A CAMPAIGN OF MENACE

There are many facets to warfare strategies that are applied on the political battlefield. In his book, On War, General Carl von Clausewitz, a military theorist, famously wrote that war is a political act. He defines war as nothing more than a duel, an attempt to bend your adversary to your will.

Now why am I using war as a metaphor in this instance? Since the ugly days following a police use of force in Ferguson, Missouri, when suspect Mike Brown was in the act of disarming Officer Darren Wilson, the phrase War on Cops entered the American lexicon. I first used it in December of 2014 in several columns I authored. Other noted writers and researchers have used the phrase as well. I stay away from using hyperbole to make a point. Instead, I explain what I mean when I use certain language and I will do that here.

Using war theorist von Clausewitz’s military references on the use of war as a political instrument, the case can be made that it has been the objective of the Black Lives Matter movement to make policing, law and order, the rule of law, the Constitution and criminal justice system incapable of functioning properly. It is a counter-active force to keeping the peace. Everything that BLM advances or tries to achieve has one goal, to make it impossible for police to do their job and get the police to do their will. Think about their tactics. They want to defund and abolish the police. They attempt to re-imagine policing by tying the hands of officers in the field. They have gotten city councils to ban the use of tools like tear gas, rubber bullets and no-knock search warrants and taken away qualified immunity for officers. The post examination of the use of force is done not by the legal standards of Supreme Court decision or agency policies but rather examining use of that force through the political lens of 20/20 hindsight and second guessing about decisions made under circumstances that are tense, uncertain and rapidly evolving. Add politically active state prosecutors and the leftist media to the mix and it demonstrates that indeed war had been declared on the American police officer and the police are outgunned (resourced) in this fight. The question then becomes how you fight a war when your opponent, in this case the city, state prosecutor, Black Lives Matter and a host of others like professional sports leagues and the leftist media are all against you?

You fight a guerrilla type war. You conduct a campaign of menace. What does that look like? You have to use unconventional tactics and go at them asymmetrically. Metaphorically, guerrilla warfare tactics are what you use when your tools and resources do not match your opponents.

The first objective in this fight is for police to choose the battlefield that maximizes their chances at winning and reduces the ability of the city, county or state to effectively use their vast resource advantage. The theater of operations that would benefit police agencies in my view is the courts. Why? Because for the most part the only thing that matters in a court of law is the rule of law and facts, not the amplified voices of the cop haters looking for revenge or the misinformation put out by the media.

Several law enforcement unions have taken this fight to the courts. Filing lawsuits is an effective tactic usually used by the cop-hating crowd. It’s time for police unions to do the same.

Recently in a lawsuit filed by a citizen group on the escalating crime and violence since a defund movement by the Minneapolis city council reduced the size of the agency below city charter levels, a Hennepin County judge in a ruling on the suit mandated that the city council and Mayor Jacob Frey hire 730 sworn officers by June of 2022. Good luck with that Mayor Frey, as your assault on the integrity, service and sacrifice has led to a mass exodus of officers due to retirement and resignation. Recruiting has become impossible. With what is going on nationally in this war on police, who would choose this profession as a career?

In another counter-attack by a police union, the Connecticut State Police Union is suing in federal court to declare parts of the state’s new police accountability law unconstitutional as it pertains to public disclosure of troopers’ personnel files because it violates their collective bargaining agreement that says when an internal affairs investigation ends in an acquittal of the officer, the personnel file is not subject to the state’s open records disclosure laws. Again, the goal using guerrilla-type warfare tactics is to make things messy for your opponent and fight in ways they are uncomfortable with. Make them have to work harder than they anticipated, and as war strategy expert von Clausewitz wrote, bring your opponent to do your will. Most government lawyers did not graduate at the top of their law school class. They are not that good, which is why they work in government and not at some prestigious private law firm where they would have to actually work. They do not look forward to being in court where their limitations are exposed. Settlements are preferred by government lawyers.

The best case I have seen to date is in Palo Alto, California, where five officers have sued the city saying that Palo Alto allowed the creation of a Black Lives Matter mural with anti-police images that constitute harassment and discrimination against law enforcement. The mural includes a picture of convicted cop killer Joanne Chesimard, who killed New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerester in 1973. She was convicted and sent to prison, where she escaped and currently lives in Cuba. The mural also includes the logo of the New Black Panther Party which is identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group that encourages violence against police. The lawsuit said that law enforcement officers are forced to physically pass and confront the mural and that it is offensive, and discriminatory to walk past the mural every time they enter the Palo Alto Police Department building. The officers should make mental health disability claims against the city as well.

Remember. The goal is to conduct a campaign of menace and wear the opponent down. Always play the long game.

Sheriff David Clarke Jr. is former Sheriff of Milwaukee Co, Wisconsin, President of AmericasSheriff LLC, 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

ENOUGH CONDESCENSION: RURAL AMERICAN'S ARE INGENIOUS, IMAGINATIVE AND INNOVATIVE

Vice President Kamala Harris was widely criticized after suggesting it may be "almost impossible" for people living in rural communities to make photocopies of their IDs.

The vice president made the remarks during an interview with Soledad O'Brien for Black Entertainment Television News. Harris told O'Brien that she asked President Joe Biden to lead his administration's efforts to protect voting rights because the issue is "so fundamental." Asked if she would possibly support compromising on voter ID laws, Harris replied: "I don't think that we should underestimate what that could mean.”

"Because in some people's mind, that means well, you're going to have to Xerox or photocopy your ID to send it in to prove you are who you are. Well, there are a whole lot of people, especially people who live in rural communities, who don't ... there's no Kinkos, there's no OfficeMax near them."

What? The fact is that rural folks are accustomed to doing more with less in an ambitious and ingenious fashion. Kinko’s hasn’t existed anywhere since 2008. Has the vice president never heard of digital imaging, websites and apps such as GotFreeFax.com, CamScanner and a multitude of available printer/scanner/copiers for the home or office use?

In fact, many big city folk are fleeing in increasingly large numbers to the greener pastures of a rural small town honest to goodness way of life, away from idiocy and the radical ideologies fostering lawlessness and fueled by the unrealistic expectations of entitlement. The benefits of rural American life far outweigh any obstacles encountered. Respect and standing in the community is earned here. It’s somewhere where the Joe Biden's and Kamala Harris' of the world would not have been able to continually fail upward.

Harris continued: "People have to understand when we're talking about voter ID laws, be clear about who you have in mind and what would be required of them to prove who they are. Of course people have to prove who they are, but not in a way that makes it almost impossible for them to prove who they are."

Perhaps then the vice president should have a serious talk with her social media buddies at Facebook. When the Facebook policy on paid boosts addressing topics deemed to be inclusive of “politics and issues of national importance” was implemented, Facebook required verification of a US residential mailing address through utilization of what it called “trusted sources.” In all the years I had been on Facebook, my location of residence was never before questioned. However, I had to engage in a lengthy dispute with Facebook over the validity of my US residential address when it refused to validate it as a legitimate American and West Virginia address.

A quick Google search would not only verify the existence of my home but the fact that I really do reside here. It is the address of record on both my valid West Virginia Driver’s License (of which I provided digital copies to Facebook) and my Federal Communications Commission Amateur Radio License. Even the Google car found my home a few years back photographing my property for inclusion on Google Maps! (Perhaps the Silicon Valley types neglected to be aware that West Virginia IS in fact a state?)

I kept getting the same automated response touting Facebook’s mandated approval process ignoring the issue of overcoming their unwillingness to recognize my address in my home state of residence. Each time I continued the appeal process I received a response categorizing the case as “closed.” Hence, my attempts to complete authorization to run ads related to my promotion, which had a conservative law enforcement theme, were stymied unnecessarily until finally resolved after much time and effort being consumed on my part.

The Biden administration and their allies would be well-served to learn to respect rural Americans. Personally, I found my Mayberry over 25 years ago and am glad to have left behind the big city life. We do not do without here, finding ways to overcome all obstacles and challenges. We collectively enjoy our freedoms and respect our proud and diversified cultural heritages all while taking personal responsibility and honoring family values.

It’s “Almost Heaven.”

Joel E. Gordon is a former Field Training Officer with the Baltimore City Police Department and is a past Chief of Police for the city of Kingwood, West Virginia. He has also served as vice-chair of a multi-jurisdictional regional narcotics task force. An award winning journalist, he is author of the book Still Seeking Justice: One Officer's Story and founded the Facebook group Police Authors Seeking Justice. Look him up at stillseekingjustice.com

VIEWPOINT: Suburbanites care about cities, too

“Every mind is a clutter of memories, images, inventions and age-old repetitions. It can be a ghetto, too, if a ghetto is a sealed-off, confined place. Or a sanctuary, where one is free to dream and think whatever one wants. For most of us it's both - and a lot more complicated.” - Margo Jefferson

It wasn’t all that long ago that then-Baltimore City Council President Jack Young, angered that 80% of police don’t live in Baltimore, reportedly said that Baltimore Police Department officers are “raping the city” by not residing in the city of Baltimore.

When politicians and community activists make claims that too many city police officers are from areas outside the city are they, as they often seem to do, rushing to judgment? Here's my true story along with a little of my Baltimore family history.

Upon becoming another young white suburban police officer assigned to the predominantly African-American Western police district in the early 1980s at my own request, I'm sure that it appeared to most that I fit the racially biased stereotype of another out-of-place suburbanite in the big city. I graduated from Baltimore County's suburban Towson High School in 1977.

However, there is more to my story and heritage than meets the eye. In fact, my grandfather, D.L. Gordon, owned and operated a custom men's clothing tailoring shop at 1527 West Baltimore Street in West Baltimore during the Great Depression. I was aware of this fact when I worked that area of the Western in what was by then considered to be a part of the high-crime area of the south central western district. My roots gave me a sense of belonging, as this area is a part of my past.

Later in my career, I was assigned the affluent Roland Park neighborhood in the Baltimore’s Northern Police District. In 1935, my dad graduated ninth grade from Roland Park Junior High School which was a part of my area of responsibility in the later '80s. My dad went on to graduate from City College High School around the same time that future Baltimore Mayor and Maryland Gov. William Donald Schaefer did. More roots.

