From Heroes to Targets: The Shocking Truth Behind the War on Police Officers
I was a police officer for 37 years. During that time, I witnessed many changes in my life, both personally and professionally. There were great times when the citizens respected cops we swore to protect and were held in great esteem, often thanked for our service by people on the street. Then there were the down times, brought on by what happened in police-involved incidents around the country. The ebb and flow of these tides of appreciation and disdain came and went as most things in life, but now it is different. Assaults on police officers have risen to levels not seen in recent US history. These assaults are magnified in news reports because many take place in the confined spaces of the New York City Subway system, our largest and most revered city, although they aren’t exclusive to the subways and often occur elsewhere. I will try and cover what I, and many other cops, believe—are some of the reasons why our brothers and sisters in blue, brown, green, black, and gray are under attack.
The Day We Became the Enemy
I will start here, where I believe, in my not-so-humble but experienced opinion, the green light was given to really go after police officers in the US, and I’m not the only one who believes this. On July 16, 2009, the Cambridge Police responded to a 9-1-1 call of a Burglary-in-Progress reported by a neighbor, and ended up arresting Harvard Law Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., then President Barack Obama’s former professor, for Disorderly Conduct. The charges were later dropped. Needless to say, it wasn’t a favorable outcome for Mr. Gates and worse yet for Cambridge Police Sergeant James Crowley, who was the on-scene supervisor. Whether you agree or disagree with the arrest of Mr. Gates, he was being uncooperative and failed to comply with the police, which landed him in jail.
Now, first off, if he wasn’t President Obama’s former professor, you never would have heard about the incident. Second, the reason you heard about it is that Mr. Gates called his former student to complain about the white police officer who arrested him. Third, Sergeant Crowley and his men responded to a call from a neighbor, they didn’t just show up and arrest Mr. Gates. Police respond to calls; we don’t make them up. Fourth, and what made the incident blow up as it were, was the press conference on July 22, where President Obama said that he “didn’t have all the facts.” He should have stopped right there, but then went on to say that “the Cambridge police acted stupidly.” When Mr. Obama uttered those words, he sent shockwaves throughout the country, which would have long-lasting effects none could have imagined, and that’s when we became the enemy. This was the first shot heard around the country, and the war on cops was on!
The most notable of what was to come was when an unnamed a$$hole bad-guy shot and wounded his girlfriend in Baltimore, then targeted and ambushed NYPD Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu while stopped in their patrol car, killing them both. Thankfully, he did us all a favor and killed himself next.
Although “open season” on cops started with the president’s ill-advised words, there are other contributing factors. Some of them were widely reported on. Let’s start with the biggest one, Mental Illness. You have to believe that any person capable of attacking a cop armed with a firearm, baton, TASER, pepper spray, and self-defense training (hopefully) has to be suffering from some level of mental illness, right? Why would you attack an officer knowing all the foregoing, and knowing that chances are you will get your a$$ kicked or possibly killed, for the assault? At least that’s the way my colleagues and I would have responded. Mental illness is also responsible for the increase in assaults on the general public, not just in subways, but in malls, shopping centers, and on the roadways, usually given the term Road Rage. This is something we in Miami are very familiar with. The running joke is don’t piss off someone on the road because you could find yourself on the wrong end of a gun.
We also have to take into account the revenge angle and/or some poor bastard who just doesn’t like the police and is on a Seek & Destroy mission. The first example involves the death, usually of a black man, at the hands of the police. Justified or not, it doesn’t matter at this point, as someone will seek retribution for the death and target a police officer completely unrelated to where the original incident occurred. We’ve seen this most recently in Cincinnati, where an 18-year-old was shot by police for pointing a firearm at officers. The next day, the distraught father looked for an easy target and ran down and killed an officer from another agency, who was simply directing traffic.
Another police hatred scenario, and there are too many very tragic ones coming to mind, occurred on the morning of November 29, 2009, at 8:15 a.m., as a sergeant and three of his officers were having coffee. Sergeant Mark Renninger of the Lakewood Police Department in Washington State was meeting with his officers, Tina Griswald, Ronald Owens, and Greg Richards at the Forza Café, where I’m certain they met countless times before, to go over the coming day’s events. What happened next is what you may see for only a minute on the news, but it is as tragic as anything could be. Again, some a$$hole bad-guy, who I won’t name, decided that he had an unfair life (his doing) and was going to take it out on the cops. Patrol cars parked outside anywhere are a tell-tale sign that there are cops inside. This guy walked in and opened fire, targeting, ambushing, and killing all four officers just because they were officers. They were busy with their reports, and I’m certain, a cup of coffee, and never saw it coming. Fortunately, two days later, Seattle cops found and killed this f*#k, saving everyone from the long, sad story of his pathetic life that was everyone else’s fault but his own. So the next time you see officers having a cup and catching up on some work, say hi and thank them for their service. A cup of coffee for us could be just as dangerous as stopping a car.
There is one last reason I believe is causing an uptick in police assaults, and I may piss off some of my colleagues out there, but it can’t be ignored. a$$hole bad-guys have been interviewed in prison and have admitted that now they’ve begun targeting the officer who doesn’t look physically fit, is small in stature, female, fat, older, and who won’t be a formidable opponent. These factors, coupled with something I think adds to this inability to physically engage, are that many of our young recruits have never been in an actual fight! A great place to learn how to fight is on the athletic field, especially in a contact sport where a physical altercation is going to take place, and you have to scrap. Too many young folks are busy playing in the virtual world and have never been punched in the face. I hate to say it, but in many cases, it is true. I’ve seen it during my time and have and will criticize anyone who doesn’t get dirty with the rest of us. I’ve worked with some outstanding female officers who jumped right in with the boys, but sadly, many don’t have the physical strength to go toe-to-toe, and not too many men these days have either. Kash Patel, the new FBI director, is beginning MMA or Mixed Martial Arts training for his agents. Good—they need it—but you know who needs it more? Street Cops! Patrol officers from Anywhere, USA, because they are many times more likely to get into a physical altercation because the uniform is the target, not the suit. That’s just the way it is.
How do we address the factors I’ve just outlined, responsible for increasing assaults on America’s police, not just its citizens? In the case of mental illness, it is such a complicated and enormous issue that I’m not sure it can be addressed on a national scale without crossing over into personal rights infringements. A tough one for sure. The others? Better training in fighting skills for officers is a start. Officers retaliating with greater force and lethality might deter many from targeting them, and yes, folks, this includes killing some of these real pillars of the community. You heard it here first, and if this upsets you, the whole officers assaulted and killed issue should upset you more, not the killing of a subject in the defense of our lives. If the bad guys are willing to go after cops with little or no fear of punishment, thank you, District and State’s Attorneys, for not prosecuting these animals, and that’s a whole other article, then what are the citizens to do other than become sheep to the wolves?
