The New York Police murders and their causes

Good day all. As you know by now, a nutcase named Ismaaiyl Brinsley who after killing two police officers in their car, ran into a building and killed himself.

From the news reports, it appears this guy was a few fries short of a happy meal and started out by shooting his girlfriend in Baltimore and then traveled to Brooklyn and gunned down Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos. The nutcase had been posting on the Web that he wanted police officers killed in revenge for the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. (In my opinion, Brown was a “good shoot” and Garner was highly questionable. AW)

I’ve been sitting on the sidelines as this story unfolded because I wanted to see where things went, and also to think about what I was going to say. I can guarantee that I will piss off someone with this post. So be it. There are many to blame for this incident, from Obama and Blasio right down to the police themselves.

To begin with, the police have not been helping themselves over the years. They have been treating everyone in an “Us verse Them” way and have managed to alienate themselves from the very people they are supposed to be working for. Then we have the management of various departments that have, to some extent, turned a blind eye to the actions of the officers. We can then top off this section with the politicians who are supposed to be providing policies and oversight as well as weeding out bad cops.

Then we have the race mongers and poverty pimps like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. When an incident like the Brown or Garner occurs, those two are at the front of the line screaming “RACISM” and pushing for a confrontation. Interestingly, when the situation is reversed, say a black officer in a questionable action towards a white or other non-black person, they’re nowhere to be seen.

Then we have left wing morons like Mayor Bill de Blasio, Eric Holder and Barack Obama. Rather then trying to defuse the situations, they have been busy pouring gasoline on the flames. Is it any wonder that someone ambushed and executed some police officers?

As I mentioned above, the Police have not been helping themselves at all. Thanks to modern technology, we are seeing more and more abuse by some police officers. (Cameras on smartphones) Instead of using this information to correct the obvious issues, (Poor training, poor leadership or just plain bad cops), they see this as an attack on them and have then turned on people who are just standing there taking pictures, in some cases beating them, confiscating their phones and then arresting them. Several have been caught deleting incriminating videos too.

Another group that should be helping the citizens are the district attorneys and state attorneys general. They should come down hard on police misconduct. Instead, they are seen as actively aiding in the crimes of bad police officers. We have many cases where police storm into a house or apartment and attack the people inside. In many cases, the people are totally innocent of any wrong doing at all. Instead of determining why the police raided the dwelling, and why they used so much force, we have seen DA’s instead charge criminally the people who were attacked. Usually these charges are dismissed before they get to trial, but in some cases, thanks to outright perjury on the part of some officers, the case might reach a jury.

Then we have the militarization of police. Decades ago, SWAT teams were a rare thing to see. The few departments that had them actually had a need for them. The officers on the teams tended to be well trained and were called in only as a last resort. Today, you will see police departments in small towns with a fully equipped, and usually poorly trained swat team.

This sorry state of affairs has resulted in one disaster after another. Recently we had an incident in Atlanta, Georgia where police kicked in a door and tossed a stun grenade into a home. The grenade landed in a crib and exploded next to a baby. The baby was critically injured. The raid, operating under what is called a “No-Knock warrant” went south from the very beginning. The person the police were looking for wasn’t there and hadn’t been there in months. The DA in the area recently declined to charge the officers involved and the family is on the hook for nearly $1 million dollars in medical bills.

There are many more such incidents, and in a few cases, we have seen either residents killed by police or police killed by the residents who thought they were being attacked by criminals. In the latter cases, you can rest assured that the person defending his or her home and family will be prosecuted. The fact that the police either didn’t actually do any investigation prior to launching the raid, or hit the wrong address doesn’t matter. Shots were fired, and someone, not a cop, is going to jail no matter what.

This brings us to another group that isn’t doing their jobs. Judges. They should be asking far more questions when signing these no knock warrants, and they should be holding officer to account when they are caught fabricating evidence or lying under oath. We do see a few doing just that, but the numbers are far to few.

We have a major problem in this country, and we have now reached critical mass. Thanks to bad police officers, bad DA’s, bad AG’s and bad judges, people have lost trust in the police. They no longer see them as protectors of the innocent, they are now seeing them as an occupying army. The murders of the two officers in New York, while wrong, aren’t surprising. I have no idea what kind of officers the two men were. I would like to think they were good ones who upheld the law, protected people and used good judgment.

If they were, then they would have been one of just a few that are left. Another was an officer who had a gun pointed at him and the trigger pulled. The gun, a revolver, was empty and rather then shoot the punk, the officer chased him down instead and arrested him. He would have been justified in plugging the moron in my opinion. (This happened right after the two officers had been murdered) The officer realized the gun was empty and decided he didn’t need to shoot this thug.

Now, how can re fix the issue of distrust of police? (And this goes up to the federal level as well) It won’t be easy. First, demilitarize law enforcement. That means taking away their MRAPS and HUMMV’s. They don’t need belt fed machine guns or grenade launchers (Which I believe are a different caliber from a tear gas launcher) I would also look at restricting the number of automatic weapons they have. Why do they need so many submachine guns and M16 automatic rifles in their cars?

Then there is their mode of dress. We have all seen how police love to dress up in their black ninja tacticool uniforms with Kevlar helmets and heavy bullet proof vests. If not in the ninja suits, then they are in camouflage. We saw this during the initial Ferguson riots, and also when they were looking for the Boston Marathon bombers.

I have no problem with officers having the best body armor available, but it should be worn over their standard daily uniforms. The goal is to catch criminals, not intimidate the citizens. Wearing woodland camouflage in the middle of a city is downright asinine.

So, how do we fix things? It will not be easy. It will take a major rethinking of what a police officer is. First, you need to start with management. We’ve all seen chief’s of police who actively go out and talk to people, and work with them and their officers to head off any potential problems before they become problems. They do not see the citizens as a potential enemy, but rather as a resource to help them in their jobs as protectors of the innocent.

They will, of course, give their officers the benefit of the doubt, but when wrong doing, or flat out incompetence comes out, they will promptly deal with those officers, be it with more training, dismissal from the force, or in some cases, charging them. They will work with people to find the troublemakers and deal with them under the laws. These chiefs, and their departments rarely have problems with the general public.

Then we need to retrain police officers. In the “Olden days” police officers saw themselves as “Keepers of the peace” and not so much as “Enforcers of the law.” Oh they would deal with lawbreakers by arresting them, but they would also use judgment and the knowledge of the area and the people they were dealing with and sometimes, not arrest someone. Sometimes, they would take a “Youthful miscreant” and deliver him to his parents who would then light up their kids backsides. They would also know when it was time to just take them in and “Book ‘em Danno.”

Police also need far more training with their firearms. How many times have we seen them shooting at a suspect, (Justified), and hitting bystanders instead of the suspect? How many times have we seen officers just open fire with little or no warning to their intended targets? And then we have the Tazers. Police have started using these things on people for little or no real cause. Someone could be just standing there, possibly arguing with an officer, making no threats or moves towards them. Then the next thing they know, some officer shoots them, usually in the back, with a tazer and they’re twitching on the ground.

Tazers are supposed to be “Less then lethal devices, but if you have a heart problem, these things can kill you. We have seen officer use these on people who aren’t resisting them in anyway, simply as a means to punish people. This has to stop and officers who use a tazer in this manner need to be disciplined. If a normal citizen were to use a tazer the way police do, they would be sitting in a cell in short order. Granted, there are some people you just want to see tazed, but in general, these devices should only be used in the same manner you would use a gun. With careful thought.

Unless some structural changes are made and made soon, both with regards to police and federal officers as well as the laws they are supposed to enforce, what happened last weekend in New York City will happen again, and it might not be a nutcase doing it, but rather a very angry and very competent citizen who doesn’t want to get caught, and knows just how to go about “Doing the deed.” When that happens, if that happens, we’re going to see really bad things start happening. Things that no one wants to see.

Thatisall

~The Angry Webmaster~

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