an opinion drilled into the population by constant news stories of white officers shooting “unarmed black teenagers” whom the press always assumes to be totally innocent. If your home is broken into, no one comes to take your report, and you are told to file your report online.
Today, the mayor of a leftist-run city, has insisted that the off-duty police engaged to provide security at in-person polling places leave because of “voter intimidation.” The city received a letter from a “concerned group” indicating that they would feel intimidated by police at a polling station. The letter itself, with all the publicity it garnered, might make voters think twice about in-person voting, or they might listen to the not-so-subtle message that police at polling places are there to make you feel less, instead of more protected from those bad actors.
It is criminal what the Left is doing to make the public afraid of the police, instead of feeling protected by them. In the 1960s, it was common for leftist protesters to call police “pigs.” Well, that mindset never left those 1960s radicals, and it is back with a vengeance. Support your local police; they are there to protect you from burglars, muggers, and young Antifa radicals.
Published in Policing
Good points, but I can’t help thinking that police being at polling places would more likely “frighten off” lefty voters, and I can’t feel very bad about that. After all, they really did it to themselves.
A Trump voter would be more likely to thank them for their service, and shake their hand if possible.
[sarc]Thank goodness we won’t have the police frightening us off at the polls.[/sarc]
I’m sure we won’t have to worry about Antifa or BLM causing any issues. They are so reasonable about letting people disagree with them. And I’m sure after noticing that I’m a white middle-aged male they would be happy to vigorously help me decide the proper way to vote.
Ah well. If Antifa or BLM did cause problems with the police there, the police probably wouldn’t be allowed to do anything anyway. So I guess it really isn’t any loss, and if the police were there, I’d probably be arrested for assault for throwing my face into someone’s fist anyway.
I think a national police organization needs to get active and improve the public image of cops. I see there is NAPO (national assoc of police organizations), but they seem interested in legislative things instead of improving the image or relationship with the public. Somebody needs to step up and promote “protect and serve”. If I was in charge, I would spend money on promoting the idea that cops are good and helpful. I would also spend money on technology to develop better weapons, defenses, and tactics.
Here’s NAPO’s to do list:
In addition to NAPO’s numerous legislative victories, there are many areas where NAPO continues to fight for America’s law enforcement officers:
What is to be done about the cities that:
Allow attacks on police by Antifa and BLM with zero consequences
Arrest but never prosecute the above
Refuse to prosecute crimes committed by street people/homeless, and decline to permanently remove homeless encampments in public parks
Remove the methods of crowd control that are the only way short of shooting into the crowds of controlling them
I think those cities should defund (eliminate) the police. First, it is unconscionable to send the police to do such a dangerous job without serious institutional support that is no longer forthcoming. Second, Seattle, NYC, Minneapolis, etc., are full of smart people. I have confidence they will figure it out. There is a theory that the police exist to protect the criminals from the citizens. This obviously will not work in a place like Mexico, where warlords take over. But US citizens are armed, and I don’t think warlords will get very far in Seattle. Of course, my police have not stood down, so this is easy for me to say.
Lets run the experiment.
I’m not sure if that’s the basis for, or a corollary to, “the only reason some people are alive is because murder is illegal.” It could go either way.
A little off-topic, but I disagree that this should be a thing (I know it’s NAPO and not you advocating, @dong). It’s too much like “hate crimes”. Murder and assault are already illegal. It doesn’t matter, or make it less awful or more awful, if the victim is a cop, or black, or a black cop, or whatever.
Well, if we actually got to a point that murder is treated totally seriously, then it might not matter. But that isn’t the case now, and may never be the case in the future. Plus there are already gradations of murder: first degree, second degree…
Police could improve their reputation with a lot of society by resisting some things they do routinely.
1. Ticky-tacky traffic tickets (and the quotas that incentivize them). Ticket dangerous drivers (rarer but more important). This is from a driver who has driven many thousands of miles over 50+ years with maybe 3 or 4 tickets.
2. Being tax collectors.
3. Serving no-knock warrants. If the amount of drugs you are seeking can be disposed of in a toilet flush, it’s not important enough to endanger lives. This is one of the dumbest outcomes of the “drug war”. I don’t do or like drugs but we lost that war a long time ago.
4. A pet peeve, but since it is my list: dividing the world into “police” and “citizens”. We are all citizens; police are not military occupiers.
When people put on the badge and uniform, they become more than a person–they are embodiment of the legal system and attacking the legal system deserves special punishment. Here in Texas, killing a cop gets a needle. The corollary is that those with a badge and uniform and legal monopoly on the use of force have to protect and serve 100% of the time.
Cops do not do these things in a vacuum. They are not “going rogue”. It is cities that set policies and priorities and training and do the hiring and firing. Unfortunately, the responsibility of Democrat city policy makers has been ignored. They are skating while cops are getting tarred and feathered.
I know that; that’s why I used the word “resisting”.
There are two types of Offenses’; Violations that call for a fine, but no imprisonment, and then; Crimes that call for imprisonment, and/or a fine. Police officers have some discretion when it comes to violations. They can decide to write a citation for a Violation, or not write a cite.
The new Woke prosecutors usurp the legislative process when they start to determine which crimes they will prosecute, and which crimes they will not prosecute. Now a prosecutor has an ethical obligation not to bring a case to trial if they feel there is not enough evidence to convict a person in a trial. That being said, that is not the same thing as a blanket refusal to try certain crimes based upon a prosecutor’s personal preference.
Police officers have civil protection from a prosecutor’s decision not to prosecute if they had good probable cause, and a reasonable belief that they person they arrested committed a crime.
Police officers should keep arresting those who commit crimes, book them, and thereby force Woke prosecutor’s to make a decision to prosecute, or not prosecute. Voters have a responsibility to elect new prosecutor’s that will enforce state laws when looking at Woke prosecutor’s that endanger them by refusing to enforce the law.