Recently in Policing Category

Earlier this month, the Justice Department released a report accusing the Baltimore Police Department of racism, making particular note of the police practice of clearing corners of loiterers and trespassers in high-crimes areas.  This practice of enforcement, said federal lawyers, is oppressive to minority communities, a stance echoed by Black Livers Matter activists, academics and the press.  But what about the law-abiding people that actually live in such areas?  What do they want police to do in their communities?  As a matter of fact, they are begging the police to enforce trespassing and loitering laws.  In this article in the National Review, Heather Mac Donald writes

This critique of public-order enforcement ignores a fundamental truth: It's the people who live in high-crime areas who petition for "corner-clearing." The police are simply obeying their will. And when the police back off of such order-maintenance strategies under the accusation of racism, it is the law-abiding poor who pay the price.

Community members are not only frustrated, they are scared.  A gas station owner in West Baltimore, whose business became overrun by loiterers following the release of the DOJ report, begged the police to "[p]lease help me."  A grandmother worries about groups of teens hanging out around her steps because she wants her "grandkids to be in a safe environment."  A copy store owner, who noticed a worsening of loiterers following the Freddie Gray riots in April 2015, says he calls the police whenever people gather in front of his store because their presence "scares people away.  Legitimate people, honest people," which affects his ability to make money and pay his bills.  Another woman wonders, "What ever happened to loitering laws?"

Donald Trump's recent comments on law and order have been a mixed bag.  He has said some things that are obviously wrong.  No, violence in our cities is not record levels.  Surely a New Yorker of Mr. Trump's age remembers how bad things were back in the day when the subway was so crime-infested and so dangerous that people felt they were taking their lives in their hands just to get to work.  Today is not that bad, not even close.

Even so, Trump is more right than his critics on the major issues.  Heather MacDonald has this article in the WSJ.  She quotes the usual suspects spewing the usual garbage, such as a historian reciting the very old and very wrong line that "the term law and order" is "racially tinged."  The fact that the anti-law enforcement side chooses to view "law and order" through a tinted glass does not tinge the object itself.

As over-the-top as Trump can be at times, his opponent and his critics comparing him to the likes of Adolf Hitler and the Ku Klux Klan are even more so.  See also this article by William McGurn, also in the WSJ.  MacDonald offers this explanation:

Why this frenzied effort to demonize Mr. Trump for addressing the heightened violence in inner cities? Because the Republican nominee has also correctly identified its cause: the false "narrative of cops as a racist force in our society," as he put it in Wisconsin.

The title of this post is taken from today's article in National Review by David French. The subtitle is, "The facts are a mere inconvenience for progressives stoking racial conflict."

It's hard to recall a political movement built on more verifiable lies and misinformation than Black Lives Matter, which exists to advance that notion that America is in the midst of a race-motivated epidemic of police shootings. From "hands up, don't shoot" to the extraordinary claim that it's "open season" on young black men, America is awash in rhetoric and fury that is already proving to be deadly to police and deadly to black communities across the United States.

I think the article is at some points overstated, but it is nonetheless a telling expose' of how the Left, and in particular the outlet Vox, is fanning racial animosity and unhinged condemnation of the police.  The piece is short and very much worth the read.

The Washington Post carries a story today about black people wanting only to live in peace and safety huddling together in one room of a Baltimore church, at the very moment a group of We-Know-Better DOJ lawyers (presumably with Harvard and Stanford degrees in hand) were in the room across the hall undermining their hopes.

In Milwaukee over the weekend, yet another black man with most of his life ahead of him was gunned down by the police.  This has sparked calls for peace, and for a renewed national conversation about police misconduct and community trust.

In my last post, I quoted an AP story in which the co-organizer of a BLM chapter stated that the group "rejects using violence."