Not to mention the fact that during my early years I grew up in the city's Northern Police District in an apartment complex (until age 11 when my parents bought their home in the suburbs in the Baltimore County neighborhood of Rodgers Forge just north of the Baltimore City line). My elementary school years were spent in Baltimore city's Leith Walk Elementary school.

So, in fact, my family and I were products of the city of Baltimore for these and other reasons, not the least of which is my godfather and uncle’s endowment with its largest gift to his alma mater, the University of Baltimore. The Yale Gordon College of Arts and Sciences and the University’s Gordon Plaza are named for him.

Although I now reside in West Virginia, I continue to care deeply for the success of the city as expressed in my published memoir, "Still Seeking Justice: One Officer's Story." I have continually learned through social media that many other retired and present-day Baltimore police officers share similar experiences and family histories to mine and will always care deeply about Baltimore and its future, too.

This is not about race at all to me as “progressives” often wish to make it to be. To those who see things in racial terms, please don't judge me, my family's or others' commitment to our cities. We surely care more about the present and future for cities such as Baltimore than do many of the self-serving politicians and appointees who have taken more from our cities than they have given as evidenced by their results, or should I say lack thereof.

In the spirit of opening our minds, hearts and intellectual abilities to look at our world in an open and productive manner, it is time to eradicate the confines of an oversimplified thought process and once again value our individual character and ability to see the world as it truly is minus unnecessary limitations and views which can only serve to stymie real positive progress moving forward.

Joel E. Gordon is a former Field Training Officer with the Baltimore City Police Department and is a past Chief of Police for the city of Kingwood, West Virginia. He has also served as vice-chair of a multi-jurisdictional regional narcotics task force. An award winning journalist, he is author of the book Still Seeking Justice: One Officer's Story and founded the Facebook group Police Authors Seeking Justice. Look him up at stillseekingjustice.com

Black Lives Matter Founder’s Mea Culpa Not Enough

As I write this column, the city of Minneapolis is once again experiencing riots following a fatal police use of force when officers from a US Marshals service task force confronted an armed suspect who failed to comply with the officers’ lawful commands once again to take him into custody. The investigation is still ongoing but rather than wait for all the facts to come out, cop-hating agitators from Black Lives Matter took to the streets and rioted. This has become the automatic default from these goons. Before learning what happened, they simply react to circumstances. They do this in part because they know they can riot, loot businesses, burn things down and destroy property with impunity because of ineffective tactics employed by law enforcement that would prevent property damage and preserve the peace because they have been neutered by feckless police commanders with hold the line and stand down orders.

According to the Minnesota State Bureau of Criminal Apprehension that is conducting the investigation, several law enforcement groups involved in the task force were pursuing who they described as a “fugitive” because of a felon in possession of a firearm case. The suspect’s family described him as a musician who appeared in comedy videos. They mentioned nothing of his violent criminal lifestyle that led him to becoming felon in the first place and therefore not eligible to even possess a firearm. That “community members” (read that to mean Black Lives Matter), continue to embrace these misfit criminals and hold them up as if they are people to be admired and role models on how to live your life is part of the cultural rot and cultural dysfunction that plagues the black community. As a black man myself, I find this shameful and embarrassing.

The irony is that this occurred on the day the city of Minneapolis began to dismantle a makeshift memorial in the intersection where George Floyd resisted arrest while geeked up on fatal levels of fentanyl and met his untimely demise. You may recall that this is the same George Floyd who did time in prison for a home invasion robbery where he held a loaded gun to the stomach of a pregnant woman while threatening to shoot her. It was a year ago when Floyd died and numerous Black Lives Matter and cop-hating advocates marked the day as if it was a national holiday. This made me want to puke. We should not use George Floyd as a marker for anything in the United States except maybe as a lesson on how not to lead your life. Referring to his death as an anniversary disparages the term. The death and destruction through rioting that followed his death is nothing I want to remember and the sooner we put Floyd in our collective rear view mirrors of life, the better off the nation will be.

That brings me to another story related to Black Lives Matter that begs for honest analysis. The founder of the St. Paul, Minnesota chapter of Black Lives Matter recently in a video announced that he was quitting the movement after learning what he called the “ugly truth” about the group’s priorities. While numerous conservative news cites fawned all over the opportunity to interview him, my reaction was, hold on just a dog-gone minute.

Let’s drill down into this mea culpa. Rashard Turner founded a chapter of BLM in St. Paul, Minnesota in 2015. That means he led and participated in the rioting that followed the death of George Floyd in neighboring Minneapolis. Those riots led to hundreds of billions of dollars in property damage, businesses and jobs lost and law enforcement officers attacked and injured. The only “ugly truth” about Black Lives Matter is that they have always stood for contempt and hate of police officers. They have advocated for the death of law enforcement officers and were the original architects of the defend and abolish the police movement leading to massive cuts in public safety budgets triggering spikes in violent crime in many major cities. BLM-inspired surrogates murdered two law enforcement officers in New York City in 2015, three officers from the Baton Rouge, Louisiana police department and five assassinated in Dallas, Texas in 2016. BLM supporters blocked the emergency entrance of a hospital as an ambulance carried a LA County Sheriff’s deputy who had been shot. The crowd cheered the shooting.

BLM is a Marxist movement that advocates for the destruction of the black nuclear family. BLM has always been a hateful racist movement. These have always been their priorities from the very beginning so when exactly did BLM St. Paul chapter founder Rashard Turner have this epiphany? Nobody interviewing him post epiphany bothered to ask him. Well, I am.

Rashard Turner has blood on his hands. The blood of police officers. He didn’t even have the decency to apologize for all the death and destruction caused by his founding a chapter of Black Lives Matter. If he wants to atone for his sins, he should start by opening up a GoFundMe account and begin raising money for all the business owners whose life fortunes were lost in the rioting in Minneapolis. He should go to the local and state police officer’s memorial monuments honoring cops killed in the line of duty and apologize and say a prayer, if he even prays. After all, Marxists are atheists. And he should invite the local media so all the other scumbags from Black Lives Matter can witness it. This would be just a start. He has a lot of penance to do.

Rashard Turner has in no way atoned for his creation of a movement of hate. He has not yet comprehended the error of his ways. He’s an opportunist and still a dirtbag.

Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. is former Sheriff of Milwaukee Co, Wisconsin, President of AmericasSheriff LLC, 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

Lessons Learned: Paying it forward

It has been said that the more things change the more things stay the same. I am often reminded that we have experienced more change in most of our lifetimes than any previous generation, or many generations put together for that matter, due primarily to rapid fire technological advancements.

And change, even technological changes for the better, are hard. Just ask my longtime veteran officer colleague and friend. After realizing that his small town police department must modernize into the computer era and dedicating time to update his own level of computer knowledge, he was met with resistance from his fellow department members.

But technology aside, the human experience hasn’t really changed much has it? It was a real blessing when I was given the opportunity to work for a former Baltimore city police officer during my own teen years spent in retail in an era long past. I was already convinced that I wanted to become a police officer myself and the stories and shared experiences told to me solidified my desire even further.

Years later, I was assigned a criminal justice student as a ride along participant and shared my stories and experiences with him in the process. He too, went on to become a Baltimore city police officer as I had done.

As I get older, in spite of the constant change, I am fully aware that our fundamental human needs of affection, belonging and recognition remain the same.

This takes me even further back to my own childhood in the mid to late 1960’s. For the first eleven years of my lifetime I was raised in an apartment complex. The neighbors above us (with whom we shared a telephone “party-line”) were a sister and her two brothers who lived in one apartment together. We affectionately referred to them as Miss Smith, Mr. Smith the mailman (a postal carrier) and Mr. Smith the fisherman (a retired commercial fisherman and boat captain).

As a pre-teen and over the course of many warm and sunny days during several seasons of both the spring and summer I developed quite a relationship with Mr. Smith the fisherman. As my tanned and wrinkled friend would set up his folding lawn chair in the grass in front of our building (in preparation to feeding the squirrels peanuts in the shell) I would be riding my bicycle around the sidewalks of our outdoor courtyard within his view. I would frequently stop and talk to him learning about his lifetime and lessons learned as I provided to him a view of the world from the eyes of a then seven, eight or nine year old. I then would ask “Do you want to see me ride my bike?” and as he would shake his head yes he would watch me take off around and around our courtyard once again. Those precious memories of time spent with my friend Mr. Smith the fisherman has stayed with me all of these some fifty plus years later.

Now fast forward to more recent times. I found that I had become the “Mr. Smith the fisherman” in the life of a young man who likes to talk to me as I share tales of my lifetime and lessons

learned and as he confided his view of the world through his then seven year old eyes to me. Then he would go off as I watched him and my grandchildren play together. I did this with great admiration and joy. I bet Mr. Smith the fisherman must have experienced the same sense of joy with me. I can see that now.

Sometimes, the daily ins and outs of life tend to get us down. In a world full of constant change and turmoil it is our traditional values, basic human needs and special times shared that will surely see us through. Although law enforcement is suffering tough times right now, it is my hope that shared experiences of making a positive difference will win the day in the eyes and desires of our generations both young and old. May every child or retiree have or become a “Mr. Smith the fisherman” or encouraging police veteran in their lifetime. It is what really matters in the large scheme of things. It turns out that in many respects the more things change the more things stay the same after all.

Joel E. Gordon is a former Field Training Officer with the Baltimore City Police Department and is a past Chief of Police for the Preston County seat of Kingwood, West Virginia. He has also served as vice-chair of a multi-jurisdictional regional narcotics task force. An award winning journalist, he is author of the book Still Seeking Justice: One Officer's Story and founded the Facebook group Police Authors Seeking Justice. Look him up at stillseekingjustice.com

Police Executives Continue to Lick Cop Hater’s Boots

Police chiefs have reached a new low in being accomplices in the War on Cops with the revelation that law enforcement officers all across the country are being disciplined, up to and including suspensions, demotion and dismissal from the service, for expressing on their own time and on their own social media sites, posts expressing a dislike for the cop hating scumbags from Black Lives Matter (BLM). I called them scumbags, not the officers who posted.

