The police aren’t the bad guys

Today there is news of yet another police officer murdered, this time in Fox Lake, Il. This follows news of Deputy Goforth, a father of two, being straight up executed a couple of days ago.

All of this is happening, of course, in an environment of some truly ridiculous rhetoric about law enforcement and the most idiotic bunch of hashtagging douchebaggery you can imagine in the form of the “Black Lives Matter!” movement. Which is a complete and utter fraud…but we’ll get to that load of bollocks in a bit.

Let’s start with a bit of straight talk: There are some problems in American law enforcement. I’ve personally ranted about some of them in this space. I’m familiar with a number of problems that have occurred in a number of different agencies across the country. Some are public knowledge, some are not. Some of these problems are indeed serious and deserve serious consideration.

but nobody is really talking about those problems. Instead we’re getting a steady stream of absolute crap from “activists” intent on selling a lie. If you listened to the press you’d think that police in the United States run around shooting innocent black people for sport. Hence the protesters, the chanting, the threats to kill police officers in revenge, etc. When you look at objective facts, however, you find it’s a much different story. The Washington Post actually put together a very useful little website that examines fatal police shootings. I strongly encourage you to go check it out.

When you do you’ll notice something quite unexpected given the tenor of the activists on TV and the protesters: This year so far police in the United States have killed 169 black people. This year so far police in the United States have killed 324 white people. Out of the 659 deaths the Washington Post has information on, the deceased was in possession of a deadly weapon in 517 instances. In other words, in roughly 78.5% of fatal police shootings in 2015 the subject killed by the police was armed with a deadly weapon. Toss in the 36 subjects who used a vehicle (which is a lethal weapon, too) and the 23 people who had a realistic looking toy weapon and the percentage boosts to 87.4% of deadly police shootings taking place in circumstances where the most basic facts make a prima facie case for the justified use of lethal force.

So 87.4% of deadly police shootings have taken place in conditions which are objectively dangerous by any reasonable standard…and more than twice as many white people have been killed under these dangerous circumstances than black people.

Only .96% of deadly police shootings have been against what the Washington Post labels “unarmed” people. If you’re a keen reader of this space, you’ll understand why I take issue with the description of someone as “unarmed” due to multiple articles I’ve written here about the danger of fists. It’s worth repeating here that in many years the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report shows that hands and feet (called “personal weapons by the FBI) are a more popular instrument of lethal criminal violence than rifles and shotguns combined. Put bluntly, more people are beaten to death with bare hands and feet than are shot to death by rifles and shotguns combined. An “unarmed” person is not necessarily a harmless person.

When we run the numbers we don’t see anything close to the situation alleged by the “activists” setting cities on fire.

If we look past police shootings and examine lethal violence more generally, we find that most black lives are actually taken by other black people. 90% of black murder victims in 2013 were killed by other black people. After the ridiculous riots in Baltimore, the violence in that already beleaguered city has skyrocketed…but it’s not the police who are killing people in the streets. The trend seen in the 2013 FBI UCR is playing out in Baltimore, causing even people like Elijah Cummings to have a rare bout of common sense:

“I hear over and over again, ‘Black lives matter, black lives matter.’ And they do matter. But black lives also have to matter to black people.” 

…and that quote gets to the heart of how ridiculous all this hashtagging idiocy actually is. Ponder this:

 

That’s a dude being sentenced to life in prison for robbing, torturing, and then murdering two teenagers. A liar. A thug. A sadistic murderer.

The deputy in the view of the camera looks somewhat unimpressed by this display of “activism” by a murderer.

It’s not terribly hard to determine who the good guy is in that shot. What applies in this particular bit of footage applies more generally, too. It’s not hard to tell who the good guys are in this environment of ginned up controversy either. While there are some problems in American policing that should be addressed, the simple truth of the matter is that the overwhelming majority of police officers on duty are the good guys.

The hot zones of criminal violence in this country are not hot zones of criminal violence because the police are running around murdering people. In fact, when you look into those areas you find that police are often hampered from doing their job because of stupid political concerns. When you willingly reject common sense and give criminal scumbags “space to destroy”, or insist that the guy who executed a police officer was out shopping with his mama despite loads of evidence to the contrary, it creates an environment where criminal scumbags thrive. The end result of that kind of willful embrace of stupidity is the murder rate you see in Chicago, and the spikes in violence seen in Baltimore, New York, and other areas…or what the world saw in Roanoke almost a week ago.

