Every time there is an officer involved shooting, the keyboard commandos and internet academy police experts come out of the woodwork. These are the people with no actual experience doing the job, but they are going to tell you exactly how you should have done things. They will explain how unarmed and single handedly they would have disarmed that suspect in seconds without injuring them.
These folks are not a new phenomenon. There are memes by the dozen for those folks, and below are a few of them.
However, no matter how much I (we) realize they exist, they still get under my skin. The problem is not necessarily them, it is that their stupidity infects the soft headed people who don’t know any better. A person who knows absolutely nothing about a topic has no way to distinguish an actual expert from one of these idiots.
I recently (5 days ago) put together a YouTube video in which I offered my own analysis of the video of the Keith Scott shooting that was filmed by his wife on her cell phone. That video has gotten a ton of traffic, and the comment section has been very busy, which has unfortunately kept me very busy policing it.
Besides being called all the slurs you can imagine for a cop, called a racist, a Nazi, and even received at least one death threat, I’ve had the pleasure to encounter a large number of the internet police experts. This person here, “Carry Lifeforme,” takes the prize as the biggest, most annoying moron of them all.
What follows are screenshots capturing the entire conversion thus far. Please be advised, at some point I’ve given up all semblance of professionalism and the expletives begin to fly.
(last line in the above screenshot is the first line in the next)
Carry here epitomizes the type of person I am talking about. No actual knowledge, no proof, any evidence is second hand anecdotal hearsay, and they refuse to do anything to learn actual facts on the matter. Again, my main issue is not with their stupidity, but that their stupidity is contagious.
That said, people like Carry really make me wonder…
Sadly, a couple of days ago, on Friday September 16, 20016, an Oklahoma cop shot and killed an unarmed black man, Terence Crutcher. There is absolutely no denying that, because that is what happened. But that is where the honesty in the discussion taking place on social media and in teh mainstream media ends.
Yes, the cops shot him, but does that mean they “murdered” him? If you were to search the hashtag #TerenceCrutcher on just about any social media platform, you will likely be inundated by comment after comment proclaiming the cops murdered him, or worse.
Yesterday, numerous people were tweeting out this screen grab of the official police statement, while calling the statement a lie (wording used varied by commenter).
I’ve watched a couple of the videos (helicopter and 1st responding officer’s dash cam – both videos linked here) and I will admit that the dash cam looks really bad, mainly because we can’t see anything past the officers. On the other hand, the video from the helicopter provides us a much better view of what happened, but neither of those videos can be taken as the sole piece of evidence.
(Helicopter video above)
(Dash cam video from 1st responding officer above)
Now, based on those videos, I can say, without any doubt in my mind, that the police statement is absolutely 100% correct. Just to clarify, agreeing that the official police statement is accurate does not necessarily mean that I am saying the shooting is justified. More on that later.
Slightly off topic, but one thing worth noting here because far too many people are making a huge stink about it online: the comment in the helicopter video where one officer says “that looks like a bad dude” is not something that went out on the radio. That was recorded via the helicopter’s communication system that allows the pilot and observer to speak to each other. If you don’t believe me, watch the in-car video again and listen to the police radio traffic in the background.
First, we have the mainstream media spreading lies. Take this headline (below) from the ABC News main website (not a local station, this is ABC corporate). Half true, half incendiary lies. Yes, Crutcher had no gun; no his hands were most definitely NOT up when he was shot. ABC was not by any means the only mainstream “news” station to have a similar headline. What is this, Mike Brown all over again? Can we at least stick to the truth?
Then there are the countless morons drawing the false comparison between Terence Crutcher and Ahmad Khan Rahami (the NYC & NJ terrorist bombing suspect), saying the cops killed Crutcher because he was black, but they only arrested Rahami.
The dude who planted bombs was taken alive, but #terencecrutcher gets shot and killed for car being broke down. WTF!!??
I guess, you know, because cops like Muslim terrorists who shoot at them better than they do black men? I mean, that is what these idiots are insinuating, is it not?
The fact of the matter is the cops fired numerous rounds at Rahami, and struck him and unknown number of times (I’ve 1-2 times). Yes, the cops shot both men. Sadly, the ONE SINGLE round that was fired at Mr. Crutcher clearly (from the helicopter video) struck, at minimum, some vital organs, if not an artery, which is evidenced by the extreme about of blood visible almost instantly. Both men were rushed to the hospital after being shot, one of them survived.
