Posted on 07/31/2003 8:34:37 AM PDT by presidio9
In much of the liberal media, large-scale confrontations between police and people who are breaking the law are usually reported in one of two ways. Either the police used "excessive force" or they "let the situation get out of hand."
Any force sufficient to prevent the situation from getting out of hand will be called "excessive." And if the police arrive in large enough numbers to squelch disorder without the need for force, then sending in so many cops will be called "over-reacting." After all, with so little resistance to the police, why were so many cops necessary? Such is the mindset of the media.
Add the volatile factor of race and the media will have a field day. If an incident involves a white cop and a black criminal, you don't need to know the facts to know how liberals in the media will react. You can predict the words and the music.
Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute does have the facts, however, in her new book, "Are Cops Racist?" Unfortunately, those who most need to read this book are the least likely to do so. They have made up their minds and don't want to be confused by facts.
For the rest of us, this is a very enlightening and very readable little book. Ms. Mac Donald first tackles the issue of "racial profiling" by the police and shows what shoddy and even silly statistical methods were used to gin up hysteria. Then she moves on to police shootings and other law-enforcement issues.
Suppose I were to tell you that, despite the fact that blacks are just 11 percent of the American population, more than half the men fined for misconduct while playing professional basketball are black -- and concluded that this shows the NBA to be racist. What would your reaction be?
"Wait a minute!" you might say. "More than half the players in the NBA are black. So that 11 percent statistic is irrelevant."
That is exactly what is wrong with "racial profiling" statistics. It is based on blacks as a percentage of the population, rather than blacks as a percentage of the people who do the kinds of things that cause police to stop people and question them.
A professor of statistics who pointed this out was -- all too predictably -- denounced as a "racist." Other statisticians kept quiet for fear of being smeared the same way. We have now reached the dangerous point where ignorance can silence knowledge and where facts get squelched by beliefs.
Heather Mac Donald also goes into facts involving police shootings, especially when the cops are white and the suspect is black. Here again, an education awaits those who are willing to be educated.
People in the media are forever expressing surprise at how many bullets were fired in some of these police shootings. As someone who once taught pistol shooting in the Marine Corps, I am not the least bit surprised.
What surprises me is how many people whose ignorance of shooting is obvious do not let their ignorance stand in the way of reaching sweeping conclusions about situations that they have never faced. To some, it is just a question of taking sides. If it is a white cop and a black suspect, then that is all they feel a need to know.
The greatest contribution of this book is in making painfully clear the actual consequences of cop-bashing in the media and in politics. The police respond to incentives, like everyone else.
If carrying out their duties in the way that gets the job done best is going to bring down on their heads a chorus of media outrage that can threaten their whole careers, many cops tend to back off. And who pays the price of their backing off? Mainly those blacks who are victims of the criminals in their midst.
Drug dealers and other violent criminals have been the beneficiaries of reduced police activity and of liberal judges throwing out their convictions because of "racial profiling." These criminals go back to the black community -- not the affluent, suburban and often gated communities where journalists, judges, and politicians live.
The subtitle of "Are Cops Racist?" is: "How the War Against the Police Harms Black Americans."
That is priceless! BTW: lots of cops call the innner-city "self-cleaning ovens." Why take a chance on getting fired/arrested/sued when in the course of doing your normal duties?
lol! Perfect description!
She opened a can of 'WHOOP ASS' on him, ey?
I don't blame the cops one bit for passing that one by.
Hell, they don't want the cops interfering anyway, so to hell with them!
I lived on Princeton by A St. in Hayward, CA and it was like living in the wild west.
Got out of there 3 1/2 years ago and never looked back.
Over the last spring, idiot children with BB guns were plinking at the windows in my building. They shot out a few windows, and I did not know about it until they shot my window. (Yeah, I'm not real social).
A quick inquiry informed me that this was the second attack that night and no one had ever called the police.
I called the police immediately.
Now, I really regret wasting their time. I knew that they could never catch "the BB Gun bandit" (as one of them put it).
I also knew this. They were seen coming up to and into my apartment. The whole neighborhood saw it.
The word got out that there was someone in that building who was not afraid to call the police.
No windows have been shot with BB guns in the last 4 months.
Diallo had no criminal record and was not armed, nor did he have any drugs in his possession or his system. Diallo's only crime was possibly resembling a rape suspect those cops were looking for when they shot him. That, to most folks, was what outraged so many over this particular incident.
Don't be so quick to label those shot by police as criminals.
So violating US immigration law is no longer a crime? Congratulations on your defection to the left. I'm also glad to know that selling counterfeit goods is also perfectly legal. Would you like to buy a Rolex? It's made in Taiwan.
Let me know what other crimes have now been legalized.
If you can produce records of Diallo being charged with being illegal (and I'm not sure if he was an illegal) then let's have it.
Congratulations on your defection to the left.
I haven't defected anywhere but knee-jerk attitudes like yours would make somebody want to.
I'm also glad to know that selling counterfeit goods is also perfectly legal.
Diallo wasn't charged with this and those cops weren't looking for him for that reason.
Would you like to buy a Rolex? It's made in Taiwan.
Not interested in a Rolex. Are you interested in the truth?
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