Here is a sample of what officers have posted on social media about Black Lives Matter according to a Washington Times news story. Two officers in New Jersey have been fired or demoted for calling BLM, terrorists. In one post, one of New Jersey’s finest was investigated by her agency for denouncing BLM tactics and called them terrorists. Another officer from the same agency “liked” the post and offered support for her colleague’s post. Even though the agency took no action, a town committee fired one of the officers and demoted a sergeant for calling out local politicians who sided with rioters. The chief did not back the officers. The chief should have exercised leadership here and refused to carry out the town committee’s obviously retaliatory firing and offered his own resignation instead. Now that would have been an act of courage, but I digress.

In another instance, an officer from the Bellevue, Idaho Marshals’ Office was suspended for a week for a posting calling out NBA basketball star LeBron James after he put out a tweet regarding an Ohio officer who used deadly force on a knife-wielding suspect who was attempting to stab another girl. James posted the officer’s picture in the post with the sentence, “You’re next, #Accountability.” He deleted the post from his account that has fifty million followers. The damage had been done and he knows it.

And in yet another incident, a Norfolk, Virginia police lieutenant anonymously donated to a defense fund for a man, who in an act of self-defense, shot and killed two suspects and wounded another during a riot in Kenosha, Wisconsin last summer. The man was charged and is awaiting trial. The lieutenant did use a city email address but did not identify himself or the agency. He wrote that the rank and file were behind his claim of self-defense. After what the police union said was a cursory investigation, the officer was fired.

A Los Angeles Police Dept. officer shared a meme on Valentine’s Day that had a picture of George Floyd with the caption, “You take my breath away.” He didn’t create the meme, he shared it. Should he have used better judgment? Of course. Should he be fired? Absolutely not, but LAPD Chief Michel Moore wants the officer fired. A reprimand would be in order here but again, Chief Moore’s moral preening and virtue signaling is more important to him than having his officers’ backs. George Floyd unfortunately has been elevated to icon status. This is the creep who held a loaded gun to the stomach of a pregnant woman in a home invasion robbery looking for drugs and money. He served eight years in prison. George Floyd’s death has caused enough damage and destruction all across the United States. He was involved in a criminal act, geeked up on fatal levels of fentanyl and not complying with an officer’s lawful commands to take him into custody. Chief Moore using the career of one of his officers as cannon fodder is disgraceful.

One defense attorney was quoted as saying, “You shouldn’t have officers sounding off on political issues.” He went on to say that, “Officers, have to represent and protect everyone in the community, and how are you going to be able to do that effectively in a majority-black city if you’re posting anti-Black Lives Matter stuff?” He cites no example where police have refused to serve and protect. He also does not point out that BLM is a Marxist movement that advocates for the killing of police officers.

Now let me stop there for a moment to sound off on that claim by a defense lawyer. As to whether or not officers will protect everyone in the community regardless of their personal feelings, this defense lawyer needs to be reminded that five, count them five Dallas police officers were ambushed and killed with another nine wounded in 2016 while working to protect Black Lives Matter sympathizers at a protest. They were killed by a Black Lives Matter sniper. How is that for protecting everyone in the community?

Two New York police officers were assassinated in a New York City borough as they sat in their cruiser, serving and protecting a very diverse population. In Los Angeles, two LA sheriff’s deputies were ambushed and shot as they sat in their cruiser serving and protecting a very diverse community in Los Angeles. They were rushed to an area hospital and were met by a group of BLM sympathizers who blocked the emergency entrance at the hospital not letting the ambulance through while shouting anti police slogans.

Their have been no reports or accusations that police are refusing to serve minority communities in spite of this hateful BLM movement. Officers have been spit on, have had rocks and bottles thrown at them along with urine- and feces-filled balloons and shot at as they are ordered to “stand down” while protecting a diverse group of people as they protest and even riot.

There is obviously a need for law enforcement executives to be able to set standards for off-duty conduct. In fact, there are court cases allowing it. As a former elected sheriff responsible for the good order of the service, a balance needs to be struck on this, however. It should be narrowly applied. I read all the posts referenced in the previously mentioned cases. None of what was posted in my view was over the top nor did it discredit their agency. In fact, I feel the same way about BLM that they do. If this was brought to my attention, I would not have ordered an “investigation.” This didn’t warrant an “investigation.” I would have called the officers in and told them to be careful what they post on social media. I would have ordered that a memo to go out to the entire agency reminding them of the good order of the service because the cop haters are on the prowl and looking to take them out through internal discipline. The end. A verbal warning would be appropriate. Suspension, firing and demotion for this is overkill and unnecessary. It is nothing more than virtue signaling trying to appease the cop-hating goons. It doesn’t work.

Our officers are under tremendous stress. They are working long hours due to riots, defunding efforts and short staffing due to retirements and resignations. It is affecting their mental health and quality of life outside work. These are human beings, not drones. Don’t these feckless police chiefs realize that? Do they even care? Our cops need a release from time to time and some empathy from their top commanders. Maybe if law enforcement executives said something that pushes back against the cop haters of Black Lives Matter, rank and file cops would not feel a need to spout off in their own defense.

Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. is former Sheriff of Milwaukee Co, Wisconsin, President of AmericasSheriff LLC, 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

CIVIL UNREST: IS THIS THE PURGE

The Purge is an American media franchise centered on a series of films which present a seemingly normal, crime-free America in the near future. But the truth is that the country portrayed is a dystopia which celebrates an annual national holiday known as a pretty terrifying concept called the Purge: one night a year where all crime is legal, where murder, torture, rape and theft are all allowed as a form of a societal safety valve. It seemed farfetched to me that such a condition could ever exist in the United States of America, but are the radical left seeking anarchy toward an actual, more permanent purge?

Frequent civil unrest with many being allowed to riot, loot and burn structures with government officials backing down and allowing unlawful activity and violence to take place, often with little or no consequence, emboldens the participants. With no bail, bail reform, non-prosecutions and sanctioned prisoner release by an ever-increasing number of George Soros-funded “prosecuting” attorneys, is the purge coming to a town near you? These realities combined with media manipulation of truth and questioned election oversight and rules violations make law-abiding citizens feel as though there no longer is any rule of law being enforced on any level. Now lawlessness on both sides seems as though it is justifiable in the mindset of an ever-growing portion of our population, seemingly by even those who have “played by the rules” as law-abiding members of society in the past.

Add policing which is largely unrecognizable with stand-downs and poor operational and enforcement choices further fueling the disenfranchisement of many from seeing the need to surrender to authority in their thoughts and actions. And the waters are further muddied with confusion over enforcement of law versus Executive Order “mandates.” Further, serious national security concerns on Chinese influence over our officials and institutions add another layer of doubt and fear.

What are the ramifications? When the late Rush Limbaugh noted that America was “trending toward secession,” he said “I see more and more people asking, what in the world do we have in common with the people who live in, say, New York? There cannot be a peaceful coexistence of two completely different theories of life, theories of government, and theories of how we manage our affairs. We can’t be in this dire a conflict without something giving somewhere along the way. And I know that there’s a sizable and growing sentiment for people who believe that that is where we’re headed, whether we want to or not — whether we want to go there or not. I myself haven’t made up my mind. I still haven’t given up the idea that we are the majority and that all we have to do is find a way to unite and win.”

People from all over the country showed their support, taking part in rallies calling for greater transparency in government and elections moving forward. Many expressed that our election process was being handled improperly, and in some cases fraudulently. Some are optimistic that the tide will turn, however, including some high-profile supporters.

“Courts do not decide who the president of the United States will be,” said former national security adviser Michael Flynn. “We are in a crucible moment in the history of the United States of America,” he added. Flynn called himself a “product of an unjust system” and said the battle for honest elections “is about the fabric of the Constitution of the United States of America.”

Texas GOP Party Chairman Allen West noted that when the Supreme Court tossed out a Texas election lawsuit which was joined by 17 states, 106 U.S. congressmen and the former president himself over election practices and irregularities that in his view the decision establishes a precedent that states can violate the United States Constitution and not be held accountable.

He went on to say “Perhaps law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of States that will abide by the constitution.”

So where is this all heading? Have we forsaken the rule of law in favor of choosing sides with “every man for himself?” Who can you trust when social order collapses? Is this the purge?

It’s essential that real leaders emerge and step up to curtail our journey on this road less traveled. In the alternative, it appears that conflict will continue on our land in crisis resulting in further chaos. We must act intelligently, admit our past mistakes, correct them and move forward.

Joel E. Gordon is a former Field Training Officer with the Baltimore City Police Department and is a past Chief of Police for the city of Kingwood, West Virginia. He has also served as vice-chair of a multi-jurisdictional regional narcotics task force. An award winning journalist, he is author of the book Still Seeking Justice: One Officer's Story and founded the Facebook group Police Authors Seeking Justice. Look him up at stillseekingjustice.com

LEADING POLICE TO SLAUGHTER IN D.C.

I sit here shaking my head as I read a Washington, D.C., news story that talks about launching yet again a summer initiative designed to reduce crime in economically depressed areas of our nation’s capital. I don’t sugarcoat like left-leaning newspaper writers. I call these areas the American ghetto. These are the sections of urban cities predominantly controlled by progressive elected officials whose failed liberal policies keep these areas mired in crime and violence, poverty, inadequate housing, failing schools and unemployment. These neighborhoods are occupied by predominantly black residents with a spattering of Hispanics. And the conditions never change even after spending billions of dollars to improve things.

The news story points out that, “For nearly 11 years, the MPD (Metropolitan Police Dept.) has identified areas of the city that have experienced a high density of violence and utilized all available resources … to prevent crime in those focused areas during the summer months.” D.C Mayor Muriel Bowser went on to say that, “We bring the Summer Crime Prevention Initiative back each year because the data shows it drives down crime.” Let me comment on those statements. First of all if they have to keep bringing it back each year for 11 consecutive years, that tells me that it doesn’t work. It is really just a Band-Aid on something that requires major surgery. It appears to me and anybody else that can see right through the spin that the only thing that saves them is the cold winters in Washington. That is when the street crime and violence subside. The cold weather is their best crime reduction strategy.