There are many other morons out there, including Shaun king (the crazy white guy who thinks and pretends he is black) who the liberals at the NY Daily News have seen fit to give a large platform to, preaching that the cops had no reason to have their guns drawn and had no reason to even put Crutcher in handcuffs (because many people have asked why they didn’t cuff him) because he had not committed a crime. Well Shaun, your legal expertise is severely lacking. It is not necessary that someone have actually committed a crime in order for cops to handcuff them, or point guns at them. If the cops suspect they may have committed a crime, they can be detained, in handcuffs even. If they are refusing to cooperate, force can be used. More on that later.
Yet another thing far too many people are hung up on is that Crutcher “was unarmed.” Yes, he was, but in the beginning of this incident, Crutcher and only a single officer were involved in the encounter. None of us knows what transpired during that encounter, but we do know that whatever it was, it was tense enough that the female officer, who was much smaller than Crutcher, got on the radio and requested Code 3 cover, and it was enough to cause her to draw her weapon and point it at Crutcher. You see, while Crutcher may not have been a bad guy (I have no idea if he has a criminal history or not), there is no way for a responding cop to know that, and in order for cops to avoid being hurt or killed, we automatically assume everyone is a bad guy until we figure out otherwise, less something like this happen:
Further expanding on the irrelevance of the whole unarmed argument, Crutcher began ignoring the officer’s commands, he turned and walked back to his vehicle. As he walked, his hands were in the air, but they were only in the air until he got to his driver’s door. At that point, his hands dropped and he began digging in the car, still ignoring the officer’s commands. Honestly, when watching this video, it immediately made me think of a video EVERY cop has seen in training, and I would be willing to bet it was going through those cops’ minds too. The shooting death of Deputy Kyle Dinkheller.
When examining any police use of force, from a simple twist lock all the way up to deadly force, there is one thing that must be considered, and that is whether the cop’s actions were “objectively reasonable.” That phrase and concept come to us via a US Supreme Court Case that was heard in 1989, Graham v. Connor. The court ruled that only the information known to the cop at the time of the encounter (not facts later discovered), in conjunction with that cop’s training and experience, would lead another equally trained/experienced officer to make a similar decision. In other words, were the cop’s actions objectively reasonable with the information they had at the time.
One last thing that we need to clear up before I delve into my opinions on this shooting; murder, by legal definition, is the unlawful, intentional killing of a human being.
Later
Ok, so now that we’ve got the lies and half-truths addressed, let me offer my own opinion, however limited.
As I said, I’ve watched the videos. From other reports, whether or not they were accurate, it appears the first officer encountered Crutcher while driving to another, unrelated call. Per those reports, Crutcher was not cooperative from the onset. While we do not see the beginning of the encounter, we do see that he is not cooperative from the time he is on camera. As soon as they have him in camera view, he is turned away from the solo, much smaller female officer, who has her gun drawn, and Crutcher is walking away from her. Crutcher continues to walk away, ignoring commands, and walks to his car and begins reaching inside the car. Crutcher is shot while still reaching in the car, falls to the ground and does not move again.
What I can assume based on the facts is that the encounter between Crutcher and the female officer is confrontational at a minimum. If it was not, she would not have requested code 3 cover. If the encounter is going bad enough that you are requesting code 3 cover, it is reasonable to have your gun drawn.
Cops have every legal right to detain Crutcher at the onset of this encounter. His car, which they have no way of knowing it is even his, is stopped in the middle of the street, and is actually on the wrong side of the road. According to the reports, he approached the cop and was immediately confrontational. That is two things that are not normal, which should lead anyone to wonder what is going on. Since it is the cops job to investigate situations like this, and the cops are present, it is legal and reasonable to detain those who are involved. If the subjects are cooperative, handcuffs may not be used, but if the subject is uncooperative, as Crutcher clearly (from the video) is, handcuffing him would be normal (once sufficient cops were on scene to do so). So yes Shaun King, the cops could very well have legally detained Crutcher in handcuffs.
As cops encounter any situation, we have no magical way of knowing who is a good guy and who is a bad guy. The first thing that gives us an inclination of which side of the spectrum they fall on is their behavior. Crutcher, at the earliest point we see him in the video, is most definitely not acting like a good guy. Acting in a confrontational manner, and refusing to follow lawful commands, only serves to put the cops more on edge, and put you in more danger.
