Cops, Thugs and Politicians

 

 

"I was going to say Bill de Blasio was an idiot in the way he handles his police force. But that would be an insult to idiots..."

News flash: So far this year, which is not yet half over, nationwide there have been over 19,000 shootings resulting in almost 5,000 deaths. Most shootings have occurred in our larger cities. By comparison, since hostilities started in Afghanistan (an active combat zone), there have been slightly over 2,200 deaths. And that 2,200 dead since 2001.

As a closer and more recent example of this, we can only look at this past Memorial Day weekend. During that weekend, many of our large cities looked more like combat zones than cities Americans live in. For example:

• In Baltimore, 26 people were shot and 9 died. That brings the total number of dead this year due to violence in Baltimore to 101. And the year is not half over.
• In Chicago, 40 people were shot and 12 died. The past two years Chicago has had over 400 people die (each year) of violence. So far this year, there have been 158 homicides.
• In New York, there were 23 wounded leaving 3 dead.

I bring this up for a reason. We expect quite a bit out of our police forces. Many times they are exposed to the worst of the worst. Our police don't have "shoot to kill" orders like our soldiers have in combat. Our police need to deal with some very bad people. They only resort to lethal force when there is no other choice. Our police officers need to make life or death decisions in an impossibly short period of time. Hesitation can be deadly.

This has sure been an educational year so far. I have been learning quite a bit about how some large cities do policing. And how some really muck it up bad. New York, Chicago, Baltimore, Cleveland, you name the town. Our thin blue line has been stretched, trod upon, besmirched and some police have even been charged as criminals. And the thugs? When our thin blue line becomes pastel rather than the bold blue it should be, thugs run wild. And then people die.

Rudy Giuliani, when he was the Mayor of New York, was a friend of the police. He liked and respected them, and it was reciprocal. Rudy was big on "broken window" policing. What that means is this - should someone break a window, and the law lets that person get away with it, the next crime could be worse. However if you treat the broken window as a crime and arrest the perp, there might not be a next time. The new Socialist Mayor, Bill de Blasio, believes just the opposite. He wants New York cops to look like the Bobbies in London.

What is the solution to getting our cities back? Walking down a dark street in many of our large cities just invites crime. I have said this before, and it has gotten me in trouble with some of my friends. I am a fan of a strong, yet constitutional police force. I believe in the "protect and serve" method of policing. When the police become "neutered", as they have now in some larger cities, carnage results. I also believe in law and order. Where there is law, there is order. Where the law is not enforced, there is no order. Again, law enforcement must be constitutional for this all to work right.

In combat, if we let the generals run the wars instead of the politicians, our win/lose record would be much better. In our large cities, it we let the police do their jobs rather than the politicians, our cities would be much safer. So safe it might even be okay to be out after dark.