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Posts Tagged ‘police’
July 31st, 2020 at 2:19 pm
Image of the Day: Defund Police, While Crime Spikes Upward?
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As Dennis Prager neatly illustrates, is now really the time for Joe Biden and other leftists to be advocating “Defund the Police?”

 

Not the Time to Defund Police

Not the Time to Defund Police

 

 

June 9th, 2017 at 1:28 pm
Rasmussen: Americans Have Cops’ Backs
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Beyond the James Comey cacophony that increasingly appears composed of left-wing hype rather than legal substance, it’s worth highlighting an encouraging new Rasmussen Reports survey released this week.

Despite years of false “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” demonization of the nation’s police forces, the American public continues to back the cops:

It’s been a rough few years to be a police officer, with high-profile police shootings and riots dominating the news.  But despite the negative press, Americans still value the police.  A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that most American adults (70%) rate the performance of the police in the area where they live as good or excellent.  That’s virtually unchanged from 2016, but up from 67% in late 2014.  Just five percent (5%) think their police are doing a poor job.”

Police in America have a difficult job and deal with a disproportionate share of society’s underbelly while putting their lives on the line on our behalf every day, but at least they can know that the public overwhelmingly has their back.

June 3rd, 2016 at 9:48 am
Survey: Americans Still Support Police
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In this week’s Liberty Update commentary “Don’t Go Wobbly on Criminal Justice,” we sound the alarm on rising violent crime in America’s largest cities while too many across the political spectrum nevertheless seek to relax our criminal laws and reverse the measures that so drastically reduced crime rates in the U.S. over the past 20 years.

On that subject, Rasmussen Reports offers some encouraging news.  In one survey, a majority of respondents favor “Blue Lives Matter” state laws that would classify assaults on police, firefighters or other emergency responders as “hate crimes.”  In another, a 58% to 27% majority believes that a “war on police” exists in America today.

Those results suggest that American voters have a good handle on present criminal justice realities.  Here’s hoping that they maintain it in the face of politically fashionable attempts by media and political figures to resurrect soft-on-crime policies that created an awful state of affairs from the 1960s to the 1990s.

November 27th, 2013 at 10:51 am
Store Owner Responds to Police Harassment by Recording Cops

Alex Saleh recenty joined the growing number of American business owner to install a surveillance system. What makes the Miami Gardens, Fla., convenience store owner different is that he didn’t get the cameras to keep an eye on shoplifters or cash register robbers, he got them to film area police.

After years of watching cops harass his customers and employees, Saleh had enough.

One of his employees was stopped and questioned by police officers 258 times over a four-year period. The employee was arrested for trespassing 62 times – just for being at the place where he worked!

In all, even though the convenience store had never been robbed, Saleh was forced to install 15 surveillance cameras.

CNET reports that “[t]he videos make for numbing viewing. In one, a store employee takes out the trash, only to be arrested for trespassing. Others appear to show searches without warrants and police stopping customers without any obvious reason.”

July 24th, 2012 at 6:32 pm
Mike Bloomberg: Proper Response to Lawlessness is More Lawlessness
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There’s been a predictably breathless reaction from America’s politicians to last week’s horrific movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado. As I noted yesterday at Ricochet, the vast majority of it is for naught, as the crucial variables that allowed the attack to play out were beyond the ken of public policy. But the benchmark for abject stupidity was easily set by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who said the following to CNN’s Piers Morgan last night while advocating for stricter gun control:

“I don’t understand why the police officers across this country don’t stand up collectively and say we’re going to go on strike,” Bloomberg told the “Piers Morgan Tonight” host. “We’re not going to protect you unless you, the public, through your legislature, do what’s required to keep us safe.”

Bloomberg is now, understandably, trying to walk back his comments with the same rationale that Barack Obama is currently employing — “I didn’t mean the words that actually came out of my mouth.”

Put aside the tyrannical instincts of an executive who sees withholding the provision of public safety as a legitimate bargaining chip. Does Bloomberg not realize that the American people, who don’t share his reflexive passivity, would only further arm themselves in the face of a government intent on abdicating one of its foundational roles? Here (as, alas, virtually everywhere) Bloomberg would do well to read his Calvin Coolidge, reflecting especially on Silent Cal’s reaction to the 1919 Boston police strike, where his response was — as was his wont — as clear as it was concise:

There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time.

Not even when you’re just trying to drive home how much smarter you are than everybody else, Mr. Mayor. Yeah, we hate it for you.

May 23rd, 2012 at 3:32 pm
Some Domestic Drones May Get Rubber Bullets, Tear Gas

Last week, I wrote in my column that “So far, consensus around the FAA’s thinking indicates that domestic drones would not be approved to fly with weapons.”