Crutcher walks all the way to the driver’s door of the vehicle and begins reaching through the open window, doing something that the cops cannot see. This is yet another red flag to the cops, and any cop in that situation is going to be assuming the worst.
We have no idea what was said between Crutcher and the initial officer. Depending on what Crutcher told her, she could have had very real concerns that Crutcher might be planning on taking offensive actions towards her or the other cops. For all we know, he could have said “I’m going to grab my registration from inside the car” or just as easily, he could have said “I’m getting my gun and am going to kill you.” The fact of the matter is, none of us knows what was said, and none of us should assume one way or the other.
So, the million dollar question is, did those cops “murder” Terence Crutcher? The shooting appears to have been intentional, so half of that murder question is a yes, but was it unlawful? We do not have enough information to make that call. Granted, lacking any knowledge of cop work, and looking at the videos, especially the in-car camera, it looks bad, but we cannot judge the incident only on what we see.
With that said, I suspect it will be found to be a lawful shooting, based on everything going on here. I think the objective reasonableness standard will be found to have been met in this case.
Would I have fired? Damn, tough call. Some cases are a slam dunk “absolutely!” This is not one of those cases. I wish I knew what was said, and what transpired before the cameras were on scene. With what we have available, I don’t know.
However, one thing I can say without a shred of doubt in my mind, if Terence Crutcher had cooperated, if he had followed the lawful commands he was given, he would be alive today. Folks, this is not about skin color, none of it is. It is about not doing stupid stuff when the cops are pointing a gun at you.
All of the above is the opinion of me, Matt, an actively employed deputy with 20 years on the job. I realize some folks might dismiss my opinions because I’m one of those evil cops. For another opinion, one from a man who is not a cop, read this article by Bob Owens at Bearing Arms.
** Updated 9-20-16 / 1245 hours Pacific **
Latest Update to this who situation is that not only did the female officer who first contacted Crutcher say that he was acting as if he was on PCP, but the cops located PCP in his car when they conducted a search of it. This does not mean he was necessarily high at the time. We will have to wait for the autopsy and blood tests to determine that.
** Updated 9-20-16 / 1400 hours Pacific **
The Tulsa Police have released two different 911 calls that they received from citizens regarding Crutcher’s behavior and his car. These calls were made prior to the officer contacting Crutcher. So, it now appears that the cops were not the only people who thought he was acting as if he were high.
As a cop who runs a number of social media pages related to my career, one of the types of folks we often encounter is the “traveler,” also known as a sovereign citizen (there are various levels of these folks). Among other crazy assertions they often make, repeatedly, despite all the evidence to the contrary, is that there is no legal requirement to have a drivers license in order to operate a motor vehicle on public highways.
Seriously, some of these people really believe that, and they quote things such as the Articles of Confederation as supporting evidence.
Let me say this here and now, if you are one of those fools, and you really believe the Articles of Confederation have any legal relevance today, please stop reading now before you pass out, because you are going to forget to breathe. The Articles of Confederation ceased to have legal relevance in 1789, when the Constitution of the United States was ratified, and superseded the Articles of Confederation.
Ok, now that we have eliminated the mouth breathers from this conversation, let us move on.
Besides the Articles of Confederation, they often quote antiquated case law (antiquated because they refer to horse and buggies) or misquote current case law in an attempt to substantiate their claims. Also, they will say that since they pay taxes, in the form of sales tax (since they also think they are not required to pay income tax), that the sales tax revenue they provide allows them totally unhindered use of the public highway system.
I have had more than a few of them direct me to a website which (incorrectly) states “U.S. Supreme Court says No License Necessary To Drive Automobile On Public Highways/Streets“and it offers all sorts of (totally out of context) quotations with supreme court cases listed which the author (incorrectly) states prove a license is not required. So, I will assume you have followed that embedded link and can see the rather official looking website that it takes you to. On that site, there is a bunch of official looking text that quotes all sorts of case law, and the page seems to indicate that good ‘ol Deputy Matt doesn’t know what the hell he is talking about.
But wait just a moment. How’s about we examine a few of the cases that they reference?
First up (and second), Thompson v. Smith
This is a case from Virginia and it was heard by the court in 1930. This was not a case about whether or not a person has the right to drive without a license, it was a case in which Thompson claimed that his license (permit back then) was illegally revoked by the Chief of Police, even though the laws in question put that burden on the Chief. The court agreed, and stated that the Chief of Police could not, at his discretion, randomly revoke driving privileges, but the courts could via due process (a hearing).
