Posted on 12/26/2014 8:50:35 PM PST by smoothsailing
December 26, 2014
As we sit here in our homes with our families and loved ones around us, tens of thousands of children wonder if their parents will come home tonight.
Their fathers and mothers aren’t stationed in Iraq or Afghanistan. They’re on duty in places like Englewood in Chicago where there are 2 violent crimes for every 1,000 people in one month, Columbus Square in St. Louis or Bedford-Stuyvesant in New York City where two police officers were just murdered.
The men and women of law enforcement are on the front lines of the war at home. From the mugger on the block to the terrorist on the hijacked plane, they are the first ones there.
41 law enforcement officers were shot and killed in 2014. That’s in line with the number of Americans killed by hostile fire in Afghanistan. There’s a reason that Chicago has been nicknamed Chiraq. Some parts of the country are a war zone and after the latest shooting of two police officers in New York City, a statement circulating among cops states that the NYPD has become a “wartime police department.”
The war at home has been going on for a long time and by some accounts has claimed the lives of 20,000 law enforcement officers. Since 2001, more than 700 officers have been killed by gunfire. During the Gulf War, more officers were killed on the streets of American cities than in combat against Saddam.
Even as the murders of NYPD cops Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu fill the news, Officer Charlie Kondek has been shot while pursuing a suspect in Tarpon Springs, Florida.
Officer Kondek had been a former member of the NYPD. He leaves behind five children. His killer, Marco Antonio Parilla Jr, had been repeatedly arrested for the possession and sale of cocaine before being released just this August. Officer Kondek and his children paid the ultimate price for his release.
All three police officers were casualties in the war against human evil that never ends. It’s an even dirtier and more unglamorous war than Iraq or Afghanistan. And police officers are hated in a way that it’s still socially unacceptable to hate soldiers. Ramos and Liu were the latest casualties of that hatred.
The police officer is the handyman of the welfare state. His job is to put his life on the line to plug the social leaks that the sociologists, consultants and social planners who made this mess had not foreseen. It’s his job to be there for a domestic violence complaint in a Florida motel at two in the morning or a failure of multiculturalism between two warring gangs in Oakland. He goes to places that the politicians don’t like to think about and deals with issues that the welfare state created and walked away from.
Progressives don’t believe in evil. It’s the beat cop who has to believe in it and clean it up.
The planners and politicians who allocate funds for new housing projects don’t have to patrol them at night. They don’t have to walk down a narrow concrete block hallway lined with dirty doors any of which can open at any minute with a gun behind it. The drug sentencing reformers have never had to carry a deranged screaming figure through the rusting doors of an emergency room. They have never had to get their soft shoes dirty walking through puddles of blood in an alleyway.
When liberalism fails, it’s the cop who gets the call. And when he does get the call, it’s the liberals who will be the first to call for his head.
It’s not enough that the cop has to clean up for the welfare state. He also has to be its scapegoat.
The chants of “Black lives matter” aren’t aimed at the gangs and drug dealers who rack up an astronomical number of black deaths; it’s aimed at the cops who put their lives on the line saving black lives. It’s the very people whose messes they clean up who hate them the most.
The police officer has come to embody America, abroad and at home, the nation that risks its lives to free peoples only to be despised for it, the nation that extends every benefit and privilege to its own criminals only to be shot and stabbed, raped and robbed for its endless generosity.
The American police officer was never supposed to be venturing into neighborhoods where no one speaks English and the locals see him as a member of an occupying army or patrolling in communities where gang members number in the thousands and could take down the entire local police force.
He was never supposed to be a social worker, a mediator, a medic and the commander of an invading army negotiating truces and treaties with the local tribes. And yet he is expected to be all these things and more. Every time he goes out he knows that he may face a choice between his life and his career.
If cops seem touchy, isolated or out of control it’s because they have been left hanging by a system that uses them to dam up the breakdown of a society without ever acknowledging that this is their job. Many urban police officers operate in environments where crime is not an aberration, but the norm. Like the American soldier, the police officer is better trained and more effective than ever before, but like the soldier he is also haunted by the sense that his work and his sacrifices are futile and unappreciated.
