Cops despised, ambushed, killed = rising crime

And yes, there is a correlation.

Let’s first listen to America’s Sheriff, David Clarke.

Sheriff Clarke: Look, this guy continually for eight years has rubbed the stain of slavery,  has rubbed white people’s nose in the stain of slavery. He’s done it for eight years. He’s about 150 years removed from slavery. Nobody said forget about it but you have to move on at some point and he will not allow America to do that. And until he leaves the White House we’re going to continue to have to put up with this nonsense. People are tired of it, they’ve proved it on November 8th that Latinos, black people, white people, and other ethnicities have said we’ve had enough of this racial divide in America, and they really want to move on from it. But this president will not allow them to do that.

Obama has consistently taken the immediate side of American blacks. From, first, 2009:

“But I think it’s fair to say, No. 1, any of us would be pretty angry; No. 2, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and, No. 3 … that there’s a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately.”

The part the American Media Maggots conveniently forgot to include:

“I don’t know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played,” Obama said Wednesday night while taking questions after a White House news conference.

But that’s okay, the Divider-In-Chief had a job to do and a meme to follow. The American Media Maggots owed total obeisance and provided same, blindly and without question.

What was later said:

The President has acknowledged that he fueled the controversy when he said that the police “acted stupidly” for arresting Prof Gates after he protested vociferously about Sgt Crowley’s actions during a burglary investigation.

Despite that, black Communist Van Jones said

Van Jones: The right wing and the law enforcement establishment brought the wrath of God down on the White House. I was there, and suddenly he’s (Obama) forced to do a beer summit to sit eye-to-eye with a racist police officer. As a black man, even the most powerful man in the world cannot speak about race and, if he does, he’s then forced to sit humbly across the table from a racist police officer.

And therein the tone was set for eight extremely difficult and costly years. Barack Hussein Obama sought not to unite, but to divide on as many levels as he could construct.

As the Divider-In-Chief, Obama’s entire agenda revolved around striating people by class, sex, race, religion, earnings, region, state, city, county, clothing, music, laws, wages, bathroom, healthcare, culture, employment, family, mode of transport, piercings, energy consumption, food, cable channels watched, tattoos, light bulbs, media consumed, social settings, the way you view America, even your writings, statements and thoughts.

Then let’s examine the cold, hard statistics.

From the ChicagoTribune.com:

Few answers as Chicago hit with worst violence in nearly 20 years

by Jeremy Gorner

A persistent reality for some of Chicago’s toughest neighborhoods, violence unnerved far reaches of the city in 2016 as shootings and homicides soared. Not since the drug-fueled bloodshed of the mid-1990s had the city witnessed such a toll.

Some neighborhoods, already scarred and gutted by years of violence, suffered inordinately. But the danger spread into more neighborhoods, too, and randomness became an all-too-familiar element to many shootings.

Grim milestones added up: The deadliest month in 23 years. The deadliest day in 13 years. 4,300 people shot. As the year wound down, with the promise of a new year coming soon, a violent Christmas Day.

Perhaps it might be said that Leftist and Demorat policies are finally catching up with reality.

In 2016, about 91 percent of Chicago’s homicides were committed with a firearm, up from 88 percent last year, the study showed. When you compare that with 1998, the last time Chicago recorded over 700 homicides, about 76 percent of those victims were killed with guns, official Police Department statistics show.

Los Angeles’ homicides committed with guns averaged 72 percent from 2011 to 2015, and 60 percent in New York City, the study noted.

Then there is this.

Looking back to 1998, when Chicago recorded 704 homicides, the city was in the midst of a homicide decline from more than 900 earlier in the decade. The turn of the millennium saw a bottoming out, with homicides dropping to 453 at the end of 2004 — around the time the Police Department began relying on computerized data to know where to deploy officers where they’re needed the most. The tally rose again somewhat, then went down again in 2014, when the city recorded 416 slayings.