Here is the paragraph from this case that these “travelers” always refer to, followed by the two paragraphs that immediately follow that cited paragraph in the court’s ruling.
The right of a citizen to travel upon the public highways and to transport his property thereon in the ordinary course of life and business is a common right which he has under his right to enjoy life and liberty, to acquire and possess property, and to pursue happiness and safety. It includes the right in so doing to use the ordinary and usual conveyances of the day; and under the existing modes of travel includes the right to drive a horse-drawn carriage or wagon thereon, or to operate an automobile thereon, for the usual and ordinary purposes of life and business. It is not a mere privilege, like the privilege of moving a house in the street, operating a business stand in the street, or transporting persons or property for hire along the street, which a city may permit or prohibit at will.
The exercise of such a common right the city may, under its police power, regulate in the interest of the public safety and welfare; but it may not arbitrarily or unreasonably prohibit or restrict it, nor may it permit one to exercise it and refuse to permit another of like qualifications, 378*378 under like conditions and circumstances, to exercise it. Taylor Smith, 140 Va. 217, 124 S.E. 259; Ex parte Dickey, 76 W.Va. 576, 85 S.E. 781, L.R.A. 1915-F, 840; Hadfield Lundin, 98 Wash. 657, 168 Pac. 516, L.R.A. 1918-B, 909, Ann. Cas. 1918-C, 942.
[7, 8] The regulation of the exercise of the right to drive a private automobile on the streets of the city may be accomplished in part by the city by granting, refusing, and revoking, under rules of general application, permits to drive an automobile on its streets; but such permits may not be arbitrarily refused or revoked, or permitted to be held by some and refused to other of like qualifications, under like circumstances and conditions.
The second and third paragraphs cited above SPECIFICALLY note that the state has a valid right and reason, namely the interest of public safety, to license drivers in order to operate a motor vehicle on the public roadways.
For those slow on the uptake, a drivers license requirement is legal (speaking even slower, you need to have a license to drive).
Moving on down the line, Caneisha Mills v. D.C. 2009
Here we are again and the dimwits are looking at a totally unrelated case in an effort to prove something the case most definitely does not.This case directly addresses whether or not police checkpoints violate the 4th Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure. The court ruled that the checkpoints that the District of Columbia Police had established around a certain neighborhood were not legal because they were far too broad in scope and did not meet the criteria established in previous case law for checkpoints. The case has absolutely NOTHING to do with the need (or lack thereof) to have a drivers license in order to operate a motor vehicle on public highways.
This is a case in which a licensed driver was involved in a crash and afterward, failed to provide proof of financial responsibility (insurance). His continued failure to provide said insurance resulted in his license being suspended. The court did concede that the use of a motor vehicle is indeed necessary in modern life, but also stated that it is not without regulation.
The use of the automobile as a necessary adjunct to the earning of a livelihood in modern life requires us in the interest of realism to conclude that the right to use an automobile on the public highways partakes of the nature of a liberty within the meaning of the constitutional guarantees of which the citizen may not be deprived without due process of law. (emphasis added)
They continued on later saying:
Whatever may be its nature, the right to use the public highways for travel by motor vehicles is one which properly can be regulated by the legislature in the valid exercise of the police power of the state. Financial responsibility statutes have been held to constitute a reasonable regulation of the public highways and a proper measure for protecting the public safety.
So, not only can they regulate our right to drive (requiring a license) but they can also require that we provide financial responsibility (insurance).
So, let me speak slow and clear again, you must not only have a drivers license, but you must also have insurance (or bond).
Three up, three down! Those are the first three cases (cited four times) that the rocket scientists offer as proof that they do not need a drivers license. These are their best evidence, and exactly NONE of those cases state what they claim they state. In fact, the cases actually prove the opposite; that a license requirement is totally legal.
I’m stopping at this point because if you are still under the completely moronic opinion that a drivers license is not required to drive a car on public streets, nothing I can say here is ever going to convince you. Good luck in court. Hope you have the money for the tow and storage fees.
