In a recent OpEd, a progressive cop in the Pacific Northwest area tackles four core myths promulgated by defund-the-police proponents.
Christopher Yang describes himself as a progressive who is interested in advancing the welfare state and decriminalizing drugs. But the 26-year cop and military veteran also believes that defund the police proponents do not understand him or his colleagues in law enforcement in the least.
Yang addresses four myths he considers to be especially deserving of debunking from a cop who knows better.
(Via The New York Post)
1) Police are killing large numbers of civilians. That’s simply not true. In New York City, the police department has meticulously tracked every shot fired by its officers since 1971. These officers represent roughly 5 percent of the entire American force, so it’s a large sample. The NYPD’s annual report shows a dramatic, sustained drop in killings by police — from 93 in 1971 to just five in 2018.
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2) The anti-cop movement is largely peaceful. Again, false. The movement, rather, is akin to the Batman villain Two-Face. Anyone who watched the protests on television would know that the daytime ones were lawful free speech. But the dynamic changed dramatically at night. Protests became intentional riots, designed to draw a police response that allowed rioters to claim victim status.
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3) Abolishing police wouldn’t lead to lawlessness. Many of the defunders are genuine anarchists, who want no government at all and believe in a society of angels who serve each other voluntarily.
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4) Today’s police are “militarized.” Wrong, wrong, wrong. As a soldier, I rode in an armored vehicle and sat in a turret with a belt-fed machine gun. My job was to shoot enemy soldiers. In my 26 years as a cop, I have done no such thing.
When it comes to the myth of police killing civilians in large numbers, Yang writes the reality is that policing in the United States has continually improved over the past half-century.
On the subject of the riots, Yang recalls a frequent tactic the protesters used to exhaust police resources.
"They would begin with insults, shouted at the riot line for hours in the hope that exhausted officers would retort on video; some told officers to commit suicide. Then they would throw rocks, shine bright lasers in our eyes and throw fireworks and Molotov cocktails — forcing the police to respond," writes Yang.
"For activists, it was a successful propaganda operation, encouraging the police to engage with force, then driving the narrative that law enforcement 'overreacted' to latter-day Gandhis," Yang adds.
The officer points to the CHAZ, the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, to prove his point about many of the protesters being genuine anarchists. He also writes that the so-called "militarization" of law enforcement has helped police officers save lives instead of taking them.
"A regular cop is often justified shooting someone who threateningly brandishes a gun," writes Yang. "A SWAT officer wearing protection, however, will wait longer before resorting to deadly force. In Seattle, our SWAT team recently saved a suicidal young black man with a gun."
Democrats embraced the defund the police movement at a time when police officers across the nation risked their lives to protect the streets from violent anti-cop rioters. Throughout the country, Democratic city councils and governors have pushed plans to defund police departments. Many see the defund the police movement as a reason the Democrats lost House seats in the 2020 election.
Even progressive cops and left-wing people who have family and friends who are cops, know the anti-cop venom spewed by the rioters and their liberal media enablers isn't reflective of reality. It's reflective of the Democrats' identity politics.