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| Jeenah Moon/Reuters |
We are living in a climate of animus against the police. The result is already apparent in soaring crime rates, as cops pull back from the proactive police work that keeps us safe.
American policing is heading for a crisis.
Cops are going to keep showing up for work. They’re not going to go on strike and parade in front of local police stations with picket signs. But they are going to stop performing the kind of proactive police work that every good cop knows is what really prevents crimes. No doubt many already have.
Picture this scenario: A cop on patrol spots several young males loitering on a corner in a high-crime neighborhood. (Race doesn’t matter — they are whatever color is most common in the area.) One or two might even be known to the officer from past arrests. He stops and questions them, pats them down, maybe runs their names through the computer to check for outstanding warrants. Chances are high that he will find a weapon on at least one of them, maybe some drugs as well. His intervention may also have defused plans for a burglary or even an armed robbery or a drive-by shooting later that night.
The chances are also high that this intervention could have resulted in a charge of resisting an officer or assault on an officer. One or more of the suspects could have been tased or taken to the ground and restrained. There was a lower, but still real, chance of that encounter’s leading to gunfire, by or against the officer. Those really are mean streets out there.
As turmoil mounts around Black Lives Matter agitation in American cities, more and more law-enforcement officers realize that in just about any encounter with black suspects, they risk being thrown to the wolves by craven local prosecutors, mayors, or police administrators, no matter how right or blameless they may be in the actions they take under pressure.
And the next time they see that cluster of surly young males hanging out on the corner, they may decide to just drive on by. After all, they can’t get suspended, fired, or indicted if they wait to take the report on whatever mayhem those suspects might commit.
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| LINK: Rochester Police Chief, Command Staff Announce Retirement amid Protests over Death of Daniel Prude |
The crisis cops are facing today is that, by simply doing their jobs, they are increasingly at risk of unjust outcomes — or having their own lives endangered. Two recent incidents illustrate that risk.
Last March, in Rochester, New York, a black man died after an encounter with police. This occurred during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. Police had received a report of a naked man running amok; as any veteran cop knows, that kind of situation often suggests a person on PCP, an especially dangerous drug that tends to make its users strip and behave irrationally. It can also result in sudden death from frantic excitation of the cardiopulmonary system.Read the rest of the story HERE and follow links below to related stories:
Rochester Police Chief, Command Staff Announce Retirement amid Protests over Death of Daniel Prude
‘Give Us Our S***’: Demonstrators in Rochester Offer Decreased Violence for Reparations
NY Assistant Principal Not Fired After Screaming 'F*** the Police!' During Protest
De Blasio's NYC: Video Catches Teens Rob, Punch Woman, 74, In Broad Daylight
Kamala Harris Told Jacob Blake, Facing Sexual Assault Charge, She Was ‘Proud’ of Him: Crump
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