And, because apparently adding a photo of the supreme court means everything on your webpage is legally accurate, here is a photo of the supreme court…
This was originally published at The Bang Switch in July, 2014, but I have since had several people ask the same sort of questions that caused me to write this in the first place. Seeing as The Bang Switch is gone, I am republishing this here. -Matt
When I started writing here at TBS (The Bang Switch) just over a year ago, I started my related Facebook page so that I could interact with readers. Via that Facebook page, I have received a number of messages from folks considering a career in law enforcement, asking me questions about the career choice. I mentioned the thought of writing this up as an article to Tim and he told me to run with it, so here it is. This is not intended to be some sort of a recruiting tool or anything like that, but just in case there are other people out there considering law enforcement as a career, it might serve as some food for thought.
Most of the people who have asked me for my thoughts have been younger (young to me anyway, everything is relative) and still searching for their first career. While those folks still have some tough decisions to make, it was a person who recently asked me the same question, who was 41 years old with a wife and child, still working in a 20 year long career in the IT field, who made me sit down and write a much more in depth response.
For a younger person, which I was when I started this career, it is much easier to enter the academy, or even the job after the academy, and if it does not work out, move on to another career choice. As a younger adult, generally speaking, you have less to lose if you start this career and decide it is not for you, and that happens fairly frequently. But for someone with a family, already working in a well-paying career, it is a much more difficult decision. No matter your age, one of the most important things anyone needs is the backing of their family, and this man told me that his wife was supportive of him, no matter which way he chose to go.
What follows is my response to his questions (slightly edited to correct some typos and remove a few personal details):
It sounds like you have one of the most important hurdles already covered, and that is the support of your family. If your wife is behind it, that is a good thing. If you decide to do it, she needs to know in advance that the academy part of it is going to be very rough.
I suspect your training requirements in GA are not much different than ours here in CA. My academy was 6 months long, and I was gone from the house 5-6 days a week for 10-14 hours a day. Not only was it physically demanding (and I was much younger then), but for many people, the academic part was just as hard. I was lucky because I already had a degree in criminal justice when I started so the legal aspect of the academics was much easier for me. Still, the whole thing is rough on relationships. I would guess that more than half of the people that were married or in long term relationships at the start of the academy were no longer by three months after graduation. At the onset, I was living with a girl I had been dating for 3 years. She grew up in Brooklyn and like many from NYC, she was not a fan of the cops. She knew that was my career goal long before we started dating, but when it came down to it, she could not handle it. She refused to come to my academy graduation, which not surprisingly signaled the end of that relationship. However, that was for the better because 3 years later, I met my wife whom I’ve been married to 14 years and cannot imagine life without. But, in law enforcement, our relationship is an anomaly, not the norm. Law enforcement careers are very hard on relationships.
When I started the academy, I was 25 years old, and I was the 7th oldest person in my class of 65 (only 34 graduated). We did have 3 people who were in their 40’s, one of whom was 49 (he voluntarily dropped out the last week). The other two graduated and went on to work their second careers as cops. While youth is generally a benefit for the physical part of the academy, age and the life experience (and hopefully wisdom) that comes with it is likely a benefit for the academic part. My years of working this job have shown me that one skill is used more than any other, and that is the ability to talk with (not to or at) people. That skill alone has prevented more physical fights with suspects than any other. Back when I used to be a field training officer that was something I tried to hammer into my trainees. It is far easier, and we are far less likely to get hurt or hurt the bad guy, if we can talk them into the car instead of fight them into it. Granted, some people just will not go without a fight, and that is when all the other stuff you learn in the academy comes into play.
As for the career itself, it really is a doubled edged sword. It can be one of the most rewarding things you have ever done, but it can also destroy you. There is nothing that compares to the feeling of saving someone’s life, especially if that someone is a child. The look in the eyes of a victim, the look that says “thank God you’re here” as they see you arriving is hard to top. Stopping a crime in progress, although a rare occurrence, is the stuff you dream about, and it will happen a few times for just about everyone, and more for some others (some people just have a knack for being in the right place at the right time). Then there is the rare, but really fun stuff you get to do. The stuff you see on Cops.
That is the up side, but there is also a big downside. Nearly everyone you come into contact with is meeting you on their very worst day. Something horrible has happened to them and they called for you to come try and put their world back together. You see all the absolutely horrible things that humans do to one another, to their own loved ones, to their children. That shit eats at your soul, and those are the things that you don’t want to talk to your wife about because no one should have to think about those things. That leads to a very high occurrence of PTSD and suicide rate in cops. Cop suicide rates are second only to military combat vets. I’ve lost more than a few friends and coworkers to both suicide attempts and PTSD. In order to make it, you have to find a way to deal with the crap this job shoves at you, and for each person that coping method is different. The thing you cannot do is chose a coping mechanism like drinking, because does nothing but compound the problems. Not surprisingly, alcohol abuse is also very common in this career.
