Was watching a re-run of Adam-12 on a nostalgia TV network, and there was an opening scene of a bar room brawl. The scene shifted to an older man who alerted the two protagonist cops that the whole brawl was a cover to allow a pick pocket to steal wallets. The pick pocket then tries to run away, while one cop chases after him. The older man cuts him off and tackles him, and reveals that he was a 30-year retired cop from Philadelphia. In the final scene of the opening act, he turns to Malloy and Reed and says to them, "You never really quit being a cop; it's in the blood. You two enjoy it while you can. You're gonna miss it!"
In the era when Adam-12 was produced by Jack Webb's Mark VII Limited, such a statement was genuine and true. It stayed genuine and true until the current decade, when things started to change, and false messages and propaganda became weapons of social war inflicted on the people, waged by a small number of political agendists.
Today, one seriously questions whether many cops still enjoy the job, or will look back on their careers with a sense of satisfaction that they were the true "thin blue line" that kept society civil and free. The agendists seem determined to drive as many cops out of the profession as they can, while making those who choose to remain as miserable as possible.
Sane question to ask these agendists, do they think encounters with police will become improved by creating a lynch mob mentality that's designed to make those in uniform miserable?
Moreover, the propaganda, like most such fare, is filled with more grand lies and deception than should ever be allowed in mainstream media presentations. Countless research efforts have dug deep into the facts, and the consistent lesson is ignored in the media reportage. The vast majority of police interactions with citizens is positive and professional, including the vast majority of arrests. To be arrested is meaningless without subsequent conviction. Honest mistakes are possible. A cop has to size up a situation, and so the act of arrest cannot and should not be taken as a justification to initiate violence.
If the profession of policing in America has to be an institution that survives only if perfect, then it isn't the cops with the problem, it's instead the society, who's judgment has become so poisoned, that it thinks it right to foist a standard of performance onto police, that it could never satisfy if applied to themselves. Only a loathsome soul would demand that others rise to a level that they themselves could not possibly attain.
Perhaps it should be illegal for the media to report on arrests. Until a suspect is at least indicted for a crime, the act of arrest is nothing more than a snap judgment call, devoid of anything that ought to impact a person's life. Many people who are arrested are soon released without being charged. Some perhaps are released simply because the District Attorney believes the evidence is too weak to support a likely conviction, or others released because the severity of the action just doesn't justify prosecution. Some are released because the snap judgment turned out erroneous, a result that no cop should be made to pay a penalty for.
If the profession of policing in America has to be an institution that survives only if perfect, then it isn't the cops with the problem, it's instead the society, who's judgment has become so poisoned, that it thinks it right to foist a standard of performance onto police, that it could never satisfy if applied to themselves. Only a loathsome soul would demand that others rise to a level that they themselves could not possibly attain.
Yet, the difference today, is that it's not merely the agitators who wish to be holier than thou, but instead plenty of elected leaders, who's raison d'etre seems to be a promulgation of phony morality, using police as political piņatas, to be flogged in public to atone for the very malfeasance the municipal leadership is guilty of.
Police are not the ones who engineered city and state budgets destined to cause bankruptcy, and drive out hard working citizens unable to meet the onerous tax burdens, nor did they create school systems featuring some of the highest per capita funding levels in the world, where not a single high school has a single student who meets minimum grade level achievement in mathematics. Police are not the ones who have so thoroughly destroyed affinity for marriage and parenthood, that a frightfully small percentage of children born in many urban areas are born into homes with a married father and mother to sire them.
Police are the thin line that is trying to prevent the dam from breaking, and unleashing the torrent of wrath for select societies that have mired themselves in amorality and avarice. And for their devotion to this noble cause, police are now routinely treated as thugs and criminals, while the real thugs and criminals are often mischaracterized as misunderstood idealists, or people who's social disadvantages have somehow mandated they devolve into habitual criminality.
Such tripe is as equally insulting to the police as it is dangerously patronizing to those who run afoul of the law, not to mention a grand betrayal of the victims of these many crimes.
There is really nothing wrong with American law. For the most part, the application of that law is equally good. When there are isolated cases of questionable behavior, the single greatest source are out of control district attorneys, who substitute political grandstanding for honest pursuit of justice.
