I have written and re-written this a dozen times. Each time I conclude it’s not worth publishing I read more about protesting and our horrible police and I think to myself what the hell is going on?
Across America “protesters” are enraged over the deaths of two men at the hands of police (the Chicago Tribune calls it an epidemic). I am not sure what they are protesting and I suspect neither do most of the joiners.
Are we living in a police state? Is there wide-spread police brutality and corruption? Do police routinely target black Americans with the intent to kill them? Were these men who died entirely without culpability?
So, we have many Americans who believe that two innocent men were intentionally killed by police and that two grand juries hearing extensive testimony and viewing evidence over several months both came to wrong conclusions despite the fact none of these Americans has seen any of the evidence or heard any testimony.
Could these events have turned out differently, perhaps. Could the police have done something different, maybe. Could the victims have avoided the confrontations, it appears so in both cases.
What shall we do? Disarm the police? Go after them for every perceived overreaction so they become ineffective? Undermine them as several politicians are doing? Call a group of police a “gang” as the New York Times has done? Have only like races patrol neighborhoods?
Police officers are human beings, some good, some bad and most just like everyone else except when they go to work they don’t know who might decide to take a shot at them or try to stab them or who knows what. They make mistakes, they overreact and they are subject to perceptions and biases just as we all are. These feelings are created by their environment and in many cases we are not seeing a friendly or safe environment. Guess what, all the protesting in the world is not going to change any of this.
How many arrests are made every day by the police without incident? How many lives are saved and property protected?
Exactly what do protesters want; a perfect world, perfect police? What I’d like is a world without crime and where everyone takes responsibility for his or her actions. Neither of us are going to get what we want. Protest all you want and you can do it all over again when the next anomaly occurs and occur it will.
Consider this;
NEW YORK – The New York Police Department says the number of police shootings fell in 2013.
The report found that there were 40 instances in which officers shot at suspects. That was down from 45 in 2012 and an 11-year high of 61 in 2003.
The report says that last year eight people — all armed with either a gun or a “cutting instrument” — died from police shootings. That’s down from 16 a year earlier.
In roughly half the shootings last year, a single shot was fired.
Most of those hit by police gunfire in 2013 were black. The racial breakdown of the officers who fired at suspects in 2013 roughly mirrored that of the Police Department: Fifty-four percent of them are white, 20 percent are black and 22 percent are Hispanic.
Last year, the report found, police officers opened fire a total of 81 times. Those episodes include firing at dogs — 19 incidents — as well as six officer suicides.
If the protesters want change, get off the streets and do something; perhaps join the police force and do the job the way you think it should be done if you think you can handle the emotional and psychological challenges.
What we are seeing today is a reflection of a growing attitude in America promoted more than ever before in the last six years. Simply put, everything bad that happens in life is someone else’s fault and if you look hard enough there is always a scapegoat to make you feel better and less responsible.
As with everything there are two sides to a story, not that we always want to hear that. I have some other things for outraged people to protest. Here are a few examples:
Should we call the police?
Do you think working in this type of environment affects ones perceptions, attitudes and actions?
We are told that in Ferguson the essence of the problem is that the city with a large minority population is white controlled, but how do you explain this?
Newark police have been cited for racial profiling and the U.S. Justice Department has reached an agreement with the city of Newark to allow a federal monitor to watch over a municipal police force that it found had repeatedly violated the rights of its citizens, especially blacks, in the state’s largest city.
Newark has been run by African-Americans for the last forty-five years. Today the City Council is 100% minority either Black or Hispanic and yet racial problems and violence persist and have for decades.
1970–1986: Kenneth A. Gibson (born 1932), first African-American mayor
1986–2006: Sharpe James (born 1936)
2006–2013: Cory Booker (born 1969)
2013–2014: Luis A. Quintana (born 1960) first Latino Hispanic mayor (7 months)
2014–present Ras Baraka (born 1970)
Perceptions and prejudices are frequently inaccurate, but that doesn’t make them any less real or any less effective in affecting behaviors.
And then we have those who make a living on these problems, the Sharptons and Jacksons of the world who ignore the root causes and instead bate their own constituents into anti-social behavior with one-sided rhetoric. You want change in police attitude and action? How about change in the aggrieved community as well?
“A young n*gga on the warpath/And when I’m finished, it’s gonna be a bloodbath/Of cops, dying in L.A.” – Ice Cube, “Fawk The Police.” Sold three million copies
“I’m ’bout to dust some cops off/cop killer, better you than me/cop killer, fawk police brutality” – Ice-T, “Cop Killer”
Of course politicians are a great help, especially the far left kind.
As a child I recall always being told if I was lost or in trouble I should go to a policeman. I recall early reading books telling the same story. Now we are at the point where the mayor of New York says he was worried for his son being safe from the police.
On comments by Mayor DeBlasio of New York:
But the mayor, who shied away from describing family conversations after the grand jury decision in Ferguson, Mo., volunteered on Wednesday that he and his wife, Chirlane McCray, had instructed Dante “on how to take special care” in encounters with police officers, and described a private worry of whether his son was safe at night.
“I’ve had to worry over the years, Chirlane has had to worry: Is Dante safe each night?” de Blasio said Wednesday. “And not just from some of the painful realities of crime and violence in some of our neighborhoods but safe from the very people they want to have faith in as their protectors.”
We know how many black men were killed by police last year, but do we know this?
A total of 1,501 law enforcement officers died in the line of duty during the past 10 years, an average of one death every 58 hours or 150 per year. There were 100 law enforcement officers killed in 2013.
On average, over the last decade, there have been 58,261 assaults against law enforcement each year, resulting in 15,658 injuries.
What if Michael Brown had succeeded in grabbing Daren Wilson’s gun and had gotten a shot off killing him, what then Rev Sharpton?
I have to go get my placard so I can lie in a street somewhere to make things all better. What shall I protest?
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
I would agree with the overwhelming majority of your comments and I think we should support law enforcement ,however, a measured response to what’s happening these days needs to at least entertain the notion that there are some very bad cops and incompetent policing taking place on the streets especially in urban minority concentrated neighborhoods. This should not over shadow the good policing that takes place on a daily basis but its the protesters that get the media spotlight.What they want, what would satisfy them who knows….a cause, a voice , a leader etc….
What we are discussing is complex/political and there are no easy solutions. Where you live and your experience with law enforcement matters. I live in a relatively safe, protected community where serious crime is an anomaly. However, when I head off for work and arrive at the PA in nyc, its like i have arrived in another country. There are cops and army personnel dressed in camouflage standing guard and checking bags and briefcases. No doubt police presence is even greater in those communities (minority) where serious crimes take place.
We can ask ourselves where would we, our society be without the police?
I also think that what we are seeing today is a more global reaction indeed backlash to enhanced police presence and power since 9/11. Its about perception not reality.
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Of course there is no doubt there are bad cops and overly aggressive police, etc and we should strive to minimize all that, but they are human beings and as I said they will react to their environment and the stress of the job. However, the impression created by the press and demonstrators is that this is rampant and the citizens are merely innocent children and all around nice guys … let the demonstrators walk a beat in NYC or any urban neighborhood do then see what they say. Hang around with the wrong crowd and sooner or later you will be perceived part of it.
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The protests are a result of the “bandwagon effect” egged on by the likes of Charleton Sharpton, aided and abetted by television and newspapers to sell their wares. It will all take a bit of time to run its course much like “occupy Wall Street” did, with much the same outcome. A historical non event.
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