That was in reference to the Federal Aviation Administration’s announcement that it will ease restrictions on civilian use of unmanned drones for use in surveillance and research.  The institutions most interested in using drones are law enforcement entities ranging from the FBI to local police departments.

Now, consider this:

Chief Deputy Randy McDaniel of the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office in Texas told The Daily that his department is considering using rubber bullets and tear gas on its drone.

“Those are things that law enforcement utilizes day in and day out and in certain situations it might be advantageous to have this type of system on the UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle),” McDaniel told The Daily.

Conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer was criticized last week for saying, “I don’t want regulations, I don’t want restrictions, I want a ban on this.”  Call it a slippery slope or inevitable logic, but Krauthammer’s instinct was right.  Regulations and restrictions open the door for interpretations like the Texas sheriff’s office; i.e. that a drone – apparently unlike a police cruiser or helicopter – is a physical extension of a cop and should be equipped with rubber bullets and tear gas.  If this is allowed, there is no logical reason to prohibit other more lethal devices.

In his comments, Krauthammer said that “the first guy who uses a Second Amendment weapon to bring a drone down that’s been hovering over his house is going to be a folk hero in this country.”

Not if the drone shoots him first.

April 1st, 2011 at 2:32 pm
Police & Fire Flee GOP, Back Big Labor

Politico highlights how the budget battles between the Tea Party and Big Labor are threatening to shift firefighters and police officers into the Democratic Party, setting up a dilemma for fiscal conservatives.

The blowback from unionized first responders is being felt by Republicans in Ohio, New York, and Wisconsin.  In the latter, Republican Governor Scott Walker tried to exempt police and fire from the ban on public employees collectively bargaining, but they still refused to follow his order to remove protesting teachers from the state capitol.

Ironically, Politico quotes one police union leader saying his members are going to hold pro-union Republicans “accountable” for the cuts being made to balance state budgets.

Apparently, it’s a different kind of accountability than one based on sustainable funding formulas.  If the GOP is serious about reining in runaway government spending, it’s going to have to take on all public employee unions, and demand lower compensations (e.g. pensions, buy-outs, overtime, retirement eligibility, etc.).

We’ll see who has the stomach to make that case anytime soon.

May 11th, 2010 at 12:45 pm
Ramirez Cartoon: Which One of These Officers Can Legally Harass You?
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Below is one of the latest cartoons from Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

May 3rd, 2010 at 2:25 pm
Does Barack Obama Just Reflexively Hate Police?
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What is it with Barack Obama and his habitual slurs against police, anyway?

Speaking about Arizona’s new immigration law during one of his “perpetual campaign” rallies in Iowa, Obama employed his usual caricature of Gestapo-like American police officers:

You can imagine if you’re a Hispanic American in Arizona, your great-great-grandparents may have been there before Arizona was even a state.  But now, suddenly, if you don’t have your papers and you took your kid out to get ice cream, you’re going to be harassed.  That’s something that could potentially happen.”

“You’re going to be harassed?”

Well, if you’re living in Community Organizer-in-Chief Obama’s world, anyway.  Recall that he descended into the same anti-police slander when he accused Cambridge, Massachusetts police of acting “stupidly” during the Officer Crowley-Professor Gates incident.  It turned out, of course, that Officer Crowley behaved professionally, just as almost all of our nation’s officers do on a daily basis.

Well, at least we know now that Obama was paying attention during Reverend Jeremiah “G-d Damn America” Wright’s sermons.

April 30th, 2010 at 1:32 pm
L.A. May Day Protests Cost Taxpayers

Unfortunately, red flag waving organizations won’t be trying to disrupt local economies by staging walk-outs and marches on a work day.  This year, Communism’s “May Day” celebration falls on a Saturday, meaning that instead of counter-demonstrators shopping en masse to keep business profits high, the only reason to venture outside tomorrow will be to enjoy the virtual shutdown of urban life.

The Los Angeles Police Department is planning for up to 100,000 people to turn the annual march for grievance solidarity into a traffic congesting protest of Arizona’s new immigration law.  One wonders what organizers hope to accomplish since the LAPD has an illegal immigrant policy called Special 40 “which prohibits officers from initiating action against people solely to discover their legal status.”  Moreover, L.A. was the first to proclaim itself a “sanctuary city,” further complicating the logic for protesting another state’s law in a town that totally disagrees with it.

Since the only discernable economic winner in tomorrow’s L.A. area protests is the LAPD police union members who must be activated in order to monitor the participants, maybe this year’s “May Day” is serving a purpose after all: enriching a public employee union on the weekend.

H/T: L.A. Times