Posted on 11/26/2014 7:02:36 AM PST by shortstop
Every cop in America knows one thing – it could have been him.
Or her.
It could have been him or her, instead of Darren Wilson, who pulled that trigger on Michael Brown.
Or some such similar young man.
Every cop in America knows that, in return for choosing a career in law enforcement, the rules of the road are now that, at any minute, it all could be over and you could become hated and condemned all across the country.
No one would have your back, even the president could denounce you.
Because you defended yourself.
In a twist on biting the hand that feeds you, we are instead tying the hand that defends us. We are sending them out, and waiting for the first chance to gut them.
It is an incomprehensible act of ingratitude.
All across American law enforcement, officers know that the new reality facing them when they pull their guns is: By defending myself, I could be condemning myself.
Take Darren Wilson.
A good cop on routine patrol. He’s coming back from a call and has brief contact with two individuals. Nothing comes of it until he moves a ways down the block and gets a radio description of a wanted individual matching one of the young men he’s just seen.
Rolling back up on the two individuals, the larger of them – Michael Brown – lunges into the driver’s window of the squad car and begins assaulting Darren Wilson. Michael Brown then tries to take away the officer’s gun.
The officer gets off a round, Michael Brown attempts to flee, and then charges at the officer, twice, before being shot to death.
In the mind of witnesses and Darren Wilson, Michael Brown was set to attack and was an immediate threat to the life of Officer Wilson.
So Officer Wilson did what his training taught him to do. He did what instinct, morality and the laws of men command him to do – he defended himself.
And his life is ruined.
His career is over, his family is threatened, his name is destroyed, he has been vilified across the country and by the nation’s most prominent voices.
People have rioted demanding imprisonment for him, and there have been countless threats on his life.
His life, as he knew it, is over.
Because he was a cop and he defended himself.
An entire society has forgotten that Darren Wilson is not the perpetrator of a crime, he is the victim of a crime.
Likewise, it has been forgotten that Darren Wilson was an officer of the law with a duty to act, and that he was on patrol that day in the name and service of the people.
And it is dispiriting to see how instantly the people have turned on him and his profession.
You get up in the morning and put on a uniform that carries with it the obligation to potentially die in the service of your community, to put yourself between the good people and whatever species of hell pops up, and then, when you are literally fighting for your life and the community’s protection, nobody has your back.
Everybody curses your name.
Millions hate you.
Much of the nation turns against you.
In the matter of some 20 seconds.
Damned if you do, dead if you don't.Every cop in America wakes up every day knowing that that could be his fate. By the happenstance of random probability, the unpredictability of criminality, some wild hare seizing upon who knows what thug, and that could be you.
And it wouldn’t matter who you were, or what good you had done, or how many years you had served, or what you had made of your life and to what good cause you had dedicated it.
Al Sharpton would be yelling your name, mobs would be burning your effigy, and the president would be undercutting your profession.
And who wants that?
What kind of person, having seen on the nation’s newscasts the destruction of Darren Wilson, wants to risk that?
How many law enforcement officers will think of the danger associated with their thankless job, see the risk facing themselves and their family, recognize that it is completely unfair and wrong, and quit?
How many will lay down their badge and their career and walk away?
Probably none.
Because that’s the kind of people most of them are. They press on. They do their duty. They don’t quit.
That’s who they are.
More at issue is: Who are we?
Are we the kind of society that looks on and does nothing, or are we the kind of society that values law enforcement and what it does, and has its back?
Are we the kind of society that can look at the matter in Ferguson and push back the anti-cop prejudices and honestly consider the situation of Darren Wilson? Can we recognize the injustice of his situation?
Not that he wasn’t prosecuted, but that he was ever suspected. That an officer of the law, the victim of a violent and felonious attack, can be forced into a fight for his life, and then be condemned for winning.
Would society have preferred he die?
We all know that if the cop had died, instead of the guy who attacked him, that none of us would have ever heard of this. The president wouldn’t have commented, the nation wouldn’t have noticed, nobody would have given a damn.