Continue reading. About this time you should be asking yourself one profound and fundamental question. Yet let us continue, from the AP.org:

1 of Chicago’s bloodiest years ends with 762 homicides

by Don Babwin

CHICAGO (AP) — One of the most violent years in Chicago history ended with a sobering tally: 762 homicides, the most in two decades in the city and more than New York and Los Angeles combined.

Please let that brain-soak a moment. More than NY and LA combined.

From the LATimes.com:

Violent crime in L.A. jumps for third straight year as police deal with gang, homeless issues

by Cindy Chang and Maya Lau

Violent crime increased in Los Angeles for the third straight year as police tried to stem a rash of homicides and gang-related shootings while dealing with a growing homeless population.

With more than 290 people killed in the city this year, homicides also rose for the third year in a row. Still, the city remains far safer than a decade ago, when 480 people were killed and there were 46% more robberies than this year.

Relatively speaking, Los Angeles doesn’t have shite on the major eastern high-rise, high-population, low-footprint, urban rat cages because it is so spread out. Except:

According to statistics from the Los Angeles Police Department, robberies were up by 13%, aggravated assaults were up by 10% and rapes were down by 4% through Dec. 17, compared with the same period last year. Homicides were up by 5%.

Overall, violent crime was up by 10% over last year and 38% over two years ago.

Imagine that. After the passage of AB 109, Prop 47 and Prop 57, Californians are shocked — shocked, I tell you — that crime is rising.

Marijuana is lawful. The threshold for property crimes amounting to a felony has risen from $400 to $950. Stealing a firearm out of a car is only — ho-hum — a misdemeanor. Property crime is therefore rising. Juvenile prostitution is now legal. California cities exist as social petri-dish experiments where actual citizen safety and common decency is secondary. Disdain for any form of authority is likewise rising.

The once-beautiful city of San Francisco is now a piss-and-shite-ridden open-air toilet. Courts in SF are ignoring — literally — thousands of quality of life citations issued by the SFPD because to support those summonses would be harsh and judgmental.

A year ago, the Superior Court judges who hear such cases stopped issuing bench warrants for no-show defendants. And just last month, Judge Christopher Hite in the court’s traffic division — where quality-of-life citations are handled — flushed all 64,713 outstanding warrants that had been issued for such cases from January 2011 through October 2015.

The judge who did that, by the way, is a former public defender. Please commence with the “I didn’t see that coming” comments.

What might that make the officers issuing those citations think? Perhaps that their work is unvalued, completely disregarded? Perhaps law enforcement might be realizing that “if that’s the kind of law enforcement you want, that’s the kind of law enforcement you’re going to get”?

The anti-police climate is clearly emboldening criminals of all stripes, from murderers to anarchists to teenagers.

I can tell you unequivocally why crime in certain cities and areas is rising. There are currently over 20 agencies being monitored by the feds and operating under a consent decree. Law enforcement agencies nationwide are being told that they “over-police.” They are being told they cannot stop and frisk. Their administrations are, because of social politics, becoming indifferent. Support is vanishing. Cops are guilty first. Micromanaging is the norm. Discretion is removed. Public concern for the lives of LEOs is not as strong as its concern for the lives of suspects.

Additionally, ambushes of police are at their highest in over a decade, more than 20 deaths in 2016 due to ambush. This helps to create a climate where people feel justified in assaulting law enforcement officers. People are beginning to think they possess not just a right but a duty to resist any form of arrest or hands-on involvement by law enforcement.

A bulletin last week by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, a federal agency that supports local police departments, counted the number of officers killed by ambush as 20 so far this year, up from six in 2015. Organizations that record police officer deaths, such as the FBI and the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, vary in their exact numbers, but all agree that fatal ambush attacks have reached the highest level in more than ten years.

Consequently, because of directives and the obvious, officers are pulling back from what is known as “self-initiated activity.”

