Book: The War on Cops

Dateline (20 June) – Syracuse, New York: A female officer, responding to a large party and reports of a “man down” call at a Father’s Day party. While waiting for back-up, the officer heard shots being fired. According to Syracuse.com, approximately 150 citizens began running away from the shooting. The courageous officer moved towards the sound of the guns and, “When she got to the scene of the gun battle, the shooters refused to put down their guns and she fired hers…” The officer then moved to a man down, who would later die of his wounds and a female shot in the leg. It was then that the crowd moved against her. Reporter John O’Brien writes, “When the police officer got to Porter, an angry crowd attacked her, Piedmonte (the local police union president) said. They knocked her to the ground, kicked her, punched her, spat on her and ripped her clothes, he said. They piled on top of her, took her flashlight from her gun belt and tried to remove her gun from its holster and her pepper spray, Piedmonte said. They tried to pull her badge off, he said. "She's on the ground, under all these people who are just pummeling her," Piedmonte said. The officer was so constricted by the pile that she was unable to reach her microphone and call for help, he said. She fought all alone with crowd for about four minutes, Piedmonte said.”

“Responding officers rushing to the female officer’s aid, were subsequently attacked as well. “People threw bottles, rocks, a VCR, a tire and other objects at the officer and other officers who arrived, he said. The first female officer was struck by flying objects three times -- in the back, hip and chest, he said. Police fought with the crowd for 15 minutes, Piedmonte said. They were assisted by almost every police agency in Onondaga County, he said. Two Syracuse police officers with more than 20 years on the job each told Piedmonte they'd never before seen a crowd of people turn on police the way it did that night.”

So goes the war on police officers in this country and The War on Cops is the title of the new book by Heather Mac Donald (2016; Encounter Books).

Modern Day Policing

If you’ve not read Mac Donald’s articles and columns before you should. The Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. I’ve read Ms. Mac Donald’s editorials in the Wall Street Journal and other papers, as well as seeing her on cable news programs. Heather Mac Donald offers a research and fact based narrative to counter the anti-police bias by the mainstream media and groups such as Black Lives Matter. Crammed into the 233 pages of her book we find a lot of useful information to help put the facts out there, versus the fiction and flat out bad, agenda driven drivel. Why is Heather Mac Donald’s work and this book so important and why should you read it? Because it is vitally important that we arm ourselves with the facts to dispel the agenda driven myths and, probably more important, we pay attention to the implication of this current war on cops because it will affect law enforcement for years to come.

Let’s take a look at how the media distorts police use of force as an example.

According to a much heralded study on police use of deadly force by the Washington Post, 990 subjects were shot and killed by American law enforcement officers last year. Based on my in-depth examination of these cases cited by the WaPo :

• 80% of the shootings involved suspects with deadly weapons (783 out of 990)
• 250 suspects were classified as mentally ill but only seven of these subjects were not armed with guns, knives, bludgeons or attempting to disarm an officer at the time of the shooting
• 93 subjects were listed by the WaPo as unarmed. But this number is wrong and otherwise misleading. Four suspects shot/killed were reaching for guns in their possession when shot. In addition, the Washington Post report does not eliminate accidental shootings (6) or two incidents in which
• the deceased was knowingly in the company of a violent murder suspect who was actively shooting at officers.
• In actuality only 80 subjects can be classified as “unarmed” and intentionally shot
• 62% of the unarmed subjects shot/killed were “Attacks in progress” against the officer.
• Some of these were violent incidents in which officers had bones broken, were beaten with their own radios, handcuffs, and/or the suspect attempted to disarm the officer.
• 12.5% of the subjects actively attempted to disarm the officer

Now keep in mind that the mainstream media seems…disinclined to actually research and study police use of force. For instance, I heard former college professor and leftist “journalist” Mark Lamont Hill refer to #28. This plainly erroneous number refers to “Operation Ghetto Storm” written by “anti-imperialist, journalist” Arlene Eisen. Eisen’s report alleges that a black male is killed by police every 28 hours in this country. Eisen included not police shootings like the George Zimmerman shooting of Trayvon Martin and even traffic incidents in this piece of anti-police propaganda. Eisen was taken to task on her “report” and has admitted that it is error filled, yet Dr. Hill still refers to it on TV as if it were completely valid.

Although Mac Donald does not break the Washington Post deadly force study down as I have done, she provides fascinating factual data on: crime stats, incarceration, the positive impact of proactive policing on crime reduction, stop and frisk, on and on.

Mac Donald’s welcome fact based counter-narrative is very welcome since law enforcement is reeling from wounds intentionally inflicted by Black Lives Matter and the mainstream media. The results of these wounds is being felt throughout our country.

Item: According to an on-line piece at Townhall.com by Michael Barone:

University of Missouri at St. Louis criminologist Richard Rosenfeld has had "second thoughts." Like many academic criminologists, he had pooh-poohed charges that skyrocketing murder rates in many cities in 2015 and 2016 result from a "Ferguson effect" -- a skittering back from proactive policing for fear of accusations of racism like those that followed the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014.

Now, after looking over 2015 data from 56 large cities, he's changed his mind. Homicides in those cities were up 17 percent from 2014. And 10 cities, all with large black populations, saw homicides up 33 percent on average.

"These aren't flukes or blips, this is a real increase," Rosenfeld said. "The only explanation that gets the timing right is a version of the Ferguson effect."

Fact: Violent crime is up! According to Townhall.com, “…a 16 or 17 percent increase in homicides in major cities that account for a large share of the national murder toll is, in historical perspective, very dire indeed. The most accurate word is "unprecedented." The only double-digit increases in national murder statistics going back to 1960 are 13 percent (in 1968), 11 percent (in 1966, 1967 and 1971) and 10 percent (in 1979).”

Fact: Police recruitment is down. As an example, WGAL.com reports, “But many police departments are discovering that finding quality officers is not easy due to low levels of interest. Spring Garden Police Chief George Swartz said recent events in Ferguson, Missouri and Baltimore have hurt efforts to recruit police. “Events like that make it very difficult for us to recruit at all, especially minority applicants,” he said.

Wrap Up

So let’s get this straight. Police are vilified and attacked using erroneous information and no factual data. Proactive policing has been attacked as “racist and discriminatory” when the facts, as readily presented by Heather Mac Donald and others, disprove this completely. So, police pull back from proactive policing and the results are…violent crime is up, specifically in the minority community.

The War on Cops is not just an excellent new book by Heather Mac Donald, it is a reality for the men and women who tread the line blue line…

Web Links: Advanced Tactical Concepts http://www.advancedtacticalconcepts.com

Bio Statement Kevin Davis is a full-time officer assigned to the Training Bureau of his police agency where he specializes as a suspect control, firearms and tactics instructor. He is a former Team Leader and Lead Instructor for S.W.A.T. with over 500 tactical deployments. He welcomes your feedback at [email protected]