Cops Go From Hero To Villain

In the early days of the Chinese coronavirus pandemic when everybody was running around like chickens with their heads cut off, American law enforcement officers with calmness and courage risked their lives and well-being, and that of their families, when they answered the call to serve and protect. This was at a time when not much was known about the virus or its transmission. This was at a time when Dr. Tony Fauci confidently proclaimed on a top-rated Sunday night news show that he was not worried about COVID and that there was no need for people to run out, buy and start wearing surgical masks. More importantly, it was well before testing was available and keep in mind there was no “vaccine” available. I’ll get to that later.

Nevertheless, our police officers went to work as other government employees including public school teachers and elected officials locked themselves in their homes and got paid to work from home. In the private sector, businesses were ordered closed, putting private sector employees out of work with no pay unlike government workers. That quarantine-like bubble of protection wasn’t available to police officers. They couldn’t strictly socially distance themselves from crime victims or suspects. You can’t handcuff an arrestee from six feet away. If first aid was required of say a gunshot victim, that could not be done from six feet away. At the time there was no concern about the well-being or safety of police officers. In fact, they were heralded as heroes for their bravery and selfless service.

That was then, this is now.

 Now a so-called “vaccine” has been developed. Bear with me for a moment as I look inside what is being called settled science on COVID. The people using this term have an agenda. There is no such thing as settled science. A Harvard College professor once reminded me that science doesn’t prove, it only probes. Keep in mind that settled science once believed that the sun rotated around the earth. First of all, it isn’t even a vaccine by medical definition. A vaccine makes you immune from getting a virus or spreading it. It was rushed through clinical trials to market. There is still a lot that is not know about what really is by medical definition a therapeutic. That means you can still catch the virus and spread it and you have to continue to get periodic additional shots to protect you. A recent news report said that several weeks ago, 40% of all COVID-related reported deaths nationally were of people who had been fully “vaccinated”. There is still a lot that is not known about this therapeutic like its long-term side effects. Now something called a delta variant has emerged that is resistant to the therapeutic. In addition to this, reasonable people are asking questions like how long will they have to keep getting jabbed and injected with this therapeutic. The bottom line is that we have not been told the whole story about things and it makes people rightfully suspicious. So-called experts keep moving the goalposts. Ok, enough of that.

Then there is the legal question about government’s authority to force an individual to inject anything into their body as a condition of employment. I don’t care about the efficacy of what is medically best for people. It is still a freedom and liberty issue, and those decisions should be left to the individual to make.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot continues to threaten Chicago police officers with suspensions without pay and termination unless they take the jab. Her order further reduces the ranks of an already depleted force as violent street crime continues at record rates. She had no concern for their health as they continued to perform their duty in dangerous conditions in the early days of the pandemic. Many saw them as heroes. Now their organizations and political class officials are showing their thanks by seeing them as the bad guys in all of this. That is an odd way of thanking them. Making matters more untenable is that feckless police commanders are willing to enforce these city policies. Lightfoot should attack crime and criminals like she does Chicago police officers. Crime rates would drop exponentially. She should attack her useless state’s attorney Kimberly Fox, who refuses to charge repeat criminal offenders or ask for substantial bail in these cases.

So now law enforcement officers are at a crossroads between freedom to choose or losing their careers as local government officials are threatening them with the loss of their livelihood if they do not give in to forced “vaccination.” Some agencies have already terminated and suspended officers without pay, and some have voluntarily resigned. This makes their families collateral damage as many officers are the primary income source for things like mortgages, putting food on the table and tuition for their children.

Thankfully, police unions are showing resolve in this fight.  The Chicago FOP president has told officers to hold the line against these forced injections. In New York, NYPD officers organized a large protest march against forced medical orders. This is a good sign.  These labor organizations possess leverage in this fight against these thankless politicians and should start flexing their muscles by using it.

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

When Handed A Gift-Take It

Recently, the law enforcement profession won a victory over an attempt to yet again reform this profession. Before this latest attempt to fix that which is not broken, we had to endure what former President Barack Obama labeled the Twenty-First Century Police Reform Project. It was an overreaction, a knee-jerk response that was nothing more than a politicization of a single incident. To use a baseball analogy, it was a swing and a miss. That call for reform you may recall came after the Ferguson, Missouri, Police Department incident in which thug Mike Brown committed a strong-armed robbery (a felony) of a convenience store clerk before attacking and attempting to disarm Officer Darren Wilson. Wilson used deadly force to save his own life. It was ruled justifiable. Soon after began the War on Police. This was the catalyst used by cop haters nationwide that ignited a wave of anti-police rhetoric that continues to this day.

I opposed that attempt to reform policing then and continue to do so to this day. I said at the time that that they were working on the wrong thing. I said that the problem was not policing, the problem was with the ghetto. All the urban pathologies that afflict ail large urban centers are self- inflicted. These ailments are exacerbated by failed urban progressive policies that lead to ineffective parenting, fatherless homes, school failure, not consistently staying in the workforce and poor lifestyle choices by young people like teen pregnancy, joining gangs and drug abuse. Instead of rooting out the dysfunctional behavior and cultural rot, it is much easier for two-bit politicians to go for the low-hanging fruit. They blame the police. This spawned the calls for reform, the calls to defund and my favorite, the calls to re-imagine policing (whatever that is).

Without a lot of forethought, this task force assembled by Obama produced a document that was supposed to fix policing, yet here we are again trying to fix what is not broken. These people never learn. These are all rare incidents. Police use of force incidents have decreased over the years. You don’t overhaul a profession based on anomalies. No reasonable person would. No other profession would tolerate it.

So here we are after another police use of force in Minneapolis, we find politicians looking to score a few cheap political points by bashing the police. Many cities began taking away tools that police need to quell riots and disturbances, tools that were needed to quickly disperse crowds in order to keep the peace and restore law and order and that police need to protect themselves from injury and death. And then there is the granddaddy of them all as they say. Congress, under a so-called bipartisan bill ironically called the George Floyd Police Reform Bill. Now we have the federal government sticking its nose into what is a local issue, a state’s rights issue under the U.S. Constitution. The belief theoretically has always been that states have a vested interest in public safety and controlling crime. Every state has its own unique issues as to public safety. There are cultural differences as well. Rural policing is different from urban policing. What people will allow under these circumstances is different, too.

First of all, no bill at any level should have this convicted felon’s name attached to it. This is the same creep who did prison time for an armed burglary in which he held a loaded firearm to the stomach of a pregnant woman, threatening to kill her. He is the one who was geeked up on fatal levels of fentanyl when he died. He had just attempted to pass a counterfeit $20 bill to buy more drugs, causing the police to be called in the first place. Memorializing this goof stains the legacy of other black Americans that we can be proud of, people like Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. No Republican lawmaker who claims to support the police should have wanted their name attached to support of this anti-police bill. Chief among the items listed in this bill was a provision that would strip police of qualified immunity that prohibits suing police in civil court personally for acts that they could not have known at the time they used force were a denial of civil rights. Fortunately, this killed any chance of the bill becoming law. It was a win for law enforcement. Some in law enforcement, however, shamefully disagreed.

After the bill was killed, several law enforcement entities attacked GOP Sen. Tim Scott on how negotiations broke down. It is worth noting that two leading Democrats were pushing eliminating qualified immunity. They were Sen. Cory Booker and U.S. Rep. Karen Bass, both of whom are straight-up cop haters.