Dead cop, no problem.
Dead thug, raise holy hell.
And every cop knows that.
And carries that sad realization 24 hours a day.
The president said we need to train our police better. Maybe we need to train our society better.
Maybe we should train the Michael Browns of the world to respect the law, and maybe we should train the rest of us to respect the law enforcers.
And have their backs.
Or at least understand the horrible risk and reality Ferguson creates for them.
Because every cop knows today could be his day.
Example: Back in the 70’s I was a police officer in Texas for 3-yrs. Rolled up on a burglary. . .partner and I waited outside the open window in the alley as the burglar tossed his loot out the window and crawled out the window. We snagged him.
He plead not guilty (!?). Anyway, during the trial the mother testified that her son did not rob that business. When the prosecutor pointed out the facts (seen crawling out of the business and with a sack of stolen stuff), the mother said; “If he said he didn't do it, he didn't do it!!”
Nothing could shake her feeling.
That video helped the cops when Rodney King attacked them.
I hope and pray nobody breaks into our house
If my family is on top of their game the perp will be cold before the police can get here
Then there will be a media circus and they’ll come and burn the damn house down
It means don’t be a cop in a minority area. Period. Your work and contributions will not be valued.
Nah.
Black America sees cops as an occupying army.
Withdraw police from da hood’ and build a wall around it.
If they kill each other, its no reason to put cops in the way to save their worthless asses.
Let Black America rot.
I honestly believe we will see this used as a reason to both disarm the police. Some are already saying that if a police officer kills for whatever reason an unarmed minority person they should be put in jail. Not only are body cam's being pushed but other “less lethal” weapons.
This is truly going to harm big cities and their suburbs beyond anything imaginable.
Cops will only be able to shoot white people and dogs. Blacks must be tazed.
Inner cities will become “No Go Zones.”
Its not going to hurt the rest of us.
But Black America is going to have a short, nasty and brutish life.
That’s not our fault. Let’s give ‘em what they want.
The cops should pull out of the black neighborhoods and let the thugs rule. It wouldn’t be but a few days before they would demand that the police return.
I agree with you.
No white cop will ever work in a black majority again.
The folks see you as the enemy. Why bother risking your life on the line for a community that will be out for your blood if you injure or kill a brutha?
Let the racists of Black America live with their own self-inflicted misery. Its not America’s responsibility to clean up after them.
As a nation we should proud of our legal system... and the people of the Ferguson grand jury for doing what was right in spite of threats from street bullies and thugs. That's another lesson of Ferguson...
I’m posting this one AGAIN due to a (redundancy alert!) ridiculous remark made by Alan Colmes (he of the wandering eye) on FOX this morning. The thrust of his comment was that whites kill more blacks than blacks kill whites here!
Bill Whittle explains why that is so much liberal/leftist bravo sierra designed to keep blacks on their plantation!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGTUcS-yQtQ
Ever seen the view from one of these cameras during a tussel? During those blurry chaotic moments, much can still be left to interpretation during a forensic analysis. All you still need is a couple of collaborated lying thugs to skew it wrongly.
My biggest concern longterm, is what this new "mindset" will do when trying to recruit new young people into LEO careers. I bet many who might want to serve in that capacity, will pass because of the new "Thugs Are Off Limits" philosophy.
What it says to me?
Don’t bother with crime-fighting in black areas. Stay in the car and get home alive.
“Inner cities will become “No Go Zones.”
Many already are.
Pretty soon those “No Go Zones” will be under Sharia Law, that’s why the Muslims are so involved in Ferguson. It brings them one step closer to making it a reality.
I mean black racists want just that - its all about privileging black skin color over the law and morality.
Its all about being born with the right skin pigment. They are the Left’s version of the KKK without the hoods and burning crosses on the lawn.
But no less pernicious for the well-being and peace of our society.
Body cameras and reducing the number of police. Police are just not that effective inreducing crime, and are very expensive. As we’ve seen in Fergidishu and countless other places, when the SHTF, you’re on your own.
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