Protestors Are Not Encouraging Violence Against Cops

People are looking for someone to blame, and I understand. There is literally no good reason for the shooting of two NYPD officers working in Brooklyn this past Saturday. Officers Ramos and Liu were just doing their job, keeping a neighborhood safe, sitting in their cars. Why they are dead defies any logic that a good and decent person can accept. That their children and families have to go on after this breaks our heart.

Let me just offer a scapegoat that actually makes sense- the shooter. The evil, no-good person who shot his girlfriend, then took a bus to New York City to kill cops. He's responsible. He did it. He basically did it without any accomplice that we have heard about so far. He did it completely on his own, using only his own mind to come up with a maniacal, sick, disgusting plan. He is the villain here.

To accept that is hard for most of us. We want some higher explanation. We want to blame someone worse. Some are turning that energy towards the Mayor, for his unwillingness to "smack down" the protests after the death of Eric Garner, and his willingness to appear at a press conference with Garner's widow, widely seen as criticizing the police department. Some are turning this energy towards the protestors themselves, saying they are "inciting violence" and "defending a petty criminal." Some are trying to blame the President and Attorney General, I guess for saying peaceful protest is okay, but basically with no rhyme or reason to their childish outbursts. People are blaming Al Sharpton and other civil rights leaders as well, for "hate speech."

A mature adult rejects all of these. The truth in this case is that the killer is the person responsible. He was not a party of the protest movement, he is not someone particularly emotionally charged by the killing of Eric Garner or anyone else. He was a lone wolf who was hellbent on causing pain. The same people who want to reject this, and blame the protestors, are the same people who would call mass-shooters "lone wolves" that had no tie to other gun owners, a sort of irony in all of this. The truth is very self-evident here though, and it's apparent in the actions of those saying the protestors are to blame.

There is a concentrated effort by some to make the protestors look bad. In Baltimore, a Fox affiliate is getting caught in the act of doctoring films. In truth, there is an entire push to show that protestors are chanting for the death of cops, which is simply a doctored, made-up lie. There are a few bad people out in the protests, as there will be when hundreds, and even thousands take to the streets to make a point. They don't represent the movement, nor are they a fair symbol of the movement.

Eric Garner is dead. Michael Brown is dead. Tamir Rice is dead. Dontre Hamilton is dead. Tyrone West is dead. The reality is that in every one of their cases, a District Attorney decided that they were at fault, not the person who killed them. Every. Single. One. There is a reason for these protests. The reason is just. Calling into question the inequity of the system is not the same as calling for violence. The repeated attempts to paint the protestors as dangerous and violent is neither correct or just.

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No, The Protestors Wear Not One Drop of Blood On Their Hands

I'm going to make a very basic distinction here- a mature, adult mind can believe both that Eric Garner and the two NYPD officers shot this weekend were wrongly killed. In fact, I'll make the point a little further- any actually mature, adult mind, SHOULD make that conclusion. In other words, Eric Garner's life mattered, and the "I Can't Breathe" protestors are in the right. Also, in other words, Officers Liu and Ramos were killed by a low-life, and people who are outraged by their death are in the right, too.

There have been a few people who are outraged by Garner, and not by the NYPD shootings, and frankly something is wrong with them. There have been far too many people though outraged by the NYPD shootings, and then try to justify Garner's death. I don't understand that, and frankly I don't want to understand that backward thinking. You don't have to be okay with everything in Garner's life, nor do you have to even convict the police officer who choked him to death in your own mind, to understand the Garner death is unwarranted. Assume the worst here- that Garner was a petty criminal, and that he was selling loose cigarettes- that is not a crime we punish with death in the United States. Surely, once Garner cried out that he couldn't breathe while on the ground, there was good reason to let up on the choke hold he was in. Frankly, we saw the entire incident on video. Garner was upset that he was being bothered by the police officer, but he wasn't threatening anyone in the video. The offense he was being accused of was not a serious crime that would land him in prison. Despite Garner's protests, the officer could have written him a ticket or charged him without the chokehold. It's likely that the officer who applied the chokehold did not mean to cause him long-term harm, let alone death. The entire situation clearly escalated well beyond what was necessary. I do not understand the push to argue the entire incident was somehow "justified."

With all of that aside, this was not a good weekend for race-relations. There are now accusations flying around that somehow the people who protested, chanting "I can't breathe," and wanting justice for Eric Garner, are somehow responsible for, or for creating the atmosphere for, the deaths of Officers Liu and Ramos. I'll leave aside the notion that the "blood is on the hands" of the Mayor for a moment and stick to the protestors. The idea that the protestors are somehow responsible for the shootings of two police officers is preposterous. It lays blame where it doesn't belong, and it ignores the legitimacy of what they are saying.

