A Brief History
On November 20-21, 2016, four American police officers were shot in ambush style attacks in San Antonio, Texas, St. Louis, Missouri, Gladstone, Missouri, and Sanibel, Florida. The officer in the San Antonio shooting died of his head wounds, the other officers have survived their wounds so far.
Digging Deeper
Shootings of police officers are dramatically up, especially the ambush/assassination style killing where the officer is sitting in his patrol car and a suspect walks up and shoots the unsuspecting officer, or as in the case of Dallas, a sniping type incident. More police have been shot to death this year than in all of last year, with 6 weeks to go in 2016.
It is our belief that the anti-police hysteria generated by certain politicians, disingenuous activists, and a media greedy for viewers is responsible for the mistaken belief in (mainly) the African American communities across the country that police are gunning down black males for no reason other than racism and hate. Numerous incidents have gotten ridiculous amounts of media attention and attention from publicity hungry politicians where it turned out the premise of the complaint about the killing by police is false, either through false witnesses or exoneration by trial or investigation. We have addressed some of these incidents, such as the phony “Hands up, don’t shoot” crap concerning Michael Brown, when it was proven he did not have his hands up and was indeed attacking the much smaller police officer. Freddie Gray, the career criminal from Baltimore that died from a broken neck resulted in several police officers recklessly charged with murder, including African American cops. All those officers were exonerated in court and will face no further charges, but the myth persists that these cops killed this creep on purpose. (It is true Gray did not get proper medical attention, largely because he had a history of faking illness and injury to get out of jail.)
The 2016 Presidential campaign saw a shameful attempt by Hillary Clinton (and her surrogates, especially Elizabeth Warren) carrying on about the cops murdering Black men and boys, and Ms. Clinton proudly appeared with an entourage of mothers of some of these people killed by police. And for good measure, Trayvon Martin’s mom as well, although her son was killed by a civilian who was exonerated in trial. (Martin was pounding George Zimmerman’s head into the pavement when Zimmerman shot and killed the 17 year old.)
Not every single police shooting is justifiable, but the vast majority of them are, and the vast majority of the celebrated cases are as well. As always, we challenge any of these cop haters to attend “Shoot, Don’t Shoot” training and for themselves see just how fast the decision to shoot or not shoot must be made.
Meanwhile, we DEMAND that these gutless politicians and activists stridently cry out for an immediate cessation on attacks against police and for all citizens to follow basic common sense procedures when dealing with the police to avoid being unnecessarily shot (such as DOING WHAT THE COP SAYS, and not making furtive movements, etc when confronted). Meanwhile, when police do shoot someone, it is pretty clear by now that their action will be closely scrutinized for propriety. Shooting cops that are doing their job and have no connection with a bad shooting is about as stupid as police shooting random citizens in retaliation.
We strenuously recommend you support your local, state, and Federal law enforcement officers that are trying to do their job to keep society safe and functioning. Creating an atmosphere of hatred and mistrust will not make the police and community work together better, so we ask for the rhetoric to get a lot more civil and fact based rather than on unsubstantiated emotions.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Mac Donald, Heather. The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe. Encounter Books, 2016.
Roorda, Jeff. The War on Police: How the Ferguson Effect is Making America Unsafe. WND Books, 2016.