What is noteworthy here is that two law enforcement entities were pushing for passage of the bill, the Fraternal Order of Police and the International Association of Chiefs of Police. They issued a joint statement that read, “Our organizations remain steadfast in working with all interested parties who are willing to take a fact-based approach to enact effective and lasting change, to avoid a patchwork of state laws that do not provide uniform standards and guidance to the policing profession.” The statement went on to say that it would have, “strengthened the law enforcement profession and help improve the state of community police engagement without compromising management and officers’ rights, authority and legal protections.” Cops know bullshit when they hear it. This statement is complete bullshit. This is antithetical to state’s rights and promotes a one-size-fits all approach leading to that slippery slope of federalizing local policing. Additionally, nothing is ever “fact-based” in this anti-police environment.

If you want to know why these two organizations support passage of the George Floyd Act, all you have to do is follow the money. The FOP and the IACP are whoring for dollars. They are looking for federal grant money to supplement their shrinking budgets. They are willing to prostitute themselves and their agencies for money from Washington.

The problem with that approach is that any money given out by the federal governments comes with strings attached. There is no free money here like some misguided law enforcement executives believe. The federal government would love nothing more than to control local police department policies, and this is how they will do it. If you take the money, you must do whatever the feds say. This is a slippery slope and not worth the federal money. Things like data collection requirements will tie up officers with unnecessary report filings. This is time away from preventive patrols and results in higher response times, not to mention that this provides the ammunition to spin and misinterpret the data and hammer the police about the racial component of things like traffic stops and arrests. This will provide an opening for a

Federal Department of Justice pattern and practice investigation and a forced consent decree allowing the feds to take over the agency.

Do the FOP and IACP not understand what is going on here? Instead of a letter disputing GOP Sen. Tim Scott(R) about the failure of this bill to pass, they should have commended him for standing strong against eliminating qualified immunity protection for front line police officers. Not allowing this bill to see the light of day is a win for every law enforcement officer who takes to the streets risking their lives in service to their community. This reminds me of an old saying. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Take the victory and run.

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

WEAPONIZING LAW ENFORCEMENT: Political Pawns in Redefining Terrorism

The continuation of the politicization of the FBI is of real concern to our republic. While all directives and investigations may or may not be as partisan as they initially appear -- no rush to judgment here -- it is clear that federal law enforcement and some of their personnel have unquestionably, of late, put themselves in the untenable position of being utilized as pawns to push certain narratives.

Isn’t it ironic that the same federal government that is critical of the operations and appearances of local law enforcement agencies born of the 10th Amendment of the Constitution has seemingly no regard for the appearance of inequities or impropriety in the course of their own operations? This leaves a black mark on the very reputation of all of law enforcement through perceived “guilt by association.”

Looking back, there are numerous examples of these federal issues, such as:

· Sworn personnel being politicized in testimony before J6 congressional hearings.

· Disingenuous criticisms of the US Border Patrol.

· FISA abuses resulting in overreach.

· Questionable investigative tactics which have resulted in apparent false “truths” being promulgated.

· Selective investigative delays and inadequate investigations.

How many Trump affiliates and supporters have found themselves to be subjects of an investigation looking for a crime while apparent obvious criminal intent, dishonesty and activity seem to go unpunished among the Democrat “political elite,” their allies and family members?

Is the newest reported investigation another political retaliatory witch hunt or a legitimate criminal investigation? The FBI has raided the Manhattan headquarters of the New York Police Department’s Sergeants Benevolent Association to execute a search warrant. The raid into the Worth Street office of the SBA, the city’s second-largest police union, with more than 10,000 active and retired sergeants, was “in connection with an ongoing investigation.” The agents also searched the home of the union's now-former president, Ed Mullins.

This raid is the latest controversy to surround Mullins, who is known for criticizing NYPD leadership and New York City Mayor de Blasio. Last year, the SBA made headlines after tweeting “How can the NYPD protect the city of NY from rioting anarchist when the Mayors object throwing daughter is one of them. Now we know why he is forbidding Mounted units to be mobilized and keeping the NYPD from doing their jobs.” Mullins is now facing an internal NYPD trial on misconduct charges related to the tweet and other social media posts—including one tweet where he called the city health commissioner a “bitch” with “blood on her hands” over face masks.

I for one am not, never have been, and will never become a “domestic terrorist” or anything of the sort, although I am likely being labeled in certain circles as one for my fierce stand on freedom and support for our Constitutional Republic and capitalist ways and for being a long-standing contrarian in other areas of thought and persuasion.

Patriotic Americans are being made into something that we are not by the current administration by simply having a more traditional view of our culture and republic. Law enforcement and our military must not allow ourselves to be weaponized or used as pawns in the unrelenting attempts at a new world order through shaming, bribery, coercion, monetary controls and punitive measures. We must stand strong, as our founding fathers surely set us up to do, against overreach and tyranny by those who should be of service to us and not be dictatorial purveyors of indoctrination, instruction and mandates.

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

HERE WE GO AGAIN

Anybody who thought that the War on Cops was coming to an end because there has not been a constant anti-police drumbeat should think again. The defund and even abolish police movement started in earnest after the death of George Floyd. Yeah, he’s the guy who did time in prison previously for an armed home invasion burglary where he held a loaded firearm to the stomach of a pregnant woman threatening to shoot her. The same George Floyd who was geeked up on fatal levels of fentanyl while resisting police orders to take him into custody for passing a counterfeit bill. Now do you remember George Floyd?

Ever since his death in custody, there has been a movement afoot to take money from public safety budgets and divert it to some inane idea of replacing cops with social workers to take on crime. This movement caught fire and began sweeping into the nation’s more populated urban cities with some success. The New York Police Department, Los Angeles and Milwaukee Police Departments all saw millions of dollars slashed from their crime-fighting efforts, leading to staff shortages. Violent street crime exploded exponentially to levels not seen in 30 years. This caused politicians who were championing the defund the police slogan to reverse course in fear for their political careers and they walked back the stupidity because it was hurting them politically, unlike in the earlier calls for defund efforts by the creeps of Black Lives Matter, Antifa and other Progressives. The effort did not go away, it went underground and is now being waged in stealth-like fashion. Here is an example.

In Minneapolis, a ballot initiative is being put up for voters who will get to decide whether to add an amendment to the city charter that would, “limit the size, scope and influence of its police department.” This at a time of rising violence rates in Minneapolis. It’s called the Yes 4 Minneapolis initiative, “where the city’s police department would be replaced with a Department of Public Safety, abolishing the city’s currently required minimum number of officers per capita and replacing some with social workers, mental health experts and crisis managers effectively defunding the local police by reallocating funds to other city services.” One guy running for Minneapolis city council heralded the move and hoped it would pass and impact what other cities do. Let’s hope not. This is moronic. Here is why.

Minneapolis has become a dangerous place to live as have many other large urban centers. Murders, non-fatal gunshot victims, and carjackings have all seen a significant increase in both 2020 and 2021. Crime victimization has residents living in fear. That is a quality-of-life issue. Then there is the issue of unsolved crime. In Minneapolis, the unsolved crime rate has soared to 88% resulting in no arrest. That is a staggering figure. This emboldens the criminal to know that they have a great chance of never being caught and held accountable for committing a crime of violence. This constant barrage of attacks on the policing profession is leading to de-policing. In Minneapolis, traffic stops are down 85%, field interview or Terry Stops are down 76% and business checks are down 76%. It’s called visibility. These are the type of police tactics that keep crime in check. Traffic stops in high-crime areas find vehicles containing guns and illegal drugs and people wanted on serious felony warrants. The same can be said of suspicious behavior stops in high-crime areas. When the public sees that police are not being aggressive, it leaves them with little confidence that the city can keep them, their children and their neighborhoods safe. People then withdraw from civil life. This leaves the streets to be controlled by the criminal. It leads to law-abiding citizens not wanting to fulfill their role of community guardians who cooperate with and help. police control and solve crime.