In response to yesterday's shooting in Baton Rouge that as of 2 p..m. Sunday had three police officers dead, I was charged to debate whether violence against police is inevitable, wise or justifiable for African-Americans?  After consideration, I take the side that in our current climate, violence against police is not wise for African-Americans.  However, it is the inevitable and justifiable conclusion of militarizing police forces, lack of officer accountability following shootings of African-Americans, and silencing protests with ridiculous arrests.

I blogged yesterday about the police shooting of Korryn Gaines, a black woman and mother of two small children. Gaines' killing is already being touted by the anti-American academic Left as the new Ferguson (see this story)  --  which I suppose is appropriate, giving the rampant deceit and ginned-up outrage from which the Ferguson fable was woven.

To follow up on Michael's post about the departure of NYC Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, it's useful to remember, in the struggle against crime, where we came from  -- because with the current retreat from policies that work, we're headed right back there.

A compelling case can be made that violent crime, especially in the period after the late 1960s, was one of the most significant domestic issues in the United States, and perhaps in the nations of the West generally. Aside from the movement for black civil rights, it is hard to think of a phenomenon that had as profound effect on American life in the last third of the 20th century. After 1965, crime rose to such levels that it frightened virtually all Americans and prompted significant alterations in everyday behaviors and even in lifestyles. The risk of being "mugged" became an issue when Americans chose places to live as well as schools for their children, when they selected commuter routes to work, and when they planned their leisure activities. In some locales, people were fearful of leaving their dwellings at any time, day or night, even to go to market. In the worst of the post-1960s crime wave, Americans spent part of each day literally looking back over their shoulders.

The Washington Post features a story today that reflects on policing and African Americans.

Today was revealing about the place of policing in this country.

Databases are all to the good  --  if you take the time to look behind the data. Unfortunately, people in the press and academia have become experts at putting out "databases," then citing them for a distorted rendition of what they actually show. They do this knowing that only a fraction of readers will get beyond the article's first few paragraphs.

Baton Rouge cop killer Gavin Eugene Long and others who have killed police officers in the line of duty are included in The Washington Post's Pulitzer Prize-award winning "Fatal Force" database, a review conducted by The Daily Caller finds.

The database also counts Omar Mateen, the Islamist who was killed by police in Orlando after slaughtering 49 people at a gay nightclub, as one of the 533 people killed by cops so far this year.

The database, which includes demographics of individuals fatally shot by police as well as details about their background and the circumstances of the shooting, has been touted by reporters and activists for filling in a gap left by the FBI's limited statistics.

But the database -- which counted 990 police shooting victims last year -- is often cited by activists without the important context that many of the people killed by police officers deserved it.

 

Those who see criminals as victims tend frequently to complain about the collateral consequences of conviction.  And while it's true that there are likely to be such consequences if you're found guilty of, for example, being a smack pusher, con artist, strong arm or thief, etc., our opponents misapprehend the true source of the problem.  

We're often admonished by the Left not to draw conclusions until all the facts are in. That's sound advice, in the abstract.  The problem is how it gets applied.  When a Jihadist engages in mass murder shouting "Allahu Akbar," we are told not to "jump to conclusions" about his motives.  But when a white policeman shoots an African American, it is assumed on the spot that the motive is racism.  This itchy eagerness to smear the cops was nowhere better illustrated  --  and its injustice nowhere more evident  -- than with Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, MO.  It is being repeated full bore with the shooting episodes in Baton Rouge and in Minneapolis, even though in each of those cities, as was the case early on in Ferguson, the full facts are not yet known.

Amanda Lee Myers reports for AP:

Minutes after former Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca acknowledged failing the public by lying to federal authorities investigating jail beatings, a judge overseeing his corruption case shocked a packed courtroom Monday by rejecting the ex-lawman's plea agreement as too lenient.

The Black Lives Matter movement took root principally in the shooting death of a an 18 year-old African American, Michael Brown, by white Ferguson, MO, Officer Darren Wilson. Wilson was tried in the press and convicted of racist murder:  The narrative was, "Hands Up, Don't Shoot": Wilson gunned him down in cold blood while Brown had his hands up in surrender.