As for the calling to this career, some people get it very early on. Others feel it later in life, and others (and it sounds like you might be one of them) feel it early, but ignore it until later. It really is one of those jobs that, in my opinion, in order to be a truly good cop, you need to have the calling. I work with people for whom it is just a job, and honestly, they make shitty cops. I felt the calling very early in life. My mom is one of those moms that saved every scrap of homework. When I graduated the academy, she gave me a piece of homework from the 3rd grade. It was a drawing of a cop car with a little statement I wrote about why I wanted to be a cop. That homework is framed and hanging on the wall of my den.
I hope that helps, or at least gives you something to mull over. For all its ups and downs over my career, I would not change a thing.
One other thing that I failed to mention to him in my response, and this is something every gun owner should already be thinking about, is whether or not you think you can bring yourself to take another human being’s life. This is not something to be considered lightly, because any hesitation on your part can mean the difference between life or death for you or an innocent person you are there to protect. I think this is what caused the 49 year old guy in my academy to drop out so near the end. Even after 6 months of range training, I don’t think that had fully sunk in. The day before he dropped out, we were watching some videos of several hostage situations, and the last one we watched before going home was a police sniper taking the head off a guy who was holding a gun to a woman’s head. While we all hope to resolve every situation peacefully, that is not always an option, and as a cop, you have to be ready to act. That decision is one you need to make way in advance, like at the start of your career, because if you are trying to make that decision in a split second in the middle of an ugly situation, you are going to hesitate and get someone hurt or killed.
There are a few other things that I always suggest people considering this line of work should read, and I have two of them posted on my Facebook page in the “Notes” section. One is a short piece titled “Why Cops Are Pricks.”. It was written by a woman named Lea Anne Weil, who is the wife of a career cop, and the mother of a cop. The other is a piece titled “You’re Not A Cop Until You Taste Them” and it was written by Rick Monticello of Somersdale PD, New Jersey. Finally, there is a book called “Emotional Survival for Law Enforcement” written by Kevin M. Gilmartin, Ph.D. It is a good book for cops, people considering a career in law enforcement, and for their immediate families.
One last thing to consider, and it is something that I am sure will become obvious in the comment section in short order, no matter what you do, say or how you act, there will be always be a group of people that will absolutely hate you. Some of those people will take that hatred to the level that they will attack you, even ambushing you with firearms, for nothing other than the uniform you put on at the start of your work day.
If you are considering law enforcement as a career and have any questions, you can ask them here in the comments section or you can ask me directly via my Facebook page.
Let me start by saying I’ve never heard of this guy before today. Now, with that said, I really do NOT like him. What a freaking a-hole! Please bear with me a few moments and I will explain why I say that.
What an absolute waste of time and effort. Instead of taking the time to teach people what to do, this jackass put together a 3.5 minute video that does nothing but add more fuel to the war on cops, spreading more anti-cop propaganda, sowing distrust and hate.
For anyone unclear on what to do in this situation, a situation I have actually encountered on the streets, let me spell it out for you since Page Kennedy couldn’t be bothered:
If the cops are pointing a gun at you, and if you do not want to get shot, do exactly what the cops say.
“But I was just reaching into my pocket to get a phone” while the cops are pointing guns at you, in a situation that you clearly know they think you are armed is ASTRONOMICALLY STUPID!
Oddly enough, on his Facebook page, he mentions how the “real cops” rolled up on them while they were filming their video. That’s odd, and they didn’t shoot you? How can that possibly be?
Honestly, what a complete and total asshat!
This video went live 4 days ago, and on Facebook, where he has over 2.3 million followers, it has more than half a million views. On YouTube, where he has over 229k subscribers, the video has over 13,000 views. That is a TON of people that this ignorant moron Kennedy could have helped educate, but instead he chose this route, causing more division, more distrust, more hatred, which will only lead to more people getting injured.
Stupid shit like this is not how you help anyone!