There is a way forward, however, and it won’t involve re-inventing the wheel. In 1994, Congress passed a crime bill that led to historic lows in violent crime all across America. The bill was co-authored by none other than Sen. Joe Biden and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. It was at a time that even Democrats were not afraid to communicate publicly their support for the police. That doesn’t exist today. It was at a time when these same Democrat politicians trusted police to use their discretion when enforcing the law. Now they are trying to take certain tools and tactics away thereby preventing them from performing their most important function and that is crime prevention and keeping the peace.

It is time to go back to the 1994 crime bill and apply what was done back then such as hiring more police, re-investing in police budgets, getting rid of stupid policies like no bail and locking up career criminals. It is time to stop the revolving door of the criminal justice system. Jails and prisons are an effective crime control tool. They keep repeat offenders from, you guessed it, re-offending. It’s going to take a prosecutor’s office that takes off their political activist hat and puts their concern for the victims of crime hat back on. and begins again to represent law abiding residents instead of acting like de facto defense attorneys. When judges get back to punishing crime instead of sympathizing with career violent offenders, then the criminal justice system will cease being dysfunctional and become the institution that it was designed to be, that being a purveyor of the rule of law, law and order and justice for all.

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

THE FIX IS IN

Nationwide, police find themselves being chastised for simply adhering to their training, following orders and doing their jobs to the best of their ability.

Our Border Patrol agents find themselves suspended, with promises of more punitive sanctions, for maintaining control of their 1,200-pound equine partners via split rein controls, wrongly accused of whipping unlawful border crossers, when actually maintaining control of their horses in a safe manner while following their training and following orders and policies in the protection of our border, protecting their own safety and the safety of those around them. The horses are now not being used in Del Rio.

A Towson Maryland University veteran officer found himself to be in trouble when a shooting occurred during an on-campus unsanctioned but organized event. Reportedly, the officer was told to stand down when engaging participants prior to the shooting but is now seemingly the scapegoat for the incident, finding himself under investigation for the incident at hand.

When will this ever end?

Here in my home county, in a scene played out at school board meetings all over the USA over mandates with potential overreach on parental and student rights, a lesson in control over being baited into situations outside law enforcement mandates may have been learned.

A divided Preston County Board of Education reversed a vote requiring masks indoors at school, and that’s when tensions began.

As reported by the Preston County Journal newspaper and by others in attendance, here’s what happened:

The meeting included presentations by 10 members of the public, threats by the board president to have a man who interrupted the board’s discussions removed by sheriff’s deputies, a deputy telling the crowd to calm down, and the board president telling the deputy he was in charge, not police.

At several points in the meeting, people in the audience interrupted the board’s discussions, some saying others had been allowed to speak out of turn, so they should as well.

“You’re not representing your community,” one woman said.

One board member said her vote “was not because I disagree that we need masks in school. My ‘no’ decision was because nothing productive has come from this afternoon ... It was childlike display.”

At one point, the board president told the three deputies present to remove a man if he interrupted again. As the interaction with the audience continued, a captain from the Preston County West Virginia Sheriff’s Office in attendance spoke up to clarify the law.

“It’s not the board of education’s call, if you are interrupting their meeting. It’s our call,” the captain said. “Please keep it civil. If he says ‘Remove them,’ that’s not the way that works. If we, as law enforcement officers decide you’re interrupting, then we can file criminal charges.”

But the time for public discussion had passed, he said, and if those in attendance interrupted the board’s discussion, “then that puts it in our court.” He had checked with the prosecutor’s office.

The board president gaveled the meeting to a more quiet state and told the deputy, “You’re not involved in this meeting as a speaker ... The open meeting law says that I’m in control of the meeting.”

At that point, the captain said “I apologize. We’re leaving;” which met with applause from the audience. Two of the three deputies then left with one remaining behind to support keeping the peace but not weighing in on the subject at hand.

While we must stand in support of officers wrongly accused, it is imperative that whenever possible law enforcement officers remain in control while maintaining neutrality and concentrate on keeping the peace allowing protests and following only lawful orders in the discharge of their duties.

In the end, police must be able to function in reasonable and prudent ways for the benefit of all while attempting to avoid entrapment into unsupported positions not of their own making.

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

It’s the Culture, Stupid

Several news stories have come out about the rise in street violence all across America. And while some want to avoid the real reasons why, I will not. There is a common denominator here that cannot be denied. It is the 800-pound gorilla in the room that people including politicians on both sides of the aisle, newspaper writers, intellectual elites and community activists refuse to admit or acknowledge except for a handful.

First in the common thread is that this daily street violence is centrally located in urban centers under the political control of Progressive Democrat politicians. Next is that the street violence occurs mainly in black neighborhoods that have a plethora of urban pathologies like ineffective parenting, the absence of fathers in the home leading to school failure and questionable lifestyle choices by young blacks. These truths are inescapable, and it is time to admit that these urban pathologies are self-inflicted and have led to the acceptance of a lifestyle of cultural rot and cultural dysfunction that are precursors to criminal behavior. Another embarrassing aspect of this ineffective parenting is that the age of the black perpetrator is younger and younger. We have 13-, 14- and 15-year-old suspects. involved in shootings.

Let me be very clear here. That there are fewer incidents of crime and violence in white suburbia is not because of race. It has to do with the fact that in greater rates, white parents take responsibility for raising their kids. They don’t let the streets raise their children. They teach their kids to respect authority figures like teachers and the police. My dad did and I ‘m black and did not grow up in the suburbs. It used to be a trait of urban middle-class upbringing among all races. In suburbia, kids are taught to adopt more mainstream values and better lifestyle choices. Again, there is a cultural aspect to this. In the black community today to often the police are expected to fill the void of ineffective parenting. That means more police interaction with black youths on the street. Increased human interaction means an increase in the potential for conflict when police orders are not adhered to. That can have deadly consequences.

Instead of holding people in the black community responsibility for their plight in life, we get the usual BS excuse making by the media, race baiting activists and Democrat politicians who wrongly see this as the result of racism, discrimination or police brutality. They promote the false narrative that not enough money is being appropriated for social programs, programs that have never worked, by the way. Then they go back to the excuse that more gun control laws are needed. These pandering politicians and activists used to parrot that more jobs are needed in the ghetto to stem the violence. They can’t use that excuse in an economy that has more jobs available today than workers to fill them. Damn, they must be thinking. That excuse was a good one while it lasted. The more jobs whine has been replaced by, get this, that this street violence has been exasperated by the COVID pandemic. I kid you not.

Let unpack this nonsense. Whites in suburban areas have not culturally abandoned the societal, time-tested importance of an intact family structure with two parents raising their kids and not having more kids than they can raise or afford. Today 70% of black children are born out of wedlock. For white children it is about 28%. This is according to numerous sources that keep these statistics. It is undeniable that this factor alone contributes to much of what ails the black community. Then there is the education aspect. Reading and math scores of black students in ghetto public schools are abysmal. Black underclass parental involvement in the education of their children is basically nonexistent. It is reflected in the graduation rates. Asian children have the highest graduation rates followed by white students, Hispanics, American Indian students and at the bottom of the list? Yes, black students bring up the rear.

Are you surprised? No, you aren’t. You might feel guilty to admit it for fear of being labeled as racist. They say the truth hurts, but they also say the truth will set you free. On reading and math scores, according to the U.S. Department of Education, nearly 80% of Chicago public schools (code language for black students) are not grade level proficient in both reading and math. These black kids are functionally illiterate for all the money we spend on education in the United States.