The police officer isn’t spending years in Iraq or Afghanistan; he’s spending decades in Chiraq. When his time ends, there will be no victory parades. Just the knowledge that he tried to make a difference and that unlike many brother officers, at least he made it to retirement.
Officer Daryl Pierson was shot and killed leaving behind a wife and two young children. Pierson had been an experienced officer. His killer, Thomas Johnson III, had been paroled after serving three years for an attempted armed robbery.
Officer Justin Winebrenner tried to get Kenan Ivery to leave a bar. Ivery drew a gun and shot and killed him. Officer Winebrenner was a second generation police officer. He left behind a 4-year-old daughter.
Officer Perry Renn responded to shots being fired and encountered Major Davis Jr. who was carrying a semi-automatic rifle. Davis Jr. had an extensive criminal record. He fired killing Officer Renn who had survived twenty-two years on the force.
Patrolman Jeffery Westerfield responded to a fight between Carl Le’Ellis Blount Jr. and his girlfriend. He never even got a chance to draw his gun or leave his squad car before Blount shot him in the head.
Deputy Sheriff Allen Bares was off duty when he saw a gold Lexus crash into a ditch. He approached the vehicle and was shot and killed. The two men inside, Quintylan Richard and Baylon Taylor, stole his truck and took off.
The police officers in all these cases were white. Their killers were black. But the police officers in many of these cases were trying to protect black people and black communities.
The killings all took place in a matter of months in 2014. And their numbers will only continue to grow.
While the wars abroad expand or contract, this is the war that will go on. Its soldiers will serve their tours of duty for decades on the streets of our own cities without having anywhere else to go home to. And when their time is up, they will never receive the thanks that they deserve because most of us will never understand the difference that they made.
When the left took over, it was the police officer who kept everything from going under in our major cities. It was not the politician or the planner, the sociologist or the social worker who kept the crime and chaos from sweeping everything away. It was the man in blue who did what had to be done.
Under Obama, when the criminal is king and the progressive planners are changing the country in ways unprecedented since the seventies, it’s still the lonely figure in the squad car that does his duty and holds the line in a thousand dark and dirty neighborhoods where gunshots and screams sound in the night. The American police officer has become the soldier of civilization fighting to keep it alive.
And somewhere a family wonders if their father or mother will come home tonight.
I’m sorry, but what has that to do with the discussion? I should hope that you have the firepower to protect yourself in any situation but that has very little to do with the discussion. Really not sure what you are getting at?
I want the police to have the latest and greatest weapons to defend themselves. What I do not want is the use of military vehicles and 20 officers used to catch a minor drug addict, usually no knock! Too many times they use a false report to justify their actions while destroying an innocent family.
Just responding to your post #10
Here I am sitting in a patrol car on duty and I have to read this post of yours and wonder just what you have to be afraid of? I have worked twenty years and still can’t figure out what an honest citizen has to worry about if they do nothing wrong. There are to many fish in the sea of crime for me to devote time to an honest man. What was it my grandfather said. a guilty dog usually barks the loudest ? Just what are you afraid of? This was an excellent article and accurately describes our profession.
What are you going to do when we give up on society and turn it over to the thugs you support.. What’s that old saying? And then they came for me and who shall I turn too?
Okay, I was still aggravated about your 2..3..1 response without understanding some of the other issues. I won’t elaborate but I did take offense for you 3..2..1 comments. I am definitely NOT anti police but I do think that they have taken things too far these days...
Actually a good question! I tell you that while I am a law abiding citizen, I fear that you will break my door down because of false information and put me in jail for days until I prove my innocence. This is something that I never imagined in the past. It happens (in the news) occasionally today.
I do not depend upon the police to protect me, I depend upon the police to find the folks that robbed me or otherwise caused me harm. I can not depend upon you for my own protection - you are too many minutes away. That is a fact. You are the fact finders after the fact in almost all instances.
Yes, I am afraid of you because I am a law abiding citizen and today, that does not seem to matter. Too many times I’ve read about innocent citizens arrested for anything that the officer decides to charge (most often later dropped). That has become a common occurrence these days. And yes, there is the police brotherhood that cares more about their police brothers than they do about the innocent victims.
I still think of the police as a protective force but have begun to think a bit differently, probably due to negative stories in the news. Not always accurate but the cumulative effect is a problem.
I still support you in your car (on duty) but watch you with a suspicious eye.... That was not so a few years ago.
Sorry if I offended you, not my intent. When I say your firsts response I thought you were “one of those”, and I apologize. I was so busy on another thread and I didn’t fully comprehend your response. That is something I’m working on and hope to do better in the future.
Once again I APOLOGIZE ... large enough for all to see.
No problem at all! I am probably much worse than you at stupid responses... Have a good one...
I might add that a lot of that has to do with recording a policeman while he is arresting or stopping someone. The police seem to think that they are not allowed to be recorded while they are doing their thing..(and don’t give me that interfering with the arrest crap). Does not seem to matter that the Supreme Court has decided the matter, they always resist, take the camera, arrest the folks, and otherwise cause problems! Seems that most of the police officers can’ abide by the laws that they support as long as it does not show them in a bad light.
Okay, now that you’ve got me on a roll... The Police are after revenue, not law enforcement! They set traps, use cameras, and other things to catch folks regardless if the citizen is endangering anyone. It’s become a matter of money only! And yes, stop light cameras are for money, usually cause more accidents though but that probably gets more money also. We have lost the idea of policing for safety long ago!
Deagle, Politicians are after your money, we don’t get it or take it from you. Root cause analysis that’s who takes your money and dictates that we administer citations or other penance that take your money. Root cause is that you commit an act that is against a law that was placed into state law or local that you violate and are caught breaking. Now imagine that the law goes up the chain into drugs and theft and many other crimes all with the same impact and all with a penance. Say if someone kidnapped your loved one and I told you that with some unauthorized method I could save them, would it bother you if I set a trap for this criminal? I doubt it.
The worst thing in law enforcement is someone that who is generally law abiding paying a fine that they know they committed the crime and begrudge being caught and having to pay.
So, no law breaking, no worries, you give little credence to your objections other than, don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time .
So the next time you need a cop call 1.800.DIAL A THUG and you may began to appreciate us a little more . At least we’re not known to burn and loot.....lol have a nice day
Actually, I like your attitude, you may be one of the good ones! The problem is the the politicians want the money and make the police to things that they might not ordinarily do. Have seen this in action at least three times in my life, false speeding, false stop to check me out (twice). Now I do have to say that asking for directions from a policeman was helpful and a good experience.
There is a problem of politicians and the those in charge of the officers. It is passed down unfortunately.
No, I will not be calling 911 unless it is after the fact so I don’t expect resolution after the call. That is after the fact and will almost always be the case. Trying to defend the police for that is ridiculous. I would never expect the police to actually solve a case regarding murder or theft, that would be crazy.
I will call 911 when a crime occurs but do not expect any resolution but it is required for insurance purposes.
Actually, the worse thing is being stopped and ticketed for something that you know you did not do! How about a rookie cop ticketing someone when they used their radar while turning at 90 degrees toward the vehicle and about 1/2 mile away? That has happened to me when I had set auto speed and was actually NOT speeding...try telling that to an officer who wants money or to meet his quota! Good luck!!
I have a few deserved tickets during my computer maintenance days (lots of travel) but really hated false tickets!
More experiences but you know the idea... Not all police actions are good...
Idolizing a post is no better when liberals or conservatives do it.
It is God-consciousness that keeps the gendarmes from being just as terrible as the rest of the people... lacking a firm standard of virtue what does it mean to be the “finest” of a population?
I’d like to see Jesus Christ once more recognized as POTY.
Excuse me?
Following on, not countering
Strange reply.., Thought I was commenting to PROSOUTH, who are you to intervene?
There are jurisdictions where citizens are not even allowed that much protection.
Who is it that arrests people who violate those anti-Second Amendment laws?
Oh wow, speaking up on issues is verboten here without tracing the web of discussion. I never knew.
I.e. if you really want privacy on a topic, FREEPMAIL is there FOR A REASON...
[insert mild oath here]
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