Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
It’s videos like the arrest of Sandra Bland, of cops who act like that, that make ordinary citizens lose respect for all police, which makes police feel more insular and more dependent on each other so they close ranks to protect all cops, even the crappy ones. It’s a self-inflicted vicious cycle.
And the fact it’s a White cop abusing a Black woman on video isn’t just bad optics; in this Presidency, it’s automatically a racial incident. The cops as a whole can’t seem to understand that each of these incidents not only inflames the Black community, it’s distasteful to the White community too and reduces our willingness to put up with it.
Look for some cops to get ambushed soon. That’s how things are handled in the strata of society that can’t raise $500 bail to get their loved one out of a Texas jail – they have no meaningful access to the “justice” system so they utilize “alternative dispute resolution” which comes in 9mm parcels.
I took vacation days to stand the flag line with the Patriot Guard to honor fallen Marines returned from the war. Armed citizens are taking vacation days to stand guard outside unarmed recruiting centers in Tennessee. Nobody would volunteer to stand guard over cops having lunch so they aren’t ambushed. There’s a deep and important lesson there, if only they would learn it.
Joe Doakes
Joe says “look for cops to get ambushed soon”; not sure if he’s counting the two New York cops killed late last year, in the wake of the Ferguson and Garner incidents.
In my 22 years in Saint Paul, I’ve met some good cops, and I’ve met some bad ones. But it’s dawned on me in recent years that at the moment, “Law Enforcement” as an institution is perilously close to becoming the “Standing Army” that our forefathers warned us about; the arrogant mercenaries that care less about the people they’re defending than about the government that pays them.
I’m hoping some of the good cops figure this out sooner than later.
Remember that copper that used to comment on SiTD? I forget his name, but he relied on the fact that he was a member of the reality based community to argue that not all coppers are bad.
My point, which he never accepted, is that not every cop lies but every cop knows one that does, and the fact they do not report the lies make them just as culpable. Time has not diminished the correctness of my argument, or the failure of his, but I have to wonder if he hasn’t switched the side of my equation he operates from.
As Mitch pointed out earlier, Obama is after Grandpa’s pistol via executive order. I fully expect him to throw caution to the wind next year and make an all out play for out and out confiscation. If and when that happens, we’ll see how close Mitch’s observation comes to the mark; the coppers will be forced to sort themselves out because no one I’m familiar with is likely to surrender their weapons without a fight.