Media Fails To tell The Whole Truth

Once again, the anti-cop cabal raises its ugly head. They never miss an opportunity to misuse statistics to smear the integrity of law enforcement officers. One of their favorite things to focus on is police use of in the performance of their job. They make use of what famed radical leftist community activist Saul Alinsky wrote in attacking a target. He wrote, identify a target, isolate it and then personalize it. This is exactly what the cop hating movement has done with the police officer. They have targeted and isolated police use of force in their crusade to destroy policing in America. They use bad data, they misinterpret statistics and come to conclusions about police use of force that no objective person interpreting data would agree with.

 I was at a hotel in New York recently and while at the front desk, I could help not seeing a stack of USA Today newspapers that just about every hotel in America gives away free of charge. At the top of the front-page above the fold and in big bold print that stood out like a neon sign, the headline read: 2023 was the deadliest year for killings by police in the US. Experts say this is why. Obviously, I picked up a copy to read and what I found in the story was more of the same garbage that this anti-cop newspaper is known to write.

 The drama created by the headline alone was intentionally designed to evoke emotion. Using words like “deadliest” and phrases like “killings by police” implies that the police did something wrong. In the opening paragraph the writer indicates that, “the US set another grim record last year as the number of people killed by police continued its steady increase”.The story points out that, there were only 14 days without a police killing last year and on average, law enforcement officers killed someone every 6.6 hours. What is that supposed to mean? And of course, the report points out that the victims, “include people of color, people with mental health problems”.

 The report reaches for old reliable when it comes to why these numbers continue to climb while crime slightly declined. What correlation those two things have? And predictably, the first thing that everybody reaches for is police training. In my view, training is so misunderstood. You can have police officers sit in a classroom all day at the police academy and train them on a particular subject but if those skills are not repeatedly applied in the field they diminish over time. For example, take any skill like hitting a golf shot. A golfer hits thousands of shots on the practice range but if they did not repeatedly hit those practiced shots their “training” would diminish over time. Cops do not get to repeatedly apply their training in the field. Ask yourself how many deadly force situations arise during a typical tour of duty. Seldom.

 So, we then expect them to immediately dial up their training and apply it during situations that are tense, uncertain and rapidly evolving. We are talking about split second decisions. Most of an officer's decision to use deadly force is instinctive. There is rarely time for a discussion with the person. The training is usually in the controlled environment of a classroom. The director of the Police Executive Research Forum Chuck Wexler, says that police agencies are, “working off of outdated antiquated training and that until the training changes and until the culture with it changes, that number is going to be way too high”. But he didn’t say what number of police deadly use of force incidents would be acceptable. Neither did the so-called research expert who was interviewed.

 This inflammatory news story was a big swing and a miss to use a baseball analogy. In fact, it failed miserable in terms of giving the reader information with which they could objectively on their own come to conclusions about police use of force. The most important information that was left out was that they failed to indicate what the victims were doing at the time of the police encounter. Were they armed or were they in the middle of the commission of a crime? If also failed to indicate what threat they posed to police? Did they refuse police lawful commands, and did they resist the officer’s attempt to take them into custody? This is pertinent information when analyzing data. But for this agenda driven newspaper, the total number of 1,329 who died by police use of force sounds more dramatic. In 2022, 1,250 people died by police use of force. That means the increase actually amounted to 79 more than the previous year. That is not way outside the average. Indicating that number would not capture people’s imaginations enough to even bother reading the story. Breaking down this data further might show that most of these were ruled justifiable and only a handful of these incidents even warrant further scrutiny but then it would not be a headline above the fold USA Today story.

 Here, in my view is why the police use of force cannot be reduced by some artificial intervention. Police officers don’t determine when to use force in a vacuum. It is determined by the actions of the person they are confronting. We can apply all the trining we want to police but we need to try a different model because people are working on the wrong thing. How about training the public what to do in these situations? How about reminding the public that they have a duty, an obligation to comply with police lawful commands. We cannot just train one side and expect outcomes to be different. Stop trying to fix the police. Fix society.

Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. is former Sheriff of Milwaukee Co, Wisconsin, President of America’s Sheriff LLC, President of Rise Up Wisconsin INC, Board member of the Crime Research Center, author of the book Cop Under Fire: Beyond Hashtags of Race Crime and Politics for a Better America. To learn more visit www.americassheriff.com