Yes, officers are handling the calls to which they are dispatched with professionalism and integrity, but in terms of digging into the neighborhood or the community, they have withdrawn because they have been told explicitly to do so by their administrators, and/or via pressure from community leaders, societal pressure, and self-interest.

Crime rates and statistics are also trending up because of little follow-up by prosecutors on impolitical cases, and by recent propositions and laws that have decriminalized some acts, reduced them from felonies to misdemeanors, or eliminated them wholesale. I again point out AB 109, Prop 47 and Prop 57 in California. Property crimes and crimes involving drugs have skyrocketed because criminals are not stupid.

Law enforcement officers realize they are already targeted for ambush, injury and death. Their situations are to the point where they must recognize and handle not only officer survival but, examining the long run, career survival. Just like anyone else they have bills to pay, mortgages, families, children, personal obligations.

UNITED STATES – JANUARY 5: A controversial painting by Missouri student David Pulphus depicting police as animals hangs in the tunnel connecting the U.S. Capitol to the Cannon House Office building as part of the annual student art exhibit on Thursday, Jan. 5, 2017. The painting was selected as the 2016 Congressional Art Competition winner from Rep. William Lacy Clay’s district in the St. Louis area. (Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)

I wonder why law enforcement thinks this painting, created by a black NFL player, might be offensive and denigrates officers nationwide?

I have always said that America gets the kind of policing it deserves. The Ferguson Effect truly does exist and was acknowledged by FBI’s Director James Comey.

Cops are human. They respond to pressure and directives. They also want to go home to their families and loved ones at the end of watch. Accused of over-policing? Yes, many are saying, we are responding to your demands.

Yes, there is a correlation. It pleases Leftists but, perhaps soon, they may not be quite so pleased.

Prognostications for 2017?

Cloudy, with a chance of severe turbulence.

BZ

 

No freedom of speech for cops

PPB, ORI retired a few months ago after having 41 years in law enforcement, working for the FBI, being a sworn US Marshal, and serving two local Fornicalia agencies.  If I had a son or daughter considering law enforcement I’d tell them to look elsewhere and to become a nurse, a plumber, an electrical contractor, mechanic, electrical engineer or programmer — a job that cannot readily be replaced by a robot.  And I’d stay away from law enforcement because more and more the job involves politics not service, and you have fewer rights than the citizens you serve.  That trend is growing, not receding.

Including freedom of speech.

People eschewing law enforcement will occur in any event, because Millennials are not used to or desire to serve, sacrifice or have their freedoms of speech curtailed.  The small group of Millennials who do understand about sacrifice and service for a higher goal or greater good are former military personnel — but their ranks are thinning as well.

From OregonLive.com:

Portland police officer removed from street after Twitter message about Black Lives Matter

by Maxine Bernstein

A Portland police officer who wrote a Twitter message complaining that he’d be stuck late at work Friday night “to babysit these fools,” referring to a planned Black Lives Matter-Not Black Friday march at Lloyd Center, has been taken off the street while an internal investigation proceeds.

Portland police Acting Chief Donna Henderson, filling in for Chief Larry O’Dea who is off until next week, announced the investigation Tuesday afternoon in a news release.

“I am highly offended, and I think other people should be,” said Teressa Raiford, a community activist involved in Don’t Shoot Portland. “I think it’s very unprofessional, especially someone in his position.”

Officer John Hurlman, a 24-year bureau veteran, removed the post from his Twitter feed, but a screen shot was caught by others.

His message read, “Black Lives Matter is planning to protest at Lloyd Center on black Friday. Oh joy, stuck late again at work to babysit these fools.”

Damn that officer for daring to state the obvious.  BLM activists are fools because black lives don’t matterYou may care to read this link, as well as this and this and this for my reasoning.

Further, the story doesn’t immediately reveal this salient fact: the officer produced that message on his own time, off duty, with his own account and not utilizing government resources.

