There were a lot less people willing to fight cops when the cops could fight back.
There’s a saying that’s been used here many times: “Stop hiding behind my shield”, a spin off of the often implication made from criminal element hecklers that a police officer is ‘nothing without that badge’. See, while it makes for good sound bites and instagram likes, the latter notion carries far less truth than the prior.
The reality is that the overwhelming majority of today’s criminal element is emboldened by the ever-increasing restrictions put on American police officers simply because they DO wear a shield. If a police officer was just another man or woman with an opposing opinion and no real job or responsibilities to restrict them, the likelihood of cry baby mutts like ‘Famouss Richard’ generating content by taunting them would decrease exponentially; and that’s on King David. It’s the fact that a police officer has rules to follow and unrealistic expectations in regards to patience and tolerance for the intolerable that encourages the nonsensical behavior.
Freedom is NOT synonymous with an absence of consequence.
Americans of every race, gender and religion are as collectively free now as they have ever been at any point of this country’s 247 years of existence; and I defy anyone to give empirical evidence to the contrary. Of course there are always isolated instances that, spun correctly and fed to masses with the right social media tone, could attempt to prove otherwise. However, America has been and still is so great that men and women from other countries have risked their lives and smuggled their unaccompanied children into this country just for the chance to be here; or invade us. But that’s a discussion for another day.
This younger generation, however, has been so spoiled with freedom and opportunity that they have pushed that line farther to incorporate the expectation of a consequence free society. And why wouldn’t they? Our leaders have done nothing but pander to them and support that idea; see also bail reform and the decriminalization of and refusal to prosecute hand selected crimes, picked seemingly on whims and ‘flavors of the day’.
A lot has been made over the years about ‘accountability’ as it applies to the American police officer; implying that the American police officer has been acting rogue and consequence free since forever. We could have historical discussions and debate different era’s of policing and the corruption and manipulation that may have existed at some point or in specific cases. However, few could argue that today’s police officer is accountable to an articulable unfair standard. Just look at Fort Worth’s (TX) Aaron Dean case where, an on-duty uniformed police officer, on a call the he was SENT to, was confronted with a woman pointing a gun at him and responded accordingly but shooting her before she shot him. Tragically, it was found that the woman was the lawful homeowner pointing her lawfully owned weapon at what she believed to be an intruder; making that case mind-numbingly tragic. However, Aaron Dean now sits in prison, convicted of manslaughter and abandoned by both the community and department he served.
Aaron’s case is just one of many recent high profile cases where the expectation of accountability only seems to apply to those in uniform. I guess what I’m asking is: when will we, as a society, start expecting OURSELVES to be accountable; because it seems that THAT train is heading in the total opposite direction.
I’m not an expert on anything and I don’t have fancy degrees hanging on my wall. Ironically, in some cases, the aforementioned only serve to complicate an issue. You don’t need to have a law degree or to have served as a police officer at all to understand that true criminals only fear is consequence; no matter what form that comes in.
While the majority of Americans are intrinsically good, you don’t need a large percentage of anarchists to create chaos; and we’re seeing that played out in real time and on every level of crime.
Personally, I had recently taken an illegal immigrants car away for having a fake license plate, fake insurance and for having no license. In order to get his car out of impound, he showed up with more fake documentation, driven to our building in a vehicle with, you guessed it, a fake plate, fake insurance and by a driver who had a suspended LEARNERS PERMIT. My point to that example is that only arrogance or confidence in no real consequence begets that kind of ignorance. And, by any states standards, while wildly common these days, is the lowest ‘criminal’ example.
A civilized society without real consequence for crime will fail to be remain civilized. You don’t need a degree to arrive at that conclusion either.
Criminal justice reform is a real discussion. However, the untrained debater has, by default, wrongfully assumed that criminal justice reform is synonymous with POLICE reform. In reality, police officers weren’t the ones sentencing people to exorbitant sentences for low level crimes. In fact, the laws that police officers enforce aren’t even written BY police officers. So, when you bring up the topic of reform, I’m already sitting at table ready to discuss.
However, much like immigration and the debate over legal vs illegal immigration: amnesty is the absence of reform is NOT the solution.
The reality is that there are ALWAYS consequences. It’s just that, for some reason, the law abiding citizens seem to be the only ones shouldering them lately.
Committing crime is a choice. A criminal, no matter how petty the crime, has made the very clear decision that the rule of law and, more importantly, YOUR rights mean nothing to them; and we’d all do well to keep that notion clear in our minds as we watch our pandering vote-harvesting elected officials, opportunistic “activists” and spoiled/uninformed children shed crocodile tears for society’s worst…for votes…for fame…or for their Instagram story.
Support your police officers. Now more than ever. Because the worst is yet to come.
