Howard Safir, Commissioner of the New York City Police Department from 1996-2000, gives the answer in his short Time magazine essay:
When Ismaaiyl Abdulah Brinsley brutally executed Officers Ramos and Liu he did so in an atmosphere of permissiveness and anti-police rhetoric unlike any that I have seen in 45 years in law enforcement. The rhetoric this time is not from the usual suspects, but from the Mayor of New York City, the Attorney General of the United States, and even the President. It emboldens criminals and sends a message that every encounter a black person has with a police officer is one to be feared. Nothing could be further from the truth. We will never know what was in the mind of Brinsley when he shot officers Ramos and Liu. However we do know that he has seen nothing but police bashing from some of the highest officials in the land.
I disagree with Mr. Safir in only one respect. We do know what was in Brinsley's mind. He told us shortly before the murders when he wrote on his Instagram page, "I'm putting wings on pigs today...They Take 1 Of Ours ... Let's Take 2 of Theirs."
Decency evolves: Unlike you and other conservatives, I don't blame politicians, protestors or pundits for crazy people who express outrage about the same events that irk them and then engage in nefarious acts. Blaming the Mayor of New York, the President, the Attorney General, or peaceful protestors against police violence for the acts of a murderer who shot his girlfriend and then killed two police officers is unfair and absurd.
Using your reasoning, why aren't conservative politicians and pundits who were protective of Cliven Bundy responsible for the deaths of Las Vegas policeman Igor Soldo and Alyn Beck at the hands of the right wing anti-government couple Jared and Amanda Miller who showed up at Bundy's ranch earlier this year?
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Las_Vegas_shootings
Weren't you all up in arms about Bundy and how outrageous his treatment was by federal agents?
http://www.crimeandconsequences.com/crimblog/2014/04/the-feds-go-stark-raving-mad.html
Good memory for Cliven Bundy. I had forgotten he existed.
I keep forgetting whether I'm supposed to be a pro-government hack (as a Satanic former prosecutor) or an anti-government nut job, (like some extreme libertarians).
I was wondering if you could straighten me out on that.
Also, did Cliven Bundy ever kill anyone? A fellow enraged at the white police about Ferguson did, in fact, do some killing, citing that as his motive. Have I got that wrong?
Finally, are you taking the position that the anti-cop hysteria of the last several weeks had nothing to do with the assassinations this last weekend? Nothing? Really?
All I am showing, Bill is that arguments conservatives make in castigating liberals for Brinsley's actions can be turned against them with incredible ease, which makes me wonder why people make them in the first place.
Did I, or any of the politicians you criticize, defend Brinsley? I must have missed that.
Are you taking the position that none of the anti-government, anti-government hysteria on Fox News or by Cliven Bundy had anything to do with the Jared and Amanda Miller's assassination of two Las Vegas police officers this year?
The argument conservatives are making on this point are hypocritical and intellectually lazy. Kevin Drum said it better than I can in a recent column:
"Let's Blame Conservatives For All the Killings They're Responsible For
—Kevin Drum on Sun. December 21, 2014 11:41 AM PDT
Via Atrios, here is America's-mayor-for-life Rudy Giuliani commenting on the killing of two New York City police officers yesterday by a deranged gunman:
“We’ve had four months of propaganda starting with the president that everybody should hate the police,” Giuliani said during an appearance on Fox News on Sunday. “The protests are being embraced, the protests are being encouraged. The protests, even the ones that don’t lead to violence, a lot of them lead to violence, all of them lead to a conclusion. The police are bad, the police are racist. That is completely wrong.”
....The former mayor also criticized President Barack Obama, Holder, and Al Sharpton for addressing the underlining racial tensions behind the failure to indict the white police officers who killed [Eric Garner on Staten Island] and Mike Brown in Ferguson. “They have created an atmosphere of severe, strong, anti-police hatred in certain communities. For that, they should be ashamed of themselves,” he said.