The truth, though, isn’t politically useful to the right sort of people…so we’re treated to the spin instead. Police and media figures are murdered and what do the self-proclaimed enlightened insist is the problem? The NRA. I’m deeply saddened by what happened to Allison Parker, but I’d like to politely point out to her father that it wasn’t Ted Nugent that murdered Allison. It was a perpetually aggrieved racist who talked the same kind of nonsense as the sadistic murderer in the video clip above that killed Allison and Adam. The Department of Homeland Security puts out leaflets warning about the “danger” posed by returning veterans but you’ll notice a conspicuous absence of the people DHS says to be afraid of shooting up recruiting centers, setting fires in Baltimore, torturing and murdering teenagers, killing police officers, or murdering reporters on live TV.

I’m sick of it, frankly…and the only antidote to this bullshit is the truth. Countering the completely fabricated narrative with fact, reason, common sense and resolve.

So to those of you out there trying hard to convince America that the police and the NRA are the problem with America, I have this to say:

To hell with you and your lying, criminal coddling bullshit. Everyone in this nation hasn’t willingly taken leave of their senses. Every time you idiots insist on rooting for the villain it’s pretty bloody obvious what is going on. Every time you idiots burn a city over some criminal piece of filth in some stupid “protest”, a bunch of honest decent people go out and buy guns. You won’t see them marching in the streets or setting stuff on fire. They’ll go apply for a concealed carry permit. They’ll attend training. They will stop police officers they see in public and thank them for doing a thankless job.

…and if one of your special snowflake violent felons breaks into their neighbor’s home or tries to kill the police officers protecting their community, they will sit on the juries. And they will remember all the lies you’ve told and the carnage you’ve cheered.

Good luck, assholes. You’re going to need it.

 

 

19 Comments

  1. Quite the sensible and fine written piece; my only wish, would have been that you didn’t use some of those choice words; the ones others might say show anger, hate, and a lack of restraint. We must keep ourselves at a higher standard if we expect people (of all walks of life) to listen and respect our voice.

  2. Thanks for this, Tim. I have been a police officer for 28 years. The vast majority of us are out there to help. The Mainstream Media and racist activists have really stacked the message against us. Worse yet are the recent murders against LEO’s. It is nice to find some appreciation.

  3. Tim,
    I understand how you feel. I have police family and friends. My brother and I are gun nuts. I agree with you wholeheartedly that most police officers are good, decent men and women who risk their lives for me.

    I’ve been on the other side of this coin though. My friends growing up, myself included, committed crimes from shoplifting to drug dealing to grand theft auto, and others. We stole rims off cars more often than anything else. I didn’t fault police for arresting my friends when they got caught, lots of my friends were stupid. That’s just the way it was.

    Ignoring the whys of all that, we were regularly robbed by police officers, they took our money and drugs. And not just us. I grew up in Washington DC and the police robbed illegal immigrants late at night, people coming home from cleaning houses and hotels. That’s just the way it was.

    I’m now college educated, middle class, suburban. I’m far removed from everything that I had to do and dealt with to get here. I fear the police. I sweat and get nervous when they are around. I remember every shake down, every punch to the back of the head, every slam into the door frame on the way into a police car. I remember getting into a car accident and having the police officer at the scene crack jokes to my face about my driving while the ambulance was still there, taking people to the hospital. Heaven forbid you had a nice car. My friends who are police officers today get scared when they get pulled over when travelling on highways. They keep their badges near because they are afraid. These incidents have brought these discussions to the fore. Go ask a black police officer how he feels out of uniform driving cross country.

    There are 223,553,265 Americans of European descent. There are 38,929,319 Americans of African descent.(Wikipedia)

    169/38,929,319 = 0.00000434
    324/223,553,265 = 0.00000145

    Your odds of dying around a police office are super low. Your chance of dying around a police officer if you are African American are 66% higher than if you are white. I didn’t do any research beyond the death numbers you site and Wikipedia population #’s. Imagine if I said to you that your chances of dying around a police officer were 66% higher because you were white using the arithmetic above. What would you do? How would you deal with it? Who would you complain to? My wife cried after the Freddy Gray incident because I told her that our son has to learn that when he is around police his life is at risk, not just death, but being arrested, having his car searched if its too nice, etc… Imagine if your experience with police matched mine. Would you have a harder time believing that the police are there to help?

    And I’m not even black, I’m American, an immigrant, here legally since age 6.

    Sincerely

    An avid reader of gunnuts.net, gun owner, believer in the 2nd Amendment.

    PS – If you ever want to talk about it I’d be happy to email or even talk on the phone.

    1. Your statistics need some improvement. Deaths by police gunfire do not strike like lightning…they usually follow a criminal act and some form of violence toward the police officer who pulls the trigger. Every now and then an innocent bystander gets hit (happened in New York a few days ago) but by in large people who aren’t actively attempting to commit an act of violence against a police officer are extremely unlikely to get killed. Statistically your son is pretty unlikely to die a violent death at the hands of the police. If he dies a violent death it’s most likely to be at the hands of the sort of people the police spend their time trying to lock up.