Maybe Mayor Bowser will one day get a clue and realize that her failed liberal policies are the reason that there is no sustainable end to the high crime and violence. Her policies in fact encourage a continuation of the urban pathologies that lead to crime, violence and disorder like single-parent households with no fathers around, school failure, drug and alcohol abuse, joining gangs and other questionable lifestyle choices. These are the ingredients that lead to crime and violence leading to a need for more police and more police interaction. To the mayor’s credit, she does not support defunding police. Her problem is getting the D.C. City Council on board with that. They approved a $15 million cut to the police budget and reallocated that money to fund alternative programs.

Folks, that’s a problem. Most law enforcement agencies are underfunded to begin with. The other important element to successful policing requires full political support including from the prosecutor’s office. The D.C. City Council, in addition to cutting the police budget, passed a resolution to reduce police staffing from its current compliment of 3,863 and cap it at 3,500.This is all in response to demands by Black Lives Matter.

The job is tough enough as it is. Sending police into high-crime areas comes with a lot of high risk for officers. Sending them on a mission that necessitates high-risk activity without the necessary resources is sending them on a suicide mission. Only aggressive policing reduces crime and disorder. Activities like stop, question and frisk, a high volume of traffic stops and quality of life enforcement are the tactics needed to get guns out of the hands of career criminals and arrests to get them and keep them off the street. That, along with the will of the prosecutors to charge and hold them on high bail, will work. Any talk about second chance program, no bail and de-incarceration are failed policies. Jails and prisons are an effective crime control tool. When repeat career criminals are not on the streets, neighborhoods become more livable and safer places to be.

There is another important element to these targeted patrols that the MPD chief talks about. With more police/criminal interaction comes the potential for conflict. Perps today are more emboldened to resist police, fight with police and flee from police. Every high-profile police use of force over the last 5 years involved one of these situations of failing to abide by the lawful commands of a law enforcement officer. All of these incidents are now ripe for politicization. Politically active prosecutors now respond to demands of Black Lives Matter for officers to be charged with a felony. Spineless police executives are quick on the trigger to fire an officer to appease the demands of an angry mob. Due process be damned. In a flash, an officer’s career can be over. And they can face criminal prosecution for an incident that was not of their choosing. A perpetrators unlawful action caused an officer to react.

Law enforcement officers are under tremendous strain today. They are working long hours, they are attacked in ambush-style incidents, they are doxed on social media, BLM marauders show up at their homes to intimidate them and their families. Additionally, many states are moving toward the elimination of qualified immunity protection that protects officer’s personal assets from civil liability.  Then there is the issue of an officer’s mental health. Police suicides are at an all-time high and continue to rise. Not enough is being done to address this dilemma. 

It is with all this in mind that I call D.C. Metro Police Chief Robert Contee’s directive to send police into high-crime areas this summer after all that has happened to the police profession over the last 5 years an act of sending them to slaughter. He has not done his job of getting them the resources, giving them the complete authority to use all reasonable tactics to keep themselves safe from attack, the promise of the prosecutor’s office to charge criminals and ask for high bail to keep them locked up. I see no sign that he will have their backs.

The union representing the MPD should demand these assurances from Chief Contee. If he refuses, the union should advise their officers to proceed with caution, do the minimal and not to take any unnecessary risks. The hell with crime rates. Let Bowser, BLM and Contee deal with that.

It is no longer worth it.

Sheriff David Clarke Jr. is former Sheriff of Milwaukee Co, Wisconsin, President of AmericasSheriff LLC, 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

UNWISE: OVERPLAYING YOUR HAND

“Authority has every reason to fear the skeptic, for authority can rarely survive in the face of doubt.” - Vita Sackville-West

Overplaying one’s hand originated as a card-playing term. In a game such as poker or bridge every player is dealt a "hand" of cards at the beginning of the game and must decide how best to "play their hand" meaning how to use their cards to maximum advantage to win the game. If you err on the side of overconfidence and try to win in ways that your hand really isn't good enough to win, and lose as a result, you are said to have overplayed your hand.

So from there it is easy to understand the figurative use. If you are trying to score in some arena other than a card game, you are still figuratively trying to do the best you can to get your way or make your point with the hand you have been dealt. Those are your assets. Play them right and you will perhaps win whatever advantage or score you were looking for. If you attribute to them greater truth in meaning than they have, and become overconfident, you may end up being discredited, having overplayed your hand.

While playing a game with cards, it may be advantageous to “bluff” your way to making others surrender in the belief that you possess a winning hand; in the real world there is less room to rely on misinformation, deception or insincere practices.

Look at the job performance of Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, from his 15 days to slow the spread over one year ago to a seemingly never-ending cycle of changed viewpoints on everything from continuation of lockdowns, to effectiveness of treatments and specific medications, to when a COVID vaccine could or would be available, to the effectiveness and composition and number of masks to be worn (or not), to changes on guidance for social distancing, deep cleaning protocols, and on and on, causing a most predictable questioning of the validity of his breadth of knowledge and his ultimate motives. Now, by overplaying his hand before he apparently had sufficient evidence based upon true scientific fact, he has been consistently losing credibility.

If a police officer or official was as unclear in their direction, can you imagine the result in critical situations? In this day and age of de-escalation, I learned early on in my career to avoid

unnecessary escalation in dealing with uncooperative individuals who were unlawfully breaching the peace. Often times, these were individuals who were nonviolent but for whatever reasons simply angered and upset. The natural tendency for an inexperienced or rookie officer in these situations is to immediately threaten arrest for noncompliance. Once that threat is made however, all other options are off the table unless willing to lose all credibility in the eyes of the violator, further validating their noncompliance and underlying reason for it. Instead, in a nonviolent encounter, veteran officers know to speak to people from a position of strength, empathy and understanding with a willingness to be of help as a way to gain compliance. Of course, when faced with an enraged violent perpetrator, safety must be of upmost concern and appropriate levels of physical force must be used to stop any threat.

Don’t be seen as a joker, hoaxer or clown

Does it seem as though some are simply drunk with power in the eyes of those who are being told what they must do? Today, too many dig in their heels and find themselves in the untenable position of defending the indefensible while overplaying their hand in error often with grave and unintended consequences. Remember, just because something is said doesn’t in and of itself make it so. Whether you are director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases or an officer on-the-beat, instruction and authoritative powers must be used judiciously to avoid a loss of credibility and ultimate control of the environment around you as we strive to work toward the common good.

Joel E. Gordon is a former Field Training Officer with the Baltimore City Police Department and is a past Chief of Police for the city of Kingwood, West Virginia. He has also served as vice-chair of a multi-jurisdictional regional narcotics task force. An award winning journalist, he is author of the book Still Seeking Justice: One Officer's Story and founded the Facebook group Police Authors Seeking Justice. Look him up at stillseekingjustice.com

A City's misuse Of Police

As sheriff, I would constantly remind county officials that when they look at a law enforcement officer, they should see with pay and benefits, a roughly six-figured taxpayer resource. It is one of the most expensive resources that local governments have. That means that it should be used sparingly and for a narrowly defined purpose. Police are intended to do two main functions. Preserve the peace and enforce the law. Any use outside that should be resisted by law enforcement executives.

We are at a point in society where police are used for a plethora of things outside their intended purpose. Officers are sent to just about everything today. When people don’t know what to do about a particular thing, their first thought is, call the police. A dog left tied up outside that continually barks, call the police. Somebody gets locked out of their car or home, call the police. Somebody illegally parked, call the police. And it doesn’t stop here.

I want to take you back to a high-profile incident in New York City several years ago that turned deadly. A man named Eric Garner was selling individual cigarettes on the street called loosies. Business owners called police because it was undercutting their ability to sell full packs of cigarettes, thereby costing them revenue. I get that. It however is not a police matter. It is a New York State Department of Revenue issue. It’s a tax stamp violation. Police were sent to handle it. Why? Using police as Department of Revenue officials was a bad idea. The precinct commander should have called the Department of Revenue director and had him or her send their employees to the location to hand out a citation or summons to Eric Garner. Officers relied on one of the few options they possess. They tried to arrest Eric Garner, who resisted. Garner later died of a heart attack in addition to many other poor health issues. So Eric Garner ends up dead and at least one officer involved was terminated. All this over NYPD officers being misused as de facto state revenue inspectors. This isn’t the first time it has happened.

After the death of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, a Department of Justice investigation that followed showed that the city relied heavily on its police department, especially for generating revenue through police traffic enforcement. I don’t have much use for then-Attorney General Eric Holder’s report, but it did have a valid claim on the misuse of police for things beyond protecting the public. It said in part, that, “A community where local authorities consistently approached law enforcement not as a means for protecting public safety, but as a way to generate revenue.  A community where both policing and municipal court practices were found to disproportionately harm African American residents…and a community where all of these conditions, unlawful practices, and constitutional violations have not only severely undermined the public trust, eroded police legitimacy, and made local residents less safe – but created an intensely charged atmosphere where people feel under assault and under siege by those charged to serve and protect them. 

We continually ask officers to create and maintain good community relations. On the other hand, we ask them to engage in activities like giving them citations for picayune violations like parking meter violations. Nobody likes those. It leaves people resentful of police officers. How many times has an officer heard this: Don’t you have more important things to do? Many agencies have gotten away from officers looking out for and citing people for parking violations and the like, using civilian city employees to do that. Those functions should be expanded to include many things we currently send law enforcement officers to that are designed, not for order maintenance but to simply generate revenue.

I realize that traffic enforcement can yield at treasure trove of criminal activity. Officers can find prohibited persons illegally possessing guns, large amounts of illegal narcotics being moved and people wanted on serious felony warrants.

In the George Floyd case, Minneapolis officers were sent to the report of a guy passing a counterfeit $20 bill. Altering U.S. currency is a federal offense and the purview of the United States Secret Service. They should have been called to respond. But again. Don’t know who to call? Dial 911.

This issue came up in the recent police use of deadly force in Berkeley Center, Minnesota when the driver of a car, Duarte Wright, was pulled over for having expired registration plates and wait for this, having an air freshener tag dangling from his rear-view mirror. Sure, the driver was wanted for a felony warrant, but that was learned after the stop. The driver resisted arrest when one of the officers pulled what she thought was her Taser that mistakenly was her firearm and she shot and killed the driver. Over a traffic stop for dangling from the mirror air freshener? So Wright is dead and the officer has been charged with manslaughter and her 26-year career goes up in smoke. Wow.