The gunman was not a protestor. Yes, there were a few violent protestors, as there will be in crowds numbering in the thousands, but most of them were peaceful. The gunman wasn't in New York for any of the protests, and came up from Baltimore the day he committed his horrible acts. He acted alone, shot his girlfriend as well, and basically was just a bad person. He didn't need to have "an atmosphere" of violence. I can't speak to the officer shot in Florida, or the shooter's intentions there, but in this case, trying to tie the shooting of the NYPD officers to the protestors is a stretch of the imagination that goes too far. The protestors are protesting death through civil disobedience, not rioting in the streets and killing people. It's a far stretch to tie them, and their legitimate concerns, to murders.

It's not really any better when people try to blame politicians, as Rudy Giuliani is somehow attempting to with President Obama. That's so insane, it's stupid. While I can understand anger at Mayor de Blasio for appearing to side with Eric Garner against the police officer, even there he did not say anything that would have encouraged this kind of nut. In no way does he have "blood on his hands."

In fact, no one does here. While this is horribly tragic, the people exercising their free speech rights in the streets of New York, people who are airing very true and legitimate grievances with policing in America, are not in any way, shape, or form responsible. Those who say the protestors are in some way responsible operate in a non-reality, with no justice system to speak of. It is correct to protest a system that still has wrongs in it, and still needs more reform. To say otherwise is to be incorrect.

Let me just close with this- there are those asking why the protestors are not protesting the death of the police too. I would tend to agree with that sentiment, as the police deserve the same public support right now. The problem with that line of thinking though is that their killer is dead today, while we are consistently seeing the killers of black and brown people walk free in the end. We see Michael Brown, who woke up on the day of his death having no criminal record, vilified and called a "thug," we are seeing Eric Garner referred to as a "petty criminal," and hear attempts to vilify the Cleveland victims as "dangerous." We're hearing that Officers Liu and Ramos are heroes. They are. We'd like to see these other folks at least treated as human beings though, and not "demons." We'd like to see the grand jury system stop being used to avoid trials by a jury of peers. While we're all mourning the senseless and disgusting murder of two good public servants of the NYPD this week, let's also ask for a little bit of justice to be injected into the justice system.

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The NYC Police Shooting Fallout

I nominate this for not necessarily the best statement put out about NYC's police shooting last night, but probably the most correct, by NYC Councilman Robert Cornegy:

"This sets us back 1000 percent. I don't even know how you come back from this. If you wanted to articulate what the worst case scenario could be at a time when the city is trying to get back on track with police and community relations, this is it."

Councilman Cornegy is spot on. The shootings of officers Liu and Ramos will be cited to discredit the thousands of Americans protesting with a legitimate gripe about the relationship between the community and police officers. This shooting will be used to discredit all positive (and really any at all) dialogue over the recent cases in Ferguson, Cleveland, and Staten Island. It's not right, nor fair, but you know it's coming.

Leading to our worst statement of the night, beginning that march:

Yes, he said this:

The head of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, Patrick Lynch, blamed the mayor for the shootings as he addressed officers outside Woodhull Hospital after the bodies of Officer Liu and Officer Ramos were borne away.

“There is blood on many hands, from those that incited violence under the guise of protest to try to tear down what police officers do every day,” Mr. Lynch said. 

“That blood on the hands starts on the steps of city hall in the office of the mayor.”

Now is a time of grieving, Mr. Lynch said. “We’ll mourn for our city and we’ll mourn for our brothers,” he said. “We’ll straighten our shoulders, we’ll stiffen our backs and we’ll wipe our tears.”

But he warned, “When those funerals are over, we’ll raise our heads and those who allowed this to happen will be held accountable.”

Earlier in the evening, police officers turned their backs on Mayor de Blasio when he entered the hospital.

Yes, that's the head of the NYC PBA basically saying that the Mayor's encouragement of peaceful protest caused some lunatic from Baltimore to come up to New York and kill two cops. I'm not sure what he means about "those who allowed this to happen will be held accountable," but I do think this is a troublesome statement. It's like dumping gasoline on an already tense situation. Mr. Lynch is implying protests and public leaders speaking positively of protest is dangerous. That is in and of itself, dangerous.