Fair enough. But I assume this means we can blame Bill O'Reilly for his 28 episodes of invective against "Tiller the Baby Killer" that eventually ended in the murder of Wichita abortion provider George Tiller by anti-abortion activist Scott Roeder. We can blame conservative talk radio for fueling the anti-government hysteria that led Timothy McVeigh to bomb a federal building in Oklahoma City. We can blame the relentless xenophobia of Fox News for the bombing of an Islamic Center in Joplin or the massacre of Sikh worshippers by a white supremacist in Wisconsin. We can blame the NRA for the mass shootings in Newtown and Aurora. We can blame Republicans for stoking the anti-IRS paranoia that prompted Andrew Joseph Stack to crash a private plane into an IRS building in Austin, killing two people. We can blame the Christian Right for the anti-gay paranoia that led the Westboro Baptist Church to picket the funeral of Matthew Snyder, a US Marine killed in Iraq, with signs that carried their signature "God Hates Fags" slogan. We can blame Sean Hannity for his repeated support of Cliven Bundy's "range war" against the BLM, which eventually motivated Jerad and Amanda Miller to kill five people in Las Vegas after participating in the Bundy standoff and declaring, "If they're going to come bring violence to us, well, if that's the language they want to speak, we'll learn it." And, of course, we can blame Rudy Giuliani and the entire conservative movement for their virtually unanimous indifference to the state-sanctioned police killings of black suspects over minor offenses in Ferguson and Staten Island, which apparently motivated the murder of the New York police officers on Saturday.
Or wait. Maybe we can't do any of those things. Maybe lots of people support lots of things, and we can't twist that generalized support into blame for maniacs who decide to take up arms for their own demented reasons. Maybe that's a better idea after all."
All I am showing, Bill is that arguments conservatives make in castigating liberals for Brinsley's actions can be turned against them with incredible ease, which makes me wonder why people make them in the first place.
Did I, or any of the politicians you criticize, defend Brinsley? I must have missed that.
Are you taking the position that none of the anti-government, anti-government hysteria on Fox News or by Cliven Bundy had anything to do with the Jared and Amanda Miller's assassination of two Las Vegas police officers this year?
The argument conservatives are making on this point are hypocritical and intellectually lazy. Kevin Drum said it better than I can in a recent column:
"Let's Blame Conservatives For All the Killings They're Responsible For
—Kevin Drum on Sun. December 21, 2014 11:41 AM PDT
Via Atrios, here is America's-mayor-for-life Rudy Giuliani commenting on the killing of two New York City police officers yesterday by a deranged gunman:
“We’ve had four months of propaganda starting with the president that everybody should hate the police,” Giuliani said during an appearance on Fox News on Sunday. “The protests are being embraced, the protests are being encouraged. The protests, even the ones that don’t lead to violence, a lot of them lead to violence, all of them lead to a conclusion. The police are bad, the police are racist. That is completely wrong.”
....The former mayor also criticized President Barack Obama, Holder, and Al Sharpton for addressing the underlining racial tensions behind the failure to indict the white police officers who killed [Eric Garner on Staten Island] and Mike Brown in Ferguson. “They have created an atmosphere of severe, strong, anti-police hatred in certain communities. For that, they should be ashamed of themselves,” he said.
Fair enough. But I assume this means we can blame Bill O'Reilly for his 28 episodes of invective against "Tiller the Baby Killer" that eventually ended in the murder of Wichita abortion provider George Tiller by anti-abortion activist Scott Roeder. We can blame conservative talk radio for fueling the anti-government hysteria that led Timothy McVeigh to bomb a federal building in Oklahoma City. We can blame the relentless xenophobia of Fox News for the bombing of an Islamic Center in Joplin or the massacre of Sikh worshippers by a white supremacist in Wisconsin. We can blame the NRA for the mass shootings in Newtown and Aurora. We can blame Republicans for stoking the anti-IRS paranoia that prompted Andrew Joseph Stack to crash a private plane into an IRS building in Austin, killing two people. We can blame the Christian Right for the anti-gay paranoia that led the Westboro Baptist Church to picket the funeral of Matthew Snyder, a US Marine killed in Iraq, with signs that carried their signature "God Hates Fags" slogan. We can blame Sean Hannity for his repeated support of Cliven Bundy's "range war" against the BLM, which eventually motivated Jerad and Amanda Miller to kill five people in Las Vegas after participating in the Bundy standoff and declaring, "If they're going to come bring violence to us, well, if that's the language they want to speak, we'll learn it." And, of course, we can blame Rudy Giuliani and the entire conservative movement for their virtually unanimous indifference to the state-sanctioned police killings of black suspects over minor offenses in Ferguson and Staten Island, which apparently motivated the murder of the New York police officers on Saturday.
Or wait. Maybe we can't do any of those things. Maybe lots of people support lots of things, and we can't twist that generalized support into blame for maniacs who decide to take up arms for their own demented reasons. Maybe that's a better idea after all."