Why am I focusing on this right now? Because this issue is part of the current attempt in the U.S. Congress to once again unnecessarily reform policing. HR 1280 in part addresses phasing out municipalities using traffic enforcement to derive a significant portion of their income from traffic fines. This increases police interaction that can turn deadly and sometimes over something as insignificant as vehicle mechanical issues. Why stop there? Let’s look at other misuses of police resources.

Can’t we avoid some of this? We should at least try for the sake of not the perpetrators but for the sake of the officers. Agencies should sit down and take an inventory of things that they currently have police handle and stop sending police resources to these things and find some other resource to handle it. Like we have done with traffic control, parking violations, loud music complaints and the like.

In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the city set up a Department of Neighborhood Resources where uniformed civilians respond to low-level and low-risk nuisance reports. It frees up the finite expensive resource of law enforcement officers for things like more time for preventive patrols in high crime areas and reducing response times for felony calls like robbery in progress or shots fired complaints.

I am an advocate of quality of life or order maintenance strategies. Let’s review what we are doing, however, to find a balance where both objectives can be met. Let’s find the sweet spot to reduce a police officer being used ineffectively, inefficiently, inappropriately and out of their realm of expertise that results in a bad outcome through no fault of the police. Otherwise, we will continue to be pushing back on the knee jerk response of calls to overhaul policing every time there is a police deadly use of force especially when it is done by agenda-driven two-bit politicians wanting to re-imagine, redefine and remake policing as they look to curry favor with cop-hating groups like Black Lives Matter and Antifa.

 David Clarke Jr. is former Sheriff of Milwaukee Co, Wisconsin, President of AmericasSheriff LLC, 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

HYPOCRISY: Who’s the “Lying Dog-Faced Pony Soldier” Now?

“I got involved in politics, to begin with because of civil rights and opposition to white supremacist, the Ku Klux Klan and the most dangerous people on America continue to exist. That is the greatest threat of terror in America, domestic terror. So I would make sure my Justice Department and the Civil Rights Division is focused heavily on those very folks. I would make sure we focus on how to deal with the rise of white supremacy. You see what’s happening the studies that are beginning to be done, maybe at your university as well, about the impact of former military, former police officers on the growth of white supremacy in some of these groups.” – President Joe Biden

When I heard former police officers and military veterans, some of the bravest and most dedicated members of our society in the protection of freedom and liberty, being accused of fueling hatred through belief in any sort of supremacy I was both angered and dismayed. I knew that the president of our United States was not speaking about me or the countless number of my colleagues who have selflessly given themselves to service of our nation, its communities and fellow Americans. This fails any fair-minded fact-checking criteria. Then this falsehood from President Biden about the recently enacted and updated Georgia election laws:

“What I’m worried about is how un-American this whole initiative is. It’s sick. It’s sick … deciding that you’re going to end voting at five o’clock when working people are just getting off work.”

Biden framed his complaint in terms of a detriment to working people. The law would “end voting at five o’clock when working people are just getting off work” or “ends voting hours early so working people can’t cast their vote after their shift is over.” In fact, under the new law, counties have the option to extend the voting hours so voters can start casting ballots as early as 7 a.m. and as late as 7 p.m. — the same as Election Day in Georgia. Moreover, an additional mandatory day of early voting on Saturday was added and two days of early voting on Sunday were codified as an option for counties. Somehow, inexplicably, Biden managed to turn that expansion into a restriction aimed at working people, calling it “among the outrageous parts” of the law, and for that the president earns four Pinocchios from the Washington Post newspaper fact-checkers.

The Georgia voting rights law is now being somehow touted as being inequitable. So in response and in the name of racial and social justice, Major League Baseball and a host of other companies are engaging in behaviors that are hurting the very people that they are claiming to support and protect. Case in point: “Woke” Major League Baseball moving its All-Star Game and player draft from a reportedly 51% Black Atlanta to Denver with a 76% population of persons categorized as white. The game's relocation is expected to deliver a severe economic blow to

Atlanta, reported to be in the $100 million range, where nearly 30% of businesses are said to be Black-owned. So who is being helped and who is being harmed? Talk about hypocrisy!

More mind-boggling hypocrisy:

By October 2021, I am being told, all of us will need to possess a federally approved “Real ID” to board any commercial flight or enter select federal buildings. Yet, it’s somehow discriminatory to ask for ID for voting purposes? Either identity is important or it is not, but the hypocrisy is astounding. MLB, Delta airlines and a host of other companies who themselves require IDs are incredibly taking a political position that proof of identity is unimportant because it is a potentially discriminatory practice? This is what George W. Bush once referred to as the soft bigotry of low expectations and is based upon prejudiced beliefs.

How have we gone from great efforts to reduce crime and enhance public safety through zero tolerance and broken windows policing to bail reform and diminished consequences for criminal activity and behaviors? While there may be middle ground found in criminal justice reforms, do truth, justice and public safety, important to the majority of law-abiding Americans, no longer have meaning to many of those in policy-making positions?

Why is it considered effective to have fencing, armed troops and barricades surrounding the Washington, D.C., Capitol district but not to protect our border against those with potentially hostile intent against our nation and its sovereignty? It has been reported that dangerous criminals and potential terrorists are coming across our now-softened southern border with Mexico. Have we forgotten the global threats that we should have tragically learned from in our post-9/11 world?

How long will we as a nation tolerate the abuse, death and abandonment of children at our border while allowing increased revenue for coyotes and drug cartels under the lying guise of compassion for immigration and immigrants?

Finally, if “progressives” insist that we must entertain the notion of gender neutrality, why can’t those of us who choose to consider ourselves to be race neutral? In this age of DNA sequencing and analysis, many have learned that their ancestry encompasses multiple racial and ethnic components. Why must race be considered? Aren’t we all just human?

We are better than this. It’s time to stop the hypocrisy, eradicate disingenuous policies and restore sanity to our broken world.

Joel E. Gordon is a former Field Training Officer with the Baltimore City Police Department and is a past Chief of Police for the city of Kingwood, West Virginia. He has also served as vice-chair of a multi-jurisdictional regional narcotics task force. An award winning journalist, he is an author of the book Still Seeking Justice: One Officer's Story and founded the Facebook group Police Authors Seeking Justice. Look him up at stillseekingjustice.com

What Real Hate Looks Like

The utter contempt, the downright hate being demonstrated by elected officials grandstanding for the cop-hating movement in America was on display in New York City recently once again. Mayor Bill De Blasio and the New York City Council are not content with simply sticking the knife in the back of every one of New York City’s 36,000 sworn police officers, no that isn’t enough. Now they are twisting it.

This should be concerting to every law enforcement officer and every agency in America. This ending qualified immunity for local police will be sweeping every urban agency in America that has liberal politicians on city councils. It has been in the crosshairs of cop-hating groups as part of their inane police reform agenda. Even Congress is considering removing this protection for police officers in its police reform bill HR 1280.

As many of you reading this may know, qualified immunity is a judicially created doctrine that protects state and local law enforcement officers by shielding them from harassment, distraction and liability for acts that may violate someone’s civil rights if it can be shown that the acts do not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would be aware. It is a high standard to prove that when making a split-second decision, an officer cannot reasonably be able to determine in an instant, a legal determination.

What doesn’t get talked about enough is that when people file civil lawsuits against police, their lawyer wants to go after the deep pockets. That would be the city, a municipal corporation and their insurers. That is where the money is. Recently, the city of Minneapolis settled a lawsuit with the family of George Floyd, who died in police custody, for $27 million. You may have heard of the case. No police officer has wealth or assets totaling $27 million. If they did, they would not be in policing. Not for what the average officer is paid in salary and benefits.

So, the question is why it’s so important to go after the assets of an underpaid law enforcement officer in a civil lawsuit? For spite. If given a choice, no civil lawsuit plaintiff would go after an officer’s assets instead of a municipal corporation’s. This has never been an issue until this war on police. It’s why I referred to it as New York City twisting the knife.

The doctrine of qualified immunity takes into account the difficulty in police making decisions. It gives them and their family protection against losing their homes and other assets. It allows police to do what they need to do in serving and protecting. Without the protection that qualified immunity offers, what officer in their right mind will take any risks on the streets. Risks like pulling over a suspicious vehicle or conducting a field interview stop? These police actions can quickly go to hell in a heartbeat, often times through no fault of the officer. Those two activities are what is needed to keep crime and violence in check. Without it, the criminals and perpetrators of disorder control the streets. New York City is finding that out since the Ferguson effect, named after the police use of force in Ferguson, Missouri. Officers are no longer as assertive as they need to be. It’s no longer worth risking not only their lives but their family finances and assets. I don’t blame them. The results have been catastrophic for law-abiding communities in poor black and Hispanic neighborhoods.

Crime is surging in many urban cities as a result of continually pounding on the police. Homicides, robberies, aggravated assaults like nonfatal shootings and car thefts are exponentially rising. Homicides are up 45 percent and shootings are up 97 percent in New York. Across America in 51 various cities,

homicides are up 35 percent and shootings are up 10 percent, according to Christian Science Monitor research.

Crime rises for a number of reasons but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to make a valid correlation between a lack of quality of life enforcement and rising crime rates. Assertive policing is necessary for quality of life enforcement. It is not happening and with cities eliminating qualified immunity protection for officers, this vital police activity will not return soon.

Cops are not stupid. It won’t take long for police officers to counter to protect their family assets by taking everything of value out of their name and either setting up a trust or putting assets in their spouse’s name exclusively. With no assets in their name, it will be difficult to go after them. You can’t squeeze blood out of a rock, after all.

My fear is that these attacks on police by cities won’t stop here. Next, these bastard criminal-coddling politicians will suggest an end to benefits for line of duty deaths and survivor benefits. Don’t say that these politicians wouldn’t stoop that low. They have proven time and time again that their moral elevator has no bottom floor.

David Clarke Jr. is former Sheriff of Milwaukee Co, Wisconsin, President of AmericasSheriff LLC, 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

FAMILY: Have We Failed Future Generations?

Have We Failed?

“To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived - that is to have succeeded” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Over the past several months our family has been growing with new grandchildren being born. On Feb. 27 of this year, my youngest grandson arrived, and I was honored that he was named Waylon Joel Gordon. Boy, has he made me think. For my 61 years on this earth my goal has been to leave our world a better place for future generations. I have been unable to shake the overwhelming feeling that my generation has now failed in that endeavor.