I lied though, that's not the worst statement put out last night. This is:

Sickened by these barbaric acts, which sadly are a predictable outcome of divisive anti-cop rhetoric of #ericholder & #mayordeblasio. #NYPD
— George E. Pataki (@GovernorPataki) December 21, 2014

Hoooollllllyyyyy shit! This guy was Governor of New York as late as eight years ago. I'm not even sure what statement from Holder he is talking about, but again, none of these guys went out said the NYPD is a bad force, or anything like that. Pataki went full on partisan-politics in this statement, literally hours after two cops were killed.

For his part, Attorney General Holder and Governor Cuomo were much more appropriate, and not partisan at all:

“This deplorable act of violence is the opposite of what New York is and what New Yorkers believe in,” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said in a statement.

“Tonight, we all come together to mourn the loss of these brave souls,” he added.

The U.S. Attorney General, Eric H. Holder, also issued a statement.

“I condemn this afternoon’s senseless shooting of two New York City police officers in the strongest possible terms,” it began. “This was an unspeakable act of barbarism.”

Some more PBA statements:

The head of the Policeman’s Benevolent Association in New Jersey said that the shooting of the officers was “spurred on by so much recent hatred aimed at officers everywhere.”

“Our society stands safer because of the sacrifices officers make everyday, but the hatred that has grown over the past few weeks in this country has gone unchecked by many elected leaders,” the official, Patrick Colligan, said in a statement posted on Facebook.

There is a longer version of Mr. Lynch's statement out there as well which refers to the department as a "wartime department," and I will not re-print it because the PBA is saying it is not legitimate at this time. If he did say that though, it's very troubling.

For his part, Mayor de Blasio:

Mayor de Blasio, appearing beside Mr. Bratton, said, “Our city is in mourning.”

“Our hearts are heavy,” the mayor said. “We lost two good men who devoted their lives to protecting all of us.”

He added, “When a police officer is murdered, it tears at the very foundation of our society — it is an attack on all of us.”

He said, “Our entire city was attacked by this heinous individual.”

Mr. de Blasio said that he had met with the officers’ families, including Officer Ramos’s 13-year-old son, who “couldn’t comprehend what had happened to his father.”

And of course, President Obama:

 And last of the linking, but not least, from the New York Times reporting on this tragedy:

The double killing comes at a moment when protests over police tactics have roiled the city and other parts of the nation. Since a grand jury declined to bring criminal charges in the case of Mr. Garner, a black Staten Island man who died after a police chokehold in July, protesters have filled the streets on numerous occasions. Those protests followed more violent ones in Ferguson, Mo., after there were no charges in the police shooting of Mr. Brown, an unarmed black teenager.

The mayor has taken care to praise officers’ work repeatedly since the grand jury decision, but he has stressed the rights of protesters to express themselves and spoken of his personal experience instructing his biracial son, Dante, to “take special care” during any police encounters.

Some union leaders suggested the mayor had sent a message that police officers were to be feared. Cries for the police to use more restraint have been buttressed by historic drops in violent crime. The city has seen roughly 300 killings so far this year, a number so low as to be unheard-of two decades ago.

Alright, my take:

The issues raised by the Ferguson, Staten Island, and Cleveland shootings are not new. In each event, a white cop kills an African-American suspect, and a white District Attorney then does not bring charges, using a grand jury to deflect the decision. This is not new. I'm old enough to remember Rodney King's saga in Los Angeles, and I remember the racial divide over O.J. Simpson. There is a Gulf of Mexico sized divide between white and black attitudes on policing, and often times the results are resentment.

White people get a lot wrong in this debate, and I say this as a white person. Here's reality- the relationship that African-Americans have with our legal system is not fair, or even healthy for the country. They are profiled, including in New York City until recently with "Stop and Frisk." They are several hundred percent more likely to be shot by police officers in a dispute, and if they are arrested for a violent crime, much more likely to be given the death penalty. The "War on Drugs" has been an unmitigated disaster in urban communities, which are a lot less white, wiping out large chunks of generations from having a shot at success, after they're slapped with a felony conviction. Even down to how African-Americans are sentenced, they get a much worse deal. Their relationship to the law is a source of frustration, and I'm not even going to get into perceptions of them that they have to deal with every day.

The current discussion isn't even that in depth though. We're just talking about generally young, unarmed black men being killed by police officers, sometimes on video, and nothing being done about it. Doing the dangerous thing of leaving out the individual facts of each case, I totally get why African-Americans and others would find something odd about the fact that it's so common for the dead African-American male to be declared "the aggressor," or their killing "justified" in court.

