Rational Thought
/New tactics for law enforcement… a recipe for disaster?
By: Kirk Lawless
Not much surprises me anymore, but there are plenty of things about modern policing that disturb me. When Mayor de Blasio announced his new incentive to encourage criminals to appear in court, I cringed. It is apparent the inmates are running the asylum, and it’s not just in New York, it’s happening across America. Criminals get arrested, booked and released, in most cases without meeting any bond requirement, unless it’s a “serious” felony (I imagine that will be open to interpretation). The criminals are back on the street before the cop’s paperwork is barely started. Now the plan is to entice the criminals to appear in court with gift cards and tickets to a Mets game. Ladies and gentlemen, the shot-callers have reached a new level of stupidity, and the level is about as low as it can get.
Not long ago, the normal path to avoid jail was to obey the law. The adage, “Crime does not pay” made sense. We even learned it in grade school.
Now, the politicians, the media and anti-police factions have convinced criminals and those who aspire to become criminals that the police are the enemy. The police have been demonized, and nobody wants to be held accountable for their actions. Government agencies and police departments are so quick to pay off anyone who makes a claim that the police arrested them without reason, assaulted them (even while arresting them for committing a crime, or if the police happen to be defending themselves and a criminal gets injured in the process) or hurt their feelings. The behavior is encouraged. Michael Brown’s family was paid before all the facts involving the case were known. When the false narrative was proved to be exactly that, the money was already gone. His family didn’t pay it back. In fact, they’re trying to dip into the same well a second time. Eric Garner’s family was also awarded money before the facts were in. When the accusations against the police were proved to be lies, that money was gone, too. His family didn’t pay the money back. De Blasio and his henchmen, knowing this, fed Officer Pantaleo to the wolves after Garner’s family got the cash as what, a sacrifice?
The shot-callers, by paying off these families while damning the police at the same time, have been making thugs into heroes one at a time.
I have had conversations with folks on the street and have been told that if they were to be shot, killed or grievously injured while committing crimes by the police officer who shows up to arrest them, they will sue the police. In fact, some have told me while I was on the job that they welcomed it, given the opportunity. If they survived, they’d get paid. If they died, their family would get paid. They would become heroes in the eyes of their family members and it was worth the risk to engage the cops in an altercation that could prove deadly. A Pavlovian response was again proven to be accurate. No need to ring a bell, just open a checkbook and they will begin salivating. It’s payday, everybody! Name your price, we’ll pay it, and the bonus is we’ll fire the cops who were doing their jobs.
Who wants to be “the cops” with this nonsense going on? Wonder why there’s a shortage of police officers? They are going off the job in droves, and it’s not just the danger and the potential for injury or death on the streets. It’s the fear they will be served up as a sacrifice, be terminated or worse, imprisoned.
So, the lunacy continues across the United States. Most departments are understaffed, thereby working their officers to near death. The tragedy currently taking place is that some departments have contemplated hiring convicted felons as police officers. Others, so eager to put bodies in uniforms, are willing to lower hiring standards to include speeding through the background process, overlooking serious character flaws that create nightmares and raise the potential for additional payouts resulting from new lawsuits. Similarly, some departments have promoted officers through the ranks at breakneck speed, without them meeting educational requirements and not having much in the way of street experience, to be in command of platoons of officers who are probably unfit to do the job. Folks, this can be happening in your neighborhood right now and you won’t realize it until it’s too late.
Policing in some areas have gone from proactive, to reactive, to inactive. That means the cops aren’t doing much of anything. In some neighborhoods, you’ll rarely see cops on patrol. The brains of the outfits have “dummy” police cars parked in shopping centers and on convenience store parking lots. They’re usually blacked out, aren’t equipped with computers and not a uniformed cop within miles of them. Hell, I’ve seen hand-to-hand drug deals take place right in front of these cars. The dope peddlers might as well cut their dope on the hood of the marked police car. Everybody knows there aren’t any cops around when they see a police car parked somewhere for 12 hours. The taxpayers are paying for this, and it is as sad as it is heartbreaking.
So this is the state of affairs right now, and it’ll probably get worse before it gets better. Someone asked me what could be done to curb some of this behavior. First take Skinner’s rats off the payroll. Stop paying them! At least if you have to pay out, wait for the case to be fully adjudicated and all of the evidence weighed.
In the old days, you’d be lucky to file a complaint against a police officer, much less a lawsuit. Think of the old-time beat cop (maybe in the 1920s or 1930s). Suppose he walks by and sees a group of troublemakers hanging around his area and he’s pretty sure they’ll cause problems if they stay. He would tell them to leave by the time he makes his next round, and if they were still there at that time, somebody would get a bump on their head. When he came around and the order had obviously been ignored, he’d make good on his word and somebody would end up with a bump on their head, and in most cases, a valuable lesson was learned. Now, to some, that just sounds so “abrasive.” I can hear the words “police brutality.” I’m not saying that it would ever go back to that, but could you imagine that same cop opening his wallet and offering that same group money to leave his beat and into someone else’s? Absurd? That’s pretty much what’s going on right now. The rewarding of bad behavior makes no sense. There’s no accountability. Why not just open the jailhouse doors and let them all out and release everyone from all of the prisons?
Right now, when the riots pop off and everybody is “gettin’ their clown on,” whether they are paid agitators or dogs just waiting for that bell to ring, someone is going to start writing checks and the taxpayers will ultimately be on the hook. Just imagine if for one year, folks could file complaints against police officers, but there would be no more lawsuits, no payouts to avoid trials, no out-of-court settlements, nothing. One year, complain all you want, but no money, not one dime.
There would be no reason to “take one for the team,” no pay to fight the cops. No incentive to risk bodily injury or worse because someone was looking for a payday, their chance to be Robin Hood. Crime wouldn’t stop, but I bet it would slow down. Of course, we’ll never find out because this is just a hypothetical scenario. It’s just something to think about.
What is not hypothetical is the pay-for-play trend. The old adage has gone right out the window because, “Crime does pay” and for the most part, it pays well.