Of course, COVID restrictions at area hospitals made it so our support and involvement in the blessed event of this child’s birth had to be achieved in a virtual manner. I am tired of being controlled and having personal rights and liberties trampled on, but I digress.

One of the main reasons I personally offered myself to a continuation of my public service through my unsuccessful candidacy for sheriff was to do my part in leaving a better place for future generations to leave the world better than I had found it, at least at a local level. It is the same reason that I look for political candidates who are individuals with a track record of achievement with a view toward furthering that goal.

While we can disagree, for example, whether energy independence is more vital than environmental concerns or if there is a mix in achieving both goals in a balanced way, we can all agree that we would like our children and grandchildren to live an even better life than our own.

The Trump presidency gave many conservatives and I hope, and we thought we had found our path to leaving a better world in many respects of our culture on a whole host of issues such as:

· Freedom and equality

· Energy independence

· Right to Life

· Second Amendment rights

· Continued job and opportunity growth

· Capitalism with prosperity

· Middle East and world peace

· Recognizing value in historical lessons learned

· Law, order and justice

Now just barely into a new presidential administration, through executive orders and changes in guiding ideologies that hope has turned into economic hardship and despair for many and our

cultural divide is being propelled into a further deepening state. The idea that elected representatives in our new president’s own political party want to make it so the president has less authority over utilization of our nuclear arsenal (i.e. strip him of the nuclear launch codes) should reveal all we need to know about the confidence level that even the president’s alleged allies have in the current administration’s decision-making ability.

Three days after the 2020 election, gasoline was $1.80-2.10 per gallon while we achieved energy independence and became a net exporter of energy, GDP growth was at 33%, we had the best overall economy ever (until COVID), engaged in no new wars or conflicts in four years, kept North Korea under control through diplomatic channels, quelled the threat from ISIS who had not been heard from for over three years, enjoyed the strongest housing market in over 20 years as homes appreciated at an unbelievable rate and sold within hours of going on the market with multiple offers. You get the picture.

I had hoped our new leadership would build on these things and keep them going, but if I were a betting person (I am not) I would bet that the only place we will see those results will be here in this writing.

My personal belief is that all things are cyclical and that does give me a level of hope for the future. But as I enter the winter of my own life here on earth I am still worried for the burdens left for future generations.

Make Pap proud, little ones, as you will surely be tasked with fixing many mistakes and overcoming the many failures my generation and the subsequent generation have left behind. If Waylon Joel’s newborn picture is any indication, do you think he may already have a sense of what he is facing ahead?

Joel E. Gordon is a former Field Training Officer with the Baltimore City Police Department and is a past Chief of Police for the city of Kingwood, West Virginia. He has also served as vice-chair of a multi-jurisdictional regional narcotics task force. An award winning journalist, he is author of the book Still Seeking Justice: One Officer's Story and founded the Facebook group Police Authors Seeking Justice. Look him up at stillseekingjustice.com

Democrats Play Game Of, If At First You Don’t Succeed

There is not much to admire about the Democrat Party or what in 2021 can be called the Democrat Socialist Party of America. We’ll get to that in a minute. One thing I do admire about this band of cop-hating socialists, though, is their never say die attitude when pushing their anti-police agenda. This on-going attempt to reform policing has been proposed before, but the anti-police Democrats in Congress haven’t quite had the total support of their own party in the past to push it through. Now they do, along with control of Congress and the White House. This bill makes it clear that the War on Police nationally is starting up again after being smothered for four years by former President Donald Trump.

The latest proposed legislation introduced in the Congress is HR 1280, the misnamed George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. First, let’s deal with the name of this bill. As always with politicians, they play a game of creating the name of a bill that actually is the opposite of what it does. There is no justice in policing in this bill. It is an onerous piece of legislation that according to JBS.org, “Would: 1. Establish a national standard for the operation of police departments; 2. Mandate data collection on police encounters; 3. Reprogram existing funds to invest in transformative community-based policing programs; and 4. Streamline federal law to prosecute excessive force and establish independent prosecutors for police investigations.” It would also make it easier to prosecute law enforcement officers for unintentional harm that occurs when using force. OK, let’s cut the crap here.

This bill is nothing more than a naked attempt to federalize local policing, thereby creating a national police force. It is a violation of the Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution that says, “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” In essence, HR 1280 is a blatant trampling of states’ rights. Policing is a local issue. States have a vested interest in securing the safety of their citizens not to mention that the Framers saw a national police force as a slippery slope toward a standing army, something they abhorred. Once organized under standard policies and training, they are ripe for a tyrant to use them to carry out their oppression under a dictatorship. That California U.S. Rep. Karen Bass is a lead author and pushing this through the House of Representatives is also alarming.

Karen Bass has a past history of belonging to and praising communist groups and she isn’t bashful in her support of the Communist Party USA from an early age where she describes in the book, Black Los Angeles: American Dreams and Realities. She was also a member of the Black Panther Party. Enough said on where her American-hating, cop-hating proclivities lie. In speaking about the need for police reform she indicated that 30 years after Rodney King was beaten by police in Los Angeles, “We are still trying to reform policing in the United States.”

Has Rep. Bass ever considered that the reason nothing has changed is because she is working on the wrong thing or that policing is as reformed as it’s ever going to be? Did she ever consider that it’s not policing that needs to be reformed, that it’s the American ghetto that needs to be reformed? Law enforcement officers are more professional, better trained and more educated than at any time in our history. It can’t be reformed any more at this point. It is futile to try. The American ghetto with all its urban pathologies has, in the same time period, gotten worse. Nothing changes because what is needed is not police reform but a culture change, a change in behavior by criminals and reform within the black family which is in tatters. Rep. Bass and other so-called progressives refuse to tell her constituents in her district that better lifestyle choices by young black males would lead to fewer police contacts and fewer arrests. She doesn’t have either the intelligence or the courage to tell her constituents that better parenting would help, better performance in schools will help, more in-home fathers raising, socializing

their sons and teaching them how to respect authority would help. But that is the hard stuff. That requires heavy lifting. Rep Bass and her brood of fellow useless politicians would rather take the intellectually lazy way out and lunge at the low-hanging fruit of police reform.

So here we are again at the well of fixing the police. It reminds me of the adage that the more things change the more they stay the same. These mindless elected officials can re-form, re-imagine, re-direct and any other re-whatever they want to with policing, not much will change over the next 30 years either until Congress enacts real ghetto reform that eliminates the self-inflicted urban pathologies that contribute to needing more police interaction. More interaction with police leads to more potential for conflict when lawful orders by police are ignored.

I have a suggestion for Rep. Bass. Let’s try something different if we want a better outcome. Let’s work smarter instead of on the wrong thing. Your way has not worked, neither will HR 1280. Let’s give my way a try.

Sheriff David Clarke Jr. is former Sheriff of Milwaukee Co, Wisconsin, President of AmericasSheriff LLC, 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.co

The Persecution of Professionalism

“Those who disrespect you with their mouth don't deserve your ear.” ― Curtis Tyrone Jones

I am tired of DISRESPECT.

Time and time again I hear people who are demonstrating a better-than-thou persona using academic achievement as their guide. Over and over again there is no respect shown for professionalism and knowledge while hard working Americans continue to be of service to their fellow countrymen and women. Only the elitist view of education is recognized as having value by some of the overeducated and underperforming no matter how devoid of practical knowledge their “education” may often be.

It has been disrespectfully said that those who can’t do teach. Of course this is not really true, as many teachers have and do contribute greatly to our society outside the academic world. Perhaps the concept of those who can’t do is even more appropriately applied to career politicians whose lack of respect, appreciation, concern and understanding for the career path of hard-working Americans is astonishing. Many are showing little to no recognition or compassion for highly skilled and compensated blue-collar trades which required years of apprenticeships and training. These are careers, not just jobs.

Law enforcement is a perfect example of a career that is being disrespected. The police officer hiring process is relatively extensive within itself. Typically it involves a written test, physical ability test, medical exam, extensive background check, polygraph test, psychological screening and an oral board interview. Once approved for hire, each person must successfully complete a police academy which can last up to six months. Then on to a probation period during which time you work with a senior partner (Field Training Officer) and receive on-the-job training. On average it is not uncommon to take five to six years or longer to become a seasoned police officer. Plus there is ongoing mandated continuing education and in-service training. In spite of a high level of screening review and regulation, alarmingly, law enforcement is increasingly being subjected to legislative actions and Citizen Review Boards with mandates and oversight by individuals lacking the knowledge, training or experience to make rulings or sit in fair judgment of those who are placing their very lives on the line to serve and protect. Talk about a lack of respect for professionalism!

Occupations with apprenticeships

In fiscal year 2016, the U.S Department of Labor counted about 500,000 active apprentices in more than 21,000 registered apprenticeship programs across the country. Careers such as:

· Boilermakers

· Carpenters · Coal Miners · Electricians · Elevator installers and repairers · Glaziers · Insulation workers · Ironworkers · Masonry workers · Millwrights · Musical instrument repairers and tuners

· Pipefitter · Plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters · Sheet metal workers

· Along with many other specific careers requiring professional training and vast experience to achieve a mastery level in a person’s chosen career path.

Disrespectful politicians think that career transition is easy without acknowledging that many skill sets are not readily transferable, nor are the same, nor are earning levels going from a mastery position to an entry-level one. Examples: Biden says learn to code; Climate Czar John Kerry says go work in lower-paying jobs largely not yet created in the wind turbine or solar panel industry. So a pipeline worker can seamlessly transition to a solar power manufacturer or technician, just as a surgeon can become a chef because they both use knives? Not much critical thought went into that, did it? The disrespect and persecution of the working class must end.

What if all of the colleges, universities, research facilities and think tanks were abruptly shut down? What would the vast majority of the unemployed strict academics do? It would surely separate those who can and cannot do outside an academic “utopia.”

In the end, does persecution make us stronger? Time will tell. The lessons of the past show us that those who persecute others have historically done so in fear that the truth the persecuted are carrying will be revealed.