-Matt
Wow! Is this USA Today, or is this HuffPo? Not often do I mistake those two, but this piece at USA Today is nothing more than a collection anti-cop rhetoric quoting disproven lies, interspersed with quotes from far left, hardly legitimate sources, in an attempt to legitimize illegal, irresponsible behavior of people who are old enough to know and act better. If you have been paying the slightest attention as of late, if you’ve actually bothered learning the facts of the overwhelming majority of the incidents the left keeps throwing out when they scream “police brutality,” the decision to run this anti-cop propaganda by a major “news” outlet should bother you. The following quotation is how it opens.
“The image of an unarmed person of color being brutalized by police has become inescapable.
For Prairie View A&M University senior Jesse Valdez, each one of those images brings overwhelming anxiety. He’s seeking a professional diagnosis for post-traumatic stress disorder.”
In other words folks, he is doctor shopping, because no one has given him the diagnosis he wants. No one “seeks a diagnosis” morons, you seek help from a doctor who diagnoses your issue, if you have one. In this case, my professional diagnosis of this guy is that he is lacking anything resembling a spine. Hell, according to the author, when Valdez drives past a memorial for Sandra Bland (a woman who committed suicide while in custody) it causes him severe anxiety.
The piece continues on, jumping around in an attempt at outlining all the reasons that cops and their use of force (to arrest people who are not complying) are to blame for, well, everything. Let me address all the issues brought forth in the following two paragraphs and point to where, in my opinion, the problem really lies.
“Police are supposed to keep us safe,” Williams said. People who experience or see police violence can be thrown for a loop when they expect police officers to help them and the officers turn out to be “the bad guys,” she added.
The Louisville professor said a collective effect of police violence in African-American households tends to be empathy. Many African-American families pass down lessons about how to behave in order to avoid police violence. Valdez, who identifies as black and Hispanic, said his family taught him to be deferential to officers. The empathy that African Americans can feel for police violence victims can be challenging for other groups, according to Williams. She attributed empathy deficiencies to America’s legacy of segregation and us-vs.-them mentalities. Members of a so-seeming “out-group” receive less compassion, she said.
In the first paragraph, the police are keeping you safe, unless you are a criminal. There are very few incidents that have hit the news in the last several years where the police were indeed “the bad guys.” I can only think of a few cases of unjustified use of deadly force (Walter Scott and Charles Kinsey come to mind), and even in those cases, ONLY ONE person who was shot by the cops was an actual innocent man (Charles Kinsey). All of the other legally unjustified shootings, which I freely admit there were some, but in every single other case, the person shot or injured was in fact a criminal who was actively resisting arrest. In fact, most of the incidents that everyone constantly points to, it was the” bad guy” (ie: criminal) who got injured by the good guys (cops), and in nearly all of those cases, the force used was legally justified. The problem is that too many people in society are siding with the criminals, not the victims or the neighborhoods.
As for the second paragraph, there are too many logical fallacies to address as a group, so I will break each sentence down individually.
I would partially agree, and that is indeed the problem. People are empathizing with criminals based on their skin color, while completely disregarding the criminal behavior that lead to the police contact. This contact is a cause and effect relationship, but the cause is most definitely not the skin color of the person being contacted, it is their illegal behavior. You cannot logically discuss the results of the contact while completely ignoring the very reason for the contact. It does not work that way.
Apparently the lessons being passed down are wrong. Becoming belligerent, argumentative and uncooperative DO NOT WORK, and it is those very behaviors that lead up to the use of force by police. Other than Charles Kinsey, show me a single example of a suspect who cooperated from the start who was subject to any form of “police violence.”
Valdez’s family did not do him any favors, and in fact the lessons they taught him likely lead to his arrest. Had they taught him to be polite and respectful, I doubt he would have ever been in his situation to begin with.
That is because the empathy you are talking about is empathy for violent felons!
Again, the “us vs. them” is on the part of the segment of society you are claiming to represent, not on the part of the cops. The cops are not welcome in those neighborhoods, but the criminals are. This is clearly evidenced after every single officer involved shooting, even when the suspect was armed and shooting at the cops. The neighborhood always bemoans the loss of “another good young man who was turning his life around.”
You are an “out-group” not because of your skin color but because of who you choose to support.
The author then continues with the “oh those horrible cops” whine fest and says that people can get PTSD from just watching videos online of “police violence.” This is really getting out of hand. That is an activity that they personally, willingly chose to subject themselves to. No one sat them down and forced them to watch, yet you want to say they got PTSD from that?