Now let’s debunk the proliferation of firearms as being the cause for the historic rise in murder rates and people injured in nonfatal shootings. There are approximately 150 million gun owners in the US. Most of them are white. If the availability of guns was the issue, then gun violence by race would be evenly distributed across the spectrum, yet it is black suspects who are over-represented in both murders and nonfatal shootings. The truth is that the average gun owner does not use a firearm to settle disputes or take property by force. That is a cultural phenomenon primarily located in the black community. Admit it. The statistics do not lie. The people pushing an anti-gun agenda can easily find out by race who is using a firearm to commit violence and if the perpetrator was a concealed carry license holder or if they obtained the gun legally. They don’t want to research it because they know the data will destroy their narrative. More whites own firearms than blacks do and if gun availability was the cause of all the street violence, then more white gun owners would be involved in gun violence incidents and they are not. Again, culture plays a role.

As for blaming COVID lockdowns? COVID lockdowns also occurred in white suburban areas too without the accompanying street violence, so cut the crap about COVID lockdowns causing ghetto violence So where am I going with all this? I want to talk about the role of police in all this. Society takes all this black underclass cultural rot and dysfunction and throws it in the lap of a police officer to solve. Homicides are up nationwide in 2021 by 15%. This follows record violence levels in 2020. Again, where is this happening? In predominantly black neighborhoods, not white neighborhoods. Why do I keep coming back to this aspect? Because too many who know better won’t acknowledge the role that black underclass behavior plays in this. When you add inane public policy like no bail, decarceration and politically motivated prosecutors who won’t charge career violent offenders because they see them as the victims, you have now put street violence on steroids.

I am tired of hearing think tank intellectual elitists talk about police improving their relationship with a dysfunctional community that won’t give police information to help solve crime. That is an advanced stage of cultural rot. After all, it is black people who are being slaughtered here. That isn’t enough motivation to want to help? Is the cultural rot so deep that they can’t summon their better angels to do what’s right regardless of how they might feel about the police? And that’s the fault of the police? Seriously?

It is time to stop the nonsense about how to reduce crime. Stop with the police reform efforts, the calls for more minority recruitment and the sensitivity training junk. It is time to let the police do what they do very effectively, and that is keeping the peace and improving the quality of life for the overall majority of law abiding in the black community by making arrests and getting career criminals off the street. Stop making police the fall guy for bad public policy decisions by progressive cop-hating politicians and activist prosecutors. Politicians have to find the courage to demand better behavior from the black underclass. Law abiding blacks have to shame and condemn poor lifestyle choices and call for black people to make better lifestyle choices.

Stop blaming the police, racism, COVID and guns for the violence in the ghetto. Stop trying to fix the police. And stop funding black underclass cultural rot and dysfunction with more government spending. Like I said. It’s the culture, stupid.

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

The Far Reaching Effects of 9/11

On the morning of September 11, 2001, during a partial hiatus from public safety, I was in the middle of a three year stint as a computer salesperson at a Circuit City store located in Clarksburg, West Virginia.

The morning started uneventfully counting the money in our cash drawers and preparing for the store opening. Approximately the back right quarter of the store was the television section.

As events began to unfold all sets were tuned to the breaking news. The entire store staff stood in awe and horror as clearly an unprecedented terrorist attack was unfolding before our eyes. At 9:03a.m. we couldn’t believe our eyes as we witnessed flight 175 in real-time crashing into the south face of the World Trade Center’s south tower on live national television. The world seemed as though it was coming to a standstill as numerous “customers” began to enter our store not to transact business but simply to join in keeping all eyes glued to the numerous televisions of various sizes. I went to a register kiosk to phone my wife at home to make sure she was aware of what was happening, check on the children, and to tell her that I loved her.

The events of that day were only rivaled by two other days in my memory from a televised event. That being the day that Walter Cronkite appeared on national television to announce the shooting and death of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy and as a child I witnessed my mothers and a nations tears, and the day I cried witnessing the death of teacher Christie McAuliffe in the Challenger disaster and explosion from my living room, then located in Abingdon Maryland.

I honestly don’t remember much else about that day except for the obvious sadness, worry and the terrorist events that followed.

The story on the far reaching impact of 9/11 and its direct impact to me while living in West Virginia doesn’t stop there.

Several days later upon returning home from work to my then residence located in the railroad town of Tunnelton West Virginia, I retrieved a phone message from someone identifying themselves as being from Hurley State Bank leaving a callback number in reference to a potential fraud alert. I immediately returned the call to discover that someone had ordered a Gateway computer to be delivered to an address in Far Rockaway New York (just east of the decimated World Trade Center Towers) and financed with my personal information through a fraudulent credit application with Hurley Bank. I was told this was a commonplace occurrence on the heels of the destruction of the Trade Center buildings.

It turned out that my Circuit City sponsored health benefit through Empire State Blue Cross/Blue Shield had been housed in the World Trade Center facilitating the loss of my files which were probably blowing around the streets of New York City. Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield was the largest corporate headquarters housed in the World Trade Center and were the fifth largest

employer there. They occupied 10 floors of the building spread between floor 17 and floor 31. Miraculously, of the 1,900 plus employees all but nine employees and two consultants survived.

Who would have thought, though, that I would have such a direct impact while living here in North Central West Virginia?

I attempted to make a report with the appropriate precinct of the NYPD but to no avail. The fraudulent act had been caught ahead of merchandise delivery and no one seemed interested in any sort of sting operation to nab the perpetrators.

My experience and troubles were, of course, nothing compared to the massive loss of life suffered that day.

All of us in law enforcement have a duty to always remember and never forget the sacrifices made that day by all of our fire, police and EMS first responders. Now 20-years later, many heroes and their families continue to feel the effects of their acts of heroism that day through continuing health and trauma issues and need our support.

We must do all that we can to train, equip and prepare to confront terrorists and acts of terrorism now and into the future. Let us never forget the sacrifices and lessons learned that fateful day. Patriotism and togetherness against all common enemies must ultimately prevail.

Let freedom ring.

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 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

SOS: It's an EMERGENCY

“One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results” – Milton Friedman 

Have “progressives” completely lost the concept of emergency response and action to any immediate crisis?

A wise police instructor once taught the difference between the public and private sectors. Government prioritizes perceived equity over results, while private business people value results and productivity (i.e. profit or value). Today, while still true, our culture seems to be heading further into the abyss with lack of understanding of priority needs.

 A traditional Texas putdown, “all hat, no cattle” (or, alternately, “big hat, no cattle”) which refers to someone who is all talk with no action, power, or substance behind his/her words seems to perfectly describe how many in authority now view crisis intervention.

Vice President Border Czar Kamala Harris’ handling of the border crisis (or her lack thereof) is a perfect example with skyrocketing migration numbers, human and drug trafficking flooding into the United States by her prioritizing “root-causes” versus taking necessary emergency actions to mitigate the immediate crisis.

Failure to deal with exigent circumstances and any crisis at-hand by always deferring to investigation of "root-causes" exacerbates the chaos and is always seen as weakness and deservedly so.

 This is an ongoing problem with the progressive left. Failing to understand how to deal with emergency crisis situations, whether it is border insecurity and control, or emergent circumstances requiring use of force by law enforcement in an effort to save lives and livelihoods is now becoming the norm.

It takes a special individual to sign up to become a peacekeeper. Whether referred to as a guardian, protector or warrior, not many are suited to the bravery it takes to run into potentially deadly circumstances. Yet the fight or flight response occurs in all of the animal kingdom and once an emergent deadly encounter is imminent, a natural survival instinct is triggered as a normal response. When it's kill or be killed, it becomes survival of the fittest in all of nature as a part of our God-given eco-system. No man or law will change that in spite of a cowardly desire by self-identified “progressives” to routinely ignore necessary response to emergencies by looking for ‘root-causes” inappropriately at moments of active deadly threat.