In the meantime, perhaps we all need to hone our own critical thinking skills. It is then that truth should become most apparent and professionals, such as those in law enforcement and others, may finally receive the respect that has been earned once more.

Joel E. Gordon is a former Field Training Officer with the Baltimore City Police Department and is a past Chief of Police for the city of Kingwood, West Virginia. He has also served as vice-chair of a multi-jurisdictional regional narcotics task force. An award winning journalist, he is author of the book Still Seeking Justice: One Officer's Story and founded the Facebook group Police Authors Seeking Justice. Look him up at stillseekingjustice.com

Time To Squelch Cancel Culture

Let me step outside the topic of law enforcement issues this column to take on a topic that is emotionally charged and fraught with peril for those who decide to swim in the deep end of the pool of race in America. I often advise people to stay on the shallow end unless they have the vocabulary necessary to thrive, meaning to talk without saying something clumsy in these discussions unless it occurs outside a circle of a few close friends. In this day and age, even personal communications can end up going viral if comments are posted, say for instance, on social media.

Issues of race are explosive. They are even more exacerbated when added to a discussion about politics. We live in a society today where generations of young people grew up being taught to be offended at the slightest transgression. Even looking at a person who feels a part of an aggrieved group can get one in trouble as someone might feel threatened.

There was a time in this country, and it wasn’t that long ago, when one of the most cherished American rights was that one could express themselves freely no matter how abhorrent or offensive it might make somebody feel. There was a time when you could count on the American Civil Liberties Union to stand at the ready to protect the First Amendment even those from controversial groups and individuals. In 1977, the ACLU defended in court the right of the Aryan Nation to march through the streets of Skokie Illinois, as disgusting as people thought that group was. The First Amendment was that cherished. They also once upon a time protected fiercely a person’s Second Amendment right, but I digress.

There have always been limits or borders on what a person could get away with in their speech, as there should be. What to do about someone who seemingly crossed the line in their public behavior or speech that wasn’t necessarily against a written law took place in the court of public opinion. Employers and businesses stayed out of it. There is this thing called the social contract. It is a set of rules that most people generally agree to live by. They are unwritten rules and the guiding principle is proper decorum in a civilized society. For instance, if you step on somebody’s foot or bump into them in a crowded area, most people generally excuse themselves for doing so. There is no law that says you have to say excuse me, but most polite people will.

Under the social contract the same thing happens if, for instance, somebody says something totally out of line. Public shaming occurs and that is usually enough to get most people to see the error of their ways and change their behavior so they would be accepted back into polite circles. If they apologized, even better. And everybody moved on. Not anymore. Not just for intentional unacceptable speech but now even for inadvertent slips of the tongue.

Remember TV star Roseanne Barr? In 2018 she had her top-rated TV show canceled after she put out a tweet referring to Obama aide Valerie Jarret as the offspring of the “Planet of the Apes” and the Muslim Brotherhood. Over the top to say the least. The reaction from most was one of, hey Roseanne, was that really necessary? We know your sarcastic style from your TV show but come on, clean it up in the public square. She apologized but that is no longer is enough. The public shaming under the social contract would have been enough in different times.

In another incident, former Trump associate David Bossie, a friend of mine by the way, was on a cable news show being interviewed alongside a black Democrat strategist. In the exchange the Dem strategist said something that Bossie found incredible. Bossie in objecting blurted out, “You’re out of your cotton-picking mind.” My initial reaction was, oh boy! That statement is an old one that was used to show

disgust. Hell, my mom used to say that to me in reaction to something I did that she did not approve of. But not today and not appropriate for a white person to say to someone black. Many older blacks today can attest to hearing that phrase uttered by a parent showing disgust. Bossie apologized after being suspended as a paid contributor to the cable news network. The public shaming of Bossie should have been enough. Not anymore. Now people want blood, especially those on the left who use cancel culture as a political weapon. They want to destroy your life. Permanently. But they only apply it against political adversaries.

Keep in mind that Bill Maher, who has a show on HBO, was interviewing a GOP congressman who invited Maher to come visit his district. Maher, trying to be funny referred to himself as a “house N-word”. It even drew laughter form the audience. I thought, oh really. Maher was not even suspended, much less fired nor had his show canceled.

Then there is Creighton University basketball coach Greg McDermott, who was addressing his basketball team in the locker room and in trying to get his team to play together told them not to leave the plantation. I mean come on now. He wasn’t making any racial reference. Only a hypersensitive person would think so. If that “triggers” something in you then it is you who needs to get a grip. As a black man I am not offended in anyway by what McDermott said. Hell, in fact I myself have used the plantation reference in TV interviews in saying that Democrat policies shackle blacks to the liberal plantation. Is it OK for me to use that figure of speech but not McDermott? Maybe a little edgy in this over-reactive racial environment but should your career end and basically any future earning potential over it? Please.

We are down the path of a journey to a very dark place in America when only a certain few get to control speech. Dissent and opposing viewpoints are healthy in a democracy. One of the main tenets in a socialist takeover is to silence the opposition. For a despot to take control, all that is necessary is to seize the guns and to control speech. This is scary.

Sheriff David Clarke Jr. is former Sheriff of Milwaukee Co, Wisconsin, President of AmericasSheriff LLC, 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

So I’m Not the Only One Who Feels That Way?

As I was scrolling through social media the other day, I came across a post that forced me to stop and think. It came from a friend of the Blue Magazine, Officer Deon Joseph (IG @officerdeonjoseph) - another staunch LEO supporter who understands the hurdles and struggles of the law enforcement officer.

In his post, he talks about how his vacation is nearly over and how hard it was thinking about going back to work. Then it hit me- “So I’m not the only one who feels that way?”

Even after my weekly regular days off (RDO’s) I start to have that gut-wrenching feeling once the thought of returning to work crosses my mind. And it’s not about hating the job or hating people I work alongside with. It’s more about knowing that we’re on our way to deal with the decay of society and the stress that goes with it.

When was the last time you went on a call to deal with good news or a humorous, light-hearted call?

“Dispatch to Officer Smith, report to 123 Main Street to deal with a litter of kittens that escaped the home and are running around the backyard.”

Could it happen? Sure.

But what we hear more often are calls for domestic disputes, public intoxication, drug-related offenses, deadly car accidents … you name it. Anything the dark side of humanity has to offer gets tossed on the lap of the law enforcement officer.

It’s no wonder why anyone who’s on vacation doesn’t want to go back. They are on vacation finally enjoying the bright side of humanity; spending precious time with family, sightseeing, sounds of the ocean, or sitting poolside in the backyard for a week (enough for me!). All that gets disturbed once the vacation is over and the time comes where you have to go back to work.

Combine all of that with the fact that LEO’s are facing the toughest time in America’s history of policing. A climate of “guilty until proven innocent” and being labeled as “the problem” from the media. It’s a mixture of difficult challenges with an already stressful job.

If you are feeling this stress and dread going back to work- you are not alone. Just know that there’s hope. As lawlessness continues to spread, it’s going to be more and more evident that society needs police. If America is going to be governed by law, there have to be people assigned to enforce it.

Take full advantage of your time off and spend it doing the things you enjoy with the people you love. Exercise, road trips, nice dinners, a good book- anything to remind you that there is a bright side to life, you just have to go out and find it. That will make the end of vacation less impactful.

Writer Eddie Molina is the author of A Beginner’s Guide to Leadership, available on Amazon and his website, www.eddiemolina.com

Civility in this age of Intemperance

"Aspire to decency. Practice civility toward one another. Admire and emulate ethical behavior wherever you find it. Apply a rigid standard of morality to your lives; and if, periodically, you fail as you surely will adjust your lives, not the standards." - Ted Koppel Seemingly everywhere I look, social media has unleashed an unrestrained tidal wave of the airing of public grievances, misunderstandings and angry rebuttal. As the founder and administrator for the Facebook group Police Authors Seeking Justice, some days the cruel and bitter criticism among people who should conceivably have common goals and values is unrelenting and seems nonsensical.

Interestingly, George Washington wrote out a copy of the 110 Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in his school book which was completed by the time he was of the age of 16. His exercise in understanding decency originated in late 16th century France and the ideas were popularly circulated during Washington's time and now are regarded as a formative influence in the development of his character. They included guidelines for behavior in “pleasant company,” appropriate actions in formal situations, and general courtesies. Here are some rules exactly as Washington copied them in the 18th century:

Let your Discourse with Men of Business be Short and Comprehensive. Undertake not to Teach your equal in the art himself Proffesses; it Savours of arrogancy. Use no Reproachfull Language against any one neither Curse nor Revile. Be not hasty to believe flying Reports to the Disparag[e]ment of any. Let your Conversation be without Malice or Envy, for 'tis a Sig[n o]f a Tractable and Commendable Nature: And in all Causes of Passion [ad]mit Reason to Govern. Speak not injurious Words neither in Jest nor Earnest Scoff at none although they give Occasion. Detract not from others neither be excessive in Commanding. Think before you Speak pronounce not imperfectly nor bring ou[t] your Words too hastily but orderly & distinctly. Be not apt to relate News if you know not the truth thereof. In Discoursing of things you Have heard Name not your Author always A [Se]cret Discover not.

In Disputes, be not So Desireous to Overcome as not to give Liberty to each one to deliver his Opinion and Submit to the Judgment of the Major Part especially if they are Judges of the Dispute. Speak not Evil of the absent for it is unjust. Labour to keep alive in your Breast that Little Spark of Ce[les]tial fire Called Conscience.

A ‘Civility in America’ survey found 75% of Americans thought incivility had reached crisis levels, and 56% expected it to increase. At a time where our ideological divides often seem daunting and overwhelming, here are some thoughts on how to achieve civility in modern times.

First, we should begin to actively listen to or read others’ ideas and thoughts in an effort to understand their point of view; not just how to reply with any rush to judgment based upon pre-conceived notions, hearsay or incomplete or limited available facts. Consider, is there a possibility you may be wrong? The possibility of admitting you don’t know all the facts and circumstances? The possibility there may be some good or validity in others’ criticism or ideas?

When responding to others, are we practicing politeness and courtesy in behavior or speech? Giving respect is our best chance at gaining respect and garnering some thoughtful attention to our cause or opinions.