A truthful analysis of police work in America consistently yields valuable lessons.
First, there is no systemic racism in American police work. In fact, if anything, blacks in America are less likely to be shot by cops than are suspects of any other race in society, provided one properly takes into account how often police try to arrest people of various races. The skews in numbers are entirely the result of blacks in America being vastly more likely to carry out violent crimes in America -- a statistical truth that the mainstream media chooses to ignore. This is among the worst ironies, because the vast majority of victims of these violent crimes are black Americans. How exactly does one show compassion for any group of people when they deliberately turn not merely a blind eye to their situation, but also choose to fabricate a lie about it?
America is a nation of about 328 million people. Out of that population, police comprise a total number of just 900,000. That blue line is thin to the tune of being just 0.21% of the American population. Police come into contact with just 17% of the American population annually, for only 55.8 million such contacts a year. Out of that number, there were just 26,000 complaints or criminal indictments lodged against police officers -- meaning that complaints of any type are lodged in less than 0.047% of interactions. Only eight percent of those complaints and/or indictments were sustained. This means that only 0.0039% of annual police encounters result in actions that can fairly be termed police brutality.
Put into perspective, an American citizen is seven times more likely to be the victim of murder, 15 times more likely to be killed in a traffic accident, and 42 times more likely to be raped. Police are actually 99.996% effective in their jobs. How many professions dealing with the public can claim such a tremendously positive record?
Moreover, last year there were just 998 cases where police used deadly force. By race, those actions were carried out 456 times against white suspects, 229 times against black suspects, 165 times against Hispanics, and 41 times against Asians. In 107 cases, the race of the suspect was not known. But, those numbers must be understood in their proper context.
Black men commit murder at a rate 572.8% higher than white men. Black men commit rape at a 146.1% higher level, robbery at a 617.9% greater rate, and aggravated assault at 203.3% greater rate, and overall violent crime at a 263.6% greater rate than do white men. Yet, despite this all important truth, vastly more white suspects are violently engaged by police than are black suspects. Many studying the problem say that a great number of police officers have died in recent years because they approached a black suspect while being less likely to use deadly force than if the same sort of suspect was white.
Black Americans make up just 13% of the national population, but they are responsible for 50% of murders and about 38% of all violent crimes. And again, the most prevalent victims of these crimes are other black Americans. Blacks are also much more likely by their population to violently attack police, with 40% of cop killers being black. Blacks kill cops at a rate 2.5 times higher than the rate at which blacks are killed by police.
One final vital truth is that in the urban areas with the worst violent crime, the majority of police officers working those beats are themselves black, with nearly all current police chiefs in these cities being black. It is patently false to argue that blacks would be racist against fellow blacks. Yet, that is precisely the false narrative the mainstream media consistently feeds, all the while ignoring these statistical facts just presented.
In fact, anyone who tries to present these truths are immediately called racists, even blacks who report the numbers. Telling the plain truth in America today has become a veritable act of public courage, and it never should be. Telling the plain truth should always remain a moral duty, and those who refuse to tell it should be condemned for their deception.
In these crime ridden cities, the bulk of the people who try to live responsible and moral lives are black, and they harbor mostly positive views of their local police forces. This should not be a surprise, as these police officers are the ones most effectively stopping the criminals who are ravaging their neighborhoods. As a reflection of living in a democratic society, it is also no surprise that in these same cities, the majority of police officers reflect the demographics of the neighborhoods they serve, as does the senior leadership of these police units.
Anarchists and Marxists openly avow their desire to destroy America. We should therefore be unsurprised that they lie and fabricate to undermine our society, or that they unfairly abuse situations as an excuse to carry out arson, looting, and mass violence. The real culpability exists among the mainstream media and a tragically increasing population of civic and elected leaders, who cravenly bow to these extremists, vice rise to meet their actual challenges, much less actually craft public policies to make the dire situations better.
Those who know the truth must stop being afraid to tell it. We live in an increasingly dangerous time, and the situation no longer allows for silent observance. We must stand united to defend liberty, and not allow the truth to become a further casualty of the mass insanity and violence we see unleashed against us.
-- Ken Stallings
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