 Sen. John Kennedy (R) Louisiana expressed failed response to crisis by saying that the timing was bad in addressing “root-causes” as the house is on fire and we find ourselves discussing new tires for the fire truck in lieu of putting out the fire as the priority.

Baltimore’s Kimberly Klacik wisely and accurately responded to Vice President Harris by comparing Guatemala to West Baltimore. When Kamala Harris spoke of “root-causes” for migration out of impoverished Guatemala she noted crime, violence, poor education, food deserts and lack of jobs as contributing “root-cause” factors. All of which perfectly describe the plight of the residents of West Baltimore except that West Baltimore exceeds Guatemala in crime and violence! In fact, mass shootings have occurred on a near monthly basis during the first half of 2021 in Baltimore city, with residents asking, “Where’s the plan?” to combat the city violence. The Biden administration has committed to investment in agribusiness, affordable housing, and entrepreneur creation for Guatemala (while citing global warming as another source of angst for Guatemalans’). What about something along these lines now or in the foreseeable future to come to the aid of the residents of West Baltimore? Crickets … So much for charity begins at home.

The president of Guatemala had it right when he said if the laws and policies on the books this administration inherited were simply enforced, the border problem would not be where it is today. Even Vladimir Putin made clear that he would not tolerate the civil unrest seen on America's streets in compromise of safety in his own country.

While somehow our current federal administration seems bewildered by crisis intervention, the solutions are clear in enforcement of existing laws. Yet somehow our current administration remains blind to recognition of the necessity of taking decisive emergency actions at times of crisis. It’s past time to value positive results both now and looking forward by being “woke” to reality through prioritization of immediate action over long term solutions which MUST be secondary to response to any immediate threat and crisis.

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

NOTHING IS SACRED ANYMORE

Back in June of 2020, I penned a column on this site about the crisis in the law enforcement profession that I believed was not getting the attention that it deserved from the national media. It wasn’t just attention to the crisis that I was trying to put on the matter but more importantly that not enough mental health resources were being dedicated to it.

I pointed out that over the last three years, suicide was the greatest single cause of death for law enforcement officers and that comparatively, a law enforcement officer stood a better chance of taking their own life than by being killed in the line of duty by felony assault, patrol vehicle crashes and other duty-related issues. I wrote that in fact officers were two to three more times likely to kill themselves, and that it is currently the leading cause of death for officers.

I was interviewed on podcasts about this tragic phenomenon, but I could not get any interest from major cable news networks about this. With all the talk about mental health surrounding athletes these days, it is pathetic that when the people who risk their lives for the safety of their communities can’t get the same attention to their mental health from the media or mental health practitioners. We learned more about Olympic gymnast Simone Biles’ bout with the “twisties” and professional tennis player Naomi Osaka who quit the French Open, a major tennis tournament, because she feared having to talk to the media after a match. Seriously. Does the media know what a law enforcement officer deals with on a daily basis, including biased reporting in covering how they perform in use of force incidents?

But this just in, or should I call it “breaking news”. The Left leaning media has become “woke” to the issue of law enforcement suicides. The problem is that they are using attention to it for political purposes. Yes, the media once again demonstrates that their ethical elevator has no bottom floor.

Stories are now appearing on Leftist print sites and getting electronic media coverage that four Washington D.C. officers who responded to the trespassing of the US Capital on Jan. 6 have committed suicide. Is the Leftist media’s interest in the issue of blue suicide sincere? Do they really care about the crisis facing our profession? Hell no they don’t. These scoundrels are using it as a political weapon to attack former President Donald Trump. This is disgusting, but not surprising at all.

Listen to how the suicide of four DC officers is being reported. Lima, Ohio news headline says, 4 officers at “insurrection” commit suicide. CNBC headline reads, Trump Capitol riot: Police officer suicide rise to four deaths. NBCnews.com headline reads, Four officers who responded to Capitol riot have committed suicide. That reference to Trump’s Capitol riot is naked politics. One of the more despicable headlines comes from the site, Republic World. It reads, US Capitol Riots Death Toll Reaches Four After Two More Police Officers Commit Suicide. The only death that occurred on that day was when Air Force veteran Ashley Babbitt was killed by a federal officer as she climbed through a window. The site gopusa.com headline reads, Very Unusual: Four Capitol police officers have died by suicide.

Let me stop here for some comments. Very Unusual? Really? I just got through talking about this being a growing crisis in the law enforcement profession for the last three years. Where the hell has gopusa.com been?

Every one of these headlines insinuates that these suicides are directly associated with one incident. Law enforcement officers have been taking a mental beating at the hands of Leftist media sites ever since 2014 when Ferguson, Mo., Police Officer Darren Wilson lawfully saved his own life after being attacked by the thug Mike Brown who was trying to disarm the officer. Remember hands up, don’t shoot? Ever since that lie was spawned, there has been a constant barrage of hate generated against the entire profession of law enforcement. Officers have been smeared, unfairly maligned and mischaracterized as racists, bloodthirsty and that they routinely target and mistreat young black males for no reason. None of this has any basis in truth, and no data exists to prove it either. The media knows this. Cops have been spat on, had rocks and bottles thrown at them, been shot at and killed in ambush attacks. They have been the target of defunding efforts by their city mayors and councils and have been targeted for baseless criminal charges by politically active prosecutors. This has created a mass exodus of early retirements and resignations, leaving many agencies’ ranks thin.

This constant beat down has taken its toll on the mental health of our communities’ finest. It is easy to make a connection to the War on Cops as a contributing factor to an officer’s mental strain. For the Leftist media to politicize and exploit blue suicide by connecting it to a one-off incident is either a general lack of understanding about the process of suicide or they simply couldn’t resist to use it in their continued persecution of President Trump. This offends the senses. It demonstrates that the Leftist media lacks a moral compass. Classic ends justifying the means mindset.

As I indicated earlier, police suicides have been on a three-year upward trend. During this time period, neither Nancy Pelosi nor her Democrat colleagues expressed any concern or sympathy for the growing crisis of blue suicide. In fact, it was the Democratic Party that provided cop haters Black Lives Matter and Antifa a platform with which to spread their hate and contempt for law enforcement. Now we are supposed to believe that these lowlifes care about cops? Yeah, right.

Next the Democrat politicians and their propagandists in the Left-wing media will be trying to convince us that they have supported the police all along and it was President Trump who has hated law enforcement. Wait. They already are peddling that false narrative.

Sheriff David Clarke Jr. is former Sheriff of Milwaukee Co, Wisconsin, President of AmericasSheriff LLC, Board member of the Crime Research Center, President of Rise Up Wisconsin Inc and 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

The Man with the Iron Will: An Ex-Cop’s journey- from Addict to Becoming a Savior

Jeremy Hackman, former drug addict, spent more than eight months at the Blue Vase Recovery Center in Show-Low, Arizona trying to work out the demons that led him to abuse methamphetamines.

“One of my biggest hurdles came from dealing with my counselor,” Hackman told The Blue Magazine.

Hackman’s counselor frequently pushed him to the limit with tough love that often consisted of outright in-your-face aggression.

“It got to a point where my counselor and I almost got into a fist fight — several times!” Hackman recalled.  

He said he didn’t realize it then, but the approach was just what he needed to break the cycle. He had to confront his deep-seated trust issues, co-dependency, sexual addiction and longstanding problems with his father, which all contributed to struggles with drug abuse.

But this isn’t a story about Jeremy Hackman. It’s the story of his counselor -- Brock Bevell.

Brock isn’t a graduate of social work or therapy. He’s a graduate of someone who’s been there, someone who knows what drug use is about and the dark world it inhabits. In a stunning tale, he went from the local hero as an effective undercover narcotics officer, to being seriously injured multiple times, to suffering from PTSD, to becoming addicted to opiates, divorce, criminal activity- all to a sober and clean man. Today he fights to change the world by helping one drug addict at a time.

A true tale of redemption.

 1984: Three Life Sentences

Brock lived in what most people considered a normal life in Scottsdale, AZ.  His family consisted of hard-working blue collar parents with eight children in a modest suburban home. As a child, Brock was unknowingly helping his mother mismanage the family finances.

“My mom handled the money and was super deceptive.” Brock said. “She would notify us, ‘Hey when you get home from school, go right to the mail and hide the mail from your dad.”

That wasn’t the only example of family dysfunction; Brock’s oldest sister is serving three life sentences for murdering three infants in 1989.

Brock recalled a vivid memory, “I remember her chasing us around the house with knives and saying she was going to kill us.” He said.

We’re glad he made it out alive in such an intense family atmosphere.

1997: I Just Killed a Guy

After spending two years in South America on a mission for his church, Brock pursued a career in law enforcement and landed with the Mesa, Arizona, police department. His chain of command soon picked up on his skillset and transferred him to the narcotics division.

Brock’s first major incident involved a felony stop of a vehicle that led police on a chase in cruisers and helicopters. The suspect, driving a bulky 1970s-style pickup truck, was trapped in a cul-de-sac surrounded by police. The only option left for the suspect was to drive through Brock and his partners-which is exactly what he attempted, forcing Brock to shoot him with his department-issued AR-15 twice through the windshield, once in the face.

“I remember I was so mad … I was so frustrated. We pulled him out of the car, and that’s something you can’t unsee. I’m looking down and I just felt pissed off. I was enraged like, who are you dude, why would you be so intoxicated or high to make us kill you. So, I took some offense to it.”

Although Brock managed his way through the interview to return to work, he was never the same person after that incident.

 2000: There was My Daughter’s Face

On a hot sunny afternoon in Mesa, Arizona, Brock responded to a call of an unconscious infant. As he hurriedly raced to the home, the parents immediately handed him the child. Brock, certified in CPR quickly rendered aid, all to no avail. The infant was later pronounced dead.

“I just had a baby the same age, so when I initially looked at the baby, there was my daughter’s face.” Brock said.

He sat alone in his cruiser, parked behind a vacant building after the incident. He didn’t want anyone seeing him with his palms pressed against his forehead while his hands shook uncontrollably. Like the shooting, Brock never psychologically processed the incident.

 “The next day the sergeant is like how are you Officer Bevell, and I’m like I’m good, I’m fine no problem, but inside I’m buckling.” He continued, “Am I the only dude that goes home and suffers? I can’t sleep, I keep seeing this kid’s face.”

2001: A Drug-Addicted Mother and her Daughter

One of Brock’s informants, a local prostitute, told Brock she knew of a drug-addicted mother who had arranged to sex-traffic her 12-year-old daughter, trading her to a local dealer for drugs.

Brock said he had already begun to hate drug addicts, alcoholics and drunken drivers.

“I developed a bad attitude towards them,” he said.

Brock and his partner staked out the location of the expected exchange, and when the vehicle they were looking for showed up, they pulled the woman over and detained the drug dealer, who arrived by bicycle as expected.

After moments of tense interaction, the woman threw the truck in drive and tried taking off, seriously injuring Brock and his partner in the process.

“She ran my partner and I over,” Brock said. “He was at the front [of the truck], got caught under the tire and [the truck] went over his back. She caught my right foot under the back tire. My foot was stuck, so I broke my ankle. Then I stepped with my left leg to brace myself, and she hit me in the inside of my knee and just blew my knee out.”

The woman put the truck in reverse and got it stuck on a concrete slab, disabling the truck. She was arrested and charged with several offenses, including child endangerment, and sentenced to nine years in prison. The child was sent through the state child protective system.

“This lady has a daughter that she’s willing to prostitute and give to a guy for a substance,” Brock said. “And that for me was really hard to cope with.”

2004: I was Just Playing the Game

After several surgeries and countless physical therapy sessions, Brock reported back to work.

 The traumas Brock suffered on the job coupled with the physical pain of recovery led him to opioid pain killers.

“The first time I tasted opiates, I really liked them, actually loved them,” Brock said, “It got me out of pain right away.”

The opiates helped Brock cope with daily life on the job.

In 2004, he was forced to medically retire from police work. But he continued to chase the thrill that police work used to provide. He turned to a deviant lifestyle of chasing women even though he was still married, trying to fill the void of a lack of personal excitement.

The couple divorced in 2009, further spiraling him into a dark place.

While Brock relied on opiates to dull the physical pain, the psychological pain was still unprocessed, and he began collecting large quantities of prescription pills.

“I had three different doctors that I’d go to. I changed prescriptions — the dosage. I was just playing the game.” Brock said.

He would give the excess pills to a friend who had a steady stream of clients looking to score some dope.

Things eventually came to a head when Brock hit rock bottom.

 2009: You’re Living in a Crack House, Dude

His life became nothing but a soul-sucking hustle to get more prescription drugs.

One morning in 2009, Brock opened up his bathroom medicine cabinet and noticed his massive collection of prescription bottles — all neatly labeled and organized by type, strength and quantity. He caught a reflection of his bedroom in a nearby mirror. There was garbage strewn about — an endless sea of fast-food wrappers, soda bottles and whatever else a single man with no direction or hope would leave around.

“When I shut the cabinet there was a glimpse,” Brock said. “I see the reflection from the mirror into my bedroom, and I’m like, ‘You’re living in a crack house, dude.”

In a fit of frustration and anger, Brock opened all the prescription bottles and dumped every single pill into the toilet and flushed them.

He immediately wondered if carefully weaning himself off opiates might have been a better course of action. But it was too late.

He had just refilled his prescriptions, so there was no turning back. He couldn’t just refill his supply. Detox had begun.

After alienating his wife and kids and lacking reliable, responsible friends, Brock had to withdraw from 10 years of opioid addiction alone with no preparation or plan.

“It was the worst pain I’ve ever gone through and the most bottom and lonely I’ve ever felt,” he said. “You get so sick, you can only pee and crap yourself so many times, you can only throw up so much. You’re throwing up so violently you feel like your bones are going to break.”

After seven days of sleepless nights and excruciatingly painful days, he started to recover. That was the beginning of a new life.

2016: I’m Making Up for It

After getting clean, he found a normal, office-style job.  He was, and still is, living a clean, healthy lifestyle trying to rebuild everything he destroyed, including patching up the relationship with his children.

“I’m definitely not as close as a dad should be [right now] because I’m working backward,” he said. “I’m making up for it.”

Since 2015, he has been helping people like Jeremy Hackman overcome their demons by implementing tough-love techniques such as getting in people’s faces if necessary, and ensuring a lasting recovery. Brock’s “fight fire with fire” style has proved effective, but it’s only one weapon in his arsenal.

“Addiction is so strong, and I have to find the emotional component. I have to approach every situation with equal but opposite energy,” he said.

Brock says at every turn, he could’ve lost everything and ended up dead or in jail. Now he will spend the rest of his life finding and helping people overcome their addiction.

If you find yourself needing help and want to learn more about his recovery programs and wish to reach out to Brock, go to his website www.chasethevase.com for more information.

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

HELP KEEP A COP KILLER BEHIND BARS

Missouri Board of Probation and Parole
Re: Elmer R. Hayes, #22281
3400 Knipp Drive
Jefferson City, MO. 65109

Dear Sir or Madam:

I am writing this letter to openly oppose the impending consideration for parole of inmate #22281, Elmer R. Hayes.

My name is Kirk Lawless and I am a retired Florissant Missouri Police Officer. While I did not serve on the department when Hayes savagely gunned down Sergeant Jay Noser, I joined the Florissant Police Department several years later, in 1987.

I would later work with his young son, William, for several years. Jay’s brother Ken Noser, retired as a Police Lieutenant from the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. Ken was one of my mentors (and I know for fact, he was troubled by the attack on his brother and he took that anguish to his grave) Ken’s son, Tom and I have been best friends for many years, so I am very connected to the Noser family.

The connection goes way beyond those mentioned in the previous paragraph. Jay and I, through the badge we wore, are brothers, and that bond transcends the grave. When you attack one of us, you attack all of us. When you kill one of us, ten more will pick up the mantle and carry on where the fallen brother could not press on.

Elmer Hayes is a vicious, blood-thirty cop killer. The point will be argued that he did not kill Sergeant Jay Noser on that day in 1979, but he did much more than that. He killed Sergeant Noser every day until he died a physical death in 2008. His family had to live with the suffering caused by Hayes. His friends and brothers did the same.

This is not a case of a bad guy shooting a cop in a fair gunfight and the officer dying. The savagery of Hayes goes way beyond that.

After Hayes tried to make good his getaway and was stopped by Sergeant Noser, he became predatory and went on he attack, shooting Sergeant Noser through the windshield while he was still sitting in his car, radioing the car stop. Hayes then walked up to Sergeant Noser’s car and pumped several more bullets into him at close range, I presume in an attempt to “finish him off.” Hayes left Sergeant Noser bleeding to death.” Knowing that he was at the doorstep of death, Sergeant Noser told the dispatcher via radio, to tell his wife that he loved her. My friends at the police station told me the story and it was a powerful and haunting memory for many of them.

Mr. Hayes had many options that day. The first, obviously, was not to rob the bank. He didn’t have to pull over when Sergeant Noser attempted to curb his vehicle. He certainly did not have to ambush Sergeant Noser, firing at him upon immediately exiting his vehicle.

What possessed him to walk up to the Sergeant’s car and attempt a coup de grace, (the devil perhaps, or at least one of his henchmen)? And all this for what, to keep the Sergeant from identifying him? That ship had already sailed. There were witnesses to the robbery and one had written down the license plate displayed on Hayes’ vehicle. It was a botched robbery from the beginning. Hayes’ big score was a paltry $1600.

Hayes gets to live in prison, where he is clothed, housed and fed, but he deserves so much more than that.

Sergeant Noser spent the next 29 years suffering from his wounds, with several bullets left in precarious placement within his body that would not allow surgical removal. As often is the case, his organs damaged by the bullets became riddled yet again, this time by cancer, the cancer that caused even more suffering, because of Hayes’ disregard for the life of another man, a policeman, doing his job.

What Mr. Hayes may or might not realize is that he can kill one of us, but he can’t kill all of us (and there are many of us)

I have yet to hear an answer as far as Hayes’ original charge, whether or not it was amended after Sergeant Jay Noser succumbed to his original injuries. Did his death change the sentence of Mr. Hayes? It should have.

Mr. Hayes should never be allowed outside the walls of prison. He should stay there until he dies as far as I’m concerned. When that happens I am personally available to help carry him out and put him in the potter’s field. I could not be more serious about that.

After many years on the job, this remains one of the most heinous attacks on a police officer that I can remember. I pray the board sees fit to keep Elmer R. Hayes #22281 behind bars for the rest of his life, because that is where he belongs.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or would like me to make a personal appearance at the hearing.

Sincerely,

Detective Kirk Lawless Florissant PD (Retired /LOD injury)
174867 Old Jamestown Rd, Florissant MO, 6303

A CASE OF AMNESIA

As crime and violence rises in major cities all across the United States, all under the spell of progressive soft on crime policies, the casualties continue to mount in the form of human carnage stacking up like cordwood.

 All of this is preventable. The problem is that this new age of police executives have either gone soft or on the way up the ladder to their current positions, they have gotten a case of amnesia about crime control strategies. It’s embarrassing and untenable.

Front-line cops are frustrated about a lot of things. Chief among them is that they know what to do to suppress crime, but they have been turned from crime fighters into security guards. That is not a knock on security guards. It’s that security differs immensely from police work.

There seems to be a renewal in a push by police chiefs about this call for more community policing. I have heard numerous times in the last several months where police executives have held a press briefing relative to the rise in violence by saying we need more of an emphasis on community policing. What, I asked?  What the hell exactly does that mean?  Are they suggesting that community policing will lead to a reduction in crime and violence at street level? Seriously?

I started in policing with the Milwaukee Police Department in 1978. That is when this new form of policing was introduced. It was called community policing. Millions of dollars in federal grants were passed out to local police agencies to embrace street cops “getting to know the people on their particular beat.” It was a flop from the start. Front line cops abhorred the thought of this idea that was hatched in some think tank and recoiled that it was being shoved down their throats. It was a social engineering experiment that had no front-line officer’s input. I know cop behavior.

So for the next 40 years of my working in policing, executives have been on this fantasy that community policing was the ticket to crime prevention, suppression and reduction. So here we are today still on this fantasy about community policing.

Here are a few thoughts on this nebulous, elusive esoteric concept of community policing. When have the street officers never worked with the community to keep neighborhoods, businesses and schools safe? That is the only way police could have achieved the success that they have. Imagine that! Additionally, police in the past had more time for a tactic called preventive patrol where a good part of their tour was spent being a visible presence in the neighborhood. That no longer exists. It made street crime tough for criminals to pull off. It is why much of the violent crime occurred when streets got dark. It offered crooks the advantage of concealment.

Now much of the street violence occurs in daylight hours. Why? Because police ranks are so thin and 911 calls keep them going from assignment to assignment with no time to spend on preventive patrols. There was actually a strategy implemented after that said a particular assignment should only take so long to handle. If a cop was on assignment and exceeded an artificial time for that type of assignment, a sergeant would show up to see what was taking so long. I am not making this stuff up. 

In a Newsmax TV interview recently, I was asked to opine on the rise in street crime and violence across America and what could be done about it. My response was simple, just like I like to keep things.

First of all, I said that I am not hearing from chiefs, a comprehensive CRIME REDUCTION STRATEGY. They keep taking about more community policing. This is irresponsible. People are dying while they engage in progressive initiatives that tie the hands of officers on the front lines. We don’t need more community policing, we need a crime reduction strategy with metrics so they and we can see how they are doing. How do you measure community policing? We need a return to what worked. Quality of life enforcement as defined by broken windows strategies would be a good start. This led to historic reductions in violent crime all across America. Think of the lives and misery saved with fewer crime victims. 

Recently in Chicago, Superintendent David Brown introduced yet again a new crime plan.  It is the same leftovers from last year that resulted in nothing. It targets the gun and goes after gun manufacturers. That’s right, gun manufacturers are committing the gun violence. That is akin to going after automobile manufacturers for drunken driving deaths. That’s stupid. So is Superintendent Brown’s idea. He should announce that he is going to allow his officers to engage in the strategy of stop, question and frisk, increased traffic stops in high crime areas and quality of life enforcement. This along with warrant sweeps and working with probation and parole to do searches of residences and cars of people out on probation and parole. Anyone arrested should be intensely debriefed to collect info to develop intelligence that can be passed onto front-line officers. Brown needs assurances from the Soros backed Cook County States Attorney Kimberly Foxx that people arrested for a violent crime will be held on high bail and charged.  The goal is to keep them off the street for the longest time allowable by law.

The objective has to be to target the criminal and their violent behavior, not the tool they use.  This is not new. We did before.

In 1994 then-Sen. Joe Biden authored the Clinton crime reduction bill. It went after violent offenders and utilized the federal code to punish career violent offenders. It didn’t go after gun manufacturers. As I said previously, it led to historic reductions in crime and violence.

Let’s stop listening to nonsense about reimagining and reinventing police and let’s get backed to what worked.  Identify, arrest and lock up career repeat offenders.

Sheriff David Clarke Jr. is former Sheriff of Milwaukee Co, Wisconsin, President of AmericasSheriff LLC, Board member of the Crime Research Center, President of Rise Up Wisconsin Inc, 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

“Fact Checkers”… Working to Create False Truths?

“The remedy for speech that is false is speech that is true.” – Anthony Kennedy, Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

A false truth is something that is believed by many people to be true but is not. It is usually something that cannot be backed up with hard evidence. Facebook has stepped up what I believe is its anti-truth campaign. Sourced content that I shared was rated “false” by “Independent Fact Checkers.”

Here’s an excerpt from my posted video interview from a former Pentagon official with the Trump administration, Kash Patel, who spoke about how the Capitol riot of January 6 could have been prevented. Patel, who was chief of staff to Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, said in a first-hand account:

“We had offered the Capitol Police, and Mayor Bowser of Washington, DC, thousands of National Guardsmen and women, two days before January 6. And they turned us down.”

“Why, on January 6, when it has now publicly been admitted by the FBI that they had information that there could possibly be a situation like that at the United States Capitol, why weren’t the Cabinet secretaries under President Trump, briefed?” Patel asked on the show Kash’s Corner, with Epoch TV.”Why didn’t the FBI put a thousand uniformed agents around the US Capitol? Where was the fence, right? These are the lackings of that led to January 6. These are the mistakes—intentional or otherwise—that led to January 6.”And if you look at the video from January 6, and they still won’t release all of it, and entire side of the Capitol, I believe it’s the south side, was totally unmanned. No police officers whatsoever, and that’s where the crowd came in through,” Patel said. “And you have to ask yourself: ‘What happened on January 6?

When asked if it could have been that there was not enough “information sharing happening.”Patel replied “I think it was not enough information sharing happening, and I think that what people now are starting to realize is that the protecting of the US Capitol on a day like January 6 is a law enforcement function. You cannot the United States military descend, and occupy, the area around the United States Capitol. It’s literally illegal.”But they can assist their law enforcement partners through a request from the mayor, or the governor, or the Capitol Police, and that’s what should have happened, and that’s what we told them they might want to consider but they flat-out rejected it—for political reasons, I believe,” Patel said.

In spite of my post of a first-hand sourced report by a senior Trump administration official, Facebook tagged my post with the following disclaimer (you be the judge):

False Information In Your Group: Joel E Gordon shared information that’s been reviewed by PolitiFact. We’ve added a notice to the post so others can see that it’s false. No proof Trump ordered 10,000 Guard Troops for Jan 6 or that Pelosi denied it.

Really? Kash Patel is going on the record as to the facts that he is aware of on a first-hand basis! Is it any wonder that President Trump is fighting back against Big Tech censorship in his historic lawsuit likely to be a huge class action with over 60,000 inquiries so far on joining the suit?

Although Big Tech giants have been hiding as private concerns, it is being alleged that these companies are clearly colluding with and working at the behest of government to limit free speech. Press Secretary Jen Psaki foolishly admitted what many had suspected for months, telling the White House pool that the administration is actively “flagging problematic posts” for social network platforms.

“This is a big issue of misinformation, specifically on the pandemic. We’ve increased disinformation research and tracking. We’re flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation,” said Psaki.

Here is the White House (probably unwittingly) bolstering President Trump’s Big Tech lawsuit, which alleges that these companies have become pseudo-government actors. What they’re doing is alleged to be a blatant violation of the First Amendment. Who determines what “disinformation” is? What happens after the person spreading this “disinformation” is identified? Why are the self-professed “fact checkers” selectively silent on President Biden’s recent claim that he used to drive an 18-wheeler truck — with the White House only able to show he was once a passenger in one!

President Trump: ‘We must decide that we will not stop, we will not rest until our American heritage of freedom, liberty and justice is once again safe and secure.’

So I join in challenging Facebook and others to continue to censor myself, many in our law enforcement community and others for the social media’s own biased and sometimes provably inaccurate or off base "fact-checking." Perhaps before further enlarging the base of potential participants in the Donald Trump-led class action lawsuit Big Tech would like to make an offer for our settlements now while agreeing to cease and desist from these reckless behaviors?

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

FIGHTING WORDS: A call to arms?

"What we’re seeing right now under the Biden-Harris administration is an agenda that is so radical it is taking us beyond socialism to an agenda of National DECLINE where nothing of our founding principles and values will remain." - Mike Pence

Did I hear this right? Did the president of the United States issue what could be perceived as a direct threat with the possibility of using F-15s & nuclear weapons against his own citizens?...

“The Second Amendment, from the day it was passed, limited the type of people who could own a gun and what type of weapon you could own,” Biden said. “You couldn’t buy a cannon. [Those who] say the blood of the, the blood of patriots, you know, and all this stuff about how we’re going to have to move against the government.”

“Well, the tree of liberty is not [watered with] the blood of patriots, what’s happened is that there never been, if you want, if you think you need to have weapons to take on the government, you need F-15s and maybe some nuclear weapons,” Biden continued. “The point is that there’s always been the ability to limit, rationally limit, the type of weapon that can be owned, and who can own it.”

Of course, these gun remarks completely counter the Democrat narrative of the incident at our Capitol on January 6th. As conservative commentator Dana Loesch pointed out “Wait, so a guy dressed like a Burning Man reject in a buffalo head and his motley crew … almost overthrew the entire government but you can’t own a semi-auto because the mighty government will nuke you into next week?” So, according to President Biden you need nukes and fighter jets to take on this government but unarmed people walking around taking pictures and speaking with Capitol PD officers were the greatest threat our government has ever faced?

Nukes? What leader tacitly, if not overtly, threatens his own people with nuclear weapons? This doesn't comport with the American values of freedom and governance of, by, and for the people does it?

Fighting words doctrine Fighting words are, as first defined by the Supreme Court in Chaplinsky v New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568 (1942), words which "by their very utterance, inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality."

In other words, fighting words constitute a type of punishable incitement when speakers intentionally incite a response of violence.

While the president’s remarks fall short of fighting words in a legal sense, they sure seem to open the door to escalation of violence and are morally reprehensible. For an administration trying to further restrict Second Amendment rights to bear arms in an effort to “curtail violence,” are these words an open invitation for the Chinese Communist Party or another hostile nuclear powered adversary, who potentially would be willing to supply, support or launch a nuclear attack at the behest of Soros-supported factions like Black Lives Matter, Antifa or other groups who have their own hostilities toward the United States? Unlikely, but why even open that door? The Biden Administration just released a National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism. The strategy is narrowly tailored, but not specifically on addressing violence. It’s aimed directly at taking away fundamental constitutional rights by declaring them to be precursors to terrorist violence and criminalizing certain expressed dissenting points of view. Are President’s Biden’s words the very precursor to terrorist violence referenced in the written strategy? Are threatening “fighting words” a true call to arms placing citizens in a defensive posture? What is President Biden’s real position and that of his administration? How will law enforcement resources be impacted and utilized moving forward? Freedom shouldn’t hurt simply because we refuse to comply with and support convoluted thought and harmful bureaucratic ideologies.

Enemies from within are of great danger to our safety and freedoms. We must work against any and all threats to our inalienable rights as it pertains to our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. Our very futures and that of future generations are at stake during these critical times of evaluation and reevaluation. To the progressives, traditionalists and the many somewhere in between …

Where do you stand?

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 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