When engaging in conversations around difficult topics, the age-old adage “Choose your battles wisely” is appropriate to consider. Is this the best time and/or place for a discussion? Will it help or hurt your standing and will the criticism be constructive? A little self-reflection can go a long way.

Perhaps the best act leading to civility is that of living in gratitude for the smallest moments to the greatest of our blessings, as opposed to what changes we might desire in our perfect world scenario. By increasing our own sense of well-being and happiness through being grateful, we become more resilient and can lift ourselves up along with others. In the final analysis with a commitment to a better tomorrow, something we all should be able to agree upon, we must sometimes simply agree to disagree on how to get there. From this point forward, can you and I look for the good in one another, respect each other’s journey and concentrate on what we are doing to make a difference in the world around us through deeds and not just simply words of discontent? Decency, civility and respect… the time is now.

Joel E. Gordon is a former Field Training Officer with the Baltimore City Police Department and is a past Chief of Police for the city of Kingwood, West Virginia. He has also served as vice-chair of a multi-jurisdictional regional narcotics task force. An award winning journalist, he is author of the book Still Seeking Justice: One Officer's Story and founded the Facebook group Police Authors Seeking Justice. Look him up at stillseekingjustice.com

The Latest Political Boogeyman

The American left knows this about politics. You have to have a scary identifiable target to put in front of your uninformed base to keep them energized, foaming at the mouth and with a reason to hate. These are the motivators they use to get their base voters to the polls. It doesn’t have to be true, fact-based or real. You just have to be able to appeal to their emotion by repeating some falsehood over and over until they suspend their sense of logic. Then you have their attention, and they are more susceptible to propaganda. Whenever the opportunity presents itself, especially around voting time with a general election being the ideal, they drag the boogeyman out and whip people into a frenzy to drive them to the polls.

The Democrat Party uses it as part of their get-out-the-vote strategy. This was described by a leftist university professor named Saul Alinsky in his book “Rules For Radicals.” You identify a target, isolate it, personalized it and smear the hell out of it. You incessantly talk about how terrible the target is and before long if there is not counter narrative, it sticks.

One of their favorite whipping posts has always been the demonization of police, painting them and their agencies with a broad brush. This goes back to the 1950s. They used some police incident, usually a use of force involving a white police officer and a black male suspect, and before any details even emerged, they exploit it for its race component. Police commanders were slow to respond with a counter narrative to put the fire out. The lie and misinformation about the facts become news headlines and become baked into the pie. By the time all the facts come out it is too late to change public opinion. Every person who wears the uniform of their community to this day carries the stain of being racist and bloodthirsty. All it takes is one incident to negatively brand an entire profession. There are of course some high-profile incidents where police performed badly. Those are anomalies. Doctors botch surgeries, more than you hear about, yet no one brands the entire medical community as horrible.

For most of this new century, politically agenda-driven people and groups continued the drumbeat that cops were racist. The problem for them is that the card was played so often that it is losing its charge. When everything and everybody is racist, well then nothing and nobody are. The left needed a new word or phrase with which to demonize people and groups. The left has found it. Notice that over the last six months racism and racist charges aren’t used as much anymore. The new phrase is white supremacy. This phrase has no doubt been focus grouped and has been determined to elicit more emotion and anger than simply being racist.

A new narrative has started recently about concern that police agencies are being infiltrated by, you guessed it, white supremacists. This is without foundation, data or evidence. It’s a smear that works on police and their agencies. Current research and data have debunked the lie that police are racist so cop haters needed new red meat to feed their masses.

Much of this started with the release of a report by a former FBI agent Michael German who authored a report on white supremacy in law enforcement. He said that, “It’s a pretty significant clue that white supremacy is so prevalent in law enforcement that the FBI is changing the way it does things.” He says that with no evidence. That’s a pretty remarkable claim for a former law officer to make such a slanderous claim with no proof. Then again this is the same agency that tried to smear a president of the United States claiming he falsely colluded with the Russians to win an election with no proof as they lied to obtain a wiretap to spy on his campaign. That smear by Michael German was followed by an FBI report released last year that warned that white supremacists had penetrated the ranks of law enforcement. The report acknowledged that there was no credible evidence to prove infiltration and that it was based on sporadic reporting. Gee, thanks FBI. This is the same agency that doesn’t spend much time working on cop-hating groups like Antifa or Black Lives Matter, MS 13, the Crips, Suerno or Blood street gangs but has no problem chasing the ghost of white supremacy in law enforcement.

Of course, this caused a feeding frenzy among the usual suspects in academia. They, too, acknowledge that nothing exists to suggest that it is true. But what the hell. Let’s look for it anyway. Federal grants will pay for research. Let’s let police live under the cloud of suspicion that they are white supremacists and continue to have to deny that something doesn’t exist. Let’s let cop haters collect traffic stop and arrest data of a white officer working in a high-crime area populated by blacks and misuse the data to claim the officer is a white supremacist. It’s the old let them try to prove a negative. You can’t. This will open the door for politically active lawyers from the United States Department of Justice to start its pattern and practice lawsuits against local police agencies that were prevalent under the Obama administration. Cities will be bullied into signing forced consent decrees as mayors and city councils fold like a cheap suit.

This is straight-up race politics. Shame on the FBI for being a participant in playing along by throwing local law enforcement under the bus. As the saying goes, with friends like this who needs enemies.

Sheriff David Clarke Jr. is former Sheriff of Milwaukee Co, Wisconsin, President of AmericasSheriff LLC, 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

Light At The End Of The Tunnel

As you know I have written extensively in columns on this site referencing the need for somebody in the law enforcement community, namely an executive, to speak out and push back against this nonstop onslaught against law enforcement officers and their agencies. I have also pointed out that prosecutors, mainly in large urban centers, have been behaving more like political activists and defense attorneys instead of representing the interests of law and order and the rule of law.

In the absence of any courage by law enforcement executives, I have suggested that police unions and fraternal organizations were positioned to speak out on behalf of front-line officers who have no voice as they are maliciously prosecuted or terminated from their employment involving incidents where they were later exonerated. I have said that police union leaders can speak out without being retaliated against because it is their obligation to represent law enforcement officers. Such was the case in Baltimore where six officers were charged in the Freddie Gray death and later had the charges dropped or the countless others who were targeted for prosecution by politically motivated prosecutors but not indicted like former Ferguson, Missouri police officer Darren Wilson, and Wauwatosa, Wisconsin officer Joseph Mensah, who was fired by a civilian review board after it was ruled that he was justified in the shooting deaths of three violent and armed criminals in three separate actions.

There is, however, good news to report as a grand jury in Buffalo just refused to indict 2 Buffalo police officers after a liberal activist prosecutor sought felony charges of aggravated assault. You may recall the incident after video cam footage of it went viral. Everybody focused on the fact that the goof, who was advancing toward a police line that was clearing the area, was 75 years old. I didn’t when asked about this in TV interviews. People were told to disperse. Everybody did except this lone idiot. He wasn’t pushed, he lost his balance. His head hit the pavement. That was his fault. After being taken to the hospital he should have been arrested and charged for not complying with a curfew order in place at the time and obstructing police operations. This is how policing used to happen in America, but I digress. The prosecutor.,digging in his heels claiming that he believes this deserved felony criminal prosecution of the officers. Here is what this simpleton said the officers should have done, “They should have grabbed him, gently turned him around and walked him peacefully ... off the steps,” Flynn said. I am not making this up. That is a direct quote.

There are several other situations occurring that give me hope that the tide is turning in the war on cops as violent crime surges in just about every large city in America. There are a number of reasons why violent crime is surging. One reason is that police are not being as aggressive as they need to be for fear of something going horribly wrong and ending up being prosecuted by some George Soros-funded activist prosecutor or being unjustly fired by a feckless police chief to appease an angry mob of cop haters. Next is that time spent doing discretionary policing like field interview stops and preventive patrols in high-crime areas is simply not occurring at rates it needs to be. Criminals have free reign right now and they know it. I don’t blame officers for not taking risks when they don’t have the full-throated backing of their agencies or the prosecutor’s office. And, finally, the reason is that failed liberal urban policies like defunding police budgets, agencies disbanding violent crime units, catch and release policies by not holding dangerous repeat offenders on bail or failing to even issue criminal charges stemming from some inane idea and false narrative that the criminal justice system is inherently racist are keeping criminals in circulation. There are signs now that lead me to believe people are starting to get it.

A Washington Times newspaper story points out that activist prosecutors in cities with soaring rates of violence are now being hit with lawsuits from police agencies and others. In Los Angeles, a court will

hear a lawsuit files by a group of deputy district attorneys against LA District Attorney George Gascon accusing him of prohibiting prosecutors from pursuing sentencing enhancements that lengthen the time served in jail or prison for certain major crimes.

In Philadelphia, current and former police officers started a Political Action Committee (PAC) named Protect Our Police that is looking into funding a primary candidate to run against current DA Larry Krasner. The claim being made is that Krasner’s liberal soft-on-crime politics are contributing to increases in violent crime. Among his policies are an end to prosecuting for acts of disorder that lead to a decline in the quality of life in a neighborhood. He believes that a, “lighter prosecutorial touch and less incarceration” would be better for Philadelphia. Better for whom, I would ask? Better for criminals for sure, not for law-abiding citizens.

Of course, these starry-eyed liberals have their talking points down. They claim, without data or research I might add, that crime policies reversing what had led to record reductions in violence for nearly 20 years makes cities safer. They say this even in the face of rising and record violent crime and property crime rates. They’re also buying into the mass incarceration lie.

People locked up in prison deserve to be there. Any officer can attest to how hard it is to get a crook charged, convicted and sent to prison. Most get a lenient sentence with the criminal justice system’s least restrictive means philosophy for punishment. Yes that usually means probation. Most of these miscreants have long criminal histories with very little time being locked away. When they are finally sent to prison, it is because finally the criminal justice system has had enough of their criminal behavior. Contrary to what criminal apologists try to get you to believe, these are not political prisoners. They got their due process and left a trail of victims in their wake. Where is the justice for crime victims? Reminds me of a bumper sticker I once saw that read, it’s not justice until the victim’s needs are met.

Sheriff David Clarke Jr. is former Sheriff of Milwaukee Co, Wisconsin, President of AmericasSheriff LLC, 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