So with that, I get the protests. I get the "I Can't Breathe" shirts on athletes, I get the people shutting down roads, I get the whole confrontational attitude that is in these protests. Forget the process here for a minute, the outcome of a bunch of African-American men getting shot by cops is unacceptable. That has to change. I'm not sure exactly how that happens, as each of these cases bring up different nuances, and different solutions, some of which are negated in other cases (body cameras come to mind). The point is that the idea here is not to have cops shooting civilians of any kind. It obviously is going to happen sometimes, but you have to address the inequity of our current situation.

Which is I guess where I'm so bothered by the police union response here. The level of rhetoric, be it in St. Louis County, Cleveland, or New York City, is way overheated. Whether it's St. Louis cops being mad that Rams players voiced an opinion, Cleveland cops mad at a Browns receiver for voicing his opinion, or New York City cops blaming Bill de Blasio for the actual killing of cops, it's not really acceptable. Yes, police do a great job defending the American streets almost every day, but that doesn't mean the First Amendment rights of those with grievances should be intimidated by the police unions. There is absolutely, positively, nothing wrong with Mayor de Blasio being encouraging of protestors, or even meeting with Eric Garner's widow. To suggest that these actions alone are an insult is really troubling.

However, let's not twist that into actual opposition to the police and their feelings here either. They have every right, in each of these cities to have an opinion back. They have every right to be mad at the Mayor, at LeBron James, or at the Rams for their actions. My father is a retired PBA member in New Jersey, and he thinks Mayor de Blasio looks like a complete fool right now for how he's handled this in the press. In some ways, he's right. The Mayor has allowed himself to be cast against the NYPD officers, one of the best and bravest police forces in the world. From a purely political viewpoint, I can tell you that's insane. From a policy standpoint, that's really, really troubling. Let's not forget that the Mayor is their boss, and if he's totally lost their confidence, it does call into question his ability to lead and set policy. The Mayor may have really damaged his tenure in a matter of weeks. He did so by being seen as "on a side," rather than seeking the best possible outcome. He did so by being seen as against the cops, and not giving these public employees their due-deference, as 99% of them are doing their job honorably and effectively every day. In short, the Mayor allowed himself to be seen as less nuanced, and too far out in a heated debate.

I think there's a lot of people who probably should take a step back after tonight and re-evaluate their positions in all of this debate. It is completely probable to assume that we both have problems in community policing, and have really good police officers all over the country. As of 2008, there were about 1.2 million people working in law enforcement in America. If 99% of them are good and doing their job well, that still leaves 12,000 who aren't. That's not a negligible number. It also means that 1,188,000 cops are out there doing their jobs correctly, and they probably get tired of hearing about how awful they are to people. I can see their point.

I think the bottom line is that a lot of people need to chill out. Perhaps some on the union side need to realize that they don't get to blame the Mayor for a violent lunatic killing two cops, just because he didn't crack down on protests against them. On the elected officials side, perhaps they need to be a bit more cautious (as I believe the President and Attorney General Holder have been) when weighing in on these issues. This is obviously complicated as an issue, and finding solutions is even harder, but once you start cutting at the person across from you's intent, there's no way to find common-ground.

In any event, a lot of people will try to use this event to fit their version of events. Let me keep it simple for you- the responsible party for the death of these two officers is the loser who shot them. It's not the protestors. It's not the DA. It's not the Mayor. Let's try to keep that perspective.

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Rest Easy, Officers

Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos were sitting in their patrol car, doing their job. Cops and their families get that the job is dangerous, and things can go badly. Most days, thankfully, it doesn't.

Ismaaiyl Brinsley came to Brooklyn intent on making good on that threat. This madman had shot his own girlfriend in Maryland, and then tweeted that he wanted to kill two police officers. He walked up to Liu and Ramos' vehicle, and ambushed them both, killing them. The cowardly Brinsley then fled down the street to a subway platform, and killed himself there. It's the only favor he did society today.

The NYPD may not be popular with everyone right now, but they are some of the bravest people in the country. They are an outstanding police force, on the whole, and they do a good job of protecting a city so large that it may seem incapable of protection. To see two officers killed on their patrol is jarring and quite troubling. They were randomly targeted by a person so stupid as to think that his violent act would have some form of positive impact on the on-going discussion of police-community relations. This deranged individual not only did not achieve anything positive, he probably set the solution back by years.

In any event, my prayers this Sunday morning are with the souls of the two officers, and their grieving families. 

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