But because of the community it serves, the ball-less Portland Police Bureau circled its own little Leftist wagons and, realizing that if a sympathetic take wasn’t promptly expressed, the BLM activists would soon be torching the sycophantic little purple-skied territory of Portland itself.  Precisely because BLM “activists” couldn’t give a fuck.  It ain’t their property they’d burn and loot and destroy.  BLM “activists” enjoy embracing lies for the “common good” of themselves only.

It is interesting, however, to read some of the comments below the article I linked, which include some of the following:

Why aren’t black lives matter going door to door where black people live spreading their message not to kill black people?

So does this mean if a neo-nazi group were to march, only those police officers who agree with the neo nazi’s could work the neo-nazi march that day?  

Oh yes, such a peaceful community group that chants:”What do we want, dead cops, when do we want ’em. NOW!” and “Pigs in a blanket, fry ’em like bacon!”

Nothing like stomping on the man’s First Amendment Rights…  What’s next from the “Thought Police”?  Lie detector tests for anybody accused of having an alternative viewpoint or perspective contrary to the Left’s?  Give me a break… 

You are assuming that somebody being called a fool should lose their job?  Does that mean I should lose my job by calling you an idiot?  Just trying to understand your perspective of justice and equality…

Office Hurlman was correct in his personal opinion description of  BLM as fools, and I would submit that the even bigger fool is acting like a moron chief Donna Henderson.  Calling someone a fool is speech protected by the 1st ammendment.  The officer did not threaten or encourage any one to threaten or harm anyone.  The Portland PD admin is wrong on this one and should publicly admit such.

So I guess you feel that the officer has to take responsibility for expressing a personal opinion on a personal twitter account? A personal opinion that did not threaten anyone?  Is that what you are trying to say?  If so, you are one misguided soul.

These comments mostly reflect a rational response to ridiculous political correctness being exercised by the Portland police chief. The sane ones among us look at the BLM fools and state the obvious. The BLM fools falsely perpetuate the myth that Michael Ferguson had his “hands up” when he was killed, when the forensic evidence shows he did not. Even the Obama administration’s Justice Department investigation concluded he was justifiably killed by a police officer defending his life. But the BLM fools refuse to believe it and agitate for the sake of agitating. They, and you by extension, can’t be reasoned with. You’re too blinded by your grievance ideology.

There are more than 1,000 additional comments.

I spoke over the air earlier this week on the Hugh Hewitt Radio Show to retired Congressman John Campbell (R, CA, 45th & 48th Dist) who was admirably filling in for Mr Hewitt.  The topic concerned the rise of homicide rates and overall crime in major cities and elsewhere.

I indicated there were any number of factors for this rise, but one of the major factors now is the lack of what law enforcement calls “self-initiated activity,” which translates to getting in there, digging, knowing your beat, district, precinct, area, community, and seriously working it.  Looking for crime, turning over the rocks and getting actively involved.  In other words, proactive vs reactive law enforcement.

Certainly, cops won’t shirk their calls for service.  Whenever the laptop or terminal beeps, or the radio beckons, cops will attend to their assignments.  But once there, it exists in their minds that they too could be another Darren Wilson.  Being “right” isn’t enough.  Being “lawful” isn’t enough.  And what law enforcement, the public and courts will soon realize: having a video body-cam isn’t enough.  Video is another tool — it is not the end-all panacea just as having the melanin-count match the neighborhood isn’t an end-all panacea.  Just ask Baltimore or New York or Chicago or LA, some of the most mixed race departments across the nation if not the planet.

Cops talk about officer survival.  The mindset that, “no matter what happens to me, I will prevail during a given critical incident.  I will survive to see another call, to help my partner, to see my family and fight another day.”

A few years ago in 2009 and 2010, besides officer survival my deputies faced budgetary survival.  My department eliminated over two-hundred deputy positions.

Cops are having to additionally consider political and career survival.

