New Orleans Police Shooting and Thugs in Milwaukee

I return from my "JESUS CHRIST BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION" hiatus to cover some items that I just saw pop up on the radar over the last few days. This may seem like a weird pair of items to tie together, so I will do my best to do a good job.

For those of you unfamiliar with the situations:

1) there is (yet another) home video of a cops / robber situation ... this time showing dozens of New Orleans cops with guns drawn, surrounding a big, nasty dude with a knife. The video did not catch the end of the situation, where apparently the guy jumped at the cops and was killed by a whole bunch of bullets (one report had that there were at least 10 shells, but I did not see any press conferences indicating how many officers actually shot).

2) In Milwaukee, a 50-something year old black man lies near death after he was pummeled by some viscious thugs in broad daylight on a busy city street. Reports are that he was trying to drive down the road where a group of teenagers were lounging on the street. He honked to get them to move, and the mob got mad and pulled him from the car, beating him senseless.

Before going into this ... let me make sure to point out that I do not have all of the details as to what the alternatives were in the New Orleans case ... I do not know how or why certain methods were tried or not (Taser ??), etc. The few reports that I have heard seemed to indicate that they tried pepper spray, but not the "shock" type weapons. I also do not know if there are any rules or whatever that prevented them from trying.

We have reaped what we have sown

I have pointed out in numerous posts that, as a nation, we keep ignoring the unintended consequences of our actions. Some demand "anti-torture" laws, but they do not care to understand that this will result in more death and destruction (in both directions ... we limit our abilities to get information and we diminish the "usefulness" of attempting to capture combatants instead of just killing them). Another example is how we apply Geneva conventions to non-uniformed combatants (terrorists), ignoring the fact that it will inevitably lead to the death of countless civilians (since we cannot distinguish good guys from the bad).

So I have to honestly wonder how much the "softer gentler tone" that we have forced upon the police has resulted in these unfortunate events. In the New Orleans case, I have got to think that a supervisor on the scene should have simply ordered 2 cops to plug about 4 shots into the man's hips/butt/leg ... bringing him down but not killing him. In the Milwaukee case, I would offer up my own personal opinion that a steady string of soft and pathetically weak police chiefs have left that city in chaos: nothing like when Chief Harold Brier was known to have an extremely tough and nasty force behind him.

In this nation, particularly in big cities ... the police have been neutered by countless accusations of brutality, endless second guessing, and hounding by politicians who seem to grant more leniency to the law breakers than the law enforcers. Shooting your gun at an armed, crazed assailant, even with dozens of other cops and video as witnesses, would likely have landed the New Orleans cop on (at best) administrative leave, more likely losing his badge. If a Milwaukee cop would have happened upon the thugs obstructing traffic and would have pulled out his baton and dented their skulls, we would see every poverty pimp in the country (Jesse, Al, Louie, etc) parading down Wisconsin Avenue for weeks on end. In either case, a parade of ambulance chasing weasels would have reaped a windfall of million dollar verdicts on behalf of "damaged" clients.

Yet, if we allowed the police to have more ability to be tough or even ruthless (by today's standards), both of these situations would likely have resulted in a far less violent conclusion. The guy with the knife (even if he was trying to get himself killed) would know he was going to end up with a bunch of bullets in his butt. The thugs in Milwaukee would not be "wilding" in the streets if they knew the likely result was a concussion. Having our officers live in fear results in far greater violence than forcing the criminals to live in fear.

The result is that we have a man who is dead, and one who is very near death.

Is there a good answer?

Those of you who read often know that I chastise liberals for doing a lot of whining without offering up answers. In this case, however, I do not know that I have a comprehensive answer.

I doubt we can go back in time to the days where the police could be tough without fear of reprisal. There has got to be a balance to give the police the ability to create that fear (in the bad guys) without allowing a "police state" existence where even law abiding citizens are scared. Regardless, we should all be able to agree that the pendulum has swung WAY too far against the good guys, and everybody is worse off.

We definitely need to look at levelling the field and creating a better environment for the police. This could include requiring a very high burden of proof for criminal court, including a much stronger ephasis on benefit of the doubt when it comes to split second emergency decisions. In addition, we have to put to an end the ability of the dregs of society (ambulance chasers, poverty pimps and their criminal constituency) to put the peace-keepers on trial in civil courts. Finally, and most importantly, we need to begin to put real and very serious constraints on those who seek to gain notoriety by jumping in the middle of these cases in vain attempts to draw attention to themselves ... generally distorting facts in the situation.