      I’ll point out here that the witnesses who came forward in Darren Wilson’s case had the same skin color as Michael Brown. I suppose living in a neighborhood where thugs like Brown committed any number of crimes left them with no doubt about who the good guy really was. It’s good that you’ve left your criminal past behind you…but in your criminal past you created victims. You stole from people, probably people who didn’t have a whole lot to begin with. Who speaks for them?

      I grew up in Norfolk in the early 1980’s, right down the street from the projects. Those neighborhoods were not rough because the police were big meanies…they were rough because too many criminally inclined individuals had free reign.

  4. Long time reader, first time posting a comment.

    Bravo, sir, bravo. You summed up all of my feelings on this matter perfectly. Always enjoy your articles, Tim, always spot on.

  5. There have been and always will be, bad people in all walks of life. You are ultimately the only person who can prevent bad things from happening to yourself. What you do, how you act, how you speak, dress, everything about you is analyzed and even more so by those who are in positions of authority. So if you have to be involved with someone of authority, it is wise to cooperate, show respect, act as if your life matters and theirs does too. If you happen to be under the influence of some mind altering substance, there is a good possibility you will not deliver the right message and might open yourself up to some unnecessary scrutiny that could result in adverse steps taking place. Now, who do we blame for this? Using common sense when dealing with others, no matter who they are, typically will result in a good ending for all parties. Even when you’ve done something illegal, it can end with decent results; IF YOU use the uncommon sense, previously known as common sense.

  6. Nearly a half-century ago Tom Wolfe wrote an amusing and perceptive piece entitled “Mau Mauing the Flak Catchers”. As we contemplate “Black Lives Matter” it’s well worth reading Wolfe’s article, which is as relevant today as it was in 1970.

  7. Preach it for all to hear.

    People are getting tired of the complete and utter crap spewed by the main stream media and the victim mentality of the criminals.

    Start a new campaign, Victims lives matter!

  8. You gotta love twitter. String a couple of words, put a hashtag before them and see How ridiculous the usage of that hashtag becomes. Priceless.

  9. Tim,

    Great article …

    I’m torn when it comes to this stuff.

    #1 – I agree with the premise of your post. In fact, I want to share it, because the police are not the bad guys. I’ve met tons of great cops in my life. Mostly the “gun guy” ones that I meet through training classes, online, etc

    They’re the “good guys”.

    On the other hand, the criminalization of nearly everything in the modern world has made it so that the police are “forced” to be the jackbooted enforcers of the state.

    Eric Gardner died in his altercation with police in NY — like Rand Paul said — over cigarette taxes. That’s the bottom line. As you’ve been quick to point out–every action has a reaction.

    All the people who died from bootlegging Gangsters during the prohibition era? They died because of a ridiculous law prohibiting alcohol. The laws created a black market > did nothing to stop actual consumption of alcohol (and associated problems) > and who knows how many people died or had their lives ruined as a result.

    (As an aside, for us gun guys, we would arguably still be buying machine guns, SBR’s, SBS’s, and silencers with no tax stamps, had it not been for prohibition)

    The drug prohibition that police are fighting now is the same old story being played out again. It has done nothing to keep people from using drugs, yet it is ruining the lives of millions of people.

    I’m glad the gubment and local police all came to their senses and stopped the first prohibition (alcohol). If drug prohibition was ended tomorrow, we’d see a lot less hate towards police. (There are a lot of LEO that agree, see http://www.leap.cc/about/why-legalize-drugs/)

    In other words, if police were focused on chasing down, arresting, and investigating ONLY:

    1.) violent criminals and
    2.) property crime criminals

    I don’t think anyone, anywhere would have much problem with them. Eliminating the ambiguity of what is wrong would eliminate many people’s problem with police.

    As it is, using the war on drugs as he justifiable cause, a lot of bill-of-rights-violating laws are on the books now (consider civil asset forfeiture…) and when practically everything is or can be construed as illegal–you have to count on the police officer in any single situation to take the moral high road … which unfortunately will not happen 100% of the time due to human nature (something about absolute power corrupting absolutely… ).

    Anyways, I don’t think police are the bad guys. I think MOST (even if they support the war on drugs) do what they do because they sincerely believe they are helping.

    In short, I blame the criminalization of practically everything in America (see the book “3 Felonies a day” written by a lawyer …) as the reason that so many people can be abused by the system at large — and as more laws are put on the books — there will be a larger and large gap between “Us” and “Them” as more abuse takes place.

    — Caleb

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