They are having to ask: just how deep into this call do I want to go?  Just how far do I want to dig into my beat or district or precinct?  Particularly in terms of political survival or career, officers are now asking: what is my career worth?  Where is the line where I’ll even remotely consider jeopardizing my family’s future?  The security of my wife or husband, my children, my retirement?

Even more important to officers is this: does my department have my back if I acted in good faith and within the “reasonable officer” mantra?

Darren Wilson was proven correct, he was completely acquitted on any number of levels by any number of investigative resources and separate agencies including — literally — one hundred FBI agents swarming over Ferguson and the case itself.

Yet Darren Wilson had to physically leave his department, had to take his family and physically leave the town where he was employed and, truly, will forever be unemployable by any law enforcement agency in the US.  He and his family received very serious death threats and his department had little interest in supporting or providing security for him.

You ask why crimes, homicides and the like are starting to increase?  The so-called “Ferguson Effect” is most definitely a factor no matter what any police administrator or spokesperson says.  I know this because my own deputies tell me so.  Quietly.  They are constantly having to weigh these thoughts on their calls.  They are doing the “balance test.”  How do I do my job while not jeopardizing myself, family or future?

And that is the truth.

Portland, Oregon is certainly the locus of Leftist thought in Oregon, right there with Seattle, and the Portland PB isn’t radically different from the Leftards it protects.

Ladies and gentlemen, Leftists, Demorats and Progressives alike, if you don’t like cops — they’re too judgmental — but instead wish to be involved in a Robocop future, monitored and arrested by mechanicals, you are well on your way.  You won’t care for it one bit when the human element is eliminated.  You can’t argue or reason with a robot.

Perhaps you’d just care to do away with your civilian police protection altogether.  Make sure, however, that if this is your choice you likewise surrender all your firearms, defensive or offensive materials such as slingshots, baseball bats, rocks and any sort of edged weapon.  Hell, any weapon whatsoever.  Live by your code.  Be honest and live your honesty.  Mark or placard your car, your house, your apartment, your tent as a WEAPONS FREE ZONE.  Be proud of your philosophies and take a real stand.  Show some courage.

There is a problem however: when you have fewer and fewer persons who desire to be Sheepdogs, your society is in greater and greater jeopardy from within and without.  Because the wolves, you ignorant and complacent sheep, are not reducing their numbers.

Your job is already being targeted for elimination by robots, Mr and Ms Millennial.  Your life, property and sense of security is already being target by criminals whose philosophy is generally “what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine unless you have the strength to stop me.”  Gosh.  Just like Islamists or China or Russia.  Or any bully.

You think that won’t or can’t happen?  Just you watch.

BZ

P.S.

Officer John Hurlman, an extremely interesting article about freedom of speech and police officers can be found here, at the FraternalOrderof Police.net.

You may find it handy and applicable.  You also might wish to click here and here.

 

One reason why crime starting to rise

Cops Making ArrestMany officers and administrators will tell you I’m incorrect, but I’m telling you I am correct.  Because much of this is occurring subconsciously on the part of officers on one level.

One reason — amongst many reasons — that crime is starting to rise is in fact due to what some are calling the “Ferguson Effect.”  That is to say, law enforcement is not being as aggressive as they used to in terms of what is known as “self-initiated activity.”

Certainly, cops don’t shirk going to assigned calls.  Where they’re sent and why they’re sent is meat-and-potatoes to cops.

And certainly cops don’t lack for bravery, as it is the Sheepdog in us (I write “us” because, though retired for only three months, I still am a Sheepdog and, as an Oathkeeper, I swore then and swear now to uphold the US Constitution, Bill of Rights, and protect this nation from all enemies be they foreign or domestic) that brought us to the profession in the first place.

That said, we are all human in LE.  We have feelings and emotions and good days and bad days, just like everyone.  We are affected by external circumstances and situations just like everyone.

The following is just one more example, upon many others, where LE has been denigrated, removed from businesses, had their food purposely tainted, spat on or urinated upon recently.