Hell, I probably have PTSD from playing too much Call of Duty. I mean really, have you seen how good the graphics are? And in that game, I get killed. Me, personally, dead. Over and over. It is traumatizing. I have constant nightmares about it. I am reliving it over and over.
And yes, that was dripping with sarcasm. Do you see how stupid that sounds? But it is the same exact argument they are using about the videos.
But I digress. Remember, it is the cops that are the bad guys, and USA Today is none too happy to keep spreading that message. “Both doctors stated that viewing videos of people being gunned down by police is not psychologically healthy.” Gunned down? Nope, no negative connotations by using that wording at all…
Just in case you forgot, the cops are the “bad guys.”
“What is happening is terrifying. If current patterns remain, 2016 could be a particularly deadly year for civilians at the hands of police.”
Really? Would you also care to address the huge spike in officer deaths due to gunfire in 2016? Last I checked, this year was holding at a 65% increase compared to last year, and this year in particular has had a number of coordinated, extremely violent ambushes on cops. But of course you do not want to talk about that.
“As of Sept. 2, more than 700 people had been killed by cops, according to The Guardian’s The Counted project. And African Americans had the second highest rate of victimization per million, behind only Native Americans.”
That is great, a raw number taken totally out of context. That definitely proves, nothing. How many of those 700 people were innocent folks doing nothing, vs. how many of them were violent criminals in the act of committing a violent crime? Yes, context matters. FACTS MATTER!
Here are some sad facts about police and minority communities. You want to know why cops are “harassing” minorities more than whites, here is why. More minorities live in low income and ghetto neighborhoods than whites. Crime occurs more in low income and ghetto neighborhoods than it does in higher income or suburban neighborhoods. More crime is committed by blacks and other minorities than is committed by whites (this fact has NOTHING to do with skin color, or any of the BS that racists use to justify their dislike of another ethnicity – it is strictly a socio-economic issue). Cops spend more time where crime occurs than where it does not. If cops are spending more time where minorities live, and minorities commit a higher proportion of the crime, it only follows that cops will interact with minorities on a more frequent basis. It is really not rocket science.
“At ThinkProgress, Alex Zielinski reported the growing perception that race-based police violence is a public health issue and that reframing discourse as one of health could encourage a cultural shift.”
Really? Think Progress? At this point, I’m waiting for the author to quote Cop Block.
Let me be perfectly frank, this is most definitely NOT a “public health issue” just like “gun violence” is not a public health issue. Why is the left so emphatically trying to make everything somehow a medical issue? You know what this is? This is yet another example of the left trying to make everything into someone else’s fault. They are driving a societal wide total lack of personal responsibility. Nothing is your fault; it is always something someone else did.
Got pulled over and got a speeding ticket? Cop’s fault! It was a speed trap, and he was probably rude.
Got twisted up and/or slammed to the ground while being detained by the cops? It is totally the cops fault; your actions did not necessitate such “police violence.” Had they only asked you in a nicer tone, 15 more times, you would have finally complied, probably.
Got shot and killed by the cops? They just want to shoot and kill people of color because America has a legacy of segregation. It had nothing to do with you resisting arrest / going for their gun / shooting at them / trying to run them over with your car. Oh yeah, and slavery…
Folks, this is like trying to have a “rational conversation about police use of force” with a five year old kid, who is an only child, while he is all hopped up on sugar, and caffeine, and in desperate need of a nap. There is absolutely NOTHING rational about that conversation. When one side (the left) refuses to admit even the slightest amount of culpability, you absolutely CANNOT have an adult discussion.
Speaking of a rational discussion, here is a video in which Bill Whittle dismantles the majority of the arguments that are at the root of that entire USA Today article. Take a few minutes, watch it, and learn something.
How has America turned into such a whiny, crying wuss in such a short period of time? A couple hundred years ago, some pissed off colonials took on the most powerful nation on the planet at the time, and won our independence. Seventy years ago, our nation came to the aid of the rest of the world and freed most of Europe and the Pacific. Fifteen years ago, after our country was attacked by foreign terrorists, we went overseas and chased their America-hating butts into caves underground and did our damnedest to eradicate them. Ten years ago, race relations in this country were far better than they are now. Today, adults need safe spaces on college campuses to protect them from words, men want to be able to use the women’s bathroom, Black Lies Matter has convinced America that it is racist again, and people apparently get PTSD from watching a video where a cop has to use force to arrest a criminal.
Holy crap America, wake up! While you are at it, toughen up too!