From Fox2Now.com:

Olive Garden apologizes to police officer after hostess asked him to leave

by AP.com

INDEPENDENCE, Mo. – All Michael Holsworth wanted to do on Sunday was enjoy a nice birthday lunch with his family, but a hostess at Olive Garden wouldn’t even let him wait in the restaurant.

The Kansas City police officer was dressed in full uniform when he was refused service from the Olive Garden on 40 Highway and Noland Road for carrying his service weapon, WDAF-TV reported.

The employee allegedly asked Holsworth to leave the restaurant. Believing it was a joke, he asked the hostess if she was serious. Her simple reply was: “Yes, please leave.”

Tweet To Olive GardenThanks to social media, the officer did precisely what I would have done: spread the news.  Just as there are consequences for cops being stupid, there are consequences for businesses being equally stupid in their own domains.  Olive Garden has since apologized.

This is but one in a continuing series of factors which are resulting in cops deciding to do their work but not to rock the boat.  Because at this point in time boat-rocking is not paying dividends to cops.  It’s called officer survival and career survival.

LE administrators will say this is false because they have to.  Some officers will say this is false because they are not watching their surroundings carefully or don’t have their finger on the pulse of reality.  But I have had deputies on my department tell me covertly that is precisely what is happening.  They are watching their physical and political and career backs very carefully.

When I retired as a Sergeant, I was responsible for 50+ deputies per shift.  My number one goal was to ensure they got home safe at end of watch.  I trained and emphasized that in terms of their priorities the flow chart went like this:

  1. Themselves
  2. Their partner/fellow officer
  3. The citizens
  4. Suspects

Why is it, you may ask, that the citizens we are sworn to protect are third on the list?  Because if we cannot take care of ourselves individually, our partners and fellow officers, then we cannot take care of the citizens.  One officer killed or injured in a vehicle accident, a shooting, a fight, is just one fewer officer available to respond to future calls for service the next hour, the next day, the next week.  And Officer Safety was my personal priority when it came to my troops.  It was my duty to ensure they all went home safe at the end of their shifts to the people who loved them.

To me, the acts of Ray Tensing and Michael Slager are irredeemable.  They are beyond the pale.  But the other acts that have been quoted as responsible for Black Lives Matter, as in Ferguson and New York and other places, are justfifiable and in most of those cases predicated upon outright falsehoods.  The black DA in Baltimore charged too quickly and overcharged.  Race played a huge factor in her decision.  She will be greatly disappointed when she does not get her convictions.  Because, frankly, she “acted stupidly” — to quote another racist black.

Of course there was blowback throughout the nation because the national meme, pushed by our Commander In Chief, was that cops “acted stupidly” and in a clearly racist fashion, even when they were defending themselves and way before all the information was acquired.

Now, Rahm Emanual chimes in.  From the ChicagoTribuune.com:

Emanuel blames Chicago crime uptick on officers second-guessing themselves

by John Byrne

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Monday stood by his contention that Chicago police officers are becoming “fetal” out of concern they will get in trouble for actions during arrests, blaming officers second-guessing themselves in the wake of high-profile incidents for rising crime rates in Chicago and elsewhere.

Last week, the mayor was part of a meeting in Washington, D.C., with Attorney General Loretta Lynch and a group of mayors and police officials from across the nation to discuss a spike in homicides and other crime.

“We have allowed our Police Department to get fetal, and it is having a direct consequence. They have pulled back from the ability to interdict … they don’t want to be a news story themselves, they don’t want their career ended early, and it’s having an impact,” Emanuel said, according to the Washington Post.

Officers “second guessing” themselves is what results in hurt or seriously injured cops.  And trust me, cops know just who has their back, and who doesn’t.  They will work for people, like me, who had their six.  Not so much for folks who don’t.  Just like any other job, anywhere else